Page 13 of TBR: Dead But Well Read

“Yep.” I grinned over my shoulder at him. “I have a date!”

Not giving him a chance to respond, I disappeared into the shadows.

Iwatched the collector move away from the ghost and follow after the bossy librarian. Remaining in the shadows, I stayed hidden. If the collector knew I was near, he’d have questions. Or worse, he’d try to create small talk.

As long as I stayed in the reaper plane, the collector wouldn’t be able to see me. Although it was possible that a collector of his power would be able to sense the presence of a reaper in the area.

Earth was made up of several layers that were each superimposed or overlaid on the others. Humans were stuck on one layer or plane, and most could only see other humans. There were a few special humans who could sense the beings on the ghostly plane, but no human could travel to another plane.

When humans died, their ghosts could travel between the human and ghostly planes. Unfortunately, ghosts were made of energy, and they couldn’t survive very long on either layer, andif they burned out before getting an escort to the beyond, they were lost forever.

That was where reapers came in. We came to collect souls as the human body breathed their last. But the world’s population had grown to a point where there simply weren’t enough reapers.

It had left my kind struggling to keep up with the demands placed on us—especially with the loss of our leader a few years before. So sometimes, during times of chaos or mass casualties, a soul or two would slip away before a reaper could gather them.

And that was where the collectors came in. They were able to hunt down the souls who’d slipped through a reaper’s grasp.

Collectors had the ability to interact with those in the human and ghost planes. They collected the wandering ghosts and delivered them to one of Earth’s vortexes where the different planes were the thinnest.

When ghosts were pulled into the vortex to the beyond, they left behind what remained of their energy and the collectors absorbed that energy. Reapers looked down on collectors as lesser beings due to their need to feed on ghostly energy.

It was pathetic, just like the vampires who required the blood of the living to survive. Just thinking about it caused a shiver to run down my spine. Regardless of my disgust, I couldn’t deny that the collectors provided a necessary service to both the living and the dead.

I couldn’t imagine how different the world would be if the collectors had decided to murder humans in order to feed off their fresh ghostly energy. Instead, they’d chosen to use their abilities to help the lost souls.

Reapers were far superior in all ways but one. The collectors still possessed the ability to breed, thus ensuring their kind’s continued survival.

The last female reaper had died almost five hundred years before, and she had produced only two children—my older brother and I. While reapers were immortal, and it was rare for one of our kind to be killed, we all knew it was only a matter of time before our species was extinct.

Before his death, my brother had fallen in love with a female collector. Yet despite their hopes and years of copulation, they’d been unable to produce offspring. When my brother had been murdered, the slim hope that our species could continue by breeding with the collectors had also died.

Pushing back the morose thoughts, I made my way into the lobby and up to the second story that overlooked the library. Until the collector left the premises, I wanted to keep an eye on him. Perched on the iron rail, I stared down at the collector male, watching as he finished chatting with the librarian and then headed out into the last rays of the setting sun.

Once he was gone, the librarian turned off the lights and did a final check for any stray guests. When she finished closing down the library and locked the door behind herself, I dropped soundlessly to the floor beneath me.

Something bothered me, and it wasn’t just the fact that a collector could create complications for our plan.

Collectors were committed to their jobs. They had to be because their lives depended on seeking out lost ghosts and devouring the energy they left behind. So why would he allow the ghost to remain? His kind could teleport to the vortexes, so why had he been fraternizing with a ghost instead of teleporting her straight to the nearest vortex?

I needed to let Zacharias know collectors were in town, since their presence could create an issue for us. But first, I wanted to learn more about this ghost and what made her special to the collector.

Following the scent of her energy, I found her curled up like a feline on a plush sofa in the back corner of the library, her attention focused on the book in her hands. Tilting my head, I took in her opalescent skin, soft pouty lips, and the messy, dark hair that framed her heart-shaped face.

Her clothes were baggy, but they did little to hide her curves. As my eyes trailed over her body, something stirred in me… something dark and ravenous.

I’d reaped more than a million souls, and not once had I given a second glance to any of them. So why did she cause me to feel… unsettled?

My reaction couldn’t be natural. Needing to get out of there and clear my head, I turned on my heel and strode away.

Right before I moved out of sight of the sofa, I gave in to the urge to take a last look at the female. But when I glanced over my shoulder, I was stunned to find her brown eyes staring right at me.

It was as though she were seeing straight into my soul.

Impossible.

I was walking in the reaper plane, which meant only another reaper could see me.

Her eyes slid back to her book, and I realized she must have been looking at something else that just happened to be in my direction. Of course she couldn’t see me.

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