Page 15 of A Shadow in the Reaping
I hold the note up so he can read it. His gaze meets mine. My eyes are still glassy. My heart feels like it's been put in a blender. The Reaper watches me for a long moment before he gives a nod and turns back toward his room.
"Vampire," he says at the threshold of his door, looking over his shoulder at me. There is flame in his pupils, a dark look of warning in his face. "If someone asks, none of this came from me."
I tilt my head in question, clutching the sword and the book and the pen to my chest.
"I wouldn't want anyone to get the wrong impression."
The Reaper's eyes hold onto mine for a moment that feels too long. Long enough for the hole in my heart to grow heavier. Long enough for me to understand. Long enough for me to be sure that when he saysanyone, what he really means is me.
Chapter 9
It's six in the morning.
I haven't slept all night. And by all night, I meanAll. Fucking. Night.
I sat for ages turning the sword over and over in my hands, drowning in an inescapable sea of memory. The sounds and smells of war, of riding after Tomoe Gozen into the bloody Battle of Awazu. The images of escaping the from famed samurai Hatakeyama Shigetada. Those memories of risk and camaraderie and reward and death followed me into the dark hours and kept me from sleep. Such is the curse of the vampire, to remember everything, even that which we wish to forget.
I spent hours more tossing on my bed, stressing about not being asleep. I smelled the faint aroma of bleach on my fingers and thought of more ideas for killing the Reaper, most of which involved large quantities of Javex. Even that didn't seem to help.
I did, however, reach a valuable conclusion.
My life before the Reaper was a little boring, yes, but there was a certain level of comfort and predictability to it that I enjoyed.
My life since the Reaper has been neither comfortable nor predictable.
Therefore, the only way out of my current state of misery is to either:
A. Kill the Reaper
B. Kill the Alpha
C. Kill them both.
Despite how entertaining it's been planning various ways to engineer Ashen's demise, killing a Reaper is actually quite tricky. Reapers do claim the souls of immortals like myself, after all, so it kind of makes sense that it's hard for us to do. Saving them, it seems, is much easier. Also, I have bound myself to Ashen and his task, so the killing part is probably not so straightforward anyway.
Killing the Alpha is a more achievable goal. I've killed Alphas before too.
Don't get me wrong, it's still tricky. Werewolves, as you'll recall from the Jessie Bates Dinnergate fiasco, are pack hunters. It can be pretty tough to take on thirty or more just to get to the one you want. So, it really pains me to the core to admit it, but I probably wouldn't have survived the other night without the Reaper's help. The wolves will be better prepared for next time now that they know I can fight.
I’ve decided I cannot kill the Reaper... for now... but I can work on getting this reaping done as quickly as possible. In the meantime, I can take great enjoyment in making Ashen's life awkward and weird as fuck. And as arap, rap, rapsounds at my door, I pledge to relish every minute of it.
I grab my pen and my notebook. I amso readyto begin.
I open the door and Ashen is standing on the other side, dressed in the same dark palette as always and looking particularly sharp for six in the morning with a black suit jacket over a charcoal grey shirt. Not a thread is out of place. He frowns when he sees me. "Vampire. You look even worse today than you did yesterday."
I cast my pen across the paper with a furious hand and then turn the journal toward him with a smile brimming with malice.
Reaper. You sound like even more of an asshole today than you did yesterday. I didn't think it would be possible, and yet, here we are.
Ashen reads my note and his frown deepens. "Did I just offend you?"
Yes.
"How?" he asks.
At this rate? Existing, you obtuse motherfucker. But telling me I look about as good as a bag of dicks usually offends me, yes.
The Reaper's eyes flare with a little flame. "You are a particularly acerbic vampire, you know. I was merely remarking on the fact that you look unwell."
