Page 5 of Grim Tidings

“You need to wear some color. Something interesting. Just because we’re death incarnate doesn’t mean we need to look it. Live a little.” She snaps her fingers. “Oh! Let’s go to that little boutique by your house. I got the cutest strawberry earrings the last time I visited you.”

Departmental employees are allowed to haunt the house of their choosing during off-hours, as long as it’s outside the beaten path from mortals. I picked a little cottage on the Maine coastline. Craggy rocks and blue-gray waters. Sunsets that paint the sky all sorts of colors. But sometimes I feel more lonely there than anywhere else. Drifting through the empty rooms in my empty house.

“The last time you visited me was in 1968,” I point out.

“And I still have the earrings.”

“Yes, well, that shop is a wine bar now.”

“No shit?”

I nod. “Went out of business in ’92 and sat abandoned for a couple of years before a family bought it. They make pretty good schnitzel.”

“What the fuck is schnitzel?”

I’ll never get used to the vulgarity that explodes out of her tiny body.

“It’s a thin, breaded slice of—”

Her eyes glaze over.

“Never mind.” I gesture at the door. “I should get inside.”

“Yeah, you should. What are you, twenty minutes late now?” She flicks her wrist and looks at the watch on her arm. It’s shaped like a jelly bean with gemstones on the band. “I’d like to get my assignment wrapped this century, thank you very much.”

Her small hand presses between my shoulder blades, and she shoves me at the door. I reach for the handle to steady myself but fall through instead. The last thing I see before the door slams shut behind me is Aelia blowing another damn bubble with her gum.

I peel myself from the floor with a groan, trying to scrape together the scraps of my dignity.

“Sorry I’m late,” I say to the massive tree in the middle of the room. The leaves above my head rustle in response, and I smile. The assignment room is less of a room and more … an enormous glass atrium, golden light filtering in from the windows up above. The tree itself splits up through cracked tile like it bullied its way there, its wide trunk cleaving into three pillars. The branches reach out wide, the gnarled fingers almost touching either end of the room.

The tree is beautiful, if not intimidating. An ancient being, with eternities carved into her skin.

“I’ve been having some trouble,” I confess quietly. I smooth my hand over the front of my robes and reach for the pocket where I keep a well-worn folded-up piece of paper. I hear it crinkle and feel the phantom pain of a life half-lived. “I don’t suppose you have any easy assignments to offer me, do you?”

The tree remains silent.

“Yeah, I get it.” Frustrated with myself, I find the part of the tree where a cluster of bright red berries peek out from between the leaves. Each berry is small and round, a hard black seed in the middle. I reach for the one that hangs lowest. I pluck it gently from the branch, then cup it in my palm.

Poisonous to mortals, they’re something entirely different for us. Hints of lives about to end. A taste of what’s to come.

“I could really use something different,” I whisper. “Something good.”

I place the berry on my tongue and wince against the flavor. It’s sickeningly sweet, with a sharp bite that sticks to the back of my throat. The vision is almost as jarring, floating across my consciousness like the slice of a blade.

There’s a man. Young, with smile lines by his eyes. His hair is so dark it looks like spilled ink. Wet asphalt. Cracked glasses. Music coming from somewhere far away. A flickering neon sign, orange in the melting light.

OPEN

Blood on my hands. Copper on my tongue.

My eyes snap open. The tree groans. I release my breath and let my magic unfurl.

There’s a wisp of dark, a pulling sensation at the small of my back, and then I’m gone.

Chapter Two

Darcy