Reaper (4 page)

Essentially, all he had to do was exhale. But
he exhaled exactly four times as he walked toward the Ba and
nothing came out of it except carbon dioxide. Being dead, it was
easier to accept impossible things, like the ability to turn air
into gold coins. Still, Oz couldn’t wrap his head around the idea
that he’d be able to do it. He felt different, sure, but he hadn’t
occupied an actual body in a long time. He attributed the
flesh-crawling feeling to the actual presence of flesh.

Oz blew a test stream into his own hands.

“His
hands, Princess.”

Asshole.

Oz knelt in front of the Ba and waited for it
to look at him, though he wasn’t sure if he wanted it to.
Goosebumps covered his arms. It wasn’t fear, though. It was energy,
like a static charge. Using the tips of his fingers, Oz gently
gripped the pads of the Ba’s hands just below his thumbs and turned
them over.

The Ba didn’t react.

He brought the Ba’s hands closer to his face,
and blew.

Nothing happened.

He looked back to Bard who shrugged.

“Try again.”

More nervous now than he was a minute ago, Oz
blew again, harder and in a more concentrated stream through
puckered lips.

“Looks like it’s not working,” Bard said.

No shit, Sherlock.

Panic bubbled in his stomach. Maybe it was a
fluke. The papers stuck together during the lottery. Vlad had
confused his name with someone else’s. Something. He wasn’t
supposed to be a reaper. They’d send him back. He’d have to leave
all of it behind, again.

“Maybe I should just—” Bard began.

“No,” Oz said, and as he breathed the denial,
and it brushed the Ba’s palms, two warped gold coins the size of
quarters fell into his hands.

Oz looked up at Bard and his triumphant smile
withered under Bard’s narrowed gaze.

Good going
, Oz mouthed and followed
Bard out of the bus.

Chapter
Five

Back at the apartment building, Oz struggled
to contain his frustration toward an oblivious teenager struggling
with the security door key. Once inside, the kid dropped his keys
but continued on his way, bobbing his head. Oz caught the door just
as it was whispering closed and grabbed the keys. He rushed up the
stairs to return them, but the kid increased his pace. Oz chased up
the entire first flight before giving up.

He threw the keys up to the kid followed by a
stiff middle finger.

Bard snorted. “I gave you too much credit.
Thought you’d figure it out on your own.”

“Figure what out?”

Bard rushed up the stairs, faster than Oz
thought the old man was capable of moving, to catch up with the
teen then stopped right in front of him. The kid stopped, too, but
didn’t look at Bard. He screwed up his face and patted his jacket
and jeans pockets.

“Shit,” the kid mumbled, and started back
down the stairwell. He passed Oz and exited.

“We’re invisible?” Oz asked, once the kid was
out of sight.

“Hardly.” Bard waited for Oz to catch up with
him at the top of the second flight. “More like unnoticeable.
People remember that they have other places to be when we’re
around. Or they forget things. Or they’ll be pulled out of the way
by someone or something.”

Oz remembered the crowd surrounding the
accident and how they seemed to part like the Red Sea as Bard moved
between them. “Does this happen everywhere? Or just when we’re
working?”

“We’re always working.”

“Right.” Oz walked into the apartment. “Why
two coins?”

“What?”

“The first guy got one coin. The second,
two.”

“Obvious, isn’t it? Not all Bas are created
equal.”

Bard didn’t follow Oz inside.

“Keep yourself busy in here and out of
trouble,” he said, “I got some stuff I have to do.”

“What kind of stuff?”

“None of your fuckin’ business type
stuff.”

“What am I supposed to do? Just wait around
for you like some dog?”

“Ruff.” Bard turned on his heel and slammed
the door.

Well fuck you too, then.

The apartment was an oven. Stuffy. Oz walked
the perimeter opening windows and filling the apartment with cool
air and noise. Beneath the window in the far corner of the main
room was a box that Oz was sure hadn’t been there before. It was
folded closed with “Open me” written in the corner in black marker.
How Alice in Wonderland, he thought and considered not opening it.
Curiosity won. He pulled back the flaps and found a typewriter—a
baby blue electric Smith Corona. Oz gently lifted it out of the
box. The faded keys and the scratches and chips on the body told
him the thing had seen major use, but Oz was willing to bet this
gem still had some life in it. Underneath it was a note written in
loopy, girlish hand:
Didn’t think you were the television type.
For the down time. Cora.

Cora.

He lifted the paper to his face. It smelled
like a garden. Basil and something sharper. Cilantro or sage.

Bard was an asshole and not above withholding
the truth. Maybe he’d been fucking with Oz about the whole lesbian
thing.

That body.

Oz couldn’t ever remember seeing a woman with
a body like that. And now, she’d given him a gift. Granted, he
could probably go from now until eternity without seeing another
typewriter and be okay with it, but it was a
personal
gift.
If he remembered correctly, women didn’t give men these types of
presents unless they wanted to sleep with them. Or was it the other
way around?

He preferred not to think about how long it’d
been since he’d been near a woman or the last time he’d felt desire
like he felt for Cora. God, how long had it been since he’d thought
about a woman in terms outside her death? The question hurt his
brain and his balls. Pathetic.

Oz pressed the note to his face again and her
scent stirred an old, but familiar feeling.

He locked the door then sat on his small
bed.

Though it’d been a long, long, (long) time,
like riding a bike or breathing, the mechanics of masturbation
stayed with him. Oz wasn’t sure he could go through with it
because, like the shoulder and the face that stared back at him
from the bathroom mirror, the dick wasn’t his. He couldn’t quite
get over that hurdle. Holding some other dude’s penis was still
holding some other dude’s penis. Oz wasn’t the type of guy to do
that. But the more he thought about Cora, her heart-shaped ass, the
way her entire body swayed when she walked...

His new dick looked different. Darker.
Smaller. But only slightly. He made a fist around it and nearly
collapsed with pleasure. If he closed his eyes, he could forget
that the body wasn’t his. It didn’t matter in the dark. He jerked
faster, gasping, slowly falling backward against the mattress.
Every muscle in his body tensed, like a guitar string tightened to
the point of snapping, before, finally, quick release.

I’m alive, he thought.

He wiped the jism from his pelvis with the
corner of the sheet.

Kind of.

Oz laughed. Years without a single orgasm. It
felt like the first time—twelve years old—hidden beneath a
makeshift bed sheet tent and the astonishment (and not a little
fear) that something came out of this fleshy joystick. He felt that
same astonishment now.

He kicked the sheet to the floor and vowed to
burn it at first chance. The sperm of a reaper couldn’t be anything
but noxious.

As it’d been in those beginning sexual years,
the euphoria passed and it was only minutes before boredom set in.
Oz considered a second round, but the twang of an acoustic guitar
drifted through the open window, distracting him. The light,
melancholy tune beckoned him. He knew that song. In the initial
chaos of his first reap Oz had almost forgotten that there was a
rest of the world outside. He wasn’t trapped at a desk anymore.

Oz promised himself he wouldn’t go far, just
outside the apartment building. That wasn’t
really
leaving,
though it wasn’t likely Bard would see it that way. Oz didn’t care.
Maybe it was the post-orgasm haze that had him feeling slightly
reckless. He was in the land of the living, in a body. He intended
to use it.

Oz opened the door wide enough to let a
sliver of piss-yellow light in and looked down both directions of
the hallway. It smelled like wet dog. Bard probably wouldn’t wait
right outside the door, expecting Oz’s escape, but it was
impossible to predict exactly what the old bastard might do. Oz
left with the uncomfortable feeling of being watched.

The afternoon sun had all but disappeared.
Dark clouds gathered and a breeze blew, thick with moisture. The
guitarist stood beneath the awning of a used book store with his
guitar case open. A small, short haired dog, fought against its
tether as it nipped the heels of passersby until its gaze locked on
Oz. As he drew closer, the few onlookers checked watches and cell
phones and realized they had other plans.

Oz felt guilty for having inadvertently
driven the guitarist’s patrons away. He wished he had money to give
him and scanned the ground for an errant quarter, dime, anything.
Used to be you could find change anywhere. The corner of a dollar
bill flapped from beneath a mound of mulch.
Score!
Oz picked
it up and approached the guitarist. The man stopped playing, mid
song, stuffed the tips into a pouch inside the case, and placed his
guitar inside. He couldn’t seem to pack fast enough.

“Hey, wait,” Oz said, but the guitarist, of
course, didn’t acknowledge him.

He latched his case, slung the strap over his
shoulder, and untied the dog’s leash from the rack. The dog growled
low and deep but didn’t bark. It was like he was afraid to, but
wanted Oz to know that he knew he was there.

“What’s your problem, Kujo?” The guitarist
dragged the still growling mutt in the direction of a bakery across
the street.

It’s enough to make a man feel unwanted, Oz
thought sourly.

The end of the street had been blocked off by
half a dozen police cars and miles of yellow tape. A news reporter
and a couple of morbid stragglers ogled the aftermath of the bus
crash. Oz pocketed the dollar and walked in the opposite
direction.

He looked for identifiers that would help him
establish a sense of place, but nothing stood out. Buildings were
buildings. Sidewalks were sidewalks. The deeper into downtown he
wandered, the more dilapidated the buildings became. He figured
he’d wandered into one of those historical areas like the ones he
avoided when he was a skittish kid who believed that history is
where ghosts like to hide.

Oz walked several blocks before he came upon
a delicatessen. A sign announcing its grand opening adorned the
short, wrought-iron gate surrounding the empty patio. The door was
propped open and the scent of various deli meats rode the air like
a ship of deliciousness bound for the harbor of Oz’s mouth. He
reached into his pocket and felt only the dollar he’d found on the
sidewalk. His heart sank and his mouth salivated. There was no food
in his apartment and he wasn’t willing to bet that Bard’s
“business” involved a visit to the market. He might not starve and
die but he might fade away under the pressure of his undeniable
craving. His stomach growled.

A car double parked at the curb right in
front of the delicatessen. From the driver’s side a leggy woman
slid out, rounded the front of the car, and made a beeline for the
entrance, and by default, for Oz. When she passed within inches of
him, so close his nose stung from the sharpness of her high-end
perfume, her pocket rang. She stopped, answered her phone, and
practically ran for her car. The tires squealed as she sped
away.

Bingo
. He’d just go inside, snag a
sandwich and be on his way. Of course he’d pay them back once he
found a way to get his hands on some cash...

Just as Oz decided it was justifiable to
burgle a pastrami on rye, his legs went rogue and decided to stop
obeying his brain. They weren’t glued to the spot. It was as if
they didn’t exist at all. He could see them, but couldn’t feel
them. His brain sent a message to step backward and they
miraculously obeyed.

“Not fair,” he grumbled. How could the Powers
That Be taunt him with this ability then throw contrary rules at
him?

Next door was an antique shop. Oz turned and
crept toward it, paying careful attention to how easily the steps
came. He walked without incident until he was close enough to kiss
the shop’s front door. His legs phantasmed into nothingness
again.

He stopped at every storefront on the block,
but all to no avail. Death wasn’t allowed in.

* * *

The kid could handle himself for a few hours.
Bard needed to think.

He knew he shouldn’t read too much into the
fact that it’d taken Oz a few tries to get the coins. It’d happened
before.

Once.

Something didn’t feel right. Bard didn’t
believe in coincidences and this was becoming all too familiar.

The only shaded bench in the park closest to
Oz’s apartment was free. As long as his presence repelled anything
living, it would remain that way. Bard laid down the length of the
bench and plugged his mouth with a cigarette butt from the
sidewalk. Nasty fucking habit but it calmed him. Gave him something
to do with his hands. He hadn’t even started smoking until after...
well. A pair of squirrels squabbled in the tree above him, knocking
leaves and twigs from their path.

The scars along his arms tingled. He lit the
cigarette with a match and the nicotine quieted them.

Bard closed his eyes and saw her face. He’d
never known her name, but always thought she looked like an Emily
or Maggie. A soft name to match her soft, china doll features. Some
days, when he thought about her, her eyes were blue. Other days,
brown. They’d been closed as she lay beneath the water, so he
didn’t know for sure. It used to be that he’d go days without
thinking about her, but after having seen The Department and
watching Oz in a way that felt like looking in a warped mirror, her
face refused to leave his mind.