A Grim Love: Can't Fight Time (6 page)

As if on a tether, Uri stopped, but unlike her reaction with Grim she kept going, until she finally noticed he wasn’t going to follow. Cocking her head back at him, Nina raised a brow, giving Uri a questioning look and watching as he slowly walked to catch up with her.
Deja vu?

“What smell, Nina?” Uri asked quietly, placing his hand on her arm to keep her from continuing her walk.

“You
know
exactly what smell,” Nina accused, her voice sounding like a sharpened blade cutting through the darkness. “Did you think I wouldn’t notice? That after all the signs, I would somehow choose to avoid it?” Nina said harshly, advancing on him with the wild passion of a woman whose world had been completely torn to pieces.

“I don’t know what you--” Uri began as he put his hands up defensively, his eyes darting to the side.

“My father is a murderer,” Nina whispered harshly, spitting the words out like they had a bad taste. “What is he? The Sweetheart Killer too? Is he going to kill me? Is that my fate? To be killed by my own father?” Nina screamed at him, tears streaking in a rush down her face as her emotions lit and exploded.

Nina turned away from Uri, swiping at her tears and trying to compose herself. It was difficult with the puzzle pieces connected and laying out on a board for her. Only a few pieces remained, and then she could finally finish what was her life.
Only a few more questions.

“Why me?” Nina asked finally when she was able to lock her emotions down and turn back around without a trace of what she might be feeling.
Stay objective. Be pragmatic.

“It has to do with my mom, doesn’t it?” Nina said flatly, watching Uri’s face pale even more than Nina thought possible. Her father's words rang with one of the last puzzle pieces;
just like your fucking mother!

Connect the dots;
her subconscious counseled her, even as Nina began to see the links between everything.
Mom was murdered. Same M.O. Victims look the same. Sweetheart Killer.
And with that, the puzzle of her life was solved. But what a pitiful puzzle it was.

“My father killed my mom, and then started killing people that look like her--like me. He’s advancing his way up to kill me as a way to somehow get back at her. That’s how it all connects,” Nina said quietly, looking Uri in the eyes to see the truth of her statements reflected there.

“You’re right,” Uri said quietly. “But let’s continue our walk, before we talk more.” The sudden change of topic startled Nina, but she realized the reason. They were still out in public, and she was yelling her head off about her family and serial killers.
Not my brightest moment. But I’m giving myself some wiggle room with the whole death-by-insane-serial-killer-father thing.

They continued their walk, this time moving a bit faster until they entered the chapel. Nina could see two officers standing watch, but Uri just grabbed her hand and they simply passed by the officers as if they were ghosts.

“They can’t see us.” It was a statement, not a question.

Uri ignored her observation and instead sat with her on the stone bench next to the now-inactive water fountain. “Time passes differently in the Underworld, and what you view as a couple of hours are like days to us.” Uri began, turning to look at her seriously.

“And this has to do with my death how?” Nina asked sharply, not in a good mood to play guessing games.

Uri ignored her and continued “So, I was able to learn everything about you in what was probably only
hours
to you, but was
days
to me. Do you understand why I’m telling you this?” Uri asked Nina urgently.

For the life of her, she couldn’t figure out why it should matter that time passed differently or that he had learned everything about her. Would any of it stop her impending death? She was pretty sure that answer was a resounding no.

“No,” Nina answered tiredly, her stomach cramping with hunger pains with a migraine beginning to creep up on her.

Nina gasped as Uri grabbed her arms tightly and shook her. “You’re not normal, Nina. Your life wasn’t fair and your death is not going to be any better,” Uri said with an edge to his voice.
Was this supposed to be comforting?
Nina wondered hysterically as the pressure in her head seemed to increase like a hundred buzzing bees were flying around.

“I’m offering you extra time,” Uri said finally as he slowly released her and materialized a glass of water and some pain meds. “Take this.”

Nina reached forward and took a sip of water, her throat burning harshly as she swallowed the cool liquid. Two more gulps and Nina was sure that she could get the pills down, grabbing them from Uri and shoving them in her mouth.
Extra time?

“Can you manifest me a banana?” Nina asked, and a banana was suddenly thrust into her hand and her glass was refilled.
Still a really cool trick.

Nina smiled at Uri as she munched on her banana. trying to look as lady like as she could and not just jam the whole thing in her mouth, and then ask him to manifest some ribs and a chocolate cake. A banana was safe to eat, she wouldn't throw it up. She couldn't exactly say the same thing about the ribs and cake.

“What do you mean?” Nina asked around a bite of banana, trying to stifle a grimace as the food hit her stomach with the impact of a brick.

“I mean...” Uri paused as if weighing the how much information to give her. “I can take you to the Underworld as a human under temporary contract.”

Temporary contract? That sounds fishy.
“What’s a temporary contract?”

Uri blinked at her, like he was surprised with her answer. "Didn't Grim explain the reaper history? He told me he told you everything," he asked with just a touch of suspicion that made Nina forget her headache and stomachache for a moment.
That's right! Just like Grim, Uri was a walking history book too!

"He only told me bits and pieces, but not the whole story." Nina responded vaguely. Whatever Uri was about to tell her was going to be important, but Nina didn't want to let him know that she was genuinely curious.
Curiosity can't kill a dead cat.

He seemed to puzzle over her response for a few seconds before accepting it. "It's a long story, so I'll give you the Spark Notes edition." Uri said, surprising Nina by his modern use of slang.
Apparently he keeps up with modern times.

The thought of Uri sitting down and watching reality TV shows to keep up on the lingo was almost comical to her. If they hadn't been about to discuss a way to get Nina some extra time from her impending death, she might have laughed outright. "I'm all ears."

"Well, you know how this world was created right?" Uri asked, and only continued when Nina shook her head no. "Well, the people that you worship as Gods are actually just super old and crazy scientists. When I met them, they introduced themselves as Yin and Yang, but that could have just as well been a joke. They tend to be a little crazy, so…"

"But anyway the world was created because they basically f’ed up an experiment. The Big Bang was them. And humanity? That was just a fluke. They can't even remember how they did it; just that they mixed some stuff, and poof! humanity.

“After that the world started to get too crowded because nothing was really dying. Animals didn't have the instincts to hunt, kill, or survive. They just sort of existed. Well, Ying and Yang decided that there needed to be a sort of balance--life and death.

"Is that how reapers were made?" Nina asked, fascinated by the story and completely ignoring the cold coming off of Uri in waves as she leaned forward to hear more.

Uri shrugged. “Well, yes and no. At first there was no medium. People just sort of died, and Yin and Yang took their consciousness and fiddled with it. When humans first started they didn't really have a soul, just a conscious mind separating them from animals. But over time Yin and Yang developed that consciousness to be its own separate entity: the soul.

“But anyway, they had to make mediums because the souls were overwhelming them and they were too lazy to really deal with everything. But don’t say that to them; they’d be pissed if someone actually said it!” Uri said with a laugh, like he was talking about real people.
Well let’s keep an open mind, Nina. They could actually exist. The world’s first mad scientists!

Uri winced as he continued. “They constructed reapers out of the bones of dead humans. They did a little hocus pocus that gave us our powers, and that’s how reapers were made. Except we kind of freaked people out and a lot of souls refused to go on and just became ghosts, wandering around refusing to part with their souls but having no bodies.

“It’s said that the old reapers noticed this and tried to devise a way to safely get humans to trust them and go with them. But other people say Yin and Yang began experimenting again and that’s how it happened. It doesn’t matter either way, the fact is that male reapers began to mate with human women and have kids. But there were some hitches because it only worked with human women and after nine months the chicks died in childbirth,” Uri said, letting out a loud sigh and ran a hand through his short red curls, looking so much younger than his centuries of existence.

For some reason Nina could only see Uri as Grim’s mischievous little brother, and not actually a badass reaper like his brother. The two were so different that Nina wondered if they were from different parents. But the story fascinated her far more than finding out what their relationship as brothers was like.

“So to protect the women and ensure that the women didn’t refuse them, they bargained.” Uri explained glancing quickly up at her before looking down at his thumbs again. “It was a temporary contract that allowed the human woman to live in the Underworld during her pregnancy. During the times when this was being done, human life was hard and brutal. They didn’t have modern medicine and death was about as normal as the sun rising and setting.” Uri explained.

“But if you agreed to have a Reaper’s child, then you could go to the Underworld and live in the lap of luxury. Sort of like Persephone, but they weren’t tricked; they wanted that life.

“You see, because time passes much slower there, a nine month pregnancy can be stretched into several years, practically an entire human life time. It was sort of like immortality because you remained whatever age you were when you got pregnant; you just increased so slowly that it was almost like you weren’t pregnant.” Uri turned to Nina then and looked her in the eyes.

“However reapers aren’t supposed to kill human, and however inadvertently as it was, we were still killing humans. We’re supposed to be mediums, one foot in the grave type deal. Which is how the laws came to pass,” Uri said ominously, the air dropping a few degrees.

“What Grim did, talking to you, watching over you, kissing you, it’s forbidden; because you’re alive,” Uri explained, taking her hands in his own as she felt a numb cold shoot up her arm. “See?”

“We can make a temporary contract, where in three days you will come back to the human world and die. It’s the perfect amount of time to live and raise a little hell without lasting consequences.”

Nina sat back and puzzled over everything Uri had told her. And it was a lot of information, a lot of things that she had never known and never tried to look at differently.
Mad scientist created the world? Human women used to bargain their bodies and lives off for a few years of luxury? Grim had been breaking rules?

The last one perhaps bothered her the most. The entire time they’d been talking she’d been thinking that he was only doing it because she was going to die, and that way there’d be no blame or repercussions for him.
I mean what can a dead girl say?
But it was deeper than that. From what Uri had said, even talking with a living, breathing female was breaking some rule, and kissing?
Two steps away from having sex and potentially getting her pregnant? How did that equate in punishment?

“You’ll make a temporary contract with me just because I’m unique and you pity me?” Nina asked quietly, no anger in her voice. She just wanted to know his reasoning.