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“Mila?” Francis had noticed my absence.
I can’t do this. I don’t want to do this. Despite myself, I moved. One step at a time, and I was at Francis’s side. No one had to know what I was thinking. I was VDC. I am VDC. I am a Reaper. Reapers reap.
The man threw the woman to the ground. She screamed and begged in a language I’d never heard before. He took out a curved knife, grabbed her by the hair, and…
Valentine swung his scythe swiftly. With infinite precision, the blade cut the woman’s string of life, and her soul separated from her body. The brown and red energy field that had been vibrating and shaking all around her from sheer terror gathered into an oval shape and started changing its color to light yellow. The pain was gone, and so was the fear. She was free.
I blinked away tears, then rubbed fiercely at my eyes before Morningstar turned around and saw me.
“You were paying attention, right?” He said in a stern voice. He looked up at his scythe, which was glowing again. He grinned and finally looked at us. A fleeting gaze at Sariel, Francis, and Merrit, then his blue eyes focused on me. “Your turn, my daughter.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
We teleported again. Black, moonless night. Gunfire all around us. A grenade exploded in the distance. War.
Valentine released me from his strong embrace and pushed me forward. He wanted me to lead the way. My scythe hummed in my hand, and I clenched my fingers around it until the tips turned white. I stepped over mutilated bodies, soldiers crying in pain, and soldiers who cried no more. I swallowed heavily and tried to keep my eyes ahead. The scythe was leading me, and all I had to do was follow its glow. It came naturally. I didn’t have to think about it, I didn’t have to ask myself who my victim was. I didn’t have to understand the situation, know what war these people were fighting, find out their names before I reaped their souls. From the way my scythe was buzzing, I knew I’d have to cut more than just one string of life here. And I knew Morningstar wasn’t going to step in and ask the guys to help me. This was a test. He wanted to know if I was, indeed, blood of his blood. If I was Reaper material. If I was a danger to him.
Well, guess what. I am. I am a danger to you. I am your worst nightmare, Valentine Morningstar.
I could feel something change inside me. The more I advanced on the battlefield, the stronger my scythe glowed, the faster my heart beat, pumping adrenaline through my veins. There was this rush… Rush of blood, rush of thoughts, rush of emotions. Fear, power, disgust, compassion, excitement. My first soul, my first job. My foot caught on something, and I looked at the ground. I hadn’t tripped on anything; a man had grabbed my ankle. He was looking up at me, his eyes pleading. There was a gash on his head, and his teeth were stained with blood when he opened his mouth to say “please”.
“This one’s not yours,” Morningstar pulled me away, and the man let go of my ankle.
“He can see me.”
“Because he’s half dead, waiting for his Reaper. But his time hasn’t come yet. He’ll suffer for another hour, and then a Merciful Reaper will come to cut his string.”
I didn’t feel a thing. I should have. Back in the desert, I’d felt for that woman. My heart had ached for her, and I’d wanted to take that man’s dagger and drive it through his chest. I looked away from the man and kept following the glow, laser-focused on my task. I stepped over a dead body and caught the gaze of a Neutral Reaper. Pandora was with him, but I didn’t have time to wave at her or anything. It wasn’t like we were real friends. My victim… There he was, a few feet away.
He was on the ground, recharging his rifle. Once he was done, he jumped to his feet, and I knew… I knew half a dozen bullets would hit him right in the heart. I swung my scythe back and waited. His string of life was floating around his shoulders, his energy red and vibrant. He was scared, but he was determined. He was terrified of death, but he charged anyway. The first bullet hit him, then the second, and I aimed the blade at his string. A perfect cut. His soul left his body, and before his eyes closed, he stared at me in shock. I watched his soul rise to the heavens, for two seconds only. My scythe buzzed and glowed again, and I turned to the man who’d shot him. It was his turn. I stood between him and his enemy, and the bullets that hit him went through me first. The cloak wasn’t just for fashion, or to make us look like the Grim Reapers in children’s cartoons. They made us invisible and untouchable. This one didn’t see me. He wasn’t ready to die, and he didn’t even believe in death. When I severed his string of life, his body fell to the ground, and his soul bounced around for a while before it found its way to the dark sky.
My blade glowed once more. I turned to my right, walked a few steps, and detached the soul of a soldier hit by a grenade.
Glow. Slay. Glow. Slay.
I was drenched in sweat. It was half an hour later when I felt Morningstar’s hand on my shoulder.
“Our job here is done. Let’s see what’s next.”
“Next?”
I was confused. My head was pounding, and when Valentine took me under his cloak and teleported us to a new location, I fell on my hands and knees the moment we landed. I needed a minute, but my mentor wasn’t going to give me thirty seconds. I pulled myself to my feet and followed him into a rundown house, into the basement. It was early morning here. The house was empty, except for the cluttered room down there, in the damp semi-darkness. There was a woman on the floor. She was in her forties, thin, almost malnourished, with brown shaggy hair, dressed in rags that hung awkwardly on her bony structure. There was an empty pack of cigarettes at her feet, and a bunch of crushed pills on a book, next to the foot of the bed.
“
Sariel, you’re up.”
Sariel took a reluctant step toward the woman. His hand trembled on his scythe, and I realized that if I had barely been able to stand the scene in the desert, if I had barely been able to do what I just did in the deep of the night… I couldn’t even imagine how he was feeling. He wasn’t made for this. Compassion filled my heart, and I stepped forward. I wasn’t supposed to do this. Morningstar had said it was his turn. Still, something wasn’t right. Maybe he could give Sariel an easier job later, because this woman… My shoulders tensed and my fingers gripped the scythe harder. As the sun rose in the sky, its light filtering through the dirty window, there was a flash of metal. This woman was holding a tiny blade.
I reached Sariel, pulled him by the arm, and stepped between him and her.
“I’ll take this,” I said.
“Mila, this isn’t your…” Valentine started, but I cut him off with a gesture of my hand.
“She’s not supposed to die.”
“Exactly.” He sounded annoyed. “It’s a suicide case, and I want Gracewing to show me how we handle suicide cases.”
