The Reaping of Norah Bentley (16 page)

I brought my gaze back to his face. “You’re not looking for the bus stop, are you?” I breathed.

“No,” he said. “No…I was looking for something else. And I don’t need a bus to take me where I want to go.”

“…You were looking for me.”

“Not so much looking as waiting,” he said easily. “It’s been a rather long, annoying day, waiting for you to be alone like this. And I’m a patient sort of fellow, Norah, but I think it’s about time we chatted.”

There—he’d said it again. I wasn’t imagining it the first time.

“How do you know my name?” I took a step back, my legs bending just slightly, preparing to run. “Who are you?”

“You can call me Samael, if you need a name.” His smile faded. “And I wouldn’t run from me, if I were you.”

“Well you’re not me,” I muttered, taking a few steps back. He moved to close the space, but I’d already started to turn, and in my next step I broke into a sprint.

I didn’t hear him following me at first. All I heard was the sound of my Chucks slapping the pavement, all I felt were the vibrations from my steps coursing up through my legs and into my chest. The worse the breaths burned in my throat, the more I started to think, to wonder if he hadn’t just been a figment of my imagination. Another ghost, another omen of some other kind. The thought was both relieving and absolutely terrifying at the same time.

Two blocks later he still wasn’t behind me, but I couldn’t bring myself to stop running. I didn’t even know where I was running. I’d already started to drift subconsciously back the way I’d come, though; Bryant Street was up ahead, and if I cut through there it would be a straight shot to back to Rachel’s.

I turned down the side street, and it was like I’d gone instantly blind. The streetlight’s glow didn’t reach back here, not over the tall brick buildings on either side of me, and my eyes didn’t adjust to the sudden darkness quick enough; I hit something—a pile of cardboard boxes, it sounded like—and they crashed around me as I stumbled and fell, my tired legs unable to keep my balance. I smacked the ground hard, scraped the side of my face against the rough concrete. I heard the sound of shattering glass echoing down through the street. It was several seconds before I was even aware of the sharp pain in my knee, or the warmth of my own blood, and its stickiness against the inside of my jeans.

I couldn’t stay focused on any of that, though; I felt flashes of pain, but the most important thought was of moving again— of get up,
get up
. And then I was crawling, scrambling to my feet, reaching in the darkness for something to grab onto. To pull me up and steady my shaking legs.

I was way too slow.

He was suddenly there—not a figment of my imagination but a solid, powerful man who jerked me roughly to my feet, as easily as if I’d been an illusion myself. Like I was empty, weightless air that he had no trouble slamming with one hand against the brick wall beside us. He took his other hand and clamped it over my mouth.

Once it was clear to both of us that I could hardly move—much less try to run again— he relaxed a little, shaking his head at me. He didn’t take his hand off my mouth.

“I told you not to run,” he said. He took his free hand and tapped it to the side of my scratched face, each of his fingertips like a hot needle pressing into the swollen skin. I closed my eyes and bit back a curse. I thought about kicking him—my right leg was free enough to get a decent shot at his knee—but I didn’t like the thought of him getting any angrier.

“That could have been avoided,” he said. “If you would have just listened. Let’s say we give it another try? I’ll take my hand of your mouth, and then we’ll talk. All civilized like. Think you can handle that?”

I nodded. What else was I supposed to do?

“Good. So you’re not going to scream?”

I shook my head.

“Smart girl.”

He pulled his hand away, and I took what felt like the first full breath of air I’d ever had. I stood there quietly, drinking the air in gulps and waiting for him to speak, not daring to speak myself. I didn’t dare move away from the brick wall, either, even though its rough face was picking at the threads of my jacket and scraping the bare skin along my wrists.

“I
am
sorry about that.” He took a step back but kept his eyes on my face. “It looks like it’s going to leave a nasty scar,” he said. He hesitated, then with a smug smile he added, “You can pass my message along to Eli more effectively this way, though. Let him know this is what happens when you don’t listen to me: you get hurt. Maybe that boy will get it through his thick skull, then.”

I coughed a little, trying to clear my throat enough to speak.

“You know Eli?” The terror in my chest doubled. What did Eli have to do with this? Was he okay?

Sam laughed, backed up a few more steps and then paced a few more, back and forth, back and forth along the dark street. He moved with the same silence in his step that Eli did; so quiet that I would have lost track of him if my eyes hadn’t at least somewhat adjusted to the darkness. Even then he was hard to see; was little more than quick flashes of movement in the shadows until he moved closer to the end of the road, to the well-lit sidewalks of Westminster. He stared out at them for a long moment before turning his attention back to me.

“I
own
Eli,” he half-said, half-growled. “In a manner of speaking. Though here lately you couldn’t tell, since half the time he’s doing whatever the hell he pleases.”

“What do you mean, you own him?”

“Hypothetically speaking, the boy is supposed to be working for me. He’s my apprentice, my charge—ultimately my responsibility.”

“So… you’re one of him, then? You’re a grim reaper.”

He frowned, shook his head.

“Then what…?”

“I didn’t come here to answer all your questions, girl,” he said, taking a step back toward me. I automatically shrunk back against the wall. “And I can tell Eli’s already told you too much—more than any human should ever know.”

“I’m not exactly a normal human, I mean I—”

“You think I don’t know that?” he said. “Why else would I be here?” He was moving closer again, impatient, and the moonlight hit his eyes just right and lit them up for a second; they were wild, unblinking—like the eyes of a dog that’d been backed into a corner and decided it was going to have to fight, bite whoever it had to so it could get out. I was starting to feel the same way.

“I…I don’t know,” I said. “I don’t understand why you came after
me
, if Eli’s the one who…”

“I’m here to give you fair warning.” He leaned in, brought his face just inches from mine, braced his arms against the wall with a fist on either side of my head. “Stay away from him,” he said.

“What?”

“You stay away from him, quit encouraging him. He forgets about you, ends your life the way he was supposed to, and I don’t have to banish his soul to Purgatory for not doing his job. Everybody wins.”

“Banish him…?” The words choked their way out of my mouth.

“He didn’t tell you that part, I take it?”

“He said he didn’t know what would happen if he...if...”

“Well he lied. He knows better than anybody that this isn’t just about you. This is about the universe, the laws that govern it—the way things are supposed to be. People live and die every day, and there’s a reason behind it all, a system. When that system gets messed with, somebody has to pay for it.”

He watched me for a second, like he was giving me a chance to speak; but I couldn’t do anything but stare blankly at him, so he went on,

“I can’t kill you. I’m guessing Eli told you that much?”

I nodded slowly.

“And it’s true. It’s not my place to kill you—but I can make your life a living hell, just so you know. The omens that have been keeping you company are only the beginning.”

“That was you?”

He touched a finger lightly to the side of my face again, ran it down along the scratches on it. “Stay away from him. Or I’ll have you begging for death before it’s over with.” He shoved away from the wall. “I’ll be in touch,” he said. And then he turned and walked away.

Or at least, I assume he did. I saw him turn, but I didn’t hear his footsteps, and I could only stare straight out in front of me, since moving my head suddenly seemed like it would take entirely too much effort. I didn’t need to see, anyway. I didn’t care if he was still here or not.

I collapsed down along the wall, more or less indifferent now to the jagged bricks catching at my jacket and unraveling it, or to how cold the ground was. To the piece of glass I think I might have sat on. There was only one thing I could think about:

His soul or my life.

Him or me. Me or him. We couldn’t both be here. I could call Luke, tell him that what Eli was to me didn’t matter anymore. We couldn’t be together anyway.

It wasn’t fair. It already wasn’t fair that I was sixteen and staring death in the face. And now, the one thing I could count on to bring me any sort of comfort in all this was being ripped away—just like that. What the hell had I done to deserve this?

I’m not sure how long I sat there. Time seemed irrelevant, maybe the most unimportant thing in the world just then. It was always the same time for me, anyway. It was always 6:13 for me. It always would be. I still saw the sunrise, and I knew the moon was moving across the sky even as I sat there. But they weren’t rising and falling and marking the days for me anymore. They were just doing what they were supposed to do, what they would always do whether I was there or not. They had it so easy.

As for me? I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to do. But I knew what I couldn’t do. I didn’t care what Sam had said—I couldn’t stay away from Eli. Not tonight, anyway. Tonight I needed to see him—I had to see him, even if it was just one more time.

So somehow, I found the strength to get back on my feet and started to walk.

The wind picked up while I was walking, carrying with it the scent of promised rain. Clouds were stretching across the moon, stealing away the bluish white glow from the houses and buildings and casting shadows over them instead.

I moved with a determination that hadn’t been there earlier tonight, when I’d taken these same steps—even though then I hadn’t had to deal with the pain, the throb that shot through my knee every time my foot hit the sidewalk. I might have been immortal, but I wasn’t invincible; and by the time I made it to the park my whole leg hurt like hell.

But I did make it. And just like I was hoping he would be, Eli was standing there, waiting for me. His arms were folded across his chest, and he was leaning against a giant oak tree bathed in silvery moonlight. His eyes were half-shut, and he didn’t turn toward me until I was about ten feet away. When he did notice me, he took one look at my face and then he was running, shaking his head and asking me, “What happened to you? What the
hell?”

He tried to intercept my path, but I couldn’t stop walking; the moment I started to slow down, I could feel my tired muscles tightening at the loss of momentum. So he had to join me mid-stride instead, and I turned to him as we walked and told him,

“So, I met your friend Sam.”

“Sam?” Eli had been putting my arm around him, trying to steady my weight against his shoulders as we walked. But at the mention of Sam’s name he stopped; just held us both still for a second so he could look me in the eyes. “Sam was here? On earth?”

“Yeah.” I stretched my hurt leg and started walking again, stumbling a little with the stiffness that had already settled in it. “I think I need to sit down,” I said.

“Here,” he said, catching up with me. “Let me carry you?” Any other day I probably would have protested—although I don’t think it would have made much difference, since before he’d even finished asking the question, he’d already swept me off my feet, cradled me against his chest and started into the park. He carried me to where we’d been last night and set me down on the bench. Dead leaves littered it now, and they crunched underneath me as I used both hands to pick up my leg and stretch it out beside me.

“Sam did that to you?” Eli asked quietly. I could tell he was fighting, trying to control the anger in his voice.

“Not exactly,” I said. “I managed to trip all by myself. But I was trying to get away from him.”

He was working as we talked, down on one knee beside the fountain with the water in its center still just barely bubbling above the surface. He’d taken his sweatshirt off, leaving him in nothing but jeans and a white t-shirt. His face was flushed with more color than I’d ever seen in it, either from the cold or from his anger; maybe both. He took the sleeves of the grey sweatshirt and soaked them to damp black in the fountain, then wrung them out. When the steady stream of water from them slowed into a steady
drip drip drip,
he came back and started dabbing around the cut on my knee.

“This looks like it might need stitches,” he said, after he’d cleaned away most of the dried blood. “We need to get it wrapped up soon, at the least. So it doesn’t get infected.” He was talking more to himself than me, but in an attempt to lighten the mood I gave him a weak smile and said,