Reaped: A Book Bite Read online

  Reaped

  A Book Bite

  H. D. Gordon

  Copyright © 2021 H. D. Gordon

  Published by H. D. Gordon Books

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the author, except for brief quotations in a book review.

  For those

  who wander

  in between.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  The End… For Now

  Moon Burned

  About the Author

  Also by H. D. Gordon

  Review, please ;)

  Wanna come hang out with me?

  1

  12:01 a.m.

  I watch him from the shadows as he draws his final breaths.

  He is alone. No one to witness his last moments, but me.

  After seven years of service, I am used to this.

  I check the hourglass hanging over his head. The tiny grains slip through like liquid.

  “What are you doing here?” says a voice from right beside me.

  I thank the Father that I don’t startle outwardly. I’d hate to encourage the prick.

  Instead, I make a noise in my throat and roll my eyes. My grip adjusts on the scythe in my hand. I lean against it like the weary traveller I am, not a care in all the worlds.

  “I ran out of toilet paper and had to get some to wipe my ass,” I say and shrug. “So I was in the neighborhood.”

  We both look at the man in his bed. His breathing grows more shallow by the second, heartbeat slowing in increments.

  “Liar,” Samael says. “We don’t defecate.”

  In fact, we do not. No need to poop when you’re neither dead nor alive. No need to sleep or eat or drink or fuck or anything, really.

  Except reap.

  “Go away,” I return.

  “You go away.” Samael nods toward the dying male in the bed. “This one is mine. Otherwise I wouldn’t be here.”

  I take a couple steps toward the bed, shedding the shadows. The dying man gasps and turns his head in my direction. He shivers and trembles, though I know he cannot see me.

  Not yet.

  “He’s human,” I say. “Which makes him mine.”

  “He’s half human,” Samael corrects. “Which gives me as much claim as it gives you, child.”

  I’ve only encountered the senior reaper a handful of times, but I know of him well enough. There are only so many of us who cover the Greater Philadelphia area, and his reputation precedes him.

  He is not only a Collector, like me, but also an Enforcer. They say he’s as cold and ruthless as he is handsome and deadly—one of the oldest among us save for the Father himself.

  “You don’t have to recite the rules to me, old timer,” I say, mocking his years of service same as he had mocked my lack thereof. “My training was much more recent than yours. Like, so much more recent. I arrived at the scene first. That makes him mine under the First Come First Reap Act.”

  A sly grin curls up one side of Samael’s mouth. He raises his dark brows. “Are you sure you arrived first?” His head tilts beneath his hood, silky dark hair falling around his shadowed face, similar to the writhing of black snakes. “Are you not afraid of being shredded?”

  Of course I am afraid. I am afraid of him. Everyone is. But he doesn’t need to know that.

  “He’s mine,” I say instead, and if my voice trembles a bit at the end, so be it.

  Samael takes a step toward me, his much larger form casting me back into shadows, the magical blade of his enormous scythe glinting in the low light in the room.

  Enormous black leathery wings arch up over his wide shoulders, a barbed tail flicking lazily behind his back. From the bed, the man whose soul we’ve both come for moans and groans and shivers, as if he can sense the lingering presence of Death.

  I force myself to hold my ground. I raise my chin and set my shoulders, pulling myself up to my full height. The magical metal of my own scythe tingles against my palm and fingers. I hold Samael’s dark gaze. It’s damn intimidating.

  But I’m already damned for eternity, anyway, so what does it matter? Some days, being shredded—having my eternal soul destroyed indefinitely—doesn’t sound so bad.

  Samael stares down at me. He is even bigger this close. He has no scent, and his movements are silent, but there is a feel to him, an aura he exudes that is at once terrifying and captivating. There is no pity behind his depthless gaze.

  My stomach tightens, but my expression remains flat.

  He smirks and steps to the side. Only when the shadow of his form releases me do I feel I can breathe again, though filling my lungs with air is more a habit than a necessity.

  “All right, then,” Samael says, and waves a hand at the bed, where the man has just ceased his struggle. We watch as the final grains slip between the narrow neck of his hourglass. “Collect your soul, child.”

  I wish he’d stop calling me that. We have maybe three seconds before the man’s soul rises from his body, likely confused and possibly blubbering.

  It’s always the men that cry like babies in the end.

  I bite off any remark that might persuade Samael to shred me rather than yield, and grip my scythe a little tighter as the man’s soul detaches from his mortal form.

  I think this must be a trick. Reapers have been known to fight to the Final Death regarding claims over souls. And one of the most vicious reapers in the Between is just going to let me have it?

  Still, my eyes are drawn to the dead man’s non-corporeal form. His name was Henry, and he lived a long life, full of his share of happiness and heartache—all that any mortal could ask for.

  “Hi, Henry,” I say.

  Henry blinks at me, his eyes going to Samael and widening a fraction in alarm. I don’t blame him. His gaze returns to me. Though cut from the same cloth, I appear the less threatening one.

  “What’s going on?” Henry asks.

  “It’s time to go home,” I tell him, my voice taking on a timbre that I suspect might never feel truly my own, no matter how many years I serve. “I’m here to guide you.”

  Beside me, Samael lets out a little snort. I resist the foolish urge to slap him upside the head. We may be reapers, but we don’t have to be assholes. We can ease the journey for the recently departed…or make it terrifying, or anything in between. I choose to ease.

  I both hope and don’t hope this is conveyed in the look I flash him. But the senior reaper’s smile only grows. With the way his hood shadows his features, it looks for a moment like the gruesome grin of a faceless skull—like the Father himself.

  I turn back to Henry.

  Samael’s scythe flashes, cutting through the man before he can even register alarm, dispersing and then gathering his soul in a single swoop.

  Anger surges through me as I watch him collect my bounty. His scythe shines and gleams—a wolf with a full belly.

  The bastard flashes me a final smirk bef
ore blinking out of sight.

  I check my watch and mutter a curse. It reads 12:15 a.m.

  Great. I’m only a quarter of the way through the first hour of my shift, and already in a collection deficit.

  Something tells me this is going to be one hell of a day.

  2

  12:20 a.m.

  I exit the nursing home through the front doors.

  Yes, I could just poof out of there as had Samael, but that kind of magic takes energy, and I have a long shift ahead of me. I need to cool my jets a minute before I continue on.

  Of all the emotions this job has dulled down to nearly nothing since I began, rage is not one of them.

  Even though I technically am one now, I swear, I hate supernatural creatures. The whole lot of them. Of course the bastard stole my soul. Had I expected better of him?

  The night, however, is calm, the sky clear. This stretch of road is quiet, and the low lights of the parking lot provide dim illumination. Sprinklers come to life and flick moisture over the tulips and manicured lawn. This little pocket of the world sleeps.

  Of all the things I miss about being mortal, you might not think sleep is one of them, but it is. I miss it the same way I miss my mortal body. The same way I miss food and drinks and sex.

  A dark shape swoops down from a nearby tree, the sound of flapping wings reaching me moments before a familiar weight lands and settles on my right shoulder.

  Vladimir, the enormous black crow, who is pretty much my only companion, snaps his beak and ruffles his feathers before speaking.

  “Where’s the bounty?” he asks, dark head cocking. His voice is a croak but also a whisper.

  I make a noise in my throat.

  Vlad’s head swivels and flicks and snaps as he checks our surroundings. “Who was here?” he asks with a nervousness only the avian seem able to adopt. “Who claimed it?”

  I begin striding toward my bike, which gleams black and chrome in the low lights of the building. The bike comes to life with my approach, engine growling, though no mortal can hear it as sure as only the dying can see me.

  Swinging my leg over the beast, I rev the engine again before answering. This ruffles Vlad’s feathers once more.

  “Samael,” I say.

  For once, the bird is silent. I give him a crooked grin that I see reflected in his beady black eyes.

  “But the bounty was mortal,” he croaks at last.

  “Half,” I correct with a sigh.

  The bird takes off into the air, stirring my hair as he goes. “Better get on with it, then,” he squawks down at me from the skies, where he circles over my head. “Shift just started and you’re already behind.”

  I flip him the bird, grinning at my own cleverness, and head off into the night, looking for the next soul.

  I don’t bother with a helmet.

  No need when you’re already dead.

  I stand at the intersection of Broad and Walnut in Center City, Philadelphia. The tall corporate buildings with their glass faces, and the storefronts of various chain businesses line either side of the four-lane street.

  The streetlight flips from red to green. The one waiting car, a red Volkswagen Beetle, starts forward, driver wholly unaware of what’s coming next.

  I lean on my scythe. Vlad perches silently on my right shoulder. I hold my breath as a delivery truck barrels toward the Beetle from the opposite direction.

  Tires screech and skid, but too late. The truck slams into the driver’s side of the bug at somewhere around sixty miles an hour. The sound of collision is magnificent—breaking glass and crumpling metal. Shrapnel explodes in a fountain of glass, like raindrops in reverse. The vehicles slide and skid and then stop.

  A haunting silence falls. Overhead, the light switches from green to red.

  “What…?”

  I turn to the soul standing beside me—the driver of the red Beetle.

  “He’s drunk,” I say. “Blew the light. Not your fault.”

  “Not my…” She trails off. Looking at the accident and then back to me. Taking in my all black attire, the scythe in my hand, and the crow on my shoulder.

  “Are you… Death?” she asks.

  Since the Big Reveal, the mortal world has become aware of the presence of supernaturals, and this question is a lot more frequent than it used to be just a couple months ago. Of all the crazy shit I’d witnessed as a reaper over the last seven years, the human reaction to the revelation that supernaturals live alongside them was not the least among them.

  I’d learned people could be cruel and greedy and prone to panic, especially in this hyper-connected world. But I’d also learned they could be equally kind and selfless and good-hearted.

  It always comes back to balance. Balance is the key to it all.

  But, sometimes, that shit is easier said than done.

  “I am a servant of Father Time,” I tell her. “I’m here to escort you, Julia.”

  Julia stares at me blankly for a moment, then alarm registers on her face. Thanks to the buttwipe who stole my first reap this morning, I don’t have time to console. I swing my scythe in a single swift motion, reaping her soul before she can finish her thought.

  Vladimir lets out a small squawk where he perches on my shoulder. I let out a breath.

  Two souls down.

  Infinity more to go.

  I ride from site to site, collecting my bounty.

  I swing my scythe. I reap and reap and reap.

  It is the same thing I did the day before, and the day before that. The same thing I will do every day for the rest of eternity.

  Is it really any wonder the older reapers are such assholes?

  Am I only a few decades away from being like Samael; Cold and heartless, a shell of a soul?

  I swing my scythe again, this time taking the soul of a baby from its crib.

  The babe is my tenth soul for the night, and all I feel as I collect her is relief.

  Perhaps I already am what I fear most to be.

  3

  1:00 p.m.

  The sun shines, but I have no flesh with which to feel it.

  I sit in it, anyway, as if I can trick my mind into believing it’s real. And I guess it is real, just not for me.

  Franklin D. Roosevelt Park buzzes around me. People walk their dogs and ride their bikes. Joggers breeze by with headphones plugged into their ears. Parents push strollers and gab while their older children chase each other across the expanse of green lawn.

  Vlad perches silently on a nearby lamppost, overlooking the paved path. The bench I sit on is otherwise unoccupied, but nearby, a couple is having a picnic and soaking in the sunshine the same way in which I’m pretending.

  They do not know how lucky they are.

  I shut that thought off. There is no place for it.

  “This is what you do with your free time?”

  I startle, jumping visibly. Samael sits beside me on the bench, his appearance at complete odds with the surroundings. His black wings are tucked behind his back, his barbed tail curled beside him.

  For the first time, his hood is off, pooled over his wide shoulders. His dark hair falls in shiny waves around his face, the features devastatingly visible.

  He is beautiful in a way that is wholly inhuman, his eyes as dark as the abyss of time and space. He sits utterly still, though I can sense the power that coils just beneath the surface. I can sense the dark void that is his soul.

  I know his story. Even reapers whisper.

  The short of it is, he was an archangel, and then he fell. And there is no further fall than becoming a reaper. I should know.

  “What do you want?” I ask, because I realize I am staring in the way I hate. The way I’d watched mortals stare at supernaturals since the Big Reveal, dumb and doe-eyed.

  Samael stretches out on the bench beside me and lets out a sigh. “Just resting my feet,” he answers, which is not an answer at all. He waves a hand around us. “Mortals,” he adds with obvious distaste.

&nb
sp; I was a human before I became a reaper, which I’m sure he knows.

  “Supernaturals,” I reply with equal disgust and a chin jerk toward him.

  This makes Samael grin, and it is as captivating as it is terrifying.

  I hate him.

  “Are you not afraid of me, child?” he asks.

  “Stop calling me that.”

  “Anyone south of a century is a child… So?”

  “Of course I’m afraid,” I snap. “Is that what you followed me here to find out? Because I have to say, there are far better uses for your time.”

  “All I have is time,” the senior reaper says as he looks out over the park, eyes catching on a spot of which I am hyperaware.

  What’s left of the heart in my chest stutters.

  I follow his gaze, though I know where it falls.

  “Better uses than stalking a mortal as she goes about her days?” he asks.

  I stiffen, anger now warring equally with my fear. “I’m not stalking her,” I snap.

  “No? What do you call it?”

  I search for a verb that doesn’t sound creepy and come up blank. This only makes me more angry.

  “I’m just watching over her,” I say between gritted teeth.

  Samael’s head tilts, the ghost of a smirk playing along his lips. The expression is as annoying as it is beautiful. “Watching over her. I did not realize that was something reapers do.”

  “I’m not breaking any rules. I’m not interfering, and this is my free time. I can do with it what I want.”