Reaper (7 page)

“You have his back. Who has yours?” Frank glanced left and right and shadowy figures that had been hidden amid the throng shifted forward. Stomach sinking, Piotr realized that even if they were able to get past these subtle fighters, they wouldn't be able to easily escape. The barely-clad woman and the holy man lounged with arms crossed in front of the closest exits; long, sharp blades were clearly visible in ready fists. The camo-dressed soldier had the next set of doors covered as well.

Piotr scowled. They'd sent Elle up early to scout for this sort of thing, but Frank was better than they'd given him credit for. Piotr had a sneaking suspicion that Frank's verbal mistake earlier had been a ploy to keep them seated and talking so they could be surrounded. Every exit on this floor was covered and the doors, replaced within the past few decades, were the only spiritually weak spots of the rooftop bar. All the rest was solid even in the Never—they were trapped here at Frank's whim, unable to pass through the walls for a quick getaway.

“Fine.” Piotr sat back down and scowled at Frank. “Let us speak of the Lightbringer. You begin.”

Frank chuckled. “That little dolly of yours sure knows how to blow our jets, doesn't she? Here we are, minding our own business, and her mother's hardly in the ground before she starts rattling my cage. Not even a by-your-leave. That's gratitude for you, huh? Her mother, now…Mary was a classy lady, a solid straw boss.”

“You knew the White Lady?” Elle stiffened.

Frank scratched his chin thoughtfully. “Not personally, no. By the time Mary was calling herself the ‘White Lady’ I was having no truck with her. But before?” He grinned. “Sure enough. For a broad, Mary was completely pulled together, you dig? We had an arrangement.”

“I disbelieve,” Piotr said dryly.

“Believe it. The Council kept all the regular-joe spirits out of her way and pumped full of the will to keep going—off the streets and cookin’ at the bash, in other words—so Mary didn't have to fuss with all that nasty reaping.” Frank waved a hand at the crush below. “In exchange, Mary kept our neck of the woods free of Walkers and came ’round twice a month to clean up those poor souls who'd given in or given up, who'd become Shades. Boss, right? Good deal all around.”

“Reaping is the duty of the Lightbringer,” Lily said stiffly, crossing her legs and eying Frank's backup closely as she looked around the room. Piotr had the sense that the instant one of them approached, they'd become fast acquaintances with her fists. Lily might be deadly with her daggers, but in their decades together James had taught her more than a thing or two about hand-to-hand. “That the White Lady would renege upon her solemn duty—allowing the likes of the Council to police this area of town in her stead—is truly reprehensible.”

“Don't get your panties in a twist, girlie,” Frank said smoothly. “Keep in mind that there's a difference between the crazy broad who called herself the White Lady and Mary, the Lightbringer's momma. Mary, now? Mary wasn't reneging nothing. Mary just had her hands full doing other, more important things. For example, did you three ankle-biters know that there's more than one Lightbringer in this great wide Never of ours?”

“Of course,” Piotr said, bored. “Wendy and her mother. But now this is no longer, it is Wendy alone.”

“Oh no, son, not even close.” Frank tilted his chair back so he was balanced on the back legs and threaded his hands behind his head. “We're talking a whole battalion of ladies like your little ‘friend.’ Lightbringers? Might as well call ’em Lightslingers! Cousins and aunts and great-grandmothers twice removed, and damn near every last one of them has a vested interest in wiping out the dead. Dead like you, son. Dead like me.”

“
NET!
” Piotr snarled, rising to his feet. In his periphery he spotted several of Frank's guards start forward, and both Lily and Elle tensed beside him, fists clenched. “You lie! Wendy would have—”

“Cool it, Red. Sit down.”

“I will not—”

“I said: sit…down.” Frank crossed his arms over his chest and gazed evenly at Piotr until Piotr, irritated and uneasy, settled back in his seat. Frank waved at the men in the crowd and waited until they'd melted back into the mass to continue. The guards on the doors, however, remained.

“Listen up, Red.” Frank rapped the table with his knuckles. “I'm not claiming that Wendy knows hide or hair about her veritable tribe. Mary was known for backroom deals and playing her cards close to the vest, especially when it came to the old biddies that ran her family. Chances are, she never told little miss lovely a thing about ’em. In fact, I have it on good authority from a little birdie that your Wendy did not, in fact, have a clue from where she hails. She might now, but she didn't before. Dig it?”

“So the Lightbringer comes from a clan,” Elle sneered, still tense and eying the crowd. “Whoopdy-freaking-doo. What's that got to do with the Riders?”

“Miss Mary Quite Contrary up and split,” Frank said solemnly. “We've got seventeen years worth of odd-ball souls that should've been sent on ages ago wandering around this city—more than a handful of them starting to slide toward crazy with a vengeance—and a whole peck of Reapers coming home to roost. You all kept your heads so low, I'm not surprised that this is news to you.”

“Your point?” Piotr asked.

He buffed his nails on his shirt. “Every sane soul in the Never from Berkeley to Santa Cruz knows through the grapevine that your little miss wasn't trained up proper-like, that she's winging it. If
we
know that, do you really think her family doesn't? They've got ears with ears plastered to ’em. Spies, Red, and lots of ’em.”

Lily pursed her lips. “I hardly think it's Wendy's fault if she was not run through the gauntlet. They cannot blame her for Mary's shortcomings. Your words are wind, sir, all you do is blow hot air.”

“Agreed,” Piotr said, rising. “We need not stay and hear what this
zadnitza
has to say. From his mouth the truth is as twisted as lies.”

Frank sneered. “Don't you take that tone with me, Commie Red. I may only be dead a handful of decades but I'm still old enough to lay you flat on your ass, even with the pretty miss here flexing those fingers at me. Oh, and by the way? Get bent.”

“Enough talk!” Piotr slapped his fist against the table, making the empty glasses rattle. “Tell us what you would, make your offer, and let us take our leave, Frank. I would be done with this foolishness.”

Frank shrugged. “Fine. It's your funeral.” He tapped the table and waited until Piotr had sat down again to continue on.

“You've got something we want. You not only know the Lightbringer, you two were…close.”

Piotr glared but made no comment.

“Furthermore, Mary and I had a lot of long nights negotiating the territories. We talked. I got to learn more than a little about the way those Lightbringers—Reapers, whatever you wanna call ’em—think. You following me so far, kids?”

“Boring the hell out of us,” Elle said, faking a yawn, “but we're following.”

“Fine. I'll speed it up for the shortbus crowd. Your girl Wendy is what's known as a ‘natural’ to her family. The only thing is, naturals aren't natural to them, you dig? They don't cotton to her sort.”

“You think Wendy is in danger,” Lily said, cutting to the heart of the matter.

Frank shrugged. “Yeah. If they follow tradition, then they're going to put your pal Wendy down like a rabid dog.”

Piotr jerked and Frank smiled thinly. “Now, normally I couldn't care less about the murder of a ghost-killer, but the Council—hell, every ghost around—got used to things being sort of informal around these parts. We want it to stay that way. We want you to convince the little miss to make the same deal her mother made. That way, everyone's happy.”

Lily waved a low hand at Piotr under the table, keeping him calm. “Why do you believe she would agree to the same arrangement?”

“Oh, call it a hunch. Even when the little miss was on her rampage in the autumn, she wasn't too particular about stalking us—just Walkers. The Shades she did outta pure pity, I think.”

“It is Wendy's way,
da
,” Piotr agreed, recalling how Wendy fretted over whether or not to send spirits on, if it really was the right thing to do or not.

“Exactly. If you stayed hidden and minded your P's and Q's, Wendy didn't hunt you down. And at the end, she started only dealing with ghosts that hunted her down, the ones who actively wanted to move on and sniffed
her
out to make that happen. That's worlds better than how most of her clan used to deal with us.”

“
Da
,” Piotr said heavily, pushing back from the table and glaring around the room defiantly. His head was pounding fiercely and it seemed like he'd been in this room, talking with this oily man, for decades. In reality, less than an hour had passed; the restaurant was still stuffed to overflowing with partying dead. “We understand.”

“Great, Red, you're finally getting with it.” Mimicking Piotr's movement, Frank also pushed away from the table and offered his hand. His eyes were serious and his smile serene. Piotr was unwillingly glad to see the calluses ringing his palm and fingers; Frank might be a cozening man but at least he worked with his hands. Piotr could respect that.

Frank smiled, catching Piotr eyeing his palm. His expression said that he understood every thought in Piotr's head and was unsurprised by them. “Glad the pair of us could eventually see eye-to-eye.
Da, comrade?
”

What choice did he have? Piotr scowled, but took the proffered hand. “Yes.
Friend
.”

P
arking the car and stepping into the parking garage left Wendy feeling vulnerable and edgy. Though she'd been here only a few hours earlier, the shadows of the garage seemed deeper, darker than before, and the muted shuffle of her boots echoed back strangely from the concrete pillars. It was silly, but Wendy hesitated at the edges of the last line of cars, unsure about turning the blind corner.

“Don't be an idiot,” she muttered, forcing herself to move past the minivan on the end and step quickly toward the elevators. “No one is there.”

The elevator arrow lit up as Wendy approached; the elevator was coming from the basement. When the doors dinged open, Wendy stopped cold in her tracks.

The elevator was filled with Walkers.

Holy crap, what do I do?
! Wendy knew she could step into the Never, become the Lightbringer, and probably deal with the half dozen or so Walkers fairly easily…if she'd had the benefit of surprise.

But these Walkers were different, she could tell at a glance. Several of them had their hoods pushed nearly back, exposing repaired flesh crosshatched with strange symbols, weird text. These ghosts were remnants of the White Lady's Walker army, and Wendy knew better than to tangle with so many of those at once.

Walkers, especially the ones who'd worked for her mother, were well used to handling Wendy by now. They knew how to combine their attacks, how to swarm and outnumber her, and most importantly, they had quickly learned that Wendy was weakest when dropping her physical body for the Lightbringer's spiritual shape. If they'd been normal Walkers, untouched by her mother, Wendy might have chanced a surprise attack—but these were trained Walkers. It was too risky. They'd be on her in an instant.

Heartbeat tripling, Wendy slowly began walking again, forcing each foot to move in front of the other. The main stairs were behind her, she could double back and take them, but the elevator was the fastest way to the main floor and other living humans. She was also afraid that doubling back might rouse their suspicions.

Then she spotted the fire stairs. Excellent!

Passing the elevator at a brisk walk, Wendy chewed her lip and tried to sort out what to do next. Someone must have called for the elevator on a higher floor—it was going up again now, and the Walkers would still be on it when she hit the main floor. What were they doing here, and why were so many of them huddled in one group?

As much as she hated to admit it, Wendy knew that she had to find out. Spying on them in the living lands wouldn't be easy—it was late, and Wendy obviously didn't work in the hospital. She'd stick out, but the sight of so many Walkers in one place, especially Walkers her mother had trained, was too much. She had to follow them.

Wendy was halfway up the stairs when she felt the wave of cold eddying around her shins. Slowing at the turn of the staircase, Wendy glanced down and had to bite her tongue to keep from cursing aloud.

The Walkers had left the elevator and were following her.

What is going on here?
Wendy wondered and then had to remind herself that to the Walkers, she was just some human. No one special. Right?

Breathing shallowly, forcing herself to stay calm and keep walking up the stairs, albeit now at a much slower pace, Wendy inwardly chanted,
Don't panic. They have no idea who I am. I haven't used the Light at all since the showdown with the White Lady; if I don't draw attention to myself, it's no big deal, right? I can do this
.

Her skin was clammy at her palms and temples; Wendy felt a bead of sweat slip between her shoulder blades and trickle down her back as she glanced around the narrow stairwell. No door except up at the top of the stairs, and that one was for
Employees Only
. She still had two flights to go before she'd reach the lobby. Plenty of time for the Walkers to catch up and overwhelm her if they wanted to.

Up close, even separated by the thin veil of life from death, Wendy could smell the rank stink of the Walkers surround her like a fog. The stairwell doors closed, shutting her in. The Walkers rustled around her, their cold pressing against her cheeks and the back of her neck. They towered over her, filling the narrow passage to full with their rotten presence. The chill made her ribs ache.

Screw this
, Wendy berated herself, shivering.
What are you, the Lightbringer or some sort of wimp?! This is ridiculous! You know what you have to do
.

She wasn't a novice at taking out the dead; she could gut all of them before they even had a chance to attack, right?

Right. Glad to have made that decision, Wendy prepared to loosen her hold on the Light. But, just before she could blaze into glory, a memory of her mother's brusque, sharp voice made her pause…

Pay attention to your surroundings, Wendy. We live in the land of the living and of the dead—you must never, ever forget that. Always
, always,
WATCH YOUR BACK
.

Crap. Wendy took a deep breath and glanced up at the corner of the stairwell—
stupid, stupid, stupid
, she thought. Sure enough, there it was: a security camera, blinking red. Even if she wanted to, Wendy couldn't change into the Lightbringer now.

She could just imagine what it would look like for the security guard on duty. A teenage girl takes the fire stairs, stops halfway up, vanishes on camera, and then reappears on the main floor. Even if Wendy were so lucky that the guard wasn't watching right then, her vanishing act would still be caught on camera, most likely recorded and stored on some distant backup hard drive for who knew how long. Wendy bit her lip to keep from groaning aloud; she had well and truly trapped herself.

Realizing that she could do nothing for the moment, Wendy fought to keep her gorge down by breathing shallowly through her mouth and taking the steps two at a time now, hurrying as quickly as she could up the stairs.

Wendy hadn't flinched much when the raccoon blood had splattered her from the knees down, and had hardly winced when Jon's dinner joined the mess, but being here, surrounded by the smell of the Walkers’ necrotic tissue and mealy, maggoty meat underlaid with a spicy cinnamon-rust-salt scent was almost too much. Wendy felt the burn of acid work its slow way up her esophagus. She frantically flicked a glance down the stairs, marveling as the Walkers rattled after her, silently begging for the door to the main floor to be next.

Thankfully, it was.

Holding her breath as casually as she could, Wendy shoved the door to the lobby as hard as she could.

It wouldn't budge.

Wendy stopped. The Walkers had congregated on the landing below. She could feel their cold rising up, filling the narrow walkway, icing over the guardrails.

Forcing herself to stay calm, Wendy shoved the door again and this time, thankfully, it opened with a loud creak.

Pretending everything was normal, Wendy entered the lobby and moved aside, adjusting her purse as if it were the most normal, casual thing to do in the middle of the night in a hospital entryway. Then, once she was several feet away, Wendy breathed in again, blessing the sweet, bleach-and-chemical tang of the air. Anything was better than the flat, gagging rot of the stairwell.

The guard desk was empty, Wendy realized. The gift shop was dark.

She was alone with over half a dozen Walkers.

A slow scratch of sound sent a shiver up Wendy's spine. She didn't turn to see what the noise was—she didn't have to. The smell preceded them. The Walkers had surrounded her once again.

It was colder now, Wendy realized. Much more intensely chilled than the stairs had been. Wendy's breath fogged in front of her, snot dripped out her left nostril. Wendy swiped at her face and found that she was shivering violently, teeth beginning to chatter.

Wendy looked up at the ceiling. A black bowl hung directly in the middle of the lobby, a thin red light shining within; more frickin’ cameras, probably there to catch anyone shoplifting from the gift store or the pharmacy next door.

Great, just great. Wendy was tempted to flip off the camera but the Walkers were so close now and the chill pressed the very air from her lungs. Breathing too deeply caused jagged slivers of pain to grip Wendy's chest, every inhalation scraping her throat raw. Ducking her head, Wendy was startled to realize that where the Walkers stepped, small sheets of ice crackled along the ground.

Things had rapidly spiraled from bad to worse—the half-dozen Walkers from the elevator were joined by more; four others were waiting in the shadows of the gift shop doorway, their cloaks dragging the floor, their shambling gait almost synchronous as they drifted toward Wendy.

The cold was so intense now, so overwhelming, that Wendy felt her body begin to sag from the weight of the chill. Moving her head, even slightly, took immense effort. Keeping her eyes open was becoming a chore.

Stop being weak
! Her mother's voice cracked across her mind like a slap, rousing Wendy from the cold-induced fugue.
Mistake after mistake after mistake; you're dying! Get it together, cover your back! Wake up! Wake up, Wendy, wake up!

Futilely, Wendy decided that her mother's voice was right. Cameras or not, if she was going down, she was going down with a fight. A dozen to one or not, she had to do
something.
Pushing aside the sharp voice hissing orders, Wendy reached for the cords of will containing the Light within, but she'd waited too long.

The insidious cold had wormed too deeply inside. Her will was slow, drowsy, her grasp on her Light weak. There was a sniff at her neck.

Another.

Then the Walkers were on her; spectral, flaking hands plucking at her hair, thick yellow nails digging at Wendy's elbows, the stench all around gagging her as skeletal fingers raked up and down her body, pinching, pulling, twisting. Numbed by the cold, Wendy was so frozen that she was having trouble recognizing that the pack was trying to pull her apart piece by piece.

I'm going to go out like Mom did
, Wendy realized dimly, in some far-off protected place deep in her mind.
The Lost ripped her apart. The Walkers are going to do the same thing to me.

“Reaper,” hissed the closest Walker, running a blackened tongue up Wendy's jaw and into her ear. “This prey tastes of Reaper!”

The other Walkers stilled for a split second, glancing at one another and shivering like dogs on point.

“Reaper?” asked another, brackish black-brown drool dripping over its chin and soaking the ragged front of its cloak. “Real Reaper flesh?”

“Move!” ordered a third, shoving the licking-Walker aside. This one was a particularly nasty-looking grey-clad woman with only half a face, the rest of her flesh soapified and sagging off her cheekbones, the remains of her left eyelid dropping over her bloodshot eye. This lady Walker pushed close, sniffed, and then chuckled. “Reaper,” she confirmed. “Mine. The one I've been sent for.”

At this declaration, Wendy began struggling in earnest. The fugue wasn't completely gone, but her panic was serving to push it back, to give her energy and a little hidden strength. Wendy reached for the closest Walker to her left—her Light surged just a bit, hardly more than a flicker—and grabbed it by the chin.

The Walker hissed in pain, scrabbling at her hands and twisting Wendy's wrist free. A flap of skin came off in her hand, writhing with teeny white and black maggots, as Wendy stumbled back a step. The Walker, growling and spitting, clutched its face and cursed.

The closest Walkers dug their hands into her shoulders, mumbling in a slow, dark language, and Wendy sagged again as the overwhelming cold poured over her chest in a sheet, an intense wave of numbness that bullied every nerve into instant submission, leaving only her mind intact. Wendy lolled in their grip.

“No!” hissed the licking-Walker, pushing the Lady Walker back a step. “Ours! All ours!”

The Lady Walker rolled her good eye and straightened, grabbing the licking-Walker by his face. “Mine,” she insisted and, reaching forward quite casually, snapped his neck. Then she looked at the others, pointedly ignoring the writhing Walker on the floor as he struggled to set his flopping head straight on his abused neck. “Questions?”

“Orders?” hissed the closest Walker.

“Hold her.”

They hauled Wendy to her feet and the Lady Walker jabbed her hands straight out, skeletal fingers jamming into Wendy's chest. The sensation was a terrifyingly deep, tidal tug from her very core.

Nauseated by the sensation of a hand poking around in her innards, Wendy was stunned to realize that she could actually
feel
each individual finger scrape along her ribs, the icy press of the woman's hand as it brushed her heart and dug deeper in, seeking…something. Her Light, maybe? The cold was nothing in the face of this pain. Despite the numbing chill of the Walkers holding her down, nerves no longer deadened from cold, Wendy arched back, whimpering, and the other Walkers pressed in, forcing her to her knees.

“Found you,” the female Walker whispered. “Looked and looked and here you are, where she said you'd be. At last. At long last.” She squeezed an organ—a loop of intestine, perhaps?—and Wendy yelped in pain.