Reaper (15 page)

“You freakin’?” Jane asked Wendy, surprised. “I'm just kidding. We're out in the middle of nowhere and it's just us three lovelies here. Scout's honor.” She brought four fingers up to her forehead. “Is that how you do this thing?” she asked Emma after a moment. “I can never remember.”

“You dropped out of Girl Scouts after two weeks,” Emma said wearily, standing aside and shedding her clothing with a systematic ease that startled Wendy. She disrobed mechanically, stripping bare without a wasted motion. Even naked, she was the epitome of cool, flawless beauty, long copper hair drawn off her face and sleek lines lit by the steady, low lantern light. Irritated, Wendy admitted to herself that she was jealous. It hardly seemed fair that girls as model-gorgeous as Emma existed in the first place, much less that she was a relative
and
a doctor.

“You're getting nekkid?” Jane asked, hunkering down with her sketchbook. “Color me surprised. I never figured Miss Stick-Up-Her-Butt would, well, show said butt.” She eyed her cousin and grinned. “Though it's an admittedly well-tanned butt for such a pale chick.”

“It is only fair,” Emma replied.

“Your butt?”

“My being unclothed,” Emma said through clenched teeth. “If Wendy must battle disrobed, so must I.”

“Wait, excuse me?” Defensively, Wendy crossed her arms over her chest. “Who said anything about fighting naked?”

Emma raised an eyebrow; her expression was cool but the set of her shoulders conveyed her irritation. “It is how it is done.”

“Yeah, um, no. I would've remembered that bit in the Welcome to Our Weird Ol’ Family welcome packet and I certainly didn't sign up for
this
. Especially not in a semi-public location—‘
this is how it's done
’ not withstanding, sorry.”

“Don't be such a wimp,” Jane said, yawning. “We all have to go through it at one point or another. And some of us aren't cute little things like you. You'll be fine. I won't even take pictures and load them on the Internet. Scout's honor. Never even occurred to me. Nope.”

“Why is it necessary?” Wendy pressed, backing away so that she faced the room and non-nude safety was only a short sprint up the stairs.

“It takes a trained eye to see, but we bring a version of our clothing into the Never with us,” Emma explained, expression purposefully bland and blank. “That clothing will hinder our activities and your training.”

“That's what she said,” Jane joked.

“And it's
completely
necessary?” Wendy asked, hating how whiny she sounded but unable to stop her trembling.

“Completely,” Emma assured her. “It's impossible otherwise.” She paused—for the briefest moment Wendy fancied that Emma felt
badly
for her—and then her expression was calm and clear again. “As Jane said, every Reaper must go through it.”

“Okay,” Wendy said begrudgingly, crouching down to unlace her shoes; her throat felt tight and swollen, her cheeks hot and flushed. “I hella don't like it, but…okay.”

“Well if you two are going to go at it right away, I better measure you now, before Emma tears you into teeny tiny pieces,” Jane said, hopping to her feet and grabbing Wendy's wrist in her hand as Wendy stood. She spanned Wendy's wrist with her fingers, “hmm”ing to herself under her breath. “Okay, now spin around.”

“I'm confused,” Wendy said as Jane circled her, occasionally squatting down and grabbing a body part—palming her ankle here, and then reaching up and squeezing the opposing thigh. “What are you doing?”

“She's feeling where the holes in your Light are,” Emma explained, sorting through the duffel bag and drawing out a pair of long, slender bone knives decorated with familiar, arching Celtic knots. They curved wickedly in the dim lamplight. “To better cover your defenses there.”

“You actually do have to be naked for the important parts,” Jane added, “since I need to see where your current ink ends and get an idea of how the layout of your trunk goes—you know, scars and such. But this little bit, the measuring, you don't have to be bare for. I'm sorry I embarrassed you earlier, with the hip thing. You looked so edgy about the dark, I was just having a little fun.”

Jane stepped back, jotting notes down on a small sketchpad and popping another bubble. “If it makes you feel any better, usually there's some ancient crone doing the booby-grabbing and I, personally, think that I'm much easier on the eyes. Plus, compared to my grandma, I'm like ten times as gentle. Grandma Elise's got fingers like a vice.”

“Not really making me feel better,” Wendy muttered.

“Meh, I'll ease you into it,” Jane promised. “We'll do all the touchy-feely stuff clothed, okay?”

Running her hand along the dip above Wendy's hips, Jane spun Wendy to the left and Wendy felt a small, savage pinch on her hip at the height of the twirl. Wendy thought to protest but Jane was deep in concentration, leaning close enough for Wendy to examine the double-keyhole etched in white ink at the center of Jane's largest shoulder tat as she pressed hands flat against Wendy's gut and thigh. Jane must not have realized that she'd hurt her, Wendy realized, absently rubbing the sore spot.

“We've waited as long as we can,” Emma said gently, checking her watch as Jane finally stepped back. “It is time to begin.”

Wendy grimaced. “Last time I ask. No other way?”

“None.” Emma waved the tip of the dagger at Wendy's midsection. “We're all girls here and I'm a doctor. It's nothing I've never seen before.”

“And I'm an artist,” Jane added helpfully. “I can't tell you the number of nudes I had to sketch in school. It'll be nothing, I promise. After I'm done you can even keep the originals.”

Emma unsheathed a knife. “Disrobe.”

Turning her back on them, Wendy gingerly stripped. The air was surprisingly warm, Wendy noted as she hesitantly stepped into the light. “Okay. What's next?”

Emma stepped forward and handed her the bone knives. “Take these.”

“What are they? I mean, besides knives? And I should probably mention right now that I've never, ever held a knife like this before.”

“They're family heirlooms,” Jane said, glancing up from her sketchbook where she was drawing madly. “Don't break ’em. And stay in the light if you can.”

“Don't worry about wielding them just yet. All you must do is hold them. No,” Emma said, adjusting Wendy's grip, “like this. If you hold them like that you might cut your own wrist.” She tapped Wendy's wrist. “Looser.
Looser
, I said! You're going to hurt yourself at this rate.”

“I didn't ask for this,” Wendy couldn't help whining.

“You wanted to be trained. This is what training entails. Looser! Good. Much better.” Emma stepped back. “Now we stand at the opposite sides of the circle,” she instructed, moving the edge of the faded arc. “You tell me when you're ready.”

“Ready for what?”

“Just when you're ready.”

“Don't you get any weapons? Am I supposed to come at you? Seriously, guys, I have no clue what's going on here.”

“Tell me when you're ready,” Emma said patiently.

After long moments of alternating between watching Emma, looking at her own naked feet, and glancing furtively at Jane still furiously drawing away, Wendy took a deep breath and said, “I'm ready.”

The attack was instantaneous. It was so quick that Wendy staggered back, gasping for air, and stunned that anyone could move like that. Emma, already back on the other side of the circle, danced in a sinuous, elegant wave, darting forward and tagging Wendy painfully—a sharp tap that Wendy could feel in her teeth and bones.

The first blow, she quickly realized, had only been a test. When the next blows came she didn't even have the courtesy of seeing Emma flash forward; one moment she was there and the next her entire body stung. It took Wendy several more painful attacks to realize that while Emma was touching her with her fingertips briefly in the living world, her attacks were simultaneously coming from the Never. She was using her ribbons of Light to press into Wendy's soul and it was
incredibly
painful.

“Break! Uncle! Truce!” Wendy gasped at last, staggering over to the wall. She'd tried opening herself up to the Light in order to fight on turf she was stronger in, but every time she began the process Emma's Light would snap at her at least a dozen times, the stinging pain slowing Wendy down.

“No truce,” Emma said beside her before pushing Wendy over. Wendy caught herself in time to keep from barking her shin on the edge of the lantern, but scraped her palm in the process. “The dead will not give you a break in battle; neither shall I.”

“Whoa, whoa,” Jane suddenly said, hopping to her feet and setting down the sketchpad, scowling at Wendy as she looked her closely up and down. She held out a hand and helped Wendy to her feet. “Wait a second. Emma…are you…are you doing what I think you're doing? Or, I guess, did? Did do? Done? Whatever.”

“That depends on what you suppose I am doing or have done.” Emma's face was like carved ice, her expression immutable.

“Well, I'm no expert, but it looks like you're—and look, I know you, so I'm sorry for even suggesting this—but it looks like you're binding her.” Jane thrust her hands into the air in a warding off gesture. “I'm sorry!”

“Binding?” Wendy asked stupidly, feeling slow and grumpy. She was annoyed that her mother hadn't even taught her the very basics of the Reaper culture. Half the prattle coming out of their mouths was confusing and strange and the other half was downright aggravating. This latest pause was a sickening mixture of both.

“It would seem that way because that is exactly what I'm doing,” Emma replied coolly, ignoring Wendy entirely. “Or, rather, have done.”

“What is a binding?” Wendy demanded more strongly.

“But you can't do that,” Jane protested, crossing her arms over her chest. “It's overkill, don't you think?”

“For the last frickin’ time,” Wendy snapped, grabbing Emma by the wrist, “what in the hell is a binding?”

“Remember that girl, the blind natural?” Emma asked, yanking her wrist free. “If this technique had existed in its entirety back then, she might have survived. As for what it is, look for yourself.”

Edgy and nervous, Wendy slid into the Light and looked down. Instead of her normal, pulsing mass of incandescent power, she found that Emma had taken pieces of her Light with her knives and whips, carving a dark mesh-like pattern into her ethereal form. Her entire body was nothing but lacy scars of Light, a lightweight layer of blackness stretched over the normal fierce brightness.

“Okay, I look weird as hell. We'll set that aside for now,” Wendy growled. “The key question here is WHY THE HELL WERE YOU DOING THIS OH-SO-MAGICAL BINDING WITHOUT ASKING ME FIRST?”

Groaning, Emma rolled her eyes. “I know you're new to all this, but if you'd had any training—”

“That's not my fault!”

“—any training at all, you'd have recognized this for what it is. And you'd know why it's preferable to the alternative, at least temporarily. Grandmother and Great-Grandmother ordered it done, it's done. Enough said.”

“It's kind of drastic, don't you think?” Jane asked quietly. “I mean, yeah, Wendy's a weirdo freak, sure—”

“Thank you so much,” Wendy snapped.

“Hey, it's not my fault you're some sort of cutesy-wootsy mutated abomination,” Jane said, pinching Wendy's cheek saucily. “The point is that, weirdo or not, she's still a Reaper, right?”

“I don't count to three when I give inoculations to children,” Emma replied shortly. “Sometimes they're lucky if I count to two. You do what is best, and this is for Wendy's safety. What's done is done. It's over.”

“That's it?” Wendy hissed, hands grasped in fists at her side; naked and exposed, she felt as if every hair on her body was puffing out like a cat's. “No ‘I'm sorry for doing something permanent to your soul, Wendy?’ No ‘Hey, Wendy, we had this idea we wanna try out on you’? No ‘This might sting a little’? Yeah, well, thanks ever so much for the heads-up, you psycho bitch.”

“Cut the drama,” Emma retorted. “I never said it was permanent. What kind of a monster do you take me for?”

“A selfish hosebeastica?” Jane asked, picking up her sketchbook. “An order-taking, brown-wearing boot-licker?”

“Spare me. If Grandmother told you to jump, you wouldn't bother asking how high before flinging yourself off the closest cliff,” Emma snapped, pointing an accusing finger at Jane.

“Enough! From both of you!” Wendy yelled. They fell silent and she breathed heavily for several moments, trying to find an inner calm. At long last she said, “Fine, you did this soul thingy, I can't undo it, great. Now how long is this binding for?” Wendy asked stiffly. “What did you do exactly and what's coming down the pike?”

“They usually last maybe a couple weeks at most,” Jane said, licking her thumb and flicking to the next page of her sketchbook. “Nowadays a binding is usually used to teach new Reapers control of the Light. It feeds you only little dribs and drabs of the Light at a time. Not enough to stop you up, but enough to keep you from blowing it all in one fell swoop and then being helpless for days afterward.”

“That's it? It just slows me down?”

“That's it,” Emma said, voice heavy with disdain. “Now don't you feel bad about assuming the worst?”

“Not really, considering it's something I still would have liked some input on.” Wendy scowled and concentrated. She could feel the strings of power lying across her soul, across the core of her abilities, like a series of thin ribbons woven and wrapped tightly around her chest. She could move and poke at her power but it was like pressing her hand against a fine, taut mesh, trying to grasp a shiny bauble just beyond her reach. “It's kind of uncomfortable.” She shifted in place. “Like a too-tight corset, really.”

“It's meant to be,” Jane said, jokingly. She elbowed Wendy and winked. “Hairshirt for your powers, right? That'll teach you to be born a mutant, ya spaz.”

“Quit calling her that, even jokingly. It's not funny,” Emma growled. “Wendy, if you concentrate, you can still slip in and out of the Never. You won't be able to reap a spirit, but you can still train with me.” She cleared her throat. “If you still want to, that is.”