Ember X (29 page)

“Ember,” Garrick’s voice suddenly touches my ear. “Don’t breathe.”

I take off down the hall without looking back, my legs struggling as I tear around the corner. His footsteps barrel after me and his laugh echoes down the hall.

“Ember,” he calls out. “Come out, come out wherever you are.”

As I tear around a sharp corner, I trip over something heavy and solid and losing my balance, my body slams to the floor. I rapidly flip over to my back and glance at what made me fall.

“Oh shit…” It’s a person, face down on the floor. I crawl over to them and turn them on their back.

Laden’s dead eyes stare at me, his pale decomposing skin ice-cold, and the
X
on him is an older wound. He’s been dead for a while. I think back to my tree with his body hanging in it, and the one I saw in the library. Is this even real?

Garrick’s voice drifts down the hall. “It’s hard to tell, isn’t it? What’s real and what’s not. Tell me Ember, does it ever feel like you’re losing your mind?”

I leap to my feet, jump over Laden, and sprint madly down the hall, sweat dripping down my skin. The side entrance door finally comes into view and I reach for the door handle, but something hits me from the side and I slam to the ground as a hay bale lands on top of me. My head cracks against the tile and the sounds of my bones fracturing are stomach-churning.

Garrick crouches down in front of me. “Ever heard the term ‘Don’t Fear the Reaper’? Well, it’s a little misleading.” He pulls the hood of a cloak over his head. “Because everyone fears death, Ember. Even Death itself.” He pulls out a knife and cuts an
X
across my forehead, and then everything goes black.

I open my eyes to the shimmering pieces of stars and a pale crescent moon. I attempt to roll onto my stomach, but a rope detains each of my wrists to a tree and my legs are tied to each other. Out of the corner of my eyes, a fire blazes and feathers and rose petals halo around my head. The wings are still secured to my back, but are bent to conform to the pressure of my body.

“Hello,” I call out. “Is anyone here?”

A woman with a sharp pointy nose and blonde hair appears in my line of vision. “Hello, Ember. It’s so nice of you to join us.”

My eyes narrow at her. “Detective Crammer.”

“Feel like you’re going crazy yet?” The firelight glows in her blue eyes and shadows the area underneath her defined cheekbones, so she looks almost skeletal. “Like you don’t know what’s real?”

“So you’re part of the Anamotti,” I say, winding the rope around my wrist to gain more control. “Or are you a Grim Reaper?”

Her thin lips nearly vanish as she smiles and retrieves a small, silver-handled knife from the pocket of her jacket. She puts the tip of it to my forehead, piercing it into my skin and a warm river of blood cascades down my forehead and eyes. “The Anamotti and the Reapers are one and the same. The Anamotti is just what we go by in the human world to help us stay undetected.” She gestures around her and a group of people step out of the trees. “All of us are Reapers here. Even you.” She smirks. “Partly anyway.”

All of them wear black cloaks, but the hoods are off, showing me their human form. Most of them are unfamiliar, but I recognize Garrick, who mockingly waves at me and winks.

And the sight of a pink-haired girl bruises my heart. “Raven.”

She dreamily grins at me and her sapphire eyes are dazed, like she’s drunk. “I’m so sorry, Em. I didn’t mean to do it. I just couldn’t seem to help myself.”

Madness pricks at my brain as I tug on the ropes until my wrists rupture open and blood pours out all over my hands, the rope, and the dirt.

“Oh, relax for Christ’s sake.” Detective Crammer draws the knife down my cheek and splits open my face. “She’s under the spell of the Reaper because, unlike you, she’s human and can be possessed by him.”

Raven steps forward from the crowd, but Beth thrusts out her hand, shoving her back. “Stay back, you little trollop. You are still to obey my orders.”

Raven blinks and descends back toward the crowd. “I’m so sorry.”

“Raven,” I beg, trying to make eye contact with her. “Don’t listen to her. Run away! Now!”

“It’s pointless to try to get through to her.” Detective Crammer says, lowering her arm. “The power of the Reaper is more powerful than anything, which you’ll soon learn after we get rid of you.”

I raise my chin up and look her in the eye. “You know I can’t die, right? So whatever you have planned for me won’t work.”

She pats the handle of the knife against her palm as she circles around me. “Oh yes, the beauty of being able to suck the life away from the living. It makes it harder to get rid of you, but not impossible.” She cackles, throwing her head back and some of the other Reapers join in. “It also makes you more prone to insanity and more likely to surrender to the Reaper blood, just like your father did.”

“What do you know about my father?!” Craning my arms, I try to get the trees to break with my strength.

“You don’t have super strength.” She rolls her eyes and crouches down in my face. “In fact, you’re fairly close to an ordinary girl, only you’re connected with every aspect of death. It’s not really a gift, so much as a curse. In fact, if I were you, I’d let me put you out of your misery. All you would have to do is surrender to the Reaper and he would take away the pain of death.”

I could stop fighting; erase the pain, taking away death, rupturing the chains that have sentenced me to a life of solitude? All that silence I feel with Asher and Cameron could exist all the time? It’s enticing, yet it’s not, because it would still be death, only in a more powerful form.

“No, I won’t do it,” I say in an even voice.

“Fine, then. I guess, for the moment, you’ll let your Angel blood make your decisions. But I warn you, you’ll give in.” She snaps her fingers and Garrick shoves Raven forward. She trips over her bare feet and falls to her knees at the side of me. Her wings are broken, her dress is torn and stained with dirt, and there’s no life in her eyes. “If you are not willing to surrender, I’ll force you to.” Detective Crammer walks up behind Raven and aims the knife at her throat. She gently cuts a thin layer of skin away and blood trickles out, running down the front of Raven’s dress.

Raven winces, but doesn’t cry out.

“Wait,” I beg. “Don’t hurt her.”

“There’s only one way out of this.” She makes another slim puncture on Raven’s neck.

Death or life. Death or life. What’s the difference? “I’ll do whatever you want me to. Just let her go.”

She carves another small incision along Raven’s neck and the other Reapers cackle, pulling their hoods over their heads and shielding their faces.

“Oh, I don’t want anything from you,” she says. “I’m just going to torture her and then you, until you lose your mind and give into your Reaper blood.”

I thrash my body and jerk on the ropes as hard as I can. “Leave her alone!” I close my palms and attempt to slide my hands through the rope. The rough material claws at my skin, rubbing it raw, but I refuse to give up—give in.

Detective Crammer snickers as she hacks off a small lock of Raven’s pink hair with the knife. “Do you know how fun it was to torture you? Kill you time and time again. Make you think you were losing your mind. You have a bendable mind and so do the people closest to you. Most of them are insane—do you know that? And do you want to know why?”

“Because of the pain of my existence,” I say.

“No, but it’s close,” she replies, wiping the blade of the knife on the front of her cloak. “Insanity is a very contagious thing; it’s easy to get caught up in it. Those who are close to a Grim Angel start experiencing what they go through and it wears them down, driving them insane themselves. Plus, they are susceptible to the Reaper’s torture.”

Raven gags on her own blood as she clutches at her throat. “Ember, help me.”

Detective Crammer grabs a handful of Raven’s hair and moves the knife to Raven’s hairline, like she’s going to scalp her. My whole body trembles as the Reapers close in around me and their eyes begin to glow.

“Just give in, Ember” the detective says, dipping the knife down beneath Raven’s scalp. “And everything—all of it will be gone.”

I stare up at the night sky, thinking about my life. Would everything be better if I was gone? If I just gave up? Died? Maybe. Maybe I would stop taking life from things. Maybe the world would be a better place without my knowledge of death.

I watch as a black figure swoops down from the sky and I figure it’s more Reapers coming to take me away. But black feathers fall from Heaven and dust the air with a peaceful feeling.

The creature moves inhumanly fast, just a blur as it clips the ropes on my wrists with its hand and turns me loose. Then it rounds back, swipes up Detective Crammer by the shoulders, and carries her into the sky. Her painful scream echoes and Reapers push up from the ground, springing to the air, and fly into the sky.

“Passionate when in battle,” I mutter and quickly sit up and untie my legs. Then I rush over to Raven, lying face down in the dirt, and gently roll her onto her back. Her eyes are shut and the blood flows out from the open wounds on her neck. “Rav, can you hear me?”

She sucks in a breath and her eyes shoot open. “Oh my God, I think I…”

Tucking my arm underneath hers, I aid her to her feet. “Come on, we have to go before they come back for us.”

“Too late,” Garrick says, landing just in front of us. His voice is human, but below the hood is a skeletal figure; sharp cheek bones, empty eyes, a soulless heart. “Ember, there’s no use trying. We always win this every time. You wanna know why?”

Raven leans her weight on me, her eyes shutting as I inch us back toward the forest. “Because you mess with the Grim Angel’s head until they crack. You don’t give up.”

He matches my steps toward the forest, his cape like a train on the ground behind him. “Because evil is the one that plays dirty—we are the ones who break the rules.” His arms lift to the side of him and he’s holding the knife. “Therefore, evil always triumphs.”

“Go into the trees,” I whisper in Raven’s ear, nudging her forward. “Now.”

She blinks at me, half there, half gone. “I’m not leaving you… They want to kill you.”

“No, they want to make me one of them,” I say. “They can’t kill me.”

Reluctantly, she slips out from the support of my arm and hobbles into the shadows of the trees, free from the Reaper’s power.

Emptiness chokes up my throat as I march for Garrick with my hands out to the side. “Go ahead, kill me.”

He grins and the fire crackles wildly behind him. “You know I can’t do that. But I can hurt you.” Without zero hesitation from either one of us, he stabs the knife into my throat, severing my skin and my veins. Blood gurgles out and I clamp my hand over the wound as the soothing murmur of the trees and the flowers sprouting from the dirt instantly connect with me and stitches up my skin.

Garrick lets out a slow whistle as he wipes the blood of the blade with his cloak. “That was faster than it should be… No, you couldn’t be… could you…”

While he’s ranting to himself, I take the opportunity to ram my knee into his gut, and then I whirl around and slam my elbow into his face. The contact of bone to bone deadens my elbow, so, using my other fist, I punch him in the nose. A bar fight tactic and it works. Garrick goes down like a sack of potatoes.

Whirling away from him, I race for the forest, but he scurries forward on his belly and his fingers wrap around my ankle, jerking me down on my face. I smash the heel of my boot into his face, but he just laughs.

“You can’t kill death eternally.” His voice is sharp and blood streams down his face. “It was highly entertaining though, watching you try to sift through my thousands of deaths.” I kick him again, but he only laughs harder. “You know, you have a lot more power than you think, you just have no idea how to use it.”

I claw at the ground as his hands move up my leg like a tight rope, while a raven lands in front of me. Then he stabs the knife in my calf and grabs me by the hair, rising to his feet, and pulling me up with him. Pain shoots up my leg as blood gushes down it.

“Help me, please,” I whisper to the bird. “Please…”

It hops from side to side, like it is thinking.

“Please, bird. I have a feeling you can hear me,” I whisper, limping to keep my balance.

I’m about to give up when Garrick’s hands suddenly leave me and the sound of flapping wings sends the raven diving for the woods. Without hesitation, I sprint into the dark forest.

“Raven,” I hiss, searching behind trees and near bushes as I hike deeper into the forest. The stars flicker between the cracks of the branches over my head and I can hear shouts and screams in the distance.

“Raven,” I dare call out as twigs crunch beneath my shoes. “Where are you? It’s me, it’s Ember.”

I keep walking, knowing where I’m going, but worried Raven doesn’t. “Please answer me. I promise no one’s going to hurt you anymore.”

By the time I step into the cemetery, I’m worried she might be lost in the trees. I need a phone and some help so I head quickly for the iron-rod gates. As usual, the cemetery is quiet with death. The trees cast shadows all over the ground and the fence blocks out most of the street lights. My wings are ripped and my skin is soaked with blood and I have a limp to my walk.