Reaper (9 page)

“And you’re just afraid that what happened
with you—”

“Shut. The fuck. Up.”

He spoke so abruptly his cigarette fell out
of his mouth. It smoldered against the stone walkway.

Cora took a few deep breaths to steady her
nerves before speaking. He had a way of getting her worked up; of
speaking to her in a way that made her want to claw his eyes from
their sockets. “I’m just saying you should keep an eye on him.”

A grunt.

“I’ll see you later. Drink water,” Bard
said.

No matter what she did, he’d always try to
father her.

That night, she refilled and drained a glass
of water three times before climbing into her bed with Oz on her
mind and a bad feeling in her gut. Her eyelids grew heavy and she
welcomed sleep like she’d welcomed death.

* * *

Oz woke on the roof. His back ached and his
limbs tingled as he moved. His mouth tasted like burnt cotton. The
digital clock on the bank building a few blocks from where Oz stood
read “10:00.” A scrap of paper stuffed under his shirt collar
scratched his chest. Scribbled across it was, “Lady of Perpetual
Hope Catholic Church. Noon.” Oz knew the place. He had exactly two
hours to shower away the hangover, dress, and walk eight miles to
Mark’s funeral.

Oz staggered across the roof while the sun
pierced through his retinas and into the back of his pounding
skull. He blamed this new body. It’d been born forty-something
years old but without a decade of binge drinking behind it to
soften the hangover.

He cranked the shower and waited for the room
to fill with steam. His clothes adhered to his body in the places
that blood had dried overnight. Patches of hair came out when he
peeled the shirt from his chest. Palming the wall, Oz stepped under
the stream.

The water pooling at the bottom of the shower
turned brown. He stuck his face under the stream. The scalding
water stung his torn lips.

I’m
that
guy now. I’m an
asshole.

He winced against the pain as he allowed the
water to pound into his wound.

Oz turned off the shower and contorted his
body out of the tiny stall. Picking his clothes off the floor, he
examined his sweaty, blood stained shirt and contemplated turning
it inside out before heading to the funeral. Sighing, he entered
the bedroom, his gaze resting on the open closet next to his bed.
Oz frowned.

It was filled with clothes. New clothes. He
pulled a shirt from the hanger and lifted it to his face. They
smelled faintly like Cora. He leaned into the clothes and let her
scent envelop him.

“You, Oz, are the scum of the fucking earth.
The air is contaminated for having been near you,” he said aloud
and grabbed a dark blue button-down shirt and black slacks. The
shirt was a little snug around his neck, but otherwise they were a
perfect fit. He left the top button undone.

* * *

There should’ve been rain. There should’ve
been clouds. There should’ve been a shroud of darkness choking out
the sun and the sky and everything good. But the sun shone
rebelliously bright and hot and burned Oz’s neck as he walked, one
foot in front of the other, oblivious to anything but the next
step. It was surreal; his life as the real Oz was over, but it was
like he’d been dragged from The Department to pick up where he’d
left off only to live out the bad parts.

He arrived at the church as the procession of
mourners was leaving the building and making their way in a line to
the cemetery. Heading the line were four pallbearers, Oz recognized
the first as Mark’s brother, Ryan. Good guy. Terrible basketball
player. Mark’s casket was a light, glossy pine with silver handles.
A bouquet of yellow lilies sat atop it, shivering with each of the
pallbearers’ unsteady steps. He spotted Jamie a few feet from the
casket, hugging a book tightly to his chest. He walked with his
eyes cast down, and in perfect time with the man directly in front
of him. Oz couldn’t see his face, but Jamie’s slumped shoulders and
heavy steps spoke volumes. No matter what he thought about his
father, Jamie was devastated.

The procession curled around a freshly dug
grave with a weeping angel at its head. Oz hid behind a tree that
branched high and wide. No one else would notice his presence, but
Jamie would. He didn’t want to hurt the boy by being there, so he
kept Jamie’s back to him. Jamie wore a dark blue suit that was at
least a size too large. He shrank inside it like it was a turtle
shell.

A young priest cleared his throat. The women
covered their mouths in an attempt to silence their tears.

Jen’s hair was shorter than he’d remembered,
but otherwise she looked the same. Deep brown eyes. Tall.
Beautiful. Oz groaned thinking of the last time he saw her—snoring
in a tangle of bed sheets. Oz didn’t owe Mark once. He owed him
twice.

Jen held tightly to Jamie’s shoulders. It was
impossible to tell who was supporting whom. Jamie covered his mouth
against a body-wracking cough. Jen passed him his inhaler. The
cough continued in spite of it.

“Dearly beloved...” the priest began. He kept
his eyes fixed the pages in his bible. Oz wondered if this was his
first funeral. Oz smiled in spite of himself because it was his,
too. He thought words of encouragement for the priest.

“... we are gathered here today to mourn the
loss of our brother, Your son, Mark Greene.”

Oz sank against the tree, bark digging
between his shoulder blades. The pain felt like a penance. He
gathered his knees into his arms and stopped listening.

Soon, the sound of leaves crunching startled
him. Oz knew who it was without looking, but he wouldn’t be the one
to break the silence. What could he even say? ‘I’m sorry’ was
cheap.

“I saw you,” Jamie said.

Oz’s eyes burned. “Hi, Jamie.”

They were quiet, keeping to their opposite
sides of the tree.

“You could’ve told me,” Jamie said.

“I didn’t know. I’m sorry. He was my
friend.”

“He was my dad.”

Oz turned to face him but Jamie had already
begun walking back to his mother.

“Who were you talking to?” Jen said.

“No one,” Jamie said.

No one.

Chapter
Nine

Oz couldn’t blame Jamie. He’d be pissed at
him, too. Jamie wasn’t satisfied with an apology and, frankly, it
didn’t satisfy Oz, either. Truth or not, it was pitiful, and he
knew it. It would always be pitiful. Mark had been alive, which
meant Oz hadn’t been gone that long. Who else had he known in life
that was still alive? His parents? Friends? How many people would
he have to watch die? How many times would he have to watch a kid
like Jamie suffer through this heart-break?

Oz looked back in time to see Jen toss a
hand-full of dirt into the hole. She led Jamie by the shoulders to
the parking lot. He waited until he was sure they weren’t coming
back before making his way, hesitantly, to the open grave.

Cursed with a vivid imagination, when Oz
looked down into the hole, he saw Mark through the lid of the
casket. He imagined his face slack and pale and his hair combed
perfectly to the side, which he would’ve hated. His black suit free
of wrinkles and lint, and smelling of starch and formaldehyde. His
arms folded across his chest in the traditional pose.

Oz squatted next to the grave and ran his
fingers through the sparse grass. “It’s supposed to be more
comfortable for you, having your arms like that. Years ago I
would’ve said it was silly. The dead can’t feel. But now...”

He ripped a blade of grass from the ground,
folded it and put it to his lips. He couldn’t get it to make a
sound.

“I can hear you laughing.” Oz smiled.
“Jamie’s a good kid. You did good, Mark.” Eyes burning, Oz pushed a
handful of dirt into the grave. “Sleep tight,” he said.

* * *

Bard ambled down the alleyway, conscious of
every shadow, every flicker of light. He hated to see Cora hurt,
but what could he do? Feelings and shit made life messy. Cora
should know better. She always rooted for the underdog, and it
never ended well for her. And Oz—if the moron could just stop his
judgments for five seconds, he’d see how shit rolled, but no, Oz
the Great and Powerful knew it all.

This was turning worse every second. The newb
couldn’t wipe his own ass properly. Bard figured he’d be
babysitting the dipshit for a long time, maybe forever. They
probably knew it too. Set him up for failure. He always thought
it’d come to this; his inevitable downfall.

“Still feeling sorry for yourself,
William?”

Bard stopped. The voice came from the
darkness behind him, but he didn’t turn. He never saw it, whatever
it was. It had no form that he knew of, lurking in the peripheral
of his vision, almost there but not.

“My name is Bard.”

A soft chuckle.

Laugh it up motherfucker.

“Why do you insist on the same foolishness
every time we meet? You have a name, which has a destiny attached
to it. Changing the name does not change your fate.”

“Never said it would. My name’s still
Bard.”

“William—”

“I said my name’s Bard, asshole. I don’t
answer to anything else.” Bard started walking.

“You forget who you’re dealing with,
William.” The hairs on Bard’s neck stood on end and he stopped once
more as the voice whispered directly into his ear. “I am not one of
your lackeys. You do not order me about. Are we clear?”

Bard took a breath. “Crystal. What the fuck
do you want?”

A cool breeze fluttered around his face, and
his ass unclenched. It’d moved back to its hiding place in the
shadows.

“You’re doing a piss-poor job of things with
your new recruit.” It sounded calm, conversational almost, but Bard
heard the edge to its words.

“You didn’t give me a whole lot to work with.
What am I supposed to do? He ain’t reaper material. Take him back
to The Department where he can’t fuck shit up.” Bard felt like an
asshole betraying Oz, but if the fool didn’t go, the lot of them
were in danger. He couldn’t say how he knew it. He just did.

“It is not the pupil who is to blame for poor
teaching,” it whispered.

Bard always imagined it to be male, but it
sounded neither male, nor female. It just entered the brain and
spoke without real sound. He hated that. Give him something he
could beat down, or at least spit on.

“So, am I fired?” Bard asked.

“Fired? Goodness, no. You will teach him, or
you will both be dealt with. I’m sure they miss your skills at The
Department. Few scribes can spin a tragedy quite like you can,
William. Ironic, isn’t it?”

“I don’t follow,” Bard lied.

“You spent your human life weaving tragedy
after tragedy. People loved you for it. Revere you even to this day
for your words and your comedic little dramas. Yet now, you’re the
tragedy. Now do you follow?”

“Yeah, you’re fucking hilarious. We done
here?”

The air changed, growing thicker, heavier,
and Bard knew it stood behind him, whatever it was. “Not even
close. The woman...”

“Lot of women up here, sir. You’ll have to be
more specific.” Bard’s gut tightened. No.

“You know which woman I speak of. She is
still... alive? Why is that?”

“You tell me. You’re all about the destiny
and fate and shit.”

“She must die.”

“I’m a reaper, not Death.”

It sighed. A heaviness fell over Bard’s
shoulders. He shuddered. They never touched him before. He would be
happy if they never did again.

“You know what you are, and what you can do,
William. Take care of it.”

“I can’t.”

“Can’t? Or won’t?”

“Does it matter?”

The weight left his shoulder and another cold
breeze stirred a pile of paper in the far corner of the alley.

“Do it.”

Bard bit his lip. “We aren’t supposed to get
involved. She got away, so it’s your job to deal with her.”

“You let her get away. Now it’s up to you to
fix your mistake. If you don’t...there are ways to see that you
suffer. I don’t have to remove you from this plane. Take your new
pupil. It’s best he sees what happens when you fight the status
quo.”

It left. Bard felt the air resume its normal
lightness and the sounds of the city echoed through the darkness.
They never listened.

Why couldn’t they just fuck off? What was one
life? They had to have enough souls to choke on by now.

And Oz... the whole thing would be a fucking
disaster if he tagged along.

* * *

That night, Oz climbed into bed knowing he
wouldn’t sleep. He’d convinced himself that Mark’s death, the
circumstances surrounding it and his twice-over involvement, was
some kind of fucked up test. He had no proof, but didn’t need it
for the idea to be believable. Bard gave up nothing about himself,
except his actions and Oz had been watching. In that coffee shop
he’d seen something. Glee wasn’t the word. Amusement, maybe. Bard
must’ve known. It seemed like something Bard would get off on. Play
dumb; see how the new guy reacts. It would explain why he hadn’t
brought it up since, why no mention was made of Mark’s Ba getting
away from him. No jokes, no razzing, no nothing.

Outside, the full moon peeked through the
bits of missing blinds in his bedroom window. The light fell like
shards over his bed.

The front door slammed. The intruder did
nothing to hide their incoming footsteps.

“Every culture,” a low, guttural voice began,
“from the beginning of recorded history, has regarded the full moon
with a sense of mysticism. A belief that life is disrupted by it.
People change. Werewolves, what have you.”

Oz sat up and looked at Bard, ghost-like in
the near darkness. “And?”

“And I suppose it’d behoove you to watch your
back tonight,” Bard said.