Deadly Kisses (3 page)

Her heartbeat matched pace with mine, but time was almost up. I felt my soul stir. It itched to be close to hers, to take it inside me for safekeeping. Its warmth made me feel alive.

My soul crept up into my mouth. It overpowered my breath with a black licorice taste. I didn’t want the feel of her lips on mine to end, but it was time. Death was minutes away. I had kissed many people as a Grim Reaper, but her touch would be forever with me. Soft, silky, and hot.

I started to draw in her breath. Her soul resisted. I drew again and it sent hot embers into my mouth. I tried not to break free. I’d been told no soul could resist. I drew up more scalding hot and it burned the lining of my throat. This was very bad. My heart raced.

I drew in deeper, my throat now a fiery inferno, and a flashback of my death began. Sweat beaded at my brow. I forced the flashback away. I had to kill her. I loved her. She would go to the Golden Gate and it would be okay. I didn’t want to fail at my reap and be sucked into the River of Lost Souls. It was almost over. Only one more breath to go and her heart would stop beating.

Oh God, the flashback again. Images of the road and bridge came in quick, broken pictures. The crack of the tree snapping and glass shattering droned in my ears. I pushed away the memories because I had to finish the job and kill the girl. Her soul was right at the tip of my lips. I felt the slow pace of her heart, her blood cooling. She tasted like Sweet Tarts and vanilla.

Two hands grabbed the edge of my hood. The flashback stopped. I jerked back and lost my touch on her lips. With her hands still on me, she gasped and managed to suck back in most of her soul, and mine, before she punched me right in the face.

Well, this was new.

I wasn’t sure what was happening. My head throbbed. I had failed to kill her. I could feel her soul in me, warm and tingly, and my mouth still watered at her sweet taste.

My heart slammed against my rib cage. The girl practically came out of a coma and hit me, and not like a girl. She threw herself into it and managed to knock me back. I reached empty air to grab my scythe. Through clouded vision, a sharp silver tip glared at me. She had my scythe! By the looks of it, she was going to use it on me. That would be a ticket to Hell. I waved my hands to her. “Stop.” My scythe followed the motion of my hands, so I stopped moving them.

A ring of fire lit her eyes. It was the first time since I died that I was scared. Stupid me. I let a girl back me up in a corner using my own device. I stood there with my jaw half hanging open, my throat still on fire, a bass drum beat in my heart, and I was drunk off her fiery spirit.

“Well, what do you have to say for yourself?” she said.

“Huh?” I coughed and swallowed a gazillion times to put the fire out. The lining of my throat burned. I sounded like an old man.

“Great, you weren’t even listening. Do you have ears under that big ugly cloak?”

Big ugly cloak, that was harsh. I didn’t get to choose my wardrobe, not that I cared what I wore. Half my lip quirked up over the way she was ranting. It was very cute. No! I shook my head to stop the thoughts. I felt life in me and not dead cold. I failed and she was still alive.

“Wait! You can see me?” My voice came out in a croak. I disguised it, talking low, so she wouldn’t recognize me. Bee could never know who I was.

She punched me in the shoulder.

“Ow. What was that for?” I said. What was going on? She saw me?

“Looks like they sent me a dumb Grim Reaper, and you’re really bony. That’s gross.”

I tried to grab my scythe back, but she pulled it away. I tried to pry her hand away, and she froze, looking down at my hand.

“What?” I asked.

She stared.

“You done tempting death, because you can’t win?” I took a step forward, challenging her. I laughed at the bright blue heart pajamas.

“You find something funny, dead boy?”

She was as spirited as I remembered. Her hand went on her hip and she grasped my scythe in the other. “How can you be laughing after trying to kill me? I see, you kill for kicks.”

“You’re amusing.” I took a step closer, careful to keep my hood pulled down to my nose. “Now let me finish the job.”

I looked down into her warm brown eyes. I tried a technique I heard Abe talking about, a pathetic attempt to inhale her soul without lip contact. Warmth mingled with my cold and pushed my soul back down. I put my hands to my throat choking down flames. “What the heck are you doing to me?”

“You’re kidding, right? You’re trying to kill me and you’re asking what I did to you? Go to hell, death boy.”

I swallowed hard and the licorice flavor went away. “It’s not my fault. I just do what I’m told.” Abe was going to kill me—again.

“
You
are marked to die, not your mother or father or brother, only you. I can’t touch them. Now be a good little girl and let go of my scythe, so I can leave.”

I heated it up another degree, and she fought to keep hold before reluctantly releasing her grip. The scythe landed snug in my hand, and she tried to reach for it again. I gave her a tight-lipped grin, turned, and made my escape.

I stumbled through Bee’s back door then grasped my chest and fought every breath that went into my lungs. It was cold. Frost had begun to coat the ground white. Her warmth still spread through me. I threw the hood of my cloak down. I was feeling for the first time since I had died two years ago, and I hadn’t even fully reaped her.

My lips were still warm and tingled where her lips had touched mine. I put my fingers to them and smiled. It was the most marvelous thing since discovering that cell phones now had Internet access. I fell to my knees and lifted my arms to the night sky. Stars sparkled above without a cloud in sight to block the view. The full moon cast shadows over me, making my body long and thin. I laughed in a hysteric fit.

I felt part of her soul stir deep inside me and my hand flew from my hair to my chest. Bee’s soul floated through my body and I wanted to run. Run without stopping. I felt free but knew I was still dead. Death dampened things.

I stood and kicked a stone. It hit the root of a tree. I still had to reap her, but having only part of her soul made me angry, yet happy at the same time. I took out my phone and looked down to find the book reader app. I tapped the screen and an hourglass picture of the Manual of Death came up.

I needed time to think how this could’ve happened. I jumped over the stone wall and walked through the gate that led into the small, forgotten cemetery. I sat on the cold stairs of the crypt and scrolled through chapters. “Choosing Not to Ascend, Using the Scythe, Picking Your Mode of Transportation, Tracking Souls, The Kiss of Death, Collecting Souls, Time Limits, and Troubleshooting.” This sounded like a troubleshooting thing for sure.

The reading was dull, until I came across something. My eyes popped and I hyperventilated. I closed the app and called Abe.

“I have a
big
problem.” My voice echoed off the headstones.

“Are you calling to say goodbye, boy?” he replied with his overly sarcastic tone.

“Be serious. I told you I don’t want to ascend. I still want to walk the Earth.” I hit the stone and my metacarpal bone throbbed. “Something happened when I gave Bee the Kiss of Death. She wouldn’t die.”

“Explain, Reaperling.”

Crap. Abe did warn me, but I half listened as he droned on about reaping. “Half her soul is in me and vice versa. But what’s worse is she can see us!”

I pulled the phone away from my ear when his speech turned into a rant about me not listening. “I told you a million times not to be lazy and always yield the scythe. Looks are deceiving, and you never know who has made deals with the Dark Lord.”

“I know this girl. She would never make such a deal! And why would she make a deal that splits her soul? And who would want to look at us? We’re awful looking!” I started to pace back and forth, my cloak trailing like a fish after a worm. “Come on. Talk to me. You know you need me around because I can take a soul in seconds, making it painless. Help me. Abe? Damnit!” I roared. The heat from Hell interfered with the cell phone signal, disconnecting the call.

I wasn’t going to end up one of those skeletons in the River of Lost Souls. I would find a way to untangle our souls and reap her. Failure wasn’t an option.

I moved on to another section of the gondola satisfied with the shiny gloss to the wood. “Does being a Grim Reaper make you feel like you’re alive again?”

Reina tapped her foot up and down with a steady motion. “Yes it does, and there is nothing wrong with wanting that. I don’t know why you choose to live on your gondola. The city is nice, and you could get your own place. Abe would be ecstatic to have his other Reaperling living close to him.”

“Ecstatic, eh?” The thought of Abe and I as neighbors would send him in a mad dash to the nearest psychiatrist. “Let’s hope Freud became a Grim Reaper.”

Reina laughed, but it was more of a high pitched screech. “Do you like being a Grim Reaper?”

“Most days. Seeing a soul walk through the Golden Gate makes it worthwhile.”

“I feel the same way, but enough about work. Will you come with me to the party? Bob will hook you up with some firewater from down under, and some of those demon chicks are performing tonight. They put on a hell of a show if you’re into death rock.”

“I don’t think it’s a good idea, Reina. I’m not the crowd type, but the thought is nice.”

“Sheesh, you seriously need to lighten up. When’s the last time you went on a date, had some fun? I bet that’s what you need.” Reina untwisted her lipstick, puckered her lips, and coated them with a blood red color. Her mouth began making kissy noises.

“Are you offering?” Another section of my gondola shiny, I put the rag away, wiping my hands on my cloak.

“Maybe I am, and if you come to the club with me, who knows what could happen. Are you afraid to have some fun?” She winked and lifted the cloak to her femur, exposing a hot pair of red boots, as she stepped into her gondola.

Reina was pretty, but not as pretty as Bee. Feeling Bee’s warmth was addictive, but maybe I could forget Bee if I went with Reina. “All right, I’ll follow. What the heck.”

I wasn’t thinking, just doing. I stood up and cast off the bottom of the river sending the gondola forward. The further I went from Bee, the less I could feel her warmth.

We moved our gondolas side by side down the murky water of the River of Lost Souls. I wasn’t sure where this Grim Reaper hangout was and I didn’t care. Reina was fun to hang out with and I needed to forget Bee. I needed to keep it impersonal.

The half of Bee’s soul that lingered free inside of me, and warm, made it hard to forget her. I would go back for her tomorrow.

“Ad, you’re daydreaming. Bear right or we’ll end up in Vermont,” Reina said. Her blue-streaked hair shimmered as she looked at me. “You still breaking and entering? I think you’re the only Grim Reaper that carries around a paperclip.”

“It’s not a paperclip. I got a cop’s little black kit on one of my reaps.”

“Have you been practicing on materializing? Abe isn’t going to give you all the cushy reaps for long. I’ve been taking the brunt of the Hell assignments, you know.”

“Yeah, I’m working on it. Every time I concentrate on where I want to go, everything fades and it falls apart.”

“You have to back the location up with emotion,” she said.

I grunted. We came to a spot on the river where boulders protruded along the bank, making it impossible to dock. Reina threw a rope around a smaller rock. I took her lead and did the same. “So, where’s this club?”

“It’s just a hole in the wall.” She jumped into the water, high-heeled red boots and all. Water splashed. She kicked and smashed down bony hands in the river and jumped up to the edge. I opted for jumping rock to rock. I couldn’t bring myself to smash remains of other fallen Grim Reapers anymore. What if that was me in there someday?

The club was a cave with a small opening for an entrance. I yelled at Reina, my voice echoing, “Love how they decorated the place. Their use of rocks and moss is very creative.”

The place crawled with Reapers. The sight of death dogs roaming freely gave an eerie vibe that threatened to splinter my bones into fragmented shards. I rubbed my crooked nose, thinking about my last encounter with them.

Reina grabbed my arm, and my body stiffened. “Stop being a bore and let’s go have some fun. If you’re going to be like this for an eternity, forget my offer, bud.”

Two Reapers came through the door and brushed past me. Music blared and Reina swayed. I backed up and she kept pulling. I would have gone back to Bee if there wasn’t a death dog behind me growling.

“Go to the back of the club where it’s less crowded,” Reina said.