The song started with a low, trilling beat, a heady vibration that rang in my ears, harmonizing with the stinging cigarette smoke filling my mouth and throat. For a second or two, I let my head dip back, closing my eyes while pursing my lips, blowing the smoke from my red stained lips in a billowing, dragon-like stream. I uncrossed my legs absent-mindedly, the ripped fabric of my worn, black skinny jeans pulling back against my thighs as I did so, a dark red ember falling against the worn denim. I made an annoyed face, flicking it away with a long fingernail that badly needed a new paint job. New black polish seemed like the last damn things I needed to worry about, especially on this week’s soul Reap.

I yawned, it was just after one AM, and boredom had moved from painful to crushing. Not even watching drunken girls fight over an uninterested guy had lost its dull humor.

Now that I think about it… I could’a brought Adrian with me… He’d at least try to entertain me… I thought, annoyed at myself, twirling my Reaping ring around my left index finger, careful not the let the thin razor hidden inside pop out. That would be one hell of a hand hurt.

I held up my hand in front of my face, picking at my nails once more in bored succession before digging my phone out of my pocket, scrolling through the brightly lit interface of the transparent piece of plasti-glass, opening the email that I had gotten only a few hours ago.

Lilith Free Age 27 Soul Reap requested for negligent behavior and criminal activities qualifying for penalty of death. Assigned Reaper ‘Emma’, to be completed before midnight of April 19. No supervision for Reap required.

I sighed softly at the words that were displayed in old-fashioned font, glancing back up and letting my eyes roam back around the room, observing it quickly but attentively.

It took several moments, before I finally recognized the woman, standing in the corner, her face gaunt and bony, like she was some walking skeleton. I rolled my eyes, keeping my eyes on her for a few moments more, reading her like a book.

She was anxious, her body practically displayed it like a neon sign, and the half dead but eerily alert look in the washed out brown of her eyes showed that she knew that her time was almost up.

Smart girl, she’s used to running. I thought, standing up slowly, bones creaking and adjusting from sitting so long, crushing the smoldering cigarette in my fist, hearing the sizzle of hot, burning embers pushing against my skin, but not feeling an ounce of pain as I released the white stick, seeing the various parts of it fall from my hand, tumbling onto the floor in a pile of crumbled paper and scattered ashes. I started forward, pushing past the thin crowd to the woman in the corner, lifting a whiskey with ice that was already half melted to her lips. Her red lipstick was smudged, a messy streak pushed across her cheek like some nasty rash, smeared down again by a hasty swipe of her hand, as if she was trying to get rid of it permanently. By now the song was right in the middle, the beginning of the most intense part just beginning to start, bass close to dropping. I smirked just a bit wider, the music seeming like an epic sound track to this one simple task.

I leaned against the high, black top table, elbow sliding comfortably across the cold, smooth surface, slick with perspiration from drinks that had yet to be cleaned.

Lilith looked at me with some sort of surprise, fear in her eyes as she saw my smirk. I was told that when I smirked I looked like I was some succubus, ready to take man’s breath from his lungs with one small kiss. I couldn’t disagree, I found succubi to be rather enchanting, and I’d much like to be one.

Her fear was covered over quickly, another swipe of her wrist at the side of her mouth before she spoke, nearly hissing, voice craggy from what I assumed to be a cigarette addiction, one that filled several years of her life.

“If you’re looking for a cheap prostitute, you’d be better off down the block.” She said, with a wave of her hand and a thick swallow of the amber liquid in her glass.

I chuckled softly, “Not tonight, Lily. Can I call you that? Or would you rather prefer Lilith?”

Her washed out eyes narrowed at me, flickering dimly in the lights that swirled around the room in various patterns, casting sharply across my sensitive eyes like knives. My own eyes narrowed at her, reacting to a bright flash of light that came from a spinning ball that cast out glittery light in radiating fractals.

“How do you know who I am?” She spat, pushing the whiskey away from her and rounding around the small table, coming straight into my face on a slight stumble on her cheap, scuffed stilettos that looked like they’d seen better days. I gave her a quick once over, noting the bruises that littered her pale legs, as well as some deep red scrapes that fell across her knees and upper calves. Her black club dress was rucked up just a bit too far, but really just because the taut fabric didn’t fit her quite right. Vague tattoos scattered her arms like the scribbling’s of a four-year-old, many of them containing the faded colors of a rainbow. Across her marked up arms were the prick marks of needles, dotting just inside the curve of her elbows.

Drug addict, cheap, aggressive, murderer. I gathered inside of my head, nearly laughing aloud as another, single word came into my mind.

Unpredictable.

I let my smirk grow into something a little different, becoming a bit less stiff and letting my muscles sink down onto the table heavier, kicking a leg behind the other so that one of my faded sneakers were propped up on the tip. “Lots of people know who you are, Lily. You’re all over news. But you want to be popular, yeah?”

She scoffed, rolling her eyes, flipping me off with an unmaintained fingernail, “Ain’t the kind’a popular that I’d like.”

I nodded slowly, tapping my hand on my hip to the unknown beat of the new song that was now playing, something that I swore should have belonged in a strip club rather than a night club, even one as under budget and sleazy as this one.

“Nobody wants the popularity that comes from a murder.”

Her eyes narrowed again, and this time she slammed a hand down on the rickety table, making a squeak and a groan come from it. I stayed perfectly still, just looking at her like she was a child throwing a temper tantrum. She couldn’t hurt me anyway; her arms were too weak to even get through a piece of tissue paper.

“I didn’t do it, dammit. Why you all tryin’ to get on me?” She shouted.

I sighed, holding up a hand and leaning close to her ear, breathing in the pungent smell of alcohol and five dollar perfume that smelled more like stale piss than some sort of flower that it probably advertised itself as.

“Nobody is framing you for anything, I’m not even here tonight to judge you, to be honest, I don’t give a shit if you killed somebody or not. I’m just here to do what I was told.”

I could feel all the rage within her feeding into curiosity, and some fort of dull trust that she was still contemplating on letting in. “And what’s that?”

I laughed lowly in her ear, pulling back from her and starting to take small steps backwards, digging the almost empty packet of cigarettes from my back pocket, taking one out and popping it into my mouth, “Follow me, and you’ll find out.” I said, my tone so saccharine that I could practically feel the sugar dripping from my lips. I sounded ridiculous in my head, but Lily’s stupidity mixed with the strong buzz of cheap liquor made it impossible to resist, especially when I beckoned her forward with a cigarette.

I lit it as we walked, puffing out the first large cloud of smoke as we walked out the back door, into a rank smelling alley, filled with week old trash, rotten food, and things that I didn’t even want to know the name of. A stray, black cat skittered across my path, hopping away from me with a hiss, bright eyes immediately locking onto me as it backed away, hackles raising and thin tail puffing. I bared my teeth and gaze a hiss of my own at the small creature, scaring it off into some dark, disgusting corner. I shut the back door of the night club with a final click, the deep bass making the crumbling brick wall vibrate, running to my back as I leaned against it, looking at Lily as she grabbed for the cig I held in my fingertips. She snatched it up, sticking it between her teeth and grabbing my lighter. I sneered as she fumbled with the contraption, finally catching a spark and holding it there for longer than necessary.

The only reason I had come out here was because no one could see, and this was a part of town where when screams were heard, nobody was ballsy enough to get out of bed to call the cops, that I was thankful for, since I could almost tell that Lily would be a screamer.

“You know the reason I brought you out here, Lily?”

She shook her head, puffing out a cloud of smoke that drifted darkly up into the night sky, “Nah…”

I chuckled softly, fiddling with my ring and letting the razor pop out, a metallic sound coming from the dangerous piece of jewelry. Her eyes widened, and she started to back away, the slow grinding gears in her being finally clicking, “Grim.”

I nodded, “Reaper.” I finished for her, spitting my cigarette from my lips and lunging for her, grabbing her easily and wrapping her in my arms, feeling the mechanical feathers of my wings wrap around the two of us like some cocoon. I felt that my shirt had ripped, but the shirt wasn’t one of my favorites. I felt her squirm in my iron grip, and I sighed softly, brushing my razor against her cheek slowly, “Shh. Your life is over, go into the underworld and wait there, your soul will carry on there.”

As I finished, I felt her soul come through me, as if I was inhaling her like smoke, and she gave one last fighting kick to my stomach, causing me to cough and sputter, letting her body go and her soul rocketing into the air, carried away in a phantom breeze that almost knocked me off my feet. I felt a sense of unbelievable euphoria, sighing happily and stumbling away from Lilith.

I didn’t know a thing about her, except I was to Reap her soul, and just the fact that I had completed the task made me extremely happy. It was a little sickening at first, bit I accepted it, smiling at my ring and letting the sharp razor slide back into hiding, wing fluttering around me and ruffling my hair in the breeze that they created, ready to fly back home.

X

With the heavy slam of a battered, lock ridden door that was painted a dirty version of black, shiny lacquer.  Flying home was not something that I enjoyed doing, as I had to stay low to the rooftops so that if anything was flying overhead they wouldn’t see a girl with wings. Reapers were meant to be kept secret, and even though people knew of rumors, they weren’t ‘real’ in society’s eyes, just a myth, and fabled to be some sort of super-intelligent group of serial killers.

And in a way, I guessed we were. We killed, never left any sort of traceable weapon (except those who had larger, more distinguishable Reaping weapons) marks on our victims, and were literally untraceable, since we didn’t have fingerprints.

I chuckled darkly at the thought, startling Adrian, who had just finished pouring himself a glass of some random juice. Adrian was, in essence, my mentor, and roommate; he guided me in Reaps, taught me how to handle the messy, stupid life of a human without giving myself away, and just kept me company. I didn’t keep many friends, since I thought humans were disgusting (except the few whom I’d actually taken a liking to, but their lives were short) and other Reapers were busy and didn’t have time to talk.

I liked Adrian, sometimes, really only when he didn’t annoy me, and kept mostly out of my way.

He didn’t glance back to me as he walked back to the small living room, sitting on the couch, which sagged under his heavy weight, the wooden skeleton creaking and settling from age and overuse. “Your shirt is ripped. I thought I told you to bring a jacket whenever you went on missions. So you wouldn’t be so… indecent.”

I rolled my eyes, walking to the couch and dropping down next to him, feeling the cushions sag under me. This couch felt like it would split right down the middle one of these days, especially whenever I sat down I threw myself down like I was a volleyball coming down from a spike.

He sighed at me, taking a long drink out of his glass, ice making tinkling sounds against the thin glass cup.

“I forgot.” I said simply, kicking my legs up onto the equally worn ottoman in front of me, settling deep into the couch, looking at him, since he had taken hold of the remote.

He rolled his eyes, saying something under his breath that I didn’t quite catch, turning the TV on, but turning the sound way, way down. I glared at him, until he started speaking, setting the remote in his lap, wrapping one arm around the back of the couch and shifting to look at me, his legs crossed.

“Guide me through.” He stated simply, looking at me with the stormy grey eyes of his, swirling with slight intrigue. I hadn’t gone solo for a while, so it was understandable why he wanted to hear it. I don’t really ever know why, but he asked me that on the way home too, like I was summarizing the events that had taken place. It always made me roll my eyes, but I really couldn’t argue with him, since he’d make me do it either way, whether I liked it or not.

“Sat there for a few hours, bored as hell… Smoked what… Three cigarettes? Then I saw her, walked over to her, had a nice little conversation, lead her outside, wasted a cigarette on her, then Reaped.”

He nodded, leaning forward, his drink now disappeared, and I found it on the floor next to the couch, elbows propped against his knees, fingers folded together to make a bridge for his chin to sit on, eyes half lidded.

“Where did you leave the body?” He said slowly, closing his eyes all the way, flexing his temples by clenching his teeth. I smirked at his angular face, seeing the bottom of his thin lip being caught by his teeth, hair fanned across his cheeks like feathers. He looked odd, yeah, especially his hair, but I liked it, and it was different.

“In the back alley.”

He sighed, reaching out a hand before closing it, eyes tightening so that crow’s feet appeared at the corners of his eyes, “More. Specific, Emma.” He commanded.

“Near the walls, not hidden though.”

I could see his eyes roll under the thin flesh of his eye lids, but when he spoke his voice lacked utter annoyance, replaced by a bitter monotone, “Don’t make your kill so obvious. People could have seen you leading Lilith out, and anyone can walk back there and see her body. Precision, Emma. That’s what we need, and perfection. If you don’t learn this you won’t ever graduate.”

I sighed softly, puffing up my cheeks and letting a thin stream of air fall from pursed lips. I wanted to argue back, but he was right. I’d been under his wing for almost an abnormally long time, and I wanted to get out of here, out of this horrid place. Middlecity (it has a proper name, but I didn’t care for it, so I renamed it) wasn’t my favorite place, I’d rather be down in Undercity (Again, renamed it) working with the Reapers who decided who died and who didn’t. I wanted freedom from this place…

I nodded slowly, seeing Adrian open his eyes once again, picking up the remote and tossing it to me, picking up his glass and downing the liquid in several large swallows, looking back at me for a split second, standing while saying, “I’m taking a shower. Entertain yourself.”

I saluted him lazily, “Sir, yes, Sir.”

He rolled his eyes once again, this time more playfully than the others, saying back over his shoulder, “Saluting should be done with your right hand, Emma.”

I scoffed at him, muttering damn perfectionist under my breath and flipping him off when he wasn’t looking, turning to the TV and flipping through channels, just out of absolute boredom. At the moment, we didn’t have any internet, which sucked, and the last time I checked, the cellular connection on my phone was so slow I was sure it wasn’t even trying to connect, so that wasn’t an option, either. TV wouldn’t be my first option, since every show that I seemed to come across was obviously made for people who had a two-minute attention span, and flickering colors and appealing images were flashing across the screen like strobes.

I stared at it blankly for a while, until I was absolutely tired of it, feeling my stomach growl. I smirked at my body’s timing, hopping off the couch and jogging towards the kitchen, tapping my hands against my thighs as I wandered over to the refrigerator, opening it and letting my hand shoot to the nearest item that my eyes landed on, looking at it for a second before deciding if it looked appealing enough. It took me a few tries, since most of the stuff that was left in the fridge was gross stuff we were avoiding, or just something that made my stomach churn.

What I ended up with I really didn’t care about, but it was something better than the rest of the crap in there, and as soon as the last bit was swallowed, Adrian opened the door of the bathroom, letting out billowing clouds of steam behind him, shaking his wet, now curled hair out so heavy water droplets splattered against the wall as he walked, old, slightly ripped V-neck hanging loose around his shoulders, soaked from not drying off completely. His pants were old, black and white flannel, the drawstring barely even tied. I nodded at him in greeting, his chin inclining in my direction before sitting back down on the couch, stretching his legs across the loveseat, bare feet touching the other side of it, slight bends in his knees.

Without a word, he grabbed a book off the side table, opening it somewhere about the middle, eyes latching onto the words. After several minutes of silence, he pointed to the clock, which displayed bright green numbers, which read 2:28 AM.

“Don’t you have work tomorrow morning?”

I shook my head, “Off tomorrow. Don’t work on Mondays, thank god.”

He chuckled softly, looking up at me for only a split second before returning to the words on his page, “You should still sleep. It’s a pastime that many Reapers have come to enjoy.”

I groaned, “Not me.”

He sighed softly, “What else do you have to do, Emma, rather than sulk around complaining about the lack of things to do in this apartment?”

He made a good point, but I wasn’t about to let him know it, so I came back at him, even though it sounded entirely lame, “Stuff!”

He didn’t really reply, just giving me a vague hand motion in the direction of my room. I went reluctantly, deciding at the last moment to give a sharp turn to my left and head to the bathroom, still hot and steamy from Adrian’s shower.

I damn well hope sure that Adrian did not use all the water, I growled inside my head, shutting the door, moving to the shower, my brain completely shutting off for a few moments as I went through the routine that I usually went through, turning on the shower, brushing out my messy mop of black and blue (yes, I had blue highlights, don’t judge, they look absolutely amazing) hair, and peeling off my clothing, with consisted of a pair of ripped denim jeans and a few leftover pieces of a stained white V-neck t-shirt.

I tossed the remnants of the shirt into the trash bin, which needed to be dumped out sometime soon, especially with the new addition of my shirt making the level go about to the three quarter mark.

I sighed, pulling my hands back through my hair and shaking it out so that it fluffed over my shoulders in messy strands. I made faces at my reflection in boredom, before moving to check if the water was warm.

I was actually kind of surprised when I put my hand into the weak stream of water coming from the shower head to find that it was actually a temperature normal people would call ‘hot’.

I stepped in with a gentle sigh of relief, muscles going slack as my back arched backwards, cybernetic wings ruffling so that I wouldn’t curve inwards on them. They moved without me even telling them to, a property that I still found slightly unnerving at times like this, when each individual ‘feather’ shook out the water it collected. I could feel the ripples all up and down my back, the nerves that connected me to it seeming almost overly active today. I tried my best to ignore it, tipping my head under the thin ribbons of water, soaking my strands completely, and seeing the water tint the slightest shade of pastel blue. I cringed slightly, I didn’t want to have to redo my hair again, since I had done it only a few weeks ago, and seeing the color already washing out like that unnerved me. I flipped my head back after a few more moments under the water, squeezing out the excess with several wringing motions of my hands, before moving on to the next item. Again, my brain shut off for those few minutes, going through the motions like I had probably over a thousand times before. I hissed at the water as I felt it getting cold, cranking the switch that controlled the water’s temperature all the way it would go, only satisfied for the briefest of moments when hot water finally came out again, replaced just as quickly by freezing, icy water.

Like a cat, I hissed, jumping out and shutting it off, shivering from the cold and clutching my arms tightly to my body, grabbing for a towel and wrapping it around my upper half as soon as I got one. I dried off quickly, cursing to Adrian for using up so much of it, even though he was only in the shower for about fifteen minutes.

The only reason I was getting so mad was because the apartment complex we lived in sucked, and water ran out of heat after about twenty, twenty-five minutes. So, our showers couldn’t be the longest or most relaxing when you either wanted to conserve the hot water or were the second person taking the shower. I had always suggested to Adrian that the one back from a Reap could get the first shower, but he always shot back with, ‘Well what if you aren’t the only one coming from the job, and what if neither of us have a task to carry out that evening?’

I just rolled my eyes and came back with snippy comments that he always scolded me about (not like I really listened anyways, I was just making fun of him when his back was turned).

I got dressed slowly, my body wracking with shivers at the most inconvenient times, and even though every time before one came I had convinced myself that I was warm enough to not shiver. Thankfully, before long I was finished, growling when I then remembered that my shirt was in the trash can, and I would have rather not dug it out, because trashcans were disgusting.

I just braced myself, keeping my hands close to my chest and darting out from the bathroom, racing into my room and slamming the door shut with the force of an ox. Adrian probably didn’t look up, but I didn’t care, I just wanted to get clothes on so that I could walk out my room like any normal person would.

I picked out the nearest shirt I could find, which happened to be one that was lying in a crumpled heap on my already messy floor, I slipped it over my head, walking out and sitting down next to Adrian, who turned a page in his book slowly, like he was savoring the moment, instead of looking at me.

“Whatcha readin’?”

He took a moment before responding, taking in a small breath and running his tongue over his lips, speaking slowly, like he was thinking as he said it. “It’s about a girl who is running from people who want her, since she’s a mythical creature, a Werewolf, and she had to learn who to trust and how to escape from them, along the way she finds other werewolves, and sees that they have underground societies to keep them safe. I think you would like it, lots of cursing, gore and all that. Your type of thing.”

I shrugged, “What’s the girls name?”

“Emily. They call her Emma most of the time, though.” He smirked at me from over the top of the hardback book, before returning to the words.

I chuckled softly, “What a coincidence.”

He shrugged, “The name Emily and its nicknames were rather popular when this was written, so many books from this period had heroines that took that name.”

History nerd. I thought with a meaningless roll of my eyes, folding my legs up to my chest, wrapping my arms around my knees, brazing my chin on top of the surface that my knees had created.

I watched him for a while, watching his stormy eyes flicker across the page as they focused and refocused. He read quickly, I noticed, he flipped a page about every fifteen seconds, I definitely couldn’t read that quickly without skipping half the page (and mostly since I never really read if I wasn’t deathly bored or absolutely had to).

He closed it after a while, folding the corner of a page and looking at me slowly, placing the thick book in his lap, folding his hands flush across the smooth cover.

“Would you like to speak to me about something, Emma?”

I shrugged with a small shake of my head, “Not really. Unless you have something to tell me.”

“Last time I checked, no. We’ve finished your lessons for this week, and you seem to be grasping the concepts really well…”

I smiled very gently at him, but it was only just a flicker of pride, before my lips returned to their neutral state.

He looked off to the side before glancing back at me, “What have you done in the tattoo shop you work at?”

I bit the inside of my lip as I thought, coming up with something when I recalled it, “I got to fill in an outline today, it was pretty chill, even though the tattoo was probably the weirdest thing I’d ever seen.”

Adrian cocked his head to the side with slight curiosity, “What was the tattoo?”

“A cartoon monkey on fire.” I said, an amused smirk making the sides of my lips perk up. Even thinking about the thing was almost enough to make me laugh.

Adrian barked out a laugh quickly, before covering his mouth and silencing, amusement swirling deep within his eyes.

“At least tell me that the monkey was in a normal color. Not purple or some odd rainbow.”

I stayed silent, his eyes widening in near disbelief, hand coming away from his mouth and mouth gaping open, “What color?”

“Neon green with black stripes.”

He blinked slowly, before chuckling and shaking his head, “Humans are such… odd creatures.”

I laughed quietly, shoulders shaking, “You’re telling me… I have to work around them nearly every day!”

He smirked, “I consider myself a lucky man then.”

I scoffed, “You’re missing out, really. Just imagine, if I didn’t work in the human world, these stories wouldn’t be entertaining us!”

He smirked, “You’re correct… However, I’m never the one complaining about being bored.” He gave me a quizzical look, raising one brow up at me.

I stuck my tongue out at him, dissolving into a quiet fit of giggles; the only thing evident about my laughing was how quickly my shoulders shook.

“You’re seizing, Emma… I’ve never seen you like this!” Adrian exclaimed, quite appalled at how much I was laughing.

“What? Now I can’t laugh? I actually have feelings, you know!”

He scoffed slightly, looking off to the side at the blank, glass television screen that caught the light from around the room, not that there was much of it.

“Only two or three. You’re not nearly as emotional as a human.”

“Yeah, no shit, Sherlock.”

He sighed, retorting with something I had never heard him say, “Fuck you, Watson.”

That made me laugh a bit harder, my insane giggles now heard to my own ears, the emotionless baritone of his voice mixed with the fact that Adrian seldom cussed was hilarious to me.

He chuckled gently alongside me, until my own laughter subsided, both of us becoming quiet, the silence between us comfortable instead of awkward. I liked it when I was like this, awkward silences were odd, and I never quite knew what to do to not make it so awkward, and the fact that I was horrible at diffusing weird situations (except if it was around humans, they were ridiculously easy to make comfortable, especially with the way I spoke to them.)

Adrian sighed with the leftover remnants of humor in his voice, “I take it back, I think I’d rather like to have a job in the human world.”

I sighed slowly, “Don’t take a job that doesn’t have interesting people in it.”

“So… Only a job at a tattoo shop or a bar?”

I nodded, smirking, “Yeah. Bars are better, if you like listening to drunkards fight over something like a napkin.”

He looked at me funny, “How would you know this?”

I shrugged, thinking back to the days when I was young, dumb, and irresponsible… Wait… Let’s rephrase that, younger, dumber, and more irresponsible.

Ah… Good times.

“Remember when we first moved down here, we lived in that horrible studio apartment that was a block away from the main red light district? I worked at a seedy little bar just outside the door.”

He made a small noise of recognition, nodding, “Ah. That bar.”

I rolled my eyes at the memory as it progressed in my mind, “And when you forced us to move because I was bringing too many ‘friends’ home? You thought it would ‘compromise our cover’?”

He looked straight at me, seriousness now taking over his features, “It was. And I still don’t understand to this day what you mean by ‘FWB’.”

I chuckled evilly, a low, deep sound in the back of my throat that vibrated in my chest, “And this dates just how out of it you are. FWB has existed since the 21^st century.”

He raised both eyebrows, an action that made his forehead look long, shallow wrinkles creasing his forehead, making him look funny, especially since his wet curls were sticking to his face like they were painted there.

I felt the odd urge to brush them back, and my body even started to go for it, one of my hands floating up and hanging in the air awkwardly, fingers splayed to fit against the curve of his scalp. Adrian eyed my hand for a few critical moments, following it as I pulled it down quick as lightning, moving so that my hand was trapped beneath me.

He chose not to further the conversation, making an ‘Okay then’ face, lifting up the remote and turning on the TV. It flickered like it normally did, a fizzle of white, black, and grey static before showing a slightly fuzzy picture. He flipped channels quickly, before settling on one with a professionally dressed woman standing in front of a screen, reading off several events from the small screen in her light green eyes, the smallest flicker of black showing where it shouldn’t have been across her iris. She motioned to the pictures of people that flashed across the screen she was standing in front of, taking quickly and without fault in her words.

If I had never seen the news before, I would have thought that this was some sort of lame TV show, from how perfectly she spoke.

Absent mindedly, I leaned back against the couch, listening almost inattentively to what she said. I mostly focused on her hair, a messy bun, her bangs hanging over her forehead, along with two straight stands framing her heart shaped face. Her hair was an inky black, much like mine, but the texture was much different, she had distinct waves, and I had straight hair.

I instantly was called to attention when Adrian bristled, leaning forward to get closer to the TV, jaw tightening as he clenched his teeth, pressing the ‘Volume Up’ button down so hard I thought that the scuffed plastic of the remote would snap in two. He spared only the quickest of glances at me as the volume rose, and the woman, her voice much higher now that the volume was clearer, resonating in my ears.

She was reporting on the death of Lilith Free, left in an alleyway, suspicious activity reported by sounds of struggle, and two female voices. The camera cut to a dark image with another reporter standing in front of it, red and blue police lights flashing brightly in the background, the silhouettes of officers moving around in the background like shadows as they did their work.

The woman spoke into her microphone, a slightly terrified look deep set in her eyes, her lips moving quickly, like if she spoke too slowly then she would be Reaped too.

I almost laughed at their idle fear, people like her wouldn’t be Reaped for a long while, and I could tell she would be protected from death, no one would come to hurt her until it neared the time of her Reaping date.

I could see a smirk on Adrian’s lips, although it wasn’t at my work, it was probably from watching the humans and their fears of death. He found things like that interesting, almost to a point where it seemed nearly sadistic.

When the camera cut back to the main newsroom, the original reporter taking back her place, she continued speaking, but was cut off midsentence, when Adrian put the old television on mute.

“The Masters will not be pleased about this.” He said solemnly.

I blanched, shooting to him and gripping his forearm tightly, eyes as wide as golf balls. If there was one thing I didn’t want to happen, it was the head Reapers to reprimand me. They would make sure that I never got my own chance at riding solo.

He looked at me almost sympathetically, “You know I must inform them about this, Emma. I don’t want to either, they’ll punish both of us, and I’d rather not have you set back any further, but if they find out from another Reaper…” He trailed off, like he was too scared to continue. But I knew that wasn’t the case, Adrian never got scared, the worst he ever got was the slightest of nervous butterflies in the deepest part of his gut.

Reapers never got scared, except in extreme circumstances.

But that didn’t mean that it didn’t want to make us throw up, because I didn’t know about Adrian, but I wanted to head back to the bathroom and hang my head over the toilet like I was drunk out of my mind and just wait for the contents of my stomach to come back out.

“They’ll never let us hear the end of it.” I said grimly.

He nodded slowly, standing and moving to the back of the room, bracing his hands on a rickety, deep grey shelf, his strong shoulders flexing, the muscles in his arms defining as he squeezed the pressed wood.

I could tell he was restraining himself, from lashing at me. When I had first met him he had an extremely fiery temper, but had learned to control it with amazing consistency over the years, but he still had his moments where it was like a ticking time bomb with him. Right now this was one of those moments, and if I clipped the wrong wire, I would be figuratively blown into little chunks in a matter of split seconds.

I spoke submissively, standing and moving to him, keeping my distance across the old dining table we had, even though we never used it, and the chairs that belonged to it were nowhere to be found, we still had it, for some odd reason. It was really just a glorified shelf for all the things we couldn’t find space for or were just too lazy to put away.

I could hear the razor sharpness in his voice, his mood still burning hot, “You made a mistake… And I should learn to accept it. You’re only a novice after all, aren’t you, Emma?”

As much as I wanted to punch him for saying that, and yell at him that I wasn’t a novice anymore, I was forced to agree, for the sake of my body being in one piece for just one night longer, “Yes, Adrian, and if you want, I’ll make the trip to Undercity, so they can deliver my punishment directly, and distract them for yours.”

He barked out a harsh laugh, another squeeze against the old shelf, making it squeak under his iron grip. “Tomorrow morning, then. You can’t go tonight, they’re suspicious of the Reapers. You’ll take the quickest way there, avoid flying, and keep your head down.”

I nodded, being more submissive than usual, which was extremely odd for me, since I hated obeying orders that were given to me like this.

“Yes, Adrian.” I said simply, looking meekly into his eyes, putting on a show for him so it wouldn’t peak his anger any further. He was like a cat, I noticed, if you looked directly into his eyes when he was agitated it only made it worse.

He sighed, crossing his arms over his chest and looking at me, “Thank you, Emma. You’ve grown much more responsible over these past years.”

I nodded, mumbling, “Tell me about it,” under my breath, so quietly that even I could barely hear. He walked past me, the smell of his cologne, deep and musky, filling my nose with the soft breeze that he created, sitting back down on the couch, pulling the blanket that we kept draped over the back end of it over himself, shutting off the light without warning, “Go to bed.”

I started for my room without another word, the tension that filled the air immediately after the silence took over carrying my feet quicker than I ever knew I could walk.

The next morning was unusually quiet, no annoying blaring of police sirens, fire trucks, or the usual harsh voices of two people provoking each other into a fight. This morning, I woke up to the sound of silence, opening my door and finding that Adrian was still asleep on the couch, turned over onto his stomach with one hand hanging over the edge of the couch, wrist turned sharply against the floor. I smirked, retreating back to my room, shutting the door with the quietest of clicks, and looking at the clock. I blinked in utter surprise at the earliness of the morning.

5:45 AM, the sun just barely peaking through the foggy haze of smog and skyscrapers, making it look as if it was still night outside my small bedroom window. I groaned with a hoarse voice, wanting to go back to bed, but feeling that my body was too awake to even consider going back to sleep.

After a few moments of standing in the center of my room, I shook my hair out of my face, grabbing my brush and hastily running the overused bristles through my strands, wincing when a particularly pesky knot refused to come undone, causing me to tug on my hair with a greater force than usual to detangle it. I moved to get dressed quickly, pulling the clothes that I had slept in the night before and tossed them into a corner, not caring where they were going, and hunted for something that was clean.

Adrian always told me that if I organized my room a little bit more, and kept my floor from becoming a closet, then I could get dressed quicker in the mornings. I rolled my eyes at the thought, the only reason he yelled at me to do it was because his clothes were kept in a rickety chest shoved next to the TV, since there was only one room in this apartment (all we could afford) and I had ended up getting it (and not because I had been stubborn about it, it was because Adrian gave it up willingly).

He was right… It always took me at least ten minutes, or more, to get dressed, since I could NEVER find anything clean. When I did find something that I actually thought wouldn’t look too bad together, I pulled it on quickly, moving around as quiet as a mouse to finish up. I wanted to get an early start getting to the Undercity, since I wanted to be back before tomorrow.

Trips to the Undercity, especially from where we lived, took especially long, since you could only access the way to get there from certain points around Middlecity. It was a pain, and no one liked to do it, but we all did, at one point or another.

I pulled my blue flannel shirt tighter around my shoulders, stepping into combat boots that had been made to look like they had been through a lot. I loved the things, they were comfortable, and they literally fit with everything I wore, which was nice, since I wasn’t to type of girl who liked to wear a different pair of shoes everyday. I didn’t even know how one bought that many pairs of shoes. I was just happy with the three pairs that I had.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Adrian sit up, the blanket around his body sinking down to pool on his lap, letting out a heavy breath as he sat up, pushing back the unruly hair from his eyes, cracking his knuckles individually, each one producing a loud crack. The sound made me cringe, it sounded disgusting, and when I popped my knuckles, wrists, or anything else that I could possibly manage to pop, nothing sounded remotely like what his fingers sounded like.

He glanced at me, grogginess still evident in the swirling pools of his irises. “You’re already dressed. Undercity must have frozen over last night while we were sleeping.”

I groaned, leaning back against the breakfast bar, tipping my head back at far as it would go while looping a strand of hair around my thumb and pulling, “I wish, then neither of us would have to go.”

“I know it’s a long trip, but it will be over soon enough, that is, if the Masters aren’t particularly busy.”

I laughed dryly, “That would be the biggest waste of time if they were, going to all that trouble just to be told to ‘come back later’.”

Adrian made a sound of disgust, “You don’t know how many times I’ve been told that. There was a time I lived on my own in one of the worst places to be in terms of location to the portals. It took me four hours to get to the nearest one.”

My eyes widened, head tipping back to its normal position to look at him, face probably filled with a look of absolute, utter disbelief.

He just nodded and smirked at me, rotating his wrists and making them pop with a nearly deafening sound, “Glad you live only an hour and a half away?”

I shrugged, “Depends, I can’t fly, and subways go past the portal.”

“Backtrack, use your feet, commute like a human would.”

I pouted, making a face at the thought of walking so far, I never walked long distances; I always was the first one to fly if I was faced with walking any more than about a mile. Walking was slow, and in this city, you slowed to something so slow that even a slug could outpace you.

“It will teach you patience, and how to blend. Think of this as extra practice.”

I rolled my eyes, “Adrian, the only thing I want to do is get to Undercity, not having to worry about if I should fly or walk, I doubt the media is so-,”

He cut me off right there, speaking loudly over me, “I turned on the TV several times last night, just to check, there are seven different news stations already reporting on the death of Lily, and each time a new report comes out, people are getting more and more suspicious of Reapers. We have to lay low, even me. Every Reaper in this city is going to have to watch their cover for a while.”

I groaned inwardly, gritting my teeth and hissing inside my head, Yeah, and when I get to Undercity, everyone there is going to see me and know that I caused this whole ‘lay low’ thing.

As if he knew what I was thinking, he stood, coming over to me and placing his hands firmly on my shoulders, making me look at him as he looked at me, face filled with seriousness, “Don’t start beating yourself up for it, Emma. No one will blame you, especially since you’re still under supervision, and even trained Reapers have made us as an entirety lay low. Some have even almost completely blown our cover. The only people who will look at you with any sort of anger are the Masters, but we know they’re always angry.”

I nodded, taking in his words gratefully. There were times when Adrian could be the most annoying thing in the world, but he helped, a lot, and he sometimes made me wonder if being under his wing for a couple more years would be such a bad thing.

I would never admit it, but I liked it when he gave me advice like this, as if it was just a casual conversation, instead of teaching me something.

He stepped away from me after a second of silence, “You should get going soon, the sooner you leave the sooner you will get back.”

I nodded, “I’m gonna eat first and grab my bag before I leave…”

He nodded, “I’ll make breakfast, with whatever we have.” He glanced disdainfully at the refrigerator, “Perhaps I’ll have to go out while you’re gone so we don’t… Starve for much longer.”

I chuckled, “That would be a good idea, its been a while.”

 He moved away from me into the kitchen, opening up the door and shutting it just after he opened it, making a noise, “It was worse than I thought. Would you mind if I went now?”

I shook my head, “Don’t care. I’d like it better if you went now, actually.”

“Do you want to come with me?”

I shook my head once again, “I’m okay.”

He nodded, moving to leave, saying one last goodbye to me before he walked out the door, leaving me alone in the small apartment, the silence filling the room like a deafening roar as soon as Adrian had left. I blew air out of my lips quickly, trilling my lips to make a strange sounding noise to fill the silence.

I paced back and forth across the room a few times, before stalking back to my room and taking out a few things and placing them in a large bag that slung over my shoulder, tossing it limply onto my bed after pulling the zipper closed, moving back out of my room, entertaining myself with walking around the room, and even going through some of Adrian’s things when I didn’t find anything else to do for a little while, jumping ever so often whenever I heard something. I didn’t want to get caught snooping through Adrian’s things, since it was off limits, and Adrian would probably skin me if he had found out. I only did it because I was curious, and it wasn’t like I was looking for a stash or something stupid like that.

He got back some time later, hauling up two handfuls of plastic bags when I was in the middle of pacing again, and I rushed over to help him, thankful for something to do other than walk around. I grabbed things quickly and put them into the refrigerator, Adrian and I making a system without even exchanging a word, him handing me the things and I putting them away.

Our work was done in a matter of minutes, and Adrian pushed me gently out of the kitchen, telling me to go sit down and let him make breakfast, which I did, leaning over the breakfast bar and watching him cook. In a matter of about fifteen minutes, the whole apartment was filled with the smell of omelets, making my stomach start to growl and churn, anticipating the food.

I was glad when he finished, nearly jumping over the breakfast bar and snatching up the omelet with my bare hands and devouring it like some sort of savage monster. I waited though, taking it from him and stabbing at the flat egg pancake with my fork, shoving huge bites of it into my mouth. Adrian had made the omelets big, since when we ate, we ate quite a bit (another reason why we always bought enough food to feed and army, even though it was gone in a week, even with just the two of us.)

Adrian chuckled at my eating, consuming his own at a much slower rate, with a lot smaller bites as well.

Between ravenous bites I managed to gasp out, nearly biting my tongue in the process, “How. Can. You. Eat. That. Slowly?”

He chuckled, “I’m not a ravenous beast like you, but rather a dignified one.”

If I could have flipped him off in that moment, I would have. With both hands. I just settled for saying what flipping him off meant, finishing the omelet in a few more giant bites, getting up and tossing my plate into the sink, not bothering to rinse it off or clean it. Adrian shot me a look that morphed into a glare as soon as my back was turned, his jaw clenching more than it should have to chew the soft, scrambled eggs. I chuckled very softly to myself, grabbing a cigarette and popping it into my mouth as I slung my bag over my shoulder, lighting it right in front of Adrian, knowing how much he hated it, and that the rules in the apartment said that you couldn’t smoke inside the building.

Knowing that we lived in a beat up place, not many people obeyed the rules, especially the smokers that lived here, and no one ever got in trouble for it.

So, that’s why I did it, lighting up the end of the white stick, watching the end light up a bright, flaring orange, a thick billow of smoke releasing as it ignited. I breathed in the first long puff, letting it out my nose and waving to Adrian, who was grumbling and rolling his eyes in my general direction.

“Bye, Adrian.” I giggled as I walked out the door, waving over my shoulder to him and laughing just a bit harder when he growled a goodbye to me, his pure annoyance at my very presence cut short with the heavy door slamming behind me. I slipped a pair of sunglasses that I had grabbed at the last minute over my eyes, darkening the already dingy hallway even further. I just smirked a bit wider, my eyes cutting through the dark, transparent plastic of the shades, and lighting up the hallway just to my own vision.

Reapers could see very well in dark places, that’s why we were natural hunters, since a lot of our prey came scuttling from their hiding places when the sun fell and the moon rose to illuminate the streets with ghostlike presence.

It was also the only time of day we felt most comfortable in, since we often dressed in black or very dark clothing, and were camouflaged by the night. We had a very interesting way of just suddenly fading into the background or sinking into the shadows if we really wanted to.

It was one of my most favorite things about being a Reaper.

My smirk only widened at the thought, especially when I passed a couple that were too caught up in each other to notice me walking past. Look at how mortal you two are, it’s kind of cute… Oh… I’m just waiting for the day when I get my orders so that I can bring your soul to the other side.

I almost laughed out loud at my thought. I was dark, I knew that much, but Reaping souls was almost an addiction, even though I couldn’t get addicted to things very easily (or any human substance, for that matter, I just smoked because I like the way the smoke felt when it went down my throat.), but the way it felt when a soul brushed past me like a silk curtain, the state of euphoria I experienced was something that I wanted to feel over and over again. That’s why I was always so happy when I finally got to Reap someone, because of how borderline beautiful it felt.

I giggled at the small thought, puffing out a billowing cloud of stinging cigarette smoke, making a pretty blonde girl cough with a high pitched tone and shoot daggers at me with her perfectly lined eyes, tapping angrily on her touch screen phone without even looking at me, probably already in a hissy and texting her other shallow friends about it.

All I could think of was, You’re obviously not as good as you think you are, Baby-girl, if you’re living in an apartment a heavy wind away from blowing over.

Walking out the front door of the lobby, I was instantly overwhelmed with the scent of human, sticky and cloying at my nose like an overwhelming sugary dessert in a bakery. It smelled of stale sweat, cheap perfume, and other human smells that I wasn’t too fond of. My nose was overwhelmed with the smell, and being a Reaper the smell would stay with me for longer than it would in a human’s nose, which was completely annoying and overbearing at times like this, especially for being in the apartment without the windows open for several hours. Even though the apartment complex smelled predominantly human, which often seeped under our front door, the scent wasn’t nearly as grotesque as this. Humans were swarming about everywhere, like a bunch of bees, many scrambling into buildings, probably rushing to get into their jobs before their asshole of a boss found out where they were. I breathed a sigh of relief that I had been lucky enough to not to have been born into the never ending scramble for power and desire in a short, stressed life. I wanted to brag about this, to all of them, showing my superiority and authority over their quickly expiring lives. But I restrained myself, settling for a wide, dominant smirk that stretched my lips wide. I kept my head down, watching my feet as I walked, parting the crowds easily from my very presence. Humans, as dense to anything supernatural (unlike cats and dogs, who would go crazy if I was as far as a block away from where they were) could feel that there was something different about me, like a dark aura, they felt it, and were somewhat repulsed by me, but at the same time utterly curious, as all the humans were.

That was why I was always getting flirted on, since guys liked a dangerous girl. Even now, I could feel eyes upon me, all the way from across the street, even. It was funny, how people gawked and stared at people that were even slightly different. Truly, I was trying not to bust out laughing in the middle of the sidewalk, that was how much it amused me.

Humans were annoying, but entirely entertaining, for a little while, before they lost all their silly humor and just went back to being the annoying, scrambling prey they were.

Walking through them was relatively easy, unless you encountered the people who wouldn’t move even if a semi was rushing towards them, then I actually had to side step them, shooting them a look that burned with the force of hellfire, causing them to shiver and touch the place that I was staring at, which happened to be one girl’s shoulder, at one point.

The farther I walked though, the later in the day it got, the more the crowds thinned, especially once I got out of the main part of the city where I was, retreating into the more living related parts, not seeing many people that were walking around this time of day, especially if they weren’t armed in some way. The only humans that were crazy enough to go through here were ones in cars, driving well over the speed limit to get the hell out of this part of this city.

I wouldn’t blame them, there were needles literally littering the side of the road, along with crumpled up blunts and other trash that no one bothered to pick up. If I dropped my cigarette down here, which had been long gone for a while now, would blend in along with everything here, and I probably wouldn’t be able to find it again among the other discarded cigarettes and white scraps of paper.

I was lucky enough even to have people know me here, many of which who also knew the line of work I was in, even if I had only ever said a very vague statement, a lot of them thought I was a hit man, or some sort of dangerous person who could end their lives in a split second.

Well… I was.

But their version of life ending force was much different from the truth, and I wanted to keep it that way.

They all stayed a respectable distance away from me when I passed, even breaking up a circle of smokers, their flesh pocked and pale, bones nearly slicing through their skin, their clothing looking like oversized bags rather than the ‘fashionable’ loose style, if you could even call it that.

Their circle split up as I walked straight through the center, only closing when I was completely out of their reach, only a few shooting curses at me, quickly silenced by the others who were entirely frightened by my very name. I kept walking forward without missing a beat, shoving my hands into my pockets absentmindedly, biting the inside of my lip, looking up at the sky. From here, where the buildings weren’t covering most of the sky along with phone lines, shuttle cables, and many things in that likeness, I could see the mechanical underside of the city that floated like a spaceship above us. There were three cities, Middlecity, Undercity, and the one above us, which I had nicknamed Uppercity. Uppercity (Heaven, I think it was actually called) was where people lived when they were finally peaceful, as well as the other souls that had died naturally, with a special Reaper that specialized in natural deaths. Middlecity was for those who were still bustling around trying to survive the life that they were presented with, and Undercity (often called Hell, by the humans, even though that definitely wasn’t its name) was the place that Reapers dwelled, for the most part, dug deep under the ground. Many people imagined it as a dark, dingy place with melting heat and filled with horrid things that were the slave drivers of the whole underground.

That wasn’t true; it was actually quite pretty, lit up by lots of stuff, torches, sconces, and things like that. It was certainly better than the lighting around most of the places here.

That was why it was so desirable down there, and because the only humans that ever came there, was dead. Dead humans were the least annoying humans, I always said, since they couldn’t really speak unless they had something to communicate with.

But, unfortunately, I wasn’t allowed yet. That was the thing that sucked, but that was really the only thing that kept me in line, mostly. It would be sweeter if I waited than if I just got it now, like Adrian always said.

I just sighed, clicking my tongue against the roof of my mouth, the clicks echoing off the crumbly brick walls, echoing back to my ears and bouncing away again, before dying out quickly, silencing when I stopped clicking my tongue, the softest of footfalls reaching my ears, for a while, before the unwelcome noise of the city got to me. For the rest of my journey I walked among humans, occasionally seeing one or two darkly clad Reapers pass me, shooting me a look of greeting before disappearing completely in the crowd. When I reached a group of them, I knew that I was close, the well kept door hiding a portal, that to human eyes looked as if it was just a small shop, but to us it looked like a small room with a portal inside of it that took us down to Undercity. From there it was a quick trip, depending on which part of Undercity you were visiting.

I was visiting the Masters’ Quarter, which was a very short walk from where the portals spat you out.

I approached the others Reapers quickly, taking refuge in the slightly electric aura that we all created, a rather large bubble formed around us as people filtered past.

“Waiting for the next one to open up?” I asked casually, comfort settling around me like I had stepped into a warm, steamy bath.

Several of them nodded, others, too preoccupied with their pocket secretaries to care about me, just kept scanning over the tasks they were assigns. One, a dirty blonde with minty green eyes looked at me quizzically, hands in the pockets of her hoodie, “Aren’t you the one who Reaped Lilith Free the other night?”

I nodded, “Yeah. Adrian finally let me out on a solo.”

The blonde smirked, “You did good, girlie. When I saw the news report I nearly went to the scene myself. And this morning they came out with a follow up, only found the smallest of cuts on Lily’s arm. So they’re chalking it up to an overdose, since they found some drugs in her system.”

I chuckled, nodding, “Adrian freaked, told me to come down here for reprimanding.”

She rolled her surreal eyes; “I’ve heard of him, worked with him for a while too, he’s such a stickler for the rules. He’s probably just jealous he didn’t get any of the spotlight.”

My smirk turned up into an amused smile, looking at the door that opened slowly, almost cryptically, the group of Reapers stepping inside without any sort of disorder. We all filed into a single line like soldiers, stepping through the portal several seconds from each other, as to avoid crashing in to each other when we were thrown through time and space to get to Undercity.

It felt like flying, for the briefest of seconds, before it was replaced with a sense of just dropping like a stone, my stomach clenching and feeling horrible, a feeling that I absolutely dreaded when I went through the portals. For several moments I thought that I was going to throw up, the feeling building up in the back of my throat, before disappearing entirely as my feet touched the ground gently, like if I had parachuted instead of just been thrown down like I just felt like. I shook my head, straightening my clothes and hair before walking forward.

I never usually straightened myself, but I just had to when I came through the portals. Even when I went back up I did, which felt odd to me. But, after I did that I felt normal again, like everything was all right, and I was able to go on my way without my legs shaking like an earthquake.

I shook my head at myself, navigating almost expertly through the passageways, the smell of burning wood filling my nose, as well as the slightly static smell of so many Grim Reapers around, which was comforting, in a really weird way. I felt relaxed down here, the slight humming of people talking, accompanied by the crackling of torches and flames that no one bothered to mess with, unlike humans, who would jump into the damn fire pits just because they were stupid enough to do it.

Unlike in the human world, people were pushing through to get places, but no one really did that here, yeah, there were the select few Reapers who had probably just gotten out of training for the day and wanted to release some pent up rambunctiousness, but they were just scoffed at and were accommodated for the most part.

I eased my way out of traffic to take a sharp left, heading toward the quarter that was elevated above all else, a spiraling sandstone colored staircase accented with white and grey marble leading up to the open quarter, an almost palace-like structure dominating the large court that laid before it, its color darkened and intensified by the firelight that casted shadows all across it. It looked eerily beautiful when you laid your eyes upon it, definitely something that could not be recreated in the human world. The twisting spires of the large castle-like building reached all the way to the black stalagmites in the ceiling, as if the castle had dripped down from the ceiling over thousands of years, literally built into the rock.

I passed only a few people in this court, hearing my footsteps echoing quite loudly, drawing the attention of several black haired men, their wings unfurled and waving slowly around them, ruffling the perfect curls in their hair, which hung over their attractive faces in an almost disheveled look. It suited them, since the swords that hung from their jeans marked them as warriors. The warriors were specially selected Reapers who only hunted those who posed a threat to Reaper society, like out policemen. They were obedient, stubborn, and utterly to die for… Pun intended.

They almost sounded like Adrian, and he almost fit the bill to, many warriors were dark haired guys with curled hair and striking eyes in various colors.

I waved at one with the smallest of flirtatious intentions, making him smirk and nod at me in normal greeting. I wouldn’t dare go up to one in this moment, but maybe when I was done I could talk to one of them.

They glanced at me periodically, as if they were keeping tabs on me, watching me carefully until I disappeared into the large castle, stepping into a giant open hall, archways cut into the creamy colored stone, the finest of filigree cut into the rock on strong columns that lined the open hall at equal distances.

A deep, muddy red covered the floors, an extremely shiny stone with sections of white, black, and deep brown disrupting the red color, but fitting in entirely with the room. Torches burned brightly on the sides of the walls, casting bright reflections across the floor. The flames that burned in here made my cigarettes look entirely worthless in this room, and the smell of their smoke was something entirely different.

I approached the trio of Masters at the end of the hall, flanked by four warriors, their black, cybernetic wings unfurled around them like the ones outside, almost looking out of place in this medieval looking castle. All their eyes were upon me, and the Master at the tallest ledge stood, speaking first, a cool, deep baritone reaching my ears, reminding me of ice running down my spine.

“Nameless, Emma.” He called to me.

Reapers weren’t given names, so first; they were addressed with Nameless, and then their human names, if they chose to have one. If not, they were assigned one, just for the purposes of not having confusion when addressing a whole group, since everyone was called Nameless down here.

I bowed my head low when I reached a respectful distance, their forms now the size they should be, rather than a small smudge of black against the tanned background.

The one that was standing kept speaking, his hand waving up slowly like a swaying branch, which also caused my head to draw up, looking into his eyes, pitch black with the slightest flicker of flames reflecting inside of them.

“What brings you here, to our prescences?” He asked, inclining his head, long, platinum blonde hair flowing down his shoulders and back, a long, thick lock hanging over his right shoulder, the rest tied back with a scarlet ribbon. He was beautiful, when I looked at him, I was filled with a sense of utter obedience, and I wanted to please him in whatever way possible. I almost fell to my knees as I answered him, reduced to no more than a small, misbehaved Reaper in the presence of this… god.

I stuttered slightly, surprised that my speech was still eloquent enough for me not to sound like an utter fool, “I-I… My mentor… A-Adrian sent me here, for reprimanding.”

The blonde one smirked slowly, and I bit my lip, looking down and away. That look ignited more chills down my spine, and I could feel his eyes giving me a slow once over before he spoke, “You were assigned Lilith Free… Yes. And she ended up on the news, per your lack of hiding the body.” He spoke slowly, as if he wanted to torture me.

I nodded quickly, hair flying over my face, brushing it away before I could think about it, clamping down on my tongue with my teeth.

He continued, taking a few steps around his pedestal before returning to sit down on his ornate throne, his sweeping black and scarlet robes fluttering around him beautifully.

“As I see why Adrian thought that you were to be punished, I do not think that your actions require punishment, or at least, not in the degree that would be beneficial to your training. However… I can think of something.”

I looked back into his pitch black eyes, my voice cutting through the near silence of the room and echoing off the walls with dying loudness, “Yes, Master?”

“You are to go on another Reap. This time, I expect you to carry out this task like Adrian would like you to, no leaving the body out in an abandoned alleyway, getting involved with the human so they do not expect suspicion should you want to come home with them, all of the things that make up a perfect Reap. You will have two months to complete this task, as we,” He paused to motion around the court with a sweeping gesture of a fair hand, “Would like you to succeed. If you fail to carry it out in such a way, you will receive punishment. But if not, I see no reason why you couldn’t be granted a graduation. Your education has gone on for over six hundred years, has it not?”

I nodded, “Yes, Master. Six hundred and seventy years.”

“That is my promise to you, my Nameless. Succeed and be granted freedom, fail and stay in the exact position you are now, only add several more thousand years.”

I blanched at the thought of staying with Adrian for that much longer, and I nodded quickly, a sense of nervousness arising in my gut, something that seldom happened, a queasy feeling that felt like being tossed through the portal over and over again.

“Yes, Master. Who is my assignment?”