The Mammoth Book of Paranormal Romance 2 (54 page)

Yet Blackthorn believed she could.

Certainly, she could make a different choice. But any choice other than this one would see her promise broken.

She had to respect a promise, no matter that it had been made fifteen years ago. Then she’d honour the promise made to Blackthorn.

The door to the prison opened with an ominous creak and shut so quickly Nova wondered how many had skinned a heel if they hadn’t stepped in fast enough. A steely-eyed officer wearing full uniform and a gun at his hip waited for her to approach. This was no reception area playing muzak and offering magazines while you waited.

“I’m Desdenova Fleetwood. I have an appointment to see Scott Weston, er . . . after?”

“Right, the religious liaison,” he said, noting something on the schedule before him. “Here to view the body and bless it, eh? The killer’s dying wish. Sweet.”

She nodded, nerves keeping her silent, for to speak she would have to reveal the truth. It wasn’t her lie; it had come from Weston.

He pointed to the right. “You’ll need to go through security.”

“Thanks.”

Shouldn’t a dying man’s last wish be honoured?

You have too much integrity.

At what point did a man lose his rights if he had taken the lives of so many? Truly,
did
he deserve a dying wish?

Nova was not the person to make that call. She was simply here to do a duty.

You’ve no right to be their judge. You are a thief.

Blackthorn had a point.

Nova clutched her neck. Was this wrong? She needed someone to tell her what to do. She was one person. One soul who followed her beliefs. But who was to say those beliefs were the right ones?

She glanced over her shoulder. Where was her rescuing knight?

You’re letting him influence you, to sway you. Be strong.
Don’t succumb to base attraction. The man could never be right for you. He isn’t even mortal.

Summoning courage, Nova walked onwards.

The security check was tedious. She was frisked from head to toe. It was embarrassing, even with a female officer doing the frisking. Nova thanked a God she wasn’t sure existed for the freedoms she had enjoyed all her life.

Must a Soul-bringer lead a tethered life? He was always at the beck and call of souls waiting to be collected. A man couldn’t possibly develop meaningful relationships that way.

They were two alike, in so many ways it heartened her. She wanted to know him. She wanted more time with him.

“Ma’am?”

Nova jumped and started towards the door to her right, but the female officer harrumphed loudly.

“Your bag.”

“Oh. Sorry.”

She set down her bag and the officer upended it. A glance at the clock showed two minutes to noon. Nova didn’t have to show up while Weston was still breathing. Her work started after his heart stopped.

And no Soul-bringer had better beat her to it, either.

Yes, please, beat me there. Stop this thief before she sins again
.

Oh, hell, Nova, you
are
the one in the wrong. You take away the judgment owed all men. And you will be judged yourself.

The officer shoved her empty bag towards Nova. “Stay right here.”

Nova glanced at the wall. The clock’s long hand clicked across the twelve at the same time the short hand did. She eyed the fluorescent lights. Would there be a power surge?

No, silly, that was only in movies. Besides, they gave lethal injections nowadays.

“You can enter the waiting room, Miss Fleetwood. The decedent will be brought in shortly.”

Six

Dead bodies did not bother her. She ate the sins. Nothing bizarre happened. She didn’t feel the sin go into her with a thud or shock. It was a non-event. Until she puked it up later. Nova ate the last bits of salted bread from the plate she had set upon the unmoving chest. The corpse was dressed in a white cotton jumpsuit and no shoes. Scott Weston didn’t look as she remembered him fifteen years ago. As always, the decedent merely looked asleep, caught in reverie.

Tears rolled down her cheeks. She’d never allowed emotion to contaminate an eating. Nor had she allowed conflicting thoughts to interfere.

This is your last meal
, kept pinging the surface of her brain. And then –
Blackthorn didn’t get here first
.

She dropped her arms to her sides and glanced to the guard standing inside the small room. A nod from him and she collected her bag from the floor beside her feet, and walked out.

Simple as that. Salt the bread. Eat it. Think pure thoughts (or try to). Leave.

Her footsteps quickened as she anticipated the inevitable violent purge.

Once outside, she ran towards her car, bag clutched to her chest and tears spattering the air. Slamming her hands to the trunk of her yellow VW Bug, she huffed and panted. She’d learned Weston had murdered eighteen women after raping them. This was not going to be pretty.

How dare she steal those sins? Was a promise so much grander than theft? Than murder?

Closing her eyes, Nova bent her knees and sank against the wheel well, the tyre digging into her hip. She should have parked at the back of the lot, next to the line of weeds under the chain-link fence. Towers dotted the high brick walls, capped with curled razor wire. Guards would see no matter where she positioned herself.

Soon the heat would rise through her muscles and skin and bring up her bile.

“I’m not ready,” she said in sniffling sobs. “I can’t die here. Alone. I’ve made a mistake.”

The smell of hot tarmac should have dizzied her, yet the scent reminded her of summer. Gasoline fumes fixed her to real time, the now.

Thoughts were too clear. She did not feel out of sorts, as if her stomach billowed up to her throat. She did not feel . . . anything.

A pair of legs materialized beside her. Nova followed the elegant black trousers up to the snazzy vest.

She jumped up to face Blackthorn and clutched his jacket. “You stole from me!”

“I stole nothing,” he said calmly. “I heard the soul shout and arrived to collect it.”

“Before I was allowed in to eat the sins. You were waiting for it.”

“Not at all. I cannot know when a soul is ready until the actual death. Nor am I aware who has, or has not, visited the body before my arrival. Nova, I am sorry. Had you actually eaten Weston’s sins, you would be the real thief.”

“Don’t touch me.” She stepped away from his touch. “I don’t want to be a thief! I hate you!”

Scrambling around to the driver’s side, she hopped in and fired up the engine. Blackthorn no longer stood in the parking lot when she drove out.

So he had lost the girl. And had he ever even wanted her?

“Yes,” Blackthorn whispered.

He sat on the flat, pebble-frosted rooftop of a building across the street from Nova’s apartment complex. Considering her emotional temperament, he’d been worried about her getting home safely.

Keep telling yourself that, buddy.

He hadn’t stolen Weston’s soul from her. He’d been doing his job. He had pleased the Receiver – and life went on.

Yet had he stolen Nova’s integrity?

He knew he had not, but did she?

A shadow passed before the picture window fronting her apartment. No lights on inside. She’d packed all her things, had been prepared for death because she believed in her heart that her way was the right way. A woman like her stood alone. She could do so many great things if she stepped away from the abysmal darkness of sin-eating.

But who was he to judge? Without adversity life would be dull. If he had not the sin-eater’s challenge he would not now be pondering his own heart. She had made him suddenly . . . not nothing.

Had he the capacity to love? At the very least, to care about a mortal soul still firmly affixed within a body? And not just a body. A simple, beautiful woman who required nothing more than a kiss – and trust.

He wanted to know things about her. Like, what was her favourite book on the shelf full of many? How had her grandmother smiled as she’d taught her granddaughter a craft? Had Nova known how great was that love?

Something lighted on his shoulder. Blackthorn started, and turned to find Nova beside him. Dressed in jeans and a soft blue sweater, she sat close, her arm hugging his and drew her knees up and propped her chin there.

“Sorry,” she said. “I don’t hate you.”

“You’ve every right—”

“No, I don’t. You were doing your job. I wanted it to happen that way, but denied the truth when it was granted. I’ve had a good talk with myself. I have no right to make judgments. I can’t worry about what happens with my soul when it leaves this world. I want to live, Blackthorn. Right now. Tomorrow. The next day. What are you doing today?”

“Me?” Blackthorn drew her hand up to his mouth. Fragile fingers capable of caressing his hardened heart closed about his. “I think there’s a deal I have to pay up on. Something about a kiss?”

“I was hoping you hadn’t forgotten. But let me.”

“Let you?”

“I’m going to kiss you.”

He turned his body towards her. “I have never been warned about a kiss before.”

“It’s not a warning – well, maybe it is. You look the sort who will be surprised.”

“Nothing surprises me, Nova. I have lived and experienced far too long.”

Nova pushed her fingers through his hair and leaned to touch his mouth with hers. Yet she didn’t connect immediately. Instead, the two of them lingered there, face-to-face, breaths blending, hearts pounding.

Becoming. Two learning.

She was the first to move forward and brush his mouth with hers. Warmth burnished more than her lips, perhaps her very soul. She wanted him to have a soul, to know this exquisite connection.

His touch drew her into the dark, sweet glimmer of alluring passion.

Want. It was a simple thing, laced with yearning and desire.

Sinful? That all depended on who was doing the judging. Nova didn’t want to judge; she simply wanted to live. To take what life offered her.

When she pulled back, his eyelids flickered and his dark irises gleamed.

“You’re surprised,” she said.

“So I am.” He held out his hand and Nova threaded her fingers through his. “That was a splendid kiss.”

She laid her head on his shoulder. “So I didn’t actually break my promise today.”

“You went to the penitentiary with intention. It was not your fault the soul cried out before you got to the body. But you do know perhaps only monks live sinless lives?”

She nodded. “I understand now that sin-eating is sin in and of itself.”

“Well-intentioned.”

“I’m not going to worry about it. There are much better ways to occupy one’s time.” She tilted her head against his shoulder. “Do you date, Blackthorn?”

“You mean, a steady girl? I’ve never tried it.”

“Maybe you should. It’s good to make connections, and have friends. Love, well, it is important to survival.”

“The soul’s survival. I admire you. When I look at you my glass heart pulses.”

“It’s glass? That means you’re a—”

“I was once.”

“Wow.”

He hugged her against him. “You understand me, Desdenova. Perhaps we could give it a try?”

“Would you disappear during the middle of a date to go collect souls?”

“Probably. But when I am not on a task I would be with you. Always.”

“Kiss me again, Soul-bringer.”

Sharon Ashwood

A wingtip brushed Selina’s ear. She yelped, a short, sharp cry of surprise.

Jolted out of her grocery-shopping stupor, Selina whipped around. Her skin tingled where she’d felt the whisper of suede-soft skin. The sensation rippled down her neck like tiny fingers.

What the . . . ?

With a thunderous
smack
, the cereal aisle exploded in a storm of frosty, flaky goodness. Seconds later, the air filled with the sound of cereal pattering back to earth like the inside of a breakfast-food snow globe. Selina scanned her surroundings, trying to make sense of it all.

She squinted at the mess. There were certain things she expected to encounter in the grocery aisle. A gargoyle floundering in a drift of Toasty-Os was not among them.

“What is that thing?” a man demanded, picking up a jar of peanut butter like an offensive weapon.

“It’s hideous,” someone else said.

“Is somebody going to call animal control?”

“It’s just a gargoyle,” Selina put in.

They were one of the many oddball species that had started popping up lately, some humanoid and some – like the gargoyles – definitely not. It had started happening during Y2K, when the vampires had swanned on to the talk show circuit and revealed themselves to the world in an emo tell-all. After that, being a plain old human was just so last century. Paranormal was instantly the new black. More and more supernatural species were emerging from the shadows and signing up for cell phones, credit cards and cable TV.