Reaper (5 page)

Wendy swallowed thickly, a tear tracking down her cheek as she thought of all the hours she'd spent at her mother's bedside, talking to her mom's unmoving body, ignoring the beeping machines and savagely wishing that whatever had happened to her had just finished her off in one fell swoop rather than leaving her mother a slowly degrading shell of her former, fiery self.

“I…I can't,” Wendy said, scrubbing a hand along her face. “You're going to die anyway, right? So I don't have to…to do this. Right? Right?”

The raccoon blinked.

Wendy shivered. “Don't look at me like that.”

A tap on the window made Wendy jump and stagger back, cracking the back of her head against the dusty shelf lining the side wall. A watering can tumbled down and smacked the raccoon on the haunches. He stirred in the living world and a flood of guilt left Wendy shaking.

“I'm so sorry!” she gasped, snatching the can up and setting it aside as Chel and Jon forced the shed door open. It squealed just as loudly as Wendy had suspected it would.

“How did you get in here?” Chel panted, watching the raccoon curled in the corner sadly. “More importantly, either one of us could probably bench you one-handed, so how did flimsy little
you
close it again?”

“Not important,” Wendy said, handing off the flashlight to Jon again. “What did they say?”

“No one is answering,” Jon said as he turned the flashlight on and set it on the shelf Wendy'd smacked her head on. “I Googled as hard as a guy can Google and it's all voicemail and ‘Have a happy holiday!’” He scowled, the shadows lying darkly across half his face. “Figures.”

“The vet?”

“They don't handle cases like this,” Chel said, scorn dripping from each word. “The night assistant said to just let it curl up and die and not to approach it. Rabies.” Chel glanced down and shook her head. “Though you shot that right out of the water, huh?”

Nervously, Wendy licked her lips. “It's in pain, guys. Real, serious pain. And it's going to die anyway. We all know that, right?”

“Duh,” Jon said, not unkindly. “But what do we do about it? I don't think there's any way we can make it more comfortable before it dies. And hauling a heater out here to keep it warm before it dies might start a fire.”

His legs were completely crushed but he finished crawling across the highway
, Wendy thought.
When I'm a mom I hope I'm half as good a parent as that.

“I have an idea,” she said softly. “Jon, is Mom's old spade-fork-thing in the garage? And the rake and shovel?”

Jon paled. “Yeaaah,” he drawled. “Why?”

Wendy forced a sad smile. “I'm going to put it out of its misery. Go get the fork and a pair of Mom's old gardening gloves. And a garbage bag. Two. No, three.”

“Wendy, I don't know—” Jon began but stopped when Chel grabbed him by the arm.

“You sure?” Chel studied the raccoon. “It's going to be bloody. And it really
might
have some kind of disease. There's no foam or anything, but—”

“If it were me,” Wendy said, “I'd want to be put down. Okay? I wouldn't want to linger.”

Jon stiffened. “This isn't about Mom, Wendy—”

“Just get the damn fork, Jon!” Wendy snapped. Then she winced, regretful of her tone. “Sorry. Sorry. This is hard. Just…please, Jon. Please. Get the fork. And the plastic. Especially the gloves and maybe a latex pair from under the sink too, just to be safe. Okay?”

Softening, he nodded. “It's okay. This is rough. I'll get all the stuff, but I just want you to know that you don't have to do this.”

“If not me, who? You? Chel? I saw those cookies, Jon. You both have been doing so well with your personal stuff, neither of you need to be freaked out right now. I can take care of it.” She smiled wanly. “That's what I'm here for, to do the tough stuff. I've got this. I promise.”

Jon opened his mouth to reply but thought better of it. “Okay. Point taken. You're just trying to look out for us. Thank you.” He hugged her briefly with one arm, turned, and left, leaving Chel and Wendy huddled around the raccoon's body.

“We could maybe bundle it up in a blanket instead,” Chel offered softly. “I bet if we showed up at the vet they could give it a shot or something, even if it's not policy. No one likes to see an animal in pain.”

“They won't,” Wendy said. “You know they won't.”

“This sucks.” Chel rubbed a hand across her mouth. “I wish Mom was here.”

“Me too,” Wendy said softly, still brooding on her mother, on the Walkers, on the past few months and Eddie wasting away in his own hospital bed, the girl one bed over slipping into the Light that hadn't yet come for him.

How long would Eddie lay there because his mother couldn't do what Wendy was about to do? And what would Wendy do if Mrs. Barry decided to grow a pair and pull the plug before Wendy found Eddie's soul and his cord? She shivered. It was too much to think about right now. Better to concentrate on the mute, agonized animal at her feet. Better to handle one thing at a time.

“Hey Chel?” she said softly. “I meant it, by the way.”

“You mean it?” Chel's hand on her wrist was humid and hot, the skin damp from nervous sweat. She may have quit cheerleading, but her fingers were still strong, her grip still sure. Their mother's cracked and ancient floor-length mirror leaned against the opposite corner; Chel, faintly lit by moonlight, looked ghostly in its silvered reflection, all color bled away, a shadow of a girl in grey and white. “What do you mean, Wendy?”

Wendy turned her face away from Chel's reflection. Lights from the street were reflecting strangely in the depths of the mirror, red dots, probably streetlights, floated over Chel's left shoulder like hanging eyes, giving Wendy an uneasy feeling deep in her gut. Crazily, she wished Piotr were here. He'd been around forever, right? Maybe he'd tell her the easiest way to do this, the easiest way to kill another living being, even if it was some dumb animal whose best idea of security was pillaging rest stop trash cans for refuse.

“If…if I'm like this…in pain and wounded, please, please pull the plug,” Wendy whispered, scrubbing her hands across her face. “Don't let me suffer, okay?”

“Eddie's going to be okay,” Chel said, misunderstanding Wendy's nervous energy.

“I know he will,” Wendy agreed. “I'm going to make sure of it. But this isn't about Eddie. If I go under again…”

“I'll let Dad know,” Chel promised. Then, softly, “You ready? Here comes Jon.”

It took only a moment to prepare; Wendy donned the thick gloves and claimed the long-handled spading fork, which had been used to turn their mother's compost heap before she'd bought the tumbler two years before. The tines weren't as needle sharp as she'd have liked, but they weren't dulled by years of use, either. Their mother had been conscientious about her tools. She'd been conscientious about most things, actually; a fact Wendy had only recently really started appreciating.

“Jon, take the shovel,” she ordered nervously. “Chel the rake. Jon, point the light this way, okay?”

In the Never, the raccoon moved away from them, avoiding their living heat by huddling behind the mirror and peering around the edge. He bared his teeth at the mirror for a moment, and Wendy wondered what the reflective surface looked like to the spirit. She knew that she could ask, but there were more important tasks at hand.

“I'm sorry,” Wendy said out loud, both for the raccoon to hear and for Chel and Jon. This was going to suck.

Chel used the rake to turn the body onto its back as best as she could; Jon used the shovel to press the head as gently as he could into the floor. Chel pressed the rake into its belly, so they were effectively holding it down. The raccoon, so far gone, whimpered only a little.

Shaking wildly, it took Wendy four tries to line up the tines with the animal's chest, centering the middle tines over the heart as best as she could. “Sorry,” she whispered again. “Sorry-sorry-SORRY!”

At the last “sorry,” she shoved down with the fork with all her weight, feeling the metal prongs punch through fur and flesh and jab themselves into the rotting floor beneath, the squish of the heart squelching around the tool, and the hot splatter of blood gushing against her shins. The raccoon keened once, twice, and jittered for a moment against her boots before going limp and still.

“I'm going to be sick,” Jon said, and retched on the raccoon. The backsplash joined the blood on Wendy's jeans.

“Mom,” Wendy said, turning to look up at the ceiling as her brother and sister staggered out of the shed, both gagging, “if you're out there somewhere…please make sure that these gloves don't have holes in them.”

Though they'd helped with the death, neither Jon nor Chel was able to bundle the body up in the garbage bags. They took turns digging a hole in the corner of the yard instead, nervously joking about ground water contamination while Wendy eased the stiffening corpse into the garbage bags by herself and scrubbed the floor down with a bucket of bleach-water.

The raccoon vanished in the Never; no Light came for it. One moment it was there, watching Wendy dispose of its body, the next it was a flick of a tail over the edge of the back hedge and rapidly running along the fence toward the highway. Wendy sent good thoughts its way and kept scrubbing, letting the swish-dunk-scrub-scrub-scrub keep her body occupied, and sank thankfully, mindlessly, into the zen of cleaning.

It was past one when the deed was done, the dirt was tamped down, and the only other evidence of their deed was crusting on Wendy's pants. She didn't even wait to get inside the house before stripping off her jeans and her father's sneakers, flinging them both into the garbage can beside the door to the kitchen. Jon took a cookie from the stack as they entered; Chel, surprisingly, did so as well. Wendy, stomach churning, bounded pantslessly up the stairs, ready to call this terrible day a wash and go to sleep.

Stripping off the remainder of her clothes and flinging her top at the closet and herself on her bed, Wendy smacked her knuckles against the seatbelt buckle she'd tucked between her pillows that morning. Whimpering in pain, Wendy yanked the buckle out and glared at it; her first instinct was to chuck it against the far wall, but the buckle had been Eddie's. It was a seatbelt buckle from his father's car, scavenged for Eddie after the wreck that took his dad's life and woke Wendy to her Lightbringer duties and the Never. He'd given it to Wendy a few weeks prior, just as school had let out for the holidays, along with a love letter and a promise to bide his time and wait for her to love him as much as he loved her.

Now, sitting on her bed, Wendy turned the buckle over in her hands again, weighing its heft in her hands, her subconscious mind ticking aimlessly along as she stared at the edges of the buckle and depressed the button in the middle with her thumb. The buckle was jammed, locked, stuck in one spot. Like Eddie.

“Eddie,” Wendy mused, letting her eyes relax, letting the Never swim in and out of view. “Eddie, Eddie, Edd—”

She suddenly broke off. Wait a second. Wait just a second…

Before, Piotr had brought her items from his kidnapped children. Pieces of them that stayed solid as long as the children were safe and in one piece. A hat, a cloak, spectacles, all firm and solid in the Never so long as the children they belonged to still existed in the Never.

Just like Eddie's buckle.

Examining the buckle in the Never was something Wendy had never thought to do before; she opened herself up and was happy to see that her impulse had been correct.

The buckle was as solid in the Never as it had been in real life. Wendy poked it and the clasp clicked, coming apart slightly in her hands before catching on some inner cylinder and jamming. With a little bit of force, Wendy was able to click it shut again.

Excited, Wendy flung herself off her bed and hurried to her closet, grabbing the closest comfy outfit and dressing as fast as she could. Her boots were on a minute later and Eddie's jacket was in her arms before she was out the door, bounding back down the stairs and speeding past the twins as she burst out the front door and sprinted toward the car.

“Where are you going?” Chel called from the front stoop as Wendy revved the car and slapped it into reverse.

“Hospital!” Wendy yelled back. “Be back soon!”

Thankfully it was the middle of the week—even the cops seemed to be resting after the excesses of the holidays, and the highway was nearly empty as Wendy hurried up the familiar route toward the hospital and Eddie. Christmas was over, but KOIT-FM was still playing holiday tunes; Wendy cranked a jazzy
Jingle Jingle Jingle
remix and tapped the steering wheel as the 101 spun out beneath her tires.

T
he air of the Never was thick tonight, filled with the cold of the bay and heavy with fog. In the distance foghorns called across the water, their echoes dimly heard even as far as Nob Hill. Piotr, lounging on the sidewalk below the huge hotel, tilted his head up. The foghorns weren't the only echoes reaching the street. Tonight the Top of the Mark rooftop bar was jumping with spirits—though the restaurant had closed to the living at midnight, the party for the dead had barely begun.

A faint movement to his left revealed Lily and her blades. As she approached she sheathed the bone knives and held her hands wide, welcoming him. “The perimeter is clear,” Lily murmured, brushing a thick black braid over one bare shoulder.

Tonight she'd formed her essence into a lightweight version of the cotton
manta
and deerskin moccasins she'd worn in life; generally Lily kept her clothing nondescript, but Piotr had known her long enough to tell that she, like Elle, felt that tonight, visiting the Council, was a night to honor who they had once been. Faintly jealous, Piotr glanced down at his own basic shirt and black pants. If only he could do the same. Lily didn't notice his comparison. “No Walkers roam these streets.”

Piotr was glad. He was still shaken up over the previous night's encounter, and tangling with Walkers this close to downtown was never a good idea. The White Lady's territory hadn't been too far from here, cunningly hidden amid the lush vastness and living heat of the city; there was no telling how many of her trained Walkers had escaped that deadly fight and still haunted her old locale.

“
Prekrasnah
,” Piotr declared, grinning and leaning against the balustrade. His gaze flicked up to the top of the hotel again and he fancied that he saw thin, white faces looking down. “This news is very good, Lily. Have you any word from Elle?”

“None yet,” Lily said, sliding beside him to stand in the shadow of the matched columns guarding the entryway. In the dappled moonlight she was as still as a doe, wary and watchful but peaceful nonetheless. “The moon is high, yet she is still speaking with the
cacique
of this place.”

“I wish she would hurry.”

“In time all things come,” Lily soothed. “We shall journey on to the great wide world soon enough, and then,” she spread her hands out, as if encompassing the city, “then you shall miss this and wish we had stayed.”

When Piotr did not rise to the bait, she touched his shoulder. “The words of the Walker last evening concern me. You claim that you and Wendy have parted, but I wonder. Have you spoken yet with the Lightbringer, Piotr? Have you truly said your goodbyes?”

“
Da
,” he snapped, pulling away from his old friend. Some days, he fancied that Lily had a healer's soul; she was gifted with a knack for prodding his sore spots, exposing festering pain, both physical and mental. Normally he allowed her the little jabs and probing, as he almost always felt better after speaking his mind to her, but Piotr was protective of his feelings for Wendy. He didn't want to discuss the Lightbringer with her. “Wendy and I are through; she understands what I must do.”

“What you must do, yes, but Piotr…” Lily glanced up at the riotous rooftop. “What about what help you swore to her? If it were not for her—”

“If it weren't for Wendy then James would still be with us,” Piotr said through gritted teeth, ignoring the way his stomach clenched at the low blow. Lily and James had been together for decades until Wendy's Light had destroyed James. With him gone, Lily had fallen into mourning for days. No matter who spoke to her, she was unwilling to do more than sequester herself amid the lush thickets of Apatos Village Park and pray to her gods for James’ safe passage into a kinder afterlife than the Never. When her praying was done, Lily left the park with her head held high and a refusal to speak of her pain on her lips. It was her way, and until now Piotr and Elle had respected it, but if mentioning James’ death moved her to silence, Piotr was willing to broach the topic.

“Perhaps,” Lily said mildly. “Perhaps not.”

Unwilling to get into a fight with his oldest friend over Wendy, Piotr turned his back on Lily and scowled out into the darkness. Though the fog was thick, he could still make out the shapes of lighthouses in the distance and the thin moonlight drifting down. Shapes moved at the base of the hill—humans and the dead alike. It was late though, past one, and there were no crowds milling about to burn the weeping, wandering Shades with their searing, living heat.

If Wendy were here, Piotr thought, she would send the Shades on into the Light. In truth, the act would be a blessing. Their minds were long gone.

These past few weeks, Piotr had tried to avoid thoughts of Wendy, but it was difficult to do when Lily insisted on continuously poking his pain. He would never admit it out loud but he missed the sight of her, the electric fire of her touch. He and Wendy had parted ways amicably, but all Lily seemed to see was that they had parted.

Piotr knew that it had been the right decision, leaving Wendy. It
had
.

“It was James’ time, as it was time for the Lost,” Lily added coolly, dismissing his moody silence outright. “Piotr, it is as if you think I do not know the ways of the Never! After these many years? For all my love for James, his will to continue existing was weakening. In truth, he was very lucky that the Lightbringer came along when she did; Wendy saved him from great pain.” She looked at the Shades below and shook her head, expression grave. “The Light washed over him and he moved on. It is as it should have been. It is done. It is good.”

Piotr crossed his arms over his chest. He did not like where this conversation was going or how thoroughly Lily was derailing his points. “That is not how Elle sees it.“

“Elle is angry,” Lily said, frowning. “Her emotions are not the Lightbringer's concern.”

“Nice,” Piotr snorted.

Lily gestured to the Shades below. “Look at them and know that I speak the truth. Piotr, for all your protestations, you
know
this in your heart. It is not Wendy's duty to keep the dead and our relationships with one another intact. It is her job to send suffering spirits on—spirits like them, spirits like you, spirits like myself, and yes, even spirits like the Lost or James.”

Startled, Piotr glanced at his old friend, troubled and wary. “You think I suffer?”

Lily's fists relaxed and she smiled sadly. “Yes. We all do, Piotr. If we did not…would we need aid to find the Light we once spurned so thoughtlessly?” She touched him gently on the shoulder. “As once you taught me, I shall now teach you. Hear my words and attend me, Piotr, for your very soul, listen well: the lost souls of children are no longer our duty. The Riders you began are no more. We must spurn the Lost. We have more important goals now. I know that, and so do you. One day Elle will know that as well.”

“One day I'll know what?” Elle's approach through the front doors of the hotel had been soundless and swift. She'd shaped her essence into a flashy red-fringed gown for her meeting upstairs, her bobbed blonde tresses clinging to the sides of her head in elaborate pincurls. Careless of Piotr's presence, Elle hiked up her already short skirt and adjusted her left stocking, rolling it just above her knee and pinning it there.

“That's better,” she said and swished her hips, grinning at the rustling fringe.

“Indeed?” Lily drew away from Piotr and crossed her arms across her chest, still half-clothed in shadows. “How was hunting?”

Elle threw her hands up and spun around. “There's one hell of a rub going on up top.”

“Indeed?” Piotr asked dryly. “Do go on.”

Rolling her eyes, Elle ignored his tone and spoke to Lily instead, nearly gushing with glee. “The band is laying down some smoking licks and every snifter is the real McCoy—Kentucky Mountain Gold!” She giggled and flapped a hand at her face. “I swear, I'm flying off fumes alone!”

“The crowd is indeed thick,” Piotr murmured. “We can hear them from here.”

“It's a real crush,” Elle agreed. “Every spirit up there is overflowin’ with years and I haven't seen so many folks cutting a rug since I was alive.”

“Such revelry seems imprudent. I wonder why they celebrate so,” Lily mused.

Elle shrugged. “Makes sense to me. Everyone's been in hiding since the White Lady claimed this chunk of the city, right? But since the Lightbringer blotted her out even the babbitts want a night out on the town. It's a real dead man's bash up there!”

“If there is so much revelry,” Lily said slowly, “and safety, then the Council is most certainly making no end of profit off these endeavors.”

“The sawbucks are falling like rain,” Elle agreed. “When I had a chance to squeeze past the hoofers and get a word in, I spotted better than two or three hundred thousand in trade piling up behind the bar. Most of it was hard scavenge too, useful stuff like heaters and ice. Bone knives. Even a couple of copper pipes, polished up nice and weighted.” She knocked her knuckles against a temple. “Take a Walker down quick.”

“The Council is collecting guns and weaponry?” Piotr frowned. “Without bullets, what is the point?”

“Who knows? So long as they can't point ’em in our direction, or, more specifically, your direction, who cares?” Elle shrugged and slung a companionable arm around Lily's shoulders. “Anyway, Pocahontas, the big cheeses wanna invite you and Petey-the-grind here upstairs for the ballyhoo. Feel like cutting a rug?”

Lily glanced down at her
manta
and moccasins. “I do not believe I'm attired properly for such a gathering.”

“Horsefeathers!” Elle declared derisively. “Half the crowd is dudded up like they never died; you'll fit right in.”

“If they did indeed set Walkers after me, going upstairs seems the height of imprude—” Piotr began.

“Remind me how I managed to handcuff myself to two wet blankets like you guys, again?” Elle crossed her arms and jerked her chin toward the hotel. “Look, I went up to natter, but no dice; they patted my posterior and sent me back down like a precious little thing. It's mostly an old boys’ club up there. They ain't gonna deal through a third party, Pete, especially not a tomato like me. It's you or nothing, and they went to a whole lotta trouble to see your ugly mug.”

“What of Walkers?” Lily asked.

“Neither hide nor hair,” Elle assured them. “You're more likely to get jumped by some hotsy with a hardon for scars than a Walker, flyboy. So, you comin’ or what?”

“So be it. I shall deal,” Piotr said, straightening.

Elle twirled a finger in a whoop-dee-do gesture. “Ducky. Just remember to watch yourself, and the three of us might just get out of there in one piece.”

Piotr sighed. “Advice noted. I shall be wary and wise, Elle. I am not a complete child.”

“Coulda fooled me,” she said, but gestured for Piotr to lead the way.

“You are savoring every moment of this, aren't you?” Lily asked as they passed through the front doors of the grand old hotel and made their way across the vast, polished entryway toward the stairs.

Grinning, Elle spun again, letting the fringe fly. “Pos-o-lute-ly! I gotta level with you, it's the cat's meow to doll up and ritz it up for a night again.” She played with one of the pincurls pasted to her temple. “I guess I'm just longing for a bit of the good ol’ life. Or just life, period. Same thing, really.”

“That seems counterproductive. We are dead. What is the point of longing for that which we have left behind?”

“Says our resident Mrs. Grundy,” Elle sneered as they passed through the stairway door and began the long climb to the rooftop. “Come on, girl, don't you ever miss hunting the wild plains or…wait, what did you raging redskins do for fun, anyhow? Pardon me for not knowin’ already, but I was a little busy livin’ when I was alive. Didn't have much time for schooling or ancient history.”

Shaking her head, Lily couldn't help but smirk at Elle's ignorance. “Perhaps many of our days were not as frivolous as yours appear to have been, but my people were not dull, Elle. When the crops were in, we had many hours available for enjoyment and sport. I myself enjoyed helping my parents and older sisters craft fetishes and masks for the
Shalako
, and before I passed, I was—how do you say—being courted? Being courted by—”

“
Tiho
! The both of you!” Piotr snapped from the landing above them. He waved a hand at the thin stairs that they stood on, the remnants of the hotel that had stood before a 1906 earthquake had burned it down and forced the living to rebuild. They stood upon the memory of the building that once was. It supported them as easily as if the steps had been solid wood and stone.

“Life is what it was,” he said, calming and apologetic for his outburst. “It is done. We are dead. Does it truly matter now?”

“I know your oh-so-Russian posterior did not just tell us to shut up,” Elle snapped back, taking the stairs two at a time to slap the back of Piotr's head. “I'm trying to do you a favor, you flat tire! Both of us!”

“Elle, please,” Lily soothed, ever the mediator. “I am not offended. Piotr is under much pressure and I know that he means no disrespect.”