Graveyard Shift (10 page)

Coreen and Kevin were already waiting beside the Sabotage tour bus when we crossed the street. Our catch climbed inside, and the vehicle roared to life.

Coreen lifted her chin, ready to bark orders at us. “We’ll do this in two teams. Kevin and I will go first. We’ll wait at the next intersection. When the bus makes it through, you two jump ahead to the intersection after us. We’ll do that until the accident happens. Ready?”

“Ready,” I answered as the bus pulled away.

Coreen grabbed Kevin’s hand. They rolled their coins and disappeared. Josie gave me a worried look. The end of her bow peeked out from under her sleeve. She was ready for anything. Then it dawned on me. She had been promoted because Grim knew she was the only reaper I trusted. Coreen was with us because she was the only reaper Grim trusted. Kevin was simply stuck in this mess by default, since he was Coreen’s apprentice. I was starting to see how much this assignment actually revolved around me, and I wasn’t happy about it.

“Our turn,” Josie said, pulling me out of my daze.

The bus had made it past the intersection, and Coreen stared from the corner, waiting for us to move. We rolled our coins and appeared at the next light as the bus screeched to a halt. Coreen and Kevin jumped ahead of us to the next corner.

Up ahead, beyond two more lights, stretched the Bay Bridge over the San Francisco Bay. The band’s rehearsal location was in the opposite direction.

I swore under my breath and nudged Josie. “Let’s get up there with Coreen and Kevin. I think there’s been a change of plans.”

Josie nodded and we rolled our coins again. When we appeared next to Coreen, Josie had her bow in one hand and an arrow in the other.

Coreen glared at the bridge. “They’re going in the wrong direction.”

“No kidding.” I pulled my scythe out from under my robe. If Josie was on edge, I was on edge. I didn’t see anything out of the ordinary, but it never hurt to be pr
epared. “Let’s just keep going like we are, stopping a short distance ahead of each other until we get across.”

“Of course,” Coreen snapped.

I forgot she was the one in charge of barking orders. I’d never worked with a team before, so sue me. The light turned green and the bus pulled ahead. Coreen fumbled with her coin and vanished. Kevin followed. We passed the next two lights, and sure enough, the bus was heading for the bridge.

The October breeze slapped over the bay water and sent random gusts of bone-chilling wind in my face, su
mming up the last week of my life. I hadn’t helped track down a still-living soul since my apprentice days with Saul. This sort of work normally required a dozen more classes that I had no intentions of taking. I was starting to see why.

Coreen and Kevin went out over the water first. They stood alert on the narrow ledge, the rush of passing cars and trucks pulling at their robes. Kevin
gripped the beam behind him like a lifeline, rendering his knuckles an even paler shade of white. Something told me this wasn’t how he had imagined his first day on the job.

I rolled my coin
again, but by the time Josie and I made it onto the bridge, the bus was gone, and so was Kevin.

“Lana! Move!” Josie cried as she loosed an arrow over my head.

I dropped and swung my scythe behind me. A dog-faced demon hissed. It was bigger than the ones I had seen with Caim. Lumpy, amber skin just barely held its form. Black eyes burned at me as it licked over the nub where I had severed one of its limbs. Josie strung two arrows at once and sunk them into the beast’s skull. It yelped and then vanished in a cloud of yellow smoke, reeking of sulfur.

“Where’s Kevin?” I shouted over the roar of p
assing cars and screeching brakes. Josie was already running in the direction we had last seen our teammates.

A mangled piece of railing
hung off the side of the bridge. Traffic slowed as the curious humans tried to catch a glimpse of the chaos. I glanced over the edge and found the bus. Coreen appeared over the bubbling mess as she swan dived into the San Francisco Bay. I took off after Josie.

“How many were on that bus?”

“I don’t know! You saw the album cover. How many people are in his band?” she shouted back at me.

“Five, with a driver, that makes six. We can handle six souls.”

“And two more demons?” she quaked.

I grit
ted my teeth. Two more of the nasty creatures waited ahead, near the skid marks the bus had left on the bridge. The marks were too dark and obvious. The demons had pushed the bus over. How the hell had they known where we were going to be?

“Go help Coreen and Kevin! I’ll take care of them.” Josie fired another arrow through the nearest demon’s eye. Pus exploded from the gaping wound. The beast wailed and clawed at its face before Josie darted it through the skull. Another cloud of murky smoke rose in its place. The second demon was quicker. It rolled away from her and scrambled behind a semi. Josie pounced onto the hood of a car and hu
rried after it.

The sound of traffic crunched in my ears. Angry horns blared as cars and trucks slowed around the charred bridge and missing chunk of railing. Humans may fear death, but they never p
ass up an opportunity to gawk at it.  

I leaned over the wrecked ledge and caught a glimpse of the bus before it disappeared entirely. Kevin and Coreen’s robes laid abandoned on the crumbling bridge. I yanked mine over my head and tossed it next to theirs. It was no good to me in the water.
I grasped my scythe in both hands and jumped.

The momentum of the fall pulled me under the icy water, and I found the bus, still bubbling as the remaining air inside tried to escape. I latched onto an open window and pulled myself around to the door.

Inside, Coreen and Kevin cut away the passengers’ seatbelts. Coreen jerked around and then relaxed when she saw it was only me. Kevin’s mop of curls floated around his face, rendered weightless in the dark water. He struggled with a dagger, trying to free the last man. I slipped the blade of my scythe under the buckle and tore it loose from the seat. He gave me a relieved smile, but only a brief one. Air bubbles leaked from the corners of his mouth and he pinched his lips shut again. He grabbed two of the men under their arms and heaved them out the door.

There were only five
. One of the band mates must have been driving. Coreen grabbed the next two and left the drummer for me. He was unconscious. The others had a chance of making it out alive, and I hoped they did. We had enough problems. We didn’t need four additional souls to tend to.

Mickey, our catch, was slowly drowning in my arms. This wasn’t how he was meant to go, but I wasn’t about to go to the trouble of saving him just so he could die an hour later. That’s as far as destiny would take him. I was just saving him the extra trauma.

His soul glowed as I pulled it free from his body, and his eyes flashed open in surprise. I pulled him close and wrapped an arm around his waist to keep him from turning back and seeing his body. The shock is too much for some souls. I pulled him out the door and swam towards the ascending bubbles, fleeing for the surface.

“There she is!” Coreen gasped as we emerged. “Grab our robes!”

Josie stood on the edge of the bridge. Her whole body slumped with relief. She threw the pile of robes over her shoulder before digging out her coin. Several men in a small motorboat were pulling the other band members out of the water. Mickey called out to them, but no one responded.

“Let’s get out of here,” Coreen shouted.

I jammed my free hand into the pocket of my leather pants and rolled my coin, anxious to leave the catastrophe behind.

Chapter 12

“A friendly study of the world’s religions is a sacred duty.”

-Mahatma Gandhi

“Well, you can see his soul now. What do you think?” Coreen rubbed a towel over her head. Her perfectly oiled curls were a chaotic mess. It made me smile.

We were back at Grim’s conference table, drying ourselves with a heap of towels, courtesy of Ellen. Our timid catch sat in a chair next to me with a towel wrapped around his head like a turban. 

“He’s a soul like any other. What exactly am I su
pposed to be looking for here?” I shivered and reached for another towel.

The whole situation was ridiculous. After that disa
strous encounter, the least she could do was tell us the truth.

“I don’t know, something,” she said. “You would think after all that trouble he wouldn’t be just an ordinary soul.”

She stood and leaned over the table to get a closer look at Mickey. He moved closer to me, probably because I had been the one who pulled him out of the bus. I wondered if he would have felt so safe had he known I merely pulled his soul from the wreckage and left his body behind.

“I’m not ordinary,” he snapped at Coreen. “My band is on the rise, and our show sold out for tonight!”

“Well, if your band doesn’t find another drummer, there won’t be a show.” Coreen laughed at him.

Shock and disgust creased Kevin’s face
, like he had just caught his favorite rock star in an alley with an underage hooker. The first hint of defiance wove into his expression as he sympathetically watched our catch.

“What do
you want with me?” Mickey shrieked.

“Just your soul.” Coreen gave him a vulturous smile.

I rolled my eyes. “Just leave him alone.”

Mickey looked at me, a silent plea for clarity. I donned the gentle voice I had heard Josie use on disoriented souls so often. “Mickey, this may be a little hard for you to grasp just yet, but you’re dead. The rest of your band survived. You drowned. We’re reapers. We came and collected your soul.”

“Reapers? As in, the Grim Reaper?” He chuckled, not believing me.

“Ok, when is Grim going to be here?” I turned to Coreen. I wasn’t as patient as Josie when it came to convin
cing souls. They got one slow and simple explanation. After that, I let them argue with themselves as I drug them off to their afterlives.

“Ellen!” Coreen roared.  

Grim’s secretary stumbled in. “Y-yes?” she squeaked.

Ellen was actually a first generation reaper, but she had been at the bottom of her class. Instead of trying to improve her soul-reaping skills, Grim had dumped his paperwork off on her, and over time, she became invaluable. She was a horrible reaper
, but an excellent secretary. And Coreen enjoyed ordering her around.

“Where’s Grim?”

“He just finished a meeting, and he’s on his way,” Ellen answered just as the boss-man stormed through the door.

“Let’s take a look at this soul,” he said, leaning over the table to exa
mine our catch. “He won’t do at all. Take him to Duat. Horus and Wosyet are waiting at the harbor. Take them with you,” he ordered.

“Duat?” I asked.    

“Yes, Duat,” Grim growled. “Is that a problem for you?”

“I just didn’t r
ealize that he was a believer of the Egyptian faith.”

“I’m not!” Mickey stood up, knoc
king over his chair. Grim didn’t even acknowledge him.

“He’s of Egyptian descent. I don’t have to explain my reasons to you. Do as you’re told
. That’s why you get paid.” He stomped out of the conference room.

I could see Coreen smirking from the corner of my eye. She needed to be slapped. I fi
nished patting myself dry and pulled my robe back over my head. This was the first time Grim had actually asked me to bend the rules. I shouldn’t have cared so much. I bent them all the time.

“Shall we?” Coreen waited by the door. She oozed with satisfaction, even in her disheveled state. Josie looked up slowly. She hadn’t spoken since Grim mention Horus would be traveling with us.

“Sure,” she sighed. “Let’s get this over with.”

I rested my hand on Mickey’s shou
lder. He gave me a startled look but let me lead him out of the conference room.

The harbor was nearly empty. It was still several hours before most reapers would be setting sail for the afterlives. A single ferry unloaded on the dock. Festive ribbons and balloons hung from the boat’s railing, and loud dance music blared to announce their arrival. A cluster of excited deities paraded down the boat’s ramp, ready to go shopping and sightseeing. The tourists hushed their voices as their guide announced us like zoo animals.

“To your left you will see a group of reapers prepa
ring to take a soul to its afterlife.” He paused to frown at us. “Normally, one reaper can handle several souls at once. This could be a demonstration or lesson for one or more of the six apprentices recently added....” His voice trailed off as the crowd made their way past us and into the city.

Horus and Wosyet waited near our ship. Coreen’s boat was in the shop, undergoing some repairs and updates, or so she claimed. I had the feeling she just didn’t want the mess of demon guts all over her deck. After our earlier e
ncounter, it was highly possible they would attack again.

“Good Afternoon,” Horus greeted us.

“Hello, Horus.” Coreen strode up the ramp ahead of us as if she owned our ship. It was a disrespectful move, and Josie noticed too. Wosyet wrapped an arm around Horus and tugged him after her. Kevin waited for Josie and me to escort Mickey ahead of him.

On
board, Coreen checked every nook and cranny of the ship to make sure there were no uninvited guests, while Josie and I pulled up the sails, and Kevin freed us from the dock. Wosyet led Horus to one of the deck benches and draped her arms over him. She looked almost as done up as she had at the ball, with precise makeup and an equally tacky gown. Her eyes never left Josie. She must have known about her dates with Horus.

As we drifted off to sea, Josie stayed as far away from Horus as she could manage, constantly finding som
ething constructive to do, even if she had already done it twice. It was exhausting just to watch her.

I pulled her aside. “Just go lay down, or talk to the soul. You’re be
tter at consoling them than I’ll ever be.”

“Is that why you rescue them from their dismal fates so often?” She laughed and cast a nervous glance over her shoulder where Horus was busy untangling himself from Wosyet’s embrace.

“I’m gonna go fill my quiver. It’s nearly empty, and it doesn’t look like the two of them are equipped to ward off any demons.”

“I’ll go see how Kevin’s doing. Mickey’s settled in the sailor’s qua
rters, I don’t much care for Coreen, and those two, well, they just look too cozy to be bothered with.” I grinned.

Josie rolled her eyes and hurried off to our cabin.

I found Kevin on the other side of the ship, hunched over the deck railing and panting like he meant it. His robe lay tangled at his feet, and he began to tug at the collar of his black turtleneck.

“Hey now, this isn’t one of those party ferries we saw at the harbor. You can’t run around n
aked on my ship.” 

“Is it like this every time you sail?” He rubbed his face against his shoulder to wipe away the sweat dripping off his brow.

“No, it’ll pass. Don’t worry about it. Lots of reapers get seasick on their first ride.” I patted his back until his breathing slowed.

“Thanks.” He ran a hand through his damp hair, and then spun around with a look of panic. “Do you think you could, maybe, not tell Coreen about this?”

“Sure.” I folded my arms. “You’re not feeling as lucky as you did last night, are you?”

“Maybe she’s just having a bad day, but I don’t want to give her a reason to torment me.”

“Smart boy,” I chuckled.

“Did you ever think maybe she would be nicer to you if you were more r
espectful?”

“I’ve been around three hundred years. I’ve already tried the respect technique.”

He laughed and nodded his head.

“There you are.” Coreen had found us.

“Speak of the devil,” I muttered.

“Go check on the soul,” she said to me. “Kevin, I want to give you your first lesson in navigation.” She us
hered him away, shooting me a suspicious look.

I sighed and took off for the sailor’s quarters. A mu
ffled voice leaked through the door as I approached. At first, I thought that Josie had finished filling her quiver and had gone to console Mickey, but as I drew closer, I realized it wasn’t her voice at all. I jerked the door open.

Wosyet spun around. “I was just telling Mickey about all the wonders of Aaru, his new home,” she cooed inn
ocently.

“Out,” I demanded.

“Excuse me?” She lifted her chin.

“Even the greater gods have more respect for what we do and don’t tamper with our souls before we deliver them. Out!”

She tossed her braids back and pushed past me. Mickey stood in the corner of the cabin, watching in awe and terror.

“You okay?”
I stepped inside and closed the door behind me.

“Define okay,” he laughed.

“Well, aside from being dead and all?”

“Sure, sure,” he answered with a nervous laugh.

“Look, I’m not all that good at helping new souls through their first day in Eternity, but we’re not supposed to allow you to converse with any of the gods until we reach the gates.”

“Hey, it’s not like I invited her in here.” He threw up his hands in defense.

“I know. I was just letting you know why I had to make her leave.” I reached for the door.

“Thanks. She was creepy anyway.”

I paused and turned around. “How?”  

“I dunno. I’m use
d to fans and all, but not fans from other worlds.” He laughed, somewhere between pride and confusion.

“What made you think she was a fan?”

“She was asking all the typical questions that fans do. You know, she wanted to know how long we’ve been together, and if anyone else in my band died in the crash. It was weird. What is she supposed to be anyway, a goddess or something?”

“One of the lesser
ones that don’t get mentioned all too often.”

What a ditz. I couldn’t believe it. Wosyet had probably tagged along in hopes of getting an autograph.

“So, is this place I’m going to some kind of heaven or hell?”

“Duat is the Egyptian underworld, but it’s also the gateway to Aaru, the Egyptian heaven.” I smiled. No wonder he was having such a hard time. He didn’t have a clue where he was going. “Don’t worry, you’ll like it there.”

“Thanks.”  He leaned his head back against the cabin wall and smiled.

I left the room and went to find Josie. She wasn’t on deck, so I assumed she was still in our cabin and headed that direction. Horus stood just ou
tside the doorway, blocking Josie in. She had her quiver of arrows over one shoulder, and the expression on her face told me she was ready to beat him unconscious with it if he didn’t move soon.

“She’s just a co-worker,” he said.

“Good for you. What are you telling me for?” Josie glared at him.

Horus sighed, and his shoulders tensed uneasily. He was wearing a pair of tattered pants that looked like something out of Gabriel’s closet, but nothing else, so most of his ripe and ri
ppling frame could be seen pressing through his honey-colored skin. I had to hand it to Josie, for as good as he looked, she was holding her pride together rather well. Her gaze drifted over his shoulder and she spied me.

“Lana, how’s the soul?” she asked, cutting Horus off.

“Good, except I caught Wosyet talking to him.”

“What?” Horus groaned. “I’m very sorry. I brought her along because she’s been helping negotiate with the Fates. I’ll go over the rules with her more thoroughly.”