Reaper (21 page)

She flapped her wings and gripped Oz’s
shoulders with her talons. They dug into his back and chest. With
her jewel-black eyes locked on Oz, she flew upward. Higher, higher.
The higher she flew, the colder it became. Frost coated his
eyelashes and pinched inside his nose. His lungs ached with each
breath in.

The bird-woman laughed deep in her chest. A
sound meant only for Oz.

She opened her talons and Oz fell.

He hit the ground with a nasty smack.

“It’ll only get worse if you keep this up,”
someone said.

Every cell in Oz’s body ached, even the ones
that made up his eyelids, and he wouldn’t have bothered to open
them if the voice had belonged to anyone except...

“Mark.”

He sat cross-legged at Oz’s feet.

“More or less.”

Each breath in was petrifying. Oz whispered
when he spoke to keep from passing out from the pain.

“Mark’s dead.”

“Hence the ‘less.’”

“You’re not Mark.”

Mark’s eyes darkened. “You brought this on
yourself. It’s not going to stop. It never stops.”

Oz’s head spun. It became harder to keep a
grip on reality. He was delusional to the point of giddiness.

“Bring it,” Oz said.

Mark laughed, and it was the same guttural
laugh that came from the belly of the bird-woman.

“You won’t succeed. Your kind doesn’t bring
life. Only death. Pain. Suffering. It won’t work. Just give up. Go
back.”

Oz struggled to lift his head. He was sure
every bone in his body was broken. Holding his breath, he dragged
his elbows backward. Sweat beaded on his forehead and neck. He
pushed himself off the ground and looked at Mark. Not-Mark.

“They aren’t my kind. Not anymore.”

“No?” Not-Mark’s gaze dropped from Oz’s face
to his hand.

Knowing he shouldn’t, but unable to stop
himself, Oz also looked to his hand and watched as the flesh
bubbled then melted away to reveal his bones. The middle and ring
fingers were fractured. Bits of pink muscle clung to his wrist.

“What are you doing? What’s happening?”

“Showing you what you already know,” Not-Mark
said.

It spread up his arm, skin melting into a
puddle and then sinking into the grass beneath him.

Behind Not-Mark was a lake. Oz kept the one
arm—the skeletal one—tucked against his chest as he rolled to his
front, half-crawling, half-dragging himself toward it.

“You can’t fight it, Oz. You can’t win. You
did nothing and people still died.”

Oz dug his nails into the dirt and pulled
himself forward, inch by inch. The skin on his other hand was
beginning to bubble.

“You
are
Death. You will fail,”
Not-Mark called.

The lake was a mirror. When it was still, it
was impossible to see through to the bottom. But when it rippled,
Oz could see through to the bottom where bodies drifted between
water plants that lapped at their faces. He hesitated to look in
the sections that would show him his face because, somehow, he knew
what he would see. Scaring himself would only make it harder to
finish what he came here to do. Oz looked anyway.

Gaping holes replaced his eyes. His face was
no longer a face, but a skull warped at the chin and temples to
sharp points.

“You see?” Not-Mark said.

Instead of clothes, Oz’s skeletal reflection
wore a shroud, gray and cobwebbed like the bird-woman’s dress. A
dozen spiders creeped over his chest.

“See?” Not-Mark said again.

Despair. It was a word Oz never thought
anyone actually used outside of fiction. Looking at his reflection
and the loss he felt. The anger. The hopelessness. This, he thought
with surprising clarity, was despair.

“See?” Not-Mark’s voice was little more than
an echo, but it rang clear as day in Oz’s head.

He nodded. Yes, he did see. He was Death. He
couldn’t bring life.

The lake rippled.

He didn’t see where it’d started, but it
continued, growing, and distorted Oz’s reflection. It gave him a
brief view of what lie beneath the surface, and in that instant he
saw something that shattered Not-Mark’s echo that’d pulsed in the
back of his brain even after he’d gone.

“Jamie!”

As he cried out, Oz’s body filled out with
flesh and skin. He shook his hands then touched his face. They came
away wet.

Jamie lay at the bottom of the lake, naked
and tangled in weeds with his eyes closed.

The ripples settled and Jamie became less and
less visible. Oz knelt next to the lake and dipped his fingers in
the water. Pain drilled up his arm and exploded in his chest. When
he ripped his fingers from the lake, red ring-like burns had been
seared around them.

Was this real?

Everything was, and everything wasn’t.

Was it really Jamie down there or just
another trick? Oz knew he had to make a choice before the ripples
ended. If he lost sight of Jamie and dove in without knowing where
to look, he might never find him again. He might die.

Through the final ripple, Oz saw Jamie’s eyes
open for a moment. He could’ve imagined it.

Oz didn’t care. It was enough.

It took a second for the last of his body to
break the surface of the water, but he felt the pain in every cell,
every atom, for an eternity before it spread to the next. It
paralyzed him. The water he’d disturbed drifted over him lashing
his body like a spiked flogger. Even though it stung his eyes to do
so, he couldn’t help but watch, amazed, as the red marks burned
across his arms.

Below him, gray-green weeds wound around
Jamie like a mummy’s wrappings.

He’d come this far. Oz would not lose him
this time.

He kicked and his leg broke in several
places. He kicked again and the bones shattered. Inch by
excruciating inch, Oz kicked and cut his way toward Jamie, all the
while weeds continued to secure the boy to the bottom. Oz’s lungs
cried out for air, but there would be a long way to go before he’d
be allowed to breathe.

He finally touched Jamie’s bonds. Oz fought
to avoid inhaling the lake.

He was so close. If he could just keep it
together a little longer.

The weeds felt like leather. Oz’s hands, numb
from the cold and the pain, couldn’t break them. He strained to
keep his eyes open, God it felt like they were being sucked from
their sockets, searching for something sharp to cut the bonds from
Jamie’s body. A rock. Something.

There was nothing. Only sand.

His body couldn’t handle any more. Oz’s ears
rang and the back of his head felt cloudy. If he didn’t get air
soon, he’d pass out. He’d drown, and Jamie would be trapped beneath
this lake forever. Oz could not let that happen, even if he killed
himself trying.

He pulled himself along the weeds, opened his
mouth and bit the edge of one of the weeds. Puss oozed over his
tongue. Fighting his gag reflex, Oz chewed the weed. A tooth
cracked. His tongue tore. But he kept gnawing.

He knew his body wanted to shut down. His jaw
ached and his lungs screamed for air. The leathery weeds ground his
back teeth into shards. On the verge of losing hope, of giving in
and letting the lake take him, he tugged one final time and the
bond covering Jamie’s face broke free. The boy’s eyes were open and
bright with panic.

Oz couldn’t stop himself; he inhaled and
water burned down his throat and into his lungs. He lashed and
kicked and tugged at Jamie’s bonds. His body felt heavier, and it
was too much to move even a fraction. He looked up and saw a shadow
cross the surface of the lake.

He lost. He was dying. And yet, Oz couldn’t
help but feel a sort of peace, a comfort in the fact that it was
finally over. And he’d tried, hadn’t he? This was what he
deserved.

His head bobbed. The effort to keep his eyes
upward was too much. The muscles in his neck relented and his gaze
drifted downward. Jamie’s eyes were still open, but they were no
longer looking at him. They were looking up.

The last synapse firings in Oz’s brain made
their sluggish connections and sent a weak signal to his foot to
hook itself beneath the rest of Jamie’s bonds and pull. As darkness
fringed the edges of his vision, Oz caught a glimpse of the bonds
breaking and Jamie rising up from the bottom of the lake while he,
in turn, sank to the bottom.

Oz came to rest on the sand and died.

Chapter
Twenty-Two

There were voices.

No.

A single voice that echoed. And it felt like
an elephant sat on his chest.

“Damn—”

The elephant rose then crushed him again.

“—
moron.”

And again.

Waves of sour and vile sick pulsed from his
mouth. It dribbled from his nose. Oz breathed in and it oozed back
down his throat.

“That’s it, kid. One more.”

He couldn’t. The burn.

But he did. Oz breathed in and out, this time
without vomiting. He still couldn’t move and his brain felt like it
would explode.

“You’re alive,” a man said.

Alive? The voice was familiar, old and
gravely, but Oz couldn’t identify it. He blinked fast to clear the
water from his eyes but it didn’t help. The light was too much for
him.

“Get up. They’re coming,” the man urged.

Oz was pulled to a sitting position. The
sound of his rescuer’s footsteps faded.

He rubbed his eyes and squinted against the
light. After a moment, they adjusted enough to see that he sat on
the flat place below the brow of the hill next to the lake. On the
bank, Jamie’s Ba lay curled around itself. Perched across the lake
on the opposite bank, a wolf, gray-fur bristling, waited.

It was now or never. Oz waited just long
enough that he was confident his legs could handle the run then
shoved himself from the ground and sprinted toward Jamie. With
every pump of his arm and stretch of his leg, his skin pulled
against the red scars that now covered his body and it felt like he
was being ripped apart. He ground his teeth to keep from
screaming.

Oz skidded to a stop in front of Jamie’s Ba
and scooped him into his arms. He weighed nothing, but Oz’s arms
were so weak that he was scared he wouldn’t be able to carry him.
He turned away from the lake and ran back the way he came, toward
the hill, because there was nowhere else to go. The wolf’s paws
against the ground rumbled beneath Oz’s own feet. He knew he
couldn’t outrun it.

At the top of the hill, Oz’s heart sank. He
was trapped. All sides were reflections of each other and the
wolves, he couldn’t tell how many there were, stalked him from
every direction.

Jamie shivered.

The hill trembled.

Oz knelt and hugged Jamie to his chest. If
only he could keep the wolves from getting Jamie. If they would
take him, devour only him, and leave Jamie. Oz had lived and died.
His chance at a good life was over but Jamie’s had just begun. Oz
would give this existence if it meant that Jamie could get his life
back. He would do anything for this kid. His son.

The wolf’s breath brushed the back of Oz’s
neck and hot saliva dripped down his back.

“Me. Not him.” Oz pleaded. “Please. Take me.”

The ground beneath him shook and the hill
split open, swallowing Oz and Jamie. The wolf growled long and
angry from the edge of the hole.

* * *

His knees hit the concrete. The way they
crunched he knew that at least one of them was shattered, but Oz
could no longer feel pain. His body held itself together only
because it held Jamie. He was sure that once he let go, he would
come apart in pieces.

“In the boat! Move it!”

Arizona’s boat hugged the edge of the
concrete. He was waving and looking back and forth between Oz and
the gaping hole above him.

“Come on! The drop won’t stop them for
long.”

Oz hugged Jamie tighter and scrambled on his
knees to the boat. He tumbled over the side and Arizona pushed off
the edge with his boot. The wolves tore around the corner and
skittered to a stop inches from the edge. They snapped at the air,
their breath singing Oz’s eyelashes.

“They can’t go in the water,” Arizona
said.

Oz nodded.

Jamie tucked his head beneath Oz’s arm. He
hadn’t opened his eyes since coming out of the lake. Without any
breath or heartbeat, it felt like Oz held a corpse.

Arizona steered the boat through a key-shaped
opening and into a canal. The boat’s light illuminated only a few
inches in front of them.

“How is he?” Arizona asked, looking over his
shoulder.

“I don’t know,” he said. “Where are we
going?”

“Still working on that. The wolves can’t get
in the water, but they’ve free reign over every place else down
here. No matter where I let you off, they’ll be waiting. I’m
thinking there has to be somewhere that’ll trip them up. Someplace
where I can buy you some running time.”

“Running where?”

Arizona shrugged. “I know nothing for sure
about this place except the canal. I can’t leave the boat, nut
you’re different. You don’t belong here, yet, here you are, so
things are upside down. You got in somehow. I figure you can get
out.”

Oz had no choice but to trust Arizona’s
logic. There had to be a way out of this nightmare.

Howls echoed through the canal. Bits of stone
and muck fell from the ceiling, dusting Oz and Arizona.

“They’re close,” Oz said.

“Yeah, but they’ll keep their distance until
we stop.”

“How’d you know where to find me?”

“I followed
them
.”

“So you didn’t—I mean, you weren’t— there. On
the bank.”

“What bank?”

“Never mind.”

Oz shifted Jamie’s body. His adrenaline
returned to an only slightly higher than normal rate and his body
began to feel the effects of his injuries. Everything hurt and
sitting in the boat was becoming more uncomfortable by the
second.