Fourth Grave Beneath My Feet

I was hoping to get more answers before he went gallivanting onto the battlefield, hunting down the suck-up. This was a rare opportunity. Having Reyes Farrow all to myself without someone trying to kill us, or without women standing around gawking. Well, other women standing around gawking. I didn’t count.

“What am I capable of?” I asked, changing the subject again.

He filled his lungs to capacity and accepted my query with grace. “Only you can know that.”

The room grew darker by the minute with the setting sun. I stood and leaned toward him until I could smell the earthy essence he’d been born with. Like a lightning storm in a dessert desperate for rain. “I want to know, Reyes. You keep telling me I’m capable of so much more. I want to know what.”

His eyes shimmered with interest. “I’m not lying. I don’t know.”

I took the bottle and shoved away from the table so I could rinse the taste of bile out of the back of my mouth. After taking a swig of a liquid acidic enough to melt the paint off a Chevy, I swished it around, then swallowed. My eyes watered as it seared my already raw throat; then I handed the bottle back and strode to look out the window. I had to ease the thick curtains aside to see onto Central as rush hour traffic came to a head in the evening gloam.

“Every reaper is different in physical form,” Reyes said. “And most never fully come into their powers.”

I turned back to him, so thirsty for information, I was not above begging. “What do you mean? How many of us are there?”

“Not as many as you might think.”

The room had grown even darker, so I reached over and turned on a lamp. It helped, but Reyes still sat in shadows.

I eased back into the chair and waited as he took another drink from the bottle and I realized then that he was still bleeding. Dark spots were seeping through the T-shirt. I tried to tamp down my alarm.

“You’re not really called reapers on the other planes,” he said, placing the bottle carefully back on the table. “That’s a human reference.”

“Wait, other planes? How many planes are there?” I asked, surprised by his word choice.

“How many galaxies are there in the universe? How many stars? It’s hard to know exactly. Suffice it to say, many.”

“I—I had no idea.”

“Not many do. And in answer to your question, there is a new reaper born on this plane every few hundred years. There’s no set time, really.”

I stilled. “But you told me before, you’d been waiting for me. That every time a new reaper was sent, you were disappointed because it wasn’t me. How long have you been here?”

He frowned in thought. “I’m not sure exactly. Maybe fifteen centuries.”

Stunned, I asked, “What the heck were you doing all that time?”

He studied me. “Waiting.”

For me. That Englishman said he’d been sent for me. Was he telling me the truth? Did Reyes’s father send him for me specifically?

“So a new reaper is born every few hundred years. Are they immortal or something?”

“No. Not their physical bodies. Most don’t live more than a few years, in fact.”

“Why?”

He considered me a minute, then said, “Think about your childhood, Dutch. What it was like growing up with your abilities.”

Memories flooded my cerebral cortex instantly. My stepmother’s horror. The loss of good friends once I tried to tell them who I was. What I was. The distractions in class when departed showed up, which often ended with me going to the principal’s office.

“Now think about having those abilities in a world teeming with superstition and fear. Many were killed as children. Of those who weren’t, most became hermits. They were shunned by their own people, never fully accepted. You are truly the first of your kind who has thrived among them.”

I didn’t know what to say. “What happens when we die?”

“You have to understand, your body is the anchor for the portal. It’s the part that got you onto this plane.”

“But if my body is gone, what happens? Will I still be the portal?”

“Yes.” He nodded. “You were a portal long before you ever took human form.”

“So, if—when I die, I’ll still be the grim reaper?”

“Once your body ceases to exist, you become powerful a hundred times over, but you’ll also change. You won’t have that human connection, and every reaper changes over time. They lose their sense of humanity, though some didn’t have that much to lose in the first place. Humans were not kind to them.”

“If that’s the case, why did you try to let your body die?”

He leaned his head to the side. “Back to that?” When I shrugged, he said, “Because it was the draw, Dutch. The bait they could have hooked you with. And they succeeded, in case you’ve forgotten.”

“But they could’ve taken you. Once your corporeal body passed, they could’ve taken you, right?”

His mouth curved knowingly. “They would’ve had to catch me first.”

“The Englishman made it sound like it would be easy to track you down, because of your tattoos, the key.”

“The Englishman?”

“Hedeshi. He’s in the body of an Englishman.”

“Ah. Well, there are ways around that as well.”

Certain he wouldn’t tell me what those ways were, I kept on track. I was actually getting somewhere for the first time in forever.