His twin spoke. “Leave us. Your despair is a fine wine they grow drunk from scenting.”
That, Saul could believe. He reeked, with alcohol and desperation, and he knew it.
Soft chuckles rained from overhead. The twins spoke as one in that creepy way Saul hated.
“We smell ozone.” They studied his tattered wings. “We suggest that you return to Azrael of your own free will and accept your punishment. You do not wish for him to send Zared after you.”
Saul suppressed a shudder. Zared was a cherub. Where Azrael found him, Saul didn’t want to know. What their twisted relationship was, well, Saul didn’t want to know that either. “I plan to.”
“Remember.” They spoke over one another again. “Feed the prisoners or lose the wardens.”
“I’ll see that it’s done.” Even though it meant Saul had to skim souls from the pits.
A shriek pierced the air as one of the creatures spotted Saul and charged.
The seraphs flitted from their perch into the valley, swords at the ready. “Leave. Now.”
Saul did as he was told. Screams followed his retreat. The creature had bought him time. The blades the seraphs carried could kill the things. Once its soul was released, its brethren would frenzy.
They would fall upon its carcass and feed, but Saul had no time to watch the show.
He had a date with an angel to keep.
When the phone on Chloe’s desk rang, she tucked the receiver between her cheek and shoulder, leaving her hands free to sort invoices. “McCrea Books, Chloe speaking.”
A familiar breathy voice replied, “I am so sorry to have to call you like this.”
Between one breath and the next, Chloe broke out in a nervous sweat, making the phone slip down her face. “Mrs. Marshall, is something wrong?”
“It’s Beth.” She paused, and Chloe heard sniffling. “She ran off with that Jenkins boy.” A small sob filled the line. “I told Harold we had to keep an eye on those two, but he didn’t listen. He never listens. Now our baby has run off with a no-account farmer.”
Pointing out the fact that the Marshalls were also farmers, who had lived on acreage bordering the Jenkins family for several generations, seemed like a bad idea at the moment. So she offered condolences instead.
“I’m sorry to hear that.” And she was. No mother should have to wonder where her child was. Her own mother had said so often. Usually as part of her argument against Chloe going out with a friend, the few times she’d had one.
As ashamed as she was to admit her guilty pleasure, Chloe had lived vicariously through the tidbits of gossip Beth shared about her whirlwind romance with quiet little Osgood Jenkins. Hearing about their torrid affair was as close to experiencing the drama of high school as she’d ever come.
When it came to the teenage social scene, this homeschooler had definitely gotten the short end of the stick. Even if boys
had
sniffed around her, and they hadn’t, Mom said dating was out. By the time boys were in, Chloe was too set in her routine, too painfully shy around the opposite sex, and too frumpy to make a good impression on anyone not looking to settle down with the librarian type.
“You’re so kind to say so, dear.” Mrs. Marshall cleared her throat. “Regardless, I wanted to let you know so you could make other arrangements. I know she does your grocery shopping for you, but that won’t be the case now.”
Chloe’s eyes closed. “Ah.” She hadn’t connected those dots. Beth bought her groceries, ran her errands, did several things Chloe couldn’t do without leaving the bookstore.
She wouldn’t starve to death in the meantime. If nothing else, the pizza place delivered.
“Oh.” Mrs. Marshall sucked in an excited breath. “I have to go. Harold said someone at the market saw them heading toward Louvain. The Jenkins have a hunting cabin up that way. If we leave now, we’ll catch them before it’s too late.”
In the background, Chloe heard Mr. Marshall’s resigned sigh.
“Good luck,” Chloe said. They’d need it. It wasn’t every day a person discovered what loving thy neighbor looked like firsthand. “Let me know when you find them.”
“I’ll do that.” The call ended with a sharp click.
With her elbows propped on her desk and her forehead braced in her hands, she stared down at a spiral notebook and vowed to practice reciting the help-wanted ad she would have to place before calling the paper this time.
“Chloe?”
Her head jerked up with a start. “Yes?”
“It’s after twelve o’clock. I didn’t want to bother you.” Neve covered her stomach with her hand. “But I skipped breakfast. Would you mind if I took my lunch break now?”
Shaking her head to clear the numbers from her vision, Chloe stood. “Do me a favor and flip the sign out front? I close from twelve to one daily.” She stretched. “If we run late once, I doubt anyone will notice.”
“Thanks.” Neve picked at the tail of her shirt. “I noticed there’s a picnic table around back. If you’re taking off too… want to join me?”
“I can’t.” It would mean going outside, and that hadn’t happened in months. Not since the dream where her nightmare man stumbled across a hiker in the woods… Remembering the man’s screams, and the specter’s fury, made her grateful she hadn’t eaten yet.
It was definitely not a good day to go outside.
“Okay.” Neve drew out the word. “I guess I’ll see you in an hour, then. I’ll be under the elm if you need me.” With a wave tossed over her departing shoulder, she left Chloe alone in her office with only the gruesome memory for company.
In need of more comfort than her calculator could provide, Chloe headed upstairs to her apartment, grabbed a book from the coffee table, and then prepared her lunch. Her small table crowded the breakfast nook and overlooked the rear of the building. Her window framed the picnic table where Neve sat, nibbling her sandwich while flipping through the battered pages of a paperback novel.
She dropped to the window seat and took a sip of iced tea before folding her legs beneath her. A twist to the left angled her toward Neve, and she pretended they sat across the table from one another. She lifted her book, then lowered it as a thought occurred to her.
Tapping her nails on the cover of her book, Chloe decided a book club of two would be nice. Meetings over lunch, discussing favorite heroines, and teasing each other about heroes they would each add to their fantasy harem could be fun.
When Neve’s head rose as if she sensed herself being watched, Chloe flushed and lifted the book she’d started the night before. As she took a bite of her salad, she smiled to herself and enjoyed the rest of her lunch with Neve.
Several minutes later, the antique clock mounted across the room chimed a new hour.
A shiver coasted down Chloe’s spine as she realized there were only four hours left until closing. Only six hours left until dark. Her skin prickled with the knowledge of what awaited her in the night. Sentient, menacing, her nightmarish visitor was always hungry for her slumber in ways she couldn’t understand and really didn’t want to.
Nathaniel stepped into a dingy kitchen as the rift sealed on his heels. Fluorescent light buzzed overhead and cast his shadow across the floor. Extending his senses, he sought out his mark. His head snapped to the right, and he slid into shadow as a middle-aged man shuffled past the door. It took seconds to verify they were alone. Good. He could handle his business and leave this place.
His pendant hung heavy around his neck. Once he removed it, he felt lighter as the familiar mantle of invisibility settled about his shoulders. The shears hummed with eagerness in his grip.
One step, then two, and the harvester bond snapped into place with his prey.
“Come Friday, I’m buying some concrete. Dirt floor that’s tore up looks suspicious.”
Nathaniel waited while the man stripped in front of his washing machine, hating the way his gut pitched as memories poured inside his head and he relived the crimes that had earned this visit.
“I could use a new shovel too, an ax. It’s been six months since I bought the last ones.”
His mark padded into the kitchen wearing stained boxers and a white T-shirt with holes.
Nathaniel approached, trailing a finger over his mark’s left breast pocket. Eager thumps met his fingertips as he slid spectral fingers through dense muscles and gave the man’s racing heart a squeeze. His face paled and his breathing labored. He deserved death, and Nathaniel wanted it done.
“Hello?” The mark stared straight ahead while Nathaniel was wrist-deep in his chest, and he saw nothing. He tried for a jolly smile. It looked too practiced and insincere. “Is anyone there?”
Nathaniel withdrew his hand. Sometimes a man’s final moments on earth were the most telling of his character. Alone, people slipped free of their masks. Nathaniel witnessed transgressions that twisted the thin thread of his hope for humanity into silken knots of despair.
This man, for instance, was no longer the red-checked grocery store clerk who made young mothers blush and offered their children lollipops as they passed through his line. A friendly man who gave select customers a memento, unbeknownst to them, that he fully planned to recollect.
Behind his mask was a man who had taken a low-paying job where the most taxing question he would ever ask was, “Would you like me to double bag?” Because the grocer shared the same block as the local elementary school, and he wanted to work close enough that he heard the bell ring.
Jerking his gaze from the empty kitchen, the man circled toward the doorway to his right. He chuckled as if to reassure himself. “Damn storm must be blowing shit around.” He rammed his shoulder against the side door until the latch caught; then he chained and bolted the door shut.
With that task handled, the man went to the sink and scrubbed his hands. He was meticulous as he cleaned his nail beds. White suds turned pink as he scrubbed his hands and up his forearms.
The sinking sensation in Nathaniel’s stomach worsened. He staggered toward the counter. It was then he saw the man was holding a pink plastic ring, the kind that cost a quarter in a gumball machine. The man smoothed his thumb across the rose on top and brownish flakes fell into the sink basin. Using a toothbrush, he scrubbed it clean, then set it on a wrinkled paper towel to dry.
Despite this mark’s preference for girls, a child was a child, and all Nathaniel saw was Bran. The fight with Saul, the hurt on Bran’s face, the desperate longing for Nathaniel to be the father Saul couldn’t be, all crashed over him. That thin cord of restraint snapped and Nathaniel snarled.
Staring into this man’s eyes, Nathaniel saw only satisfaction in the murky, green depths. The kind of sick contentment no amount of time spent in a cage or with a counselor would cure. After all, if rehabilitation had been possible or deserved, the man wouldn’t have found his way onto Delphi’s list.
Anticipation made Nathaniel’s hands shake as he donned his pendant and his human façade.
“What you’ve done can’t be forgiven.” His voice boomed in his ears. The mark jumped back a step, clutching his chest. He gaped at Nathaniel as understanding registered across his features. Blood drained from his face. Indecision froze him to the spot. Nathaniel advanced on him and placed his palm square over the man’s wildly racing heart. “You’ve taken innocence not yours to have.”
His fingers, no longer incorporeal, sank into the man’s chest.
Horror rounded the mark’s eyes. His mouth fell open on a primal scream.
Nathaniel relished the sound, let it feed the darkness welling inside him.
No.
He gritted his teeth.
This is not me; this is not who I am.
Taking his pendant, he wrapped it tight around his wrist. The mark whimpered when Nathaniel’s hand vanished before their eyes.
“Please.” The man panted while he pawed at Nathaniel’s wrist. “I can change. I can.”
“No. You can’t.” Nathaniel pushed his fingers deeper. “You’re a rabid dog that must be put down for the good of those who would lie ahead of you and all those you’ve already left behind.”
There, to his right. Nathaniel closed his hand around the oily swath of soul and gave it a tug.
The man’s protuberant eyes widened even farther. Even his bulbous nose quivered.
“Enough,” he said to himself, and ripped the man’s soul free of its mooring. The mark’s body hit the ground with a hard thump.
Nathaniel stuffed the soul into his bag and slumped against the counter. When he could breathe again, he tore paper towels from the roll and cleaned his hand. Then he mopped his forehead and staggered from the kitchen.
One more collection and he could go home, scrub his skin raw, and forget tonight happened.
Nathaniel stepped from worm-eaten planks onto the glossy tile of his second mark’s bathroom floor. He shook his head to clear the tendrils of connection with his previous mark. It didn’t help. His addled mind was swamped with sensation, and his hand shook around his shears.
This taste of psychic burnout must be why Delphi kept harvesters on a strict one-harvest-per-twenty-four-hour schedule, but it was too late to turn back now. Already the bond sought his new mark. She lived alone in an apartment over her bookstore, and she was sleeping soundly in the next room.
The deeper he probed their connection, the faster his heart raced. Tension coiled in his chest. The heady thrum in his blood drew him from her cheerful sea-blue bathroom into the living room.
Something about that brush of minds made his palms sweat, his throat tighten.
The mark lay on her side, her face pressed into the back of a long couch. The setting sun’s rays poured through a small window behind her television and glinted off her chestnut hair.
He paused, wondering why he even noticed. Marks were nameless, faceless to him. Their crimes rendered them inhuman in his eyes, so he stopped looking, ceased caring. Yet he couldn’t pry his gaze from her. He was mesmerized by the play of sunlight on her hair, the gentle rise and fall of her back as she slept. Peace enveloped him as he watched, utterly captivated by the mortal’s slumber.
Chloe. Her name was Chloe. He wished their bond hadn’t supplied a name for her.