Page 39 of The Reluctant Reaper
Has his skin always been so papery, so fragile?Death’s hair had faded further in the hours since she’d seen him, his closed eyelids so purple they looked like bruises. And he was thinner than the night before, which should have been impossible. Worse, far worse...
How can he look so small? He was the giant of my childhood, one of the biggest men in the Midwest. Even when I was old enough to drink, I had to look up to him.
“He’s not dead,” Amara said. “His heart is beating. Possibly in irritation because Mother keeps shouting and shaking him.” But she softened the sarcasm by taking her mother’s small, cold hand in hers. The screams had terrified her, but her mother’s desperation and anguish were as frightening. “Mother? Do you hear me? He’s alive.”
“There’s no point in calling nine-one-one, right? You guys? Even if we took a car to drive to the nearest cell tower for service?” Gray had his phone out, but made no move to do anything with it. “I mean, who would we even call?”
“No one,” Skye said firmly. “This is a family issue. It always has been.”
“Has anyone reached out to Paeon?” Amara asked.
Her mother’s shocked reaction gave the answer. “Surely it hasn’t...”
“Mom. It’s crazy that the night I got here, I had to remind you that Paeon was an option. Death has been sick for a while. Long enough to call me home, so I’m guessing at least a month. And now he’s unresponsive.” She understood that her mother was using denial to cope, and she also understood that she couldn’t keep indulging that delusion. “Paeon could be our only option.” To Gray: “He’s an ancient doctor who took care of gods so well, he eventually evolved into the god of godly medicine.”
Gray was already nodding. “Well, yeah! Definitely call that guy.”
“No one has needed his art for decades,” Skye pointed out. “Possibly centuries. It will take time to find him. It will take time for him to come to us. In the meantime, the question before us is...”
Oh, hell.
“—what does it mean when Death is unresponsive? And what happens next as a consequence?”
And they all looked at Amara. Even Gray.
Dammit.
ChapterNineteen
“First things first.” Amara rubbed her temples and willed the migraine back the way you’d fend off a rabid weasel.Back! Go on, git!“Where does Dad keep the scrolls these days?”
They were in the kitchen, because Amara couldn’t bear talking about taking on her father’s duties with the man in (unconscious) earshot. It would have been like divvying up a person’s belongings while you were at their funeral. Skye had volunteered to sit with him, which was the only reason Hilly agreed to leave her husband.
Hank and Penny had been nowhere to be found, no surprise, and no one wanted to go looking for them. Arawn was putting the houndlets through their paces. And La Croix had also vamoosed, which was unlike him. Usually when he was in residence he was on Amara or Hilly’s heels. Had he left the property? And if so, when? If he hadn’t left, why make himself scarce?
She’d ponder the mystery later. For now...
“Mom? The scrolls?”
“We’re out of bacon but I can heat up some venison stew. Or a salad? I could make a big harvest salad with arugula and squash and goat cheese and bacon. You like salads, Amara. With sunflower seeds, and I’ve got bags of them in the pantry. Or something sweet? Belgian waffles—which aren’t Belgian, but never mind... or perhaps some fudge? I could make homemade ice cream, is maple nut still your favorite?”
“Unfortunately,” Gray replied.
“Mom. Please.” Amara crossed the room and gently closed the fridge in her mother’s face. “Nobody’s hungry. If I eat anything larger than a sunflower seed, I’ll vomit. Where are the scrolls?”
“Oh. Those.” Hilly’s head was cocked to one side and her gaze was vague. “We don’t—your father doesn’t use those anymore.” She forced a laugh. “It’s the twenty-first century, darling. We have all new equipment.”
“You do? That’s great! Show me?”
“It’s this marvelous device that receives information via—how did your father put it?” Hilly closed her eyes, then opened them and smiled for the first time since she discovered Death at death’s door. “Telephonic transmission!” At the look on Amara’s face, Hilly elaborated. “I know, it sounds complicated—my understanding is, the machine takes data and forms it into something called a bitemap.”
“Bitmap, ma’am,” Gray said with a determinedly straight face.
“Yes! And it’s all done by transmitting the bitmaps through telephone lines. Think about that! And then a machine reassembles it on our end and spits out a copy. Quick as all that!”
Amara blinked. “You’re talking about a fax machine.”
“No, it’s a telefacsimile machine.”
