Page 33 of A Shadow in the Reaping
There's nothing detailed or artistic about it other than its unusual shape. Compared to everything else I've seen here so far, it's a bit drab. It seems utilitarian, like a storage building or a post office. Maybe this is where Reapers' Amazon packages are delivered. Yes, I've decided this is where they pick up their Roombas or vitamins or hemorrhoid cream. I think Ashen is becoming attuned to my thoughts because I barely crack a faint smile and I can already feel his glare scorching the side of my face.
Ashen pulls open the door for me and a rush of cold air spills across my skin. There are compartments along the walls, each one numbered, each one with a silver handle. In the center of the circular room is a stone pedestal and a large book that lies open, a quill and ink at its side. Ashen passes by me, heading toward it. I watch as his finger traces through the numbers on the ledger.
"Forty-seven," he says, more to himself than to me as he places his books on the floor.
Is this a morgue?I ask in a note that I pass to him.
"Yes."
I guess I never thought about the Reapers wanting or needing a morgue. The crimes for which they reap our souls always seem so arbitrary, to the point that they're sometimes outlandish. It’s not like there’s ever a trial, or an opportunity to provide a defense. They just decide, accuse, and mete out their ‘justice’. As such, I find it more than a little surprising that they would go to the trouble of bringing bodies back here. I have a fleeting image of Ashen dragging some poor immortal corpse into the cauldron but it catching fire so he winds up in the Shadow Realm with an armful of smoking bones. Again I start to smile, and again I feel him glare. This time I glare back until he huffs and folds his fingers around the handle of compartment forty-seven and pulls.
I've seen a lot of dead shit. I've seen a lot of fucked-up shit. But I've never seen anything like this.
The drawer slides open to reveal the hybrid, lying prone on the cold and clinical steel. A thin misting of silver fur flows across its body, and standing it must have been taller than Ashen. It's male, powerfully built, every muscle defined. Thick, elongated nails curve from the fingers and toes. It has a face that seems too human to be a wolf, and too doggish to be a person.
It's fuck-ugly.
So I write a note to Ashen that says:
It's fuck-ugly.
"Yeah, I know."
Was it in the middle of phasing between wolf and human?
A fleeting grimace passes across Ashen's face. "No."
Gross.
“It was once Arne Larsen, before this was done to him. That much we know.”
I lift up the thin white sheet that lays over the creature's reproductive organs. AhhWAP, always coming through for the win. All praise to Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion.
Yikes. Not a garden snake, it's a king cobra.
The Reaper reads my note and sighs.
That's some next-level hentai shit right there.
The Reaper lifts his eyes from my message to my face with a slow, exhausted blink.
Do you think if he mated with a female hybrid they would get stuck together like wolves in the wild? What do they call that, a 'tie' I think?
"Your mind is a terrifying place."
Imagine how much money he could make on Onlyfans.
"Other than determining he has a disturbingly long dick, have you come up with any other stunning revelations about the hybrid?"
Not yet.
"Great."
I give Ashen a sweet smile and he gives me a weary glare in return. I look back at the hybrid, replacing the sheet. I try to find a wound on his body or head, but there's nothing obvious.
How did you kill it?I write.
"We didn't. It was already dead when Cole found it in one of Abdulov’s shipping facilities."
