Angel of Death: (Reaper Series, Book 1)

  TIME OF DEATH

  Peyton got off the bus half a block from her house a little after 11:30 that night. She was renting a small two-story brownstone in Brooklyn, just a half-hour bus ride away from the hospital, which suited her busy and constantly changing schedule just fine.

  Her way was well lit by the street lamps and she walked without fear. The neighborhood was safe, even late at night.

  Walking up the front steps to her brownstone house, Peyton took her keys out of her handbag and slid them into the lock, the tumblers easily giving way for her silver key. Opening the door, Peyton slipped inside and shut the door behind her, sliding the lock back into place. The neighborhood was safe, but that didn't mean she was foolish.

  Peyton switched on the lights and took a calming breath, now finally beginning to relax after a long and stressful day. The ordeal with Voss was troubling at the time, the way he was looking at her having haunted her for most of the day, but she had pushed it all from her mind so she could focus entirely on her job. People's lives were on the line, after all. And Voss was gone now. She could put that whole chapter of her life behind her.

  Kicking off her shoes and leaving them in the hallway (a bad habit from her childhood she had never been able to shake, despite daily scoldings from her mother), Peyton walked up the stairs to her bedroom to change out of her work scrubs. A few minutes later, she was coming back down the stairs in a pair of purple pajama pants and a black sleeveless shirt that fit snugly to her athletic body shape.

  Peyton walked through her small living room toward the kitchen, but paused at her iPod stereo. She turned on her iPod and began scrolling through the list of songs she had saved on its memory.

  "Oh, nice," Peyton said aloud when she found a song she felt in the mood for. She clicked play and stood back, listening as the song started.

  When the days are cold

  And the cards all fold

  And the saints we see

  Are all made of gold

  When your dreams all fail

  And the ones we hail

  Are the worst of all

  And the blood's run stale...

  Imagine Dragons, Demons. A song that Peyton just could not stop listening to lately. Smiling and singing quietly along to the lyrics, she walked into the kitchen to grab something to eat and maybe a cup of coffee.

  Meanwhile, Voss was sitting outside in his Porsche, his hands gripping the wheel so tight that his knuckles had turned white, glaring out the side window at Peyton's home. There was an open bottle of whiskey in his lap, the contents more than half gone.

  Darius sat in the passenger seat beside him, but invisible to Voss' eyes. Darius was staring at his watch. There were only a few minutes left until Peyton's time ran out. Since he had had the vision of her fate, one of the three hands had faded to black and the remaining two did not have far to go.

  "Stupid bitch," Voss was muttering under his breath. His voice was slurred and slow. His eyes drifting in and out of focus. "Couldn't just play a... play along. Wouldn't've hurt... She'd've been fine. Spencer's pet. Bitch."

  Voss picked up his whiskey and took another swig. Then he opened the car door and uneasily climbed out. The bottle slipped from his fingers as he stumbled out of the car, falling to the street and shattering as it hit the ground. Voss swore once more, slamming his car door in anger.

  Darius appeared at Voss' side, feeling apprehensive. He wasn't sure why he felt so badly about this. He had seen countless people die who didn't deserve to, many of which had been murders like what was about to happen. He felt badly for the victims, sure... but never so...

  He couldn't even think of the right word. He supposed he felt pity. Peyton seemed like a nice person, too nice for this fate. Darius also felt disgusted by Voss, this drunken, prideful, fool who was willing to kill a young woman simply because he had failed in blaming her for his own idiocy. As Voss staggered towards Peyton's front door, though, what Darius felt most was guilt.

  This wasn't supposed to happen.

  Those five words kept repeating inside his head, over and over like a ritualistic chant. Darius felt guilty about Peyton's fate, because if it hadn't been for the rogue changing the design, she might have lived a long life and died a natural, peaceful, death when she was old and gray and had grown children and young grandchildren.

  Instead, she had this. A drunk idiot lumbering heavily toward her front door, climbing the steps as though they were the Himalayas, intent on "teaching her a lesson."

  Darius followed Voss to the front door. Voss was trying the door knob, apparently confused as to why it was locked. Like Peyton should have been expecting him and welcomed him into her home, smiling and pleasant, handing him the knife with which to murder her.

  Darius passed through the solid wall and was then inside Peyton's home. He could hear her moving around in the kitchen. Heard boiling water pouring into a mug as she made herself a hot drink. Coffee. Darius could smell the caffeine. There was a song playing on a small device in the living room, but the melody did nothing to sooth Darius' mind. The song was the same as the one he had heard in his vision. The last song Peyton will ever hear.

  There was a crash behind Darius as glass broke. Turning to look, Darius saw that Voss had put his fist through the frosted glass window in the door. Darius silently hoped that Peyton had heard the glass break and was running for her phone to call the police, but the song was playing too loudly and Peyton heard nothing as she sang along.

  Voss reached in through the broken window and undid the lock, bleeding from two of his knuckles. The door slowly, silently, opened as Voss pushed on it, blinking in the light of the hallway.

  At the curtain's call

  It's the last of all

  When the lights fade out

  All the sinners crawl...

  Voss moved slowly through the hall, his eyes roving, searching, hunting. He stumbled into the living room, crashing his shin against the small coffee table in front of Peyton's two-seater sofa. Voss cried out sharply, bending down to clutch his sure-to-be-bruised shin.

  "What the?" came Peyton's voice from the kitchen. Darius looked towards the arch to the kitchen from the living room and saw Peyton poke her head around the corner, holding a steaming cup of coffee in one hand. When she saw Voss hunched over in her living room, her jaw dropped and her eyes shot open in surprise and not a small amount of fear.

  "Doctor Voss?" she said. "What the hell are you doing in my house?"

  Voss stood upright and pointed his finger at her accusingly, wobbling slightly on his unsteady legs.

  "I'm not 'Doctor' Voss anymore, am I?" he demanded. "Thanks to you."

  Peyton took a step back, holding her coffee in both hands, as though it might protect her. "Look, Voss, you know that wasn't because of me."

  "DO I?" Voss screamed, making Peyton jump. He began walking towards her, the song still playing, his face contorted with rage and inebriation. He reached the kitchen entrance and stepped inside, Peyton taking another two steps back, keeping distance between her and Voss.

  "If you had just done what I said," Voss was saying, "if you had just played along like I asked, this could all have been avoided. I would still have my job, Spencer would have made sure you were looked after, everything would have been fine. But you sold me out!"

  "Look, I didn't-" Peyton began, but stopped when Voss slammed a fist down on the kitchen counter. He looked down at something he spotted beside his clenched fist. Both Peyton and Darius followed his gaze.

  On the kitchen counter was a knife, long and sharp, sitting beside the sink. Voss looked back up at Peyton, a strange look on his face, an expression that lay somewhere between satisfaction and anticipation. Voss moved his hand, without looking, and wrapped his fingers around the handle of the knife.

  He and Peyton were frozen in a staring match, Peyton holding her coffee, Voss holding the knife. Darius watched everything unfold as though he was watching a movie.

  Suddenly, Voss
lurched forward, dragging the knife off the kitchen counter, the blade scraping loudly against the tiles. He rushed at Peyton, lifting the knife, but in the same instant, Peyton thrust forward her coffee cup, launching the contents straight into Voss' face. The scolding hot liquid splashed against Voss' face and Darius was certain he could hear flesh sizzling.

  Voss clawed at his face, screaming in agony as steam rose from where black coffee had made contact. Peyton took the opportunity to run past Voss, who slashed wildly at the air as she ran by, still holding his eyes and groaning in pain.

  Peyton ran through the living room and made her way toward the front door, but Voss was after her. He dove through the air and tackled her to the floor, knocking the wind out of her as he landed on top of her.

  Voss grabbed a handful of her hair and pulled her head back, making her cry out in pain. Then he slammed her face into the floor, hard. Peyton felt dizzy from the force of the blow and, somewhere, the medical part of her mind was telling her that she could possibly have a concussion.

  Voss grabbed her shoulder and rolled her over onto her back. Despite her dizziness, Peyton drew back a fist and punched Voss in the throat. Voss was choked for a moment, grabbing his neck with his free hand, as though he might be able to clear his airway. Peyton struggled to free herself from under his weight, but Voss was determined to keep her there. He lifted the knife and hit her in the face with the handle, the force of the blow almost knocking her out cold.

  Coughing as he regained his ability to breath, Voss used his empty hand to push down on Peyton's shoulder, holding her still against the floor, her head lolling from left to right as she fought hard to maintain consciousness. Voss slowly raised the knife over his shoulder, preparing to plunge it down into Peyton's chest. Peyton suddenly seemed to snap out of her daze and began to struggle, screaming.

  Without thinking, without a moment of hesitation or consideration for what he was doing, Darius leaped into action. He appeared behind Voss in an instant and thrust his hand into Voss' body, just between his shoulder blades. Voss convulsed once, looking confused, then froze with the knife still poised above Peyton. Peyton, not having noticed anything, was still struggling.

  With a strong pull, Darius withdrew his hand from Voss' body, but left no wound. What he tore out left no physical evidence of having been removed. In his hand, Darius held a glowing orb of bluish-white light, made up of a consistency that was something between gas and liquid.

  Darius had ripped out Voss' soul. The air filled with a haunting sound, like a scream that was coming from far away, but still echoed all around and never seemed to stop to take a breath. The screaming was so loud, Darius cringed and felt as though his head might be about to split in half, the sound almost seeming to come from inside his own head as much as from the orb in his hand. Peyton heard it too, the sound reverberating from the metaphysical world and straight through to the physical. She pressed her hands down over her ears and squeezed her eyes shut, her scream of pain inaudible over the sound of Voss’ soul shrieking incessantly.

  Waving his empty hand at the air behind him, Darius opened the void that would lead deceased souls to the cave where they could find the River. In one fluid movement, Darius turned to face the void and, with the athleticism equal to that of a professional baseball pitcher, hurled Voss' soul into the void. The hole in reality immediately sealed, the echo-scream cutting off, leaving no trace of ever having been there.

  Voss' body seemed to be in suspended animation, the knife still poised over his shoulder, wobbling only slightly. His eyes were wide and staring, vacant and glassy, looking into the distance at an object that wasn't there. Peyton opened her eyes and took her hands away from her ears, realizing that the strange screaming had suddenly stopped and that something was wrong. She stopped screaming and looking momentarily confused. She slowly raised a hand and waved it in front of Voss’ eyes. She arched one eyebrow in confusion at Voss’ lack of response, then she reached up and shoved Voss' chest. The push sent him falling backwards, collapsing to the floor over Peyton's feet, his eyes still wide open. The knife finally fell from Voss' lifeless grasp and clattered noisily to the floor.

  Peyton scrambled backwards, pulling her legs out from under Voss' weight. Quickly climbing to her feet, she looked around, as though she might still turn and run out the front door. Her heart was racing, pounding hard in her throat, and she kept her hands poised to defend herself in case Voss suddenly returned to life and came at her again, but instead of running, she took a tentative step toward the empty shell that was once Voss, moving slowly and still expecting another attack.

  "Voss?" she said softly.

  Darius watched her as she kneeled beside the body and slowly reached out a hand. She felt for a pulse on Voss' neck. She stayed still for a moment, checking, but finding nothing. She then lowered her head and turned her ear towards Voss' slightly open mouth. She couldn't hear, or feel, any breathing.

  She wondered if maybe Voss had had a heart attack, but then realized it had been far too sudden to be that.

  Maybe a stroke, or an embolism? she thought. But what the hell was that scream?

  As Peyton continued her attempt to determine the cause of death, confused by everything that had happened, Darius looked at his watch again. He stared at it in wonder, unsure of what it meant. The hands had all lit up to their former pearly-white glow, none were jet black anymore. But none of them were moving, either. They were all frozen in the location of the 12 on regular watches. All were glowing, but they weren't counting down. Peyton's life clock was frozen.

  "What the hell?" Darius said aloud.

  Suddenly, Peyton snatched the knife up off the floor, leaped to her feet and spun around, facing the direction where Darius was standing, holding the knife out like a broadsword. She looked quickly around, as though expecting another attack.

  "Who's there?" she called out.

  Darius looked around, but saw no one.

  "I heard you!" Peyton shouted. "Come out!"

  Darius, confused, continued to look around. There was no one there. He hadn't heard anyone. He couldn't sense the presence of another soul. Was Peyton just being paranoid? But-

  Wait. A thought occurred to Darius, but it was impossible. More than that, it wasn't even imaginable. Still, he considered it just the same, the possibility chilling him.

  "Can you hear me?" he asked Peyton.

  "Yes, you bastard, now come out where I can see you!" Peyton shouted. "Who are you? Did you come with Voss?"

  Darius nearly fell over with shock. This was not possible. This was unthinkable. This was breaking more rules than he had ever thought even existed. Mortals could not, must not, ever see or hear a Reaper. Darius knew he wasn't allowing her to hear him, though. She just... was.

  "I don't understand..." Darius began, muttering.

  "What was that?" Peyton demanded, taking a step closer. Darius decided he needed to do something.

  "Please, I'm not going to hurt you," he said, trying to sound soothing and not so panicked, not sure if he was succeeding.

  "Oh yeah?" Peyton said, not believing him. "Then come out where I can see you."

  "I'm standing right in front of you, Peyton."

  Peyton didn't respond right away. She stared at the spot where Darius was standing, Darius staring back with a mixture of disbelief and fear on his face.

  "What, you're invisible?" Peyton scoffed. Then she blinked and her eyebrows shot up in surprise. "Wait... How do you know my name? Did Voss tell you?"

  "I'm not a friend of Voss, nor have we ever spoken. I just... know things. It's hard to explain. I'm sorry, but I'm confused."

  "You and me both," Peyton replied, but lowering the knife slightly. "Any chance you might want to try and explain?"

  Darius sighed loudly, not out of frustration, but because of an inner turmoil going on inside his head. He wanted to explain to Peyton everything, but not only would that break more rules, enough to bring down the wrath of Azrael, but
she most likely wouldn't even believe him. Then, of course, there was the question of what was going on with her fate and the life-line that wasn't counting down. Darius tried desperately to find something to say.

  "Look, Peyton," he began. "It's going to sound very strange to you, but I promise I am not going to hurt you. Furthermore, even if I was, that knife would do nothing to me, so you might as well stop waving it around."

  Peyton considered this for a moment, then slowly lowered the knife to her side, but did not drop it. "Okay. Who are you?"

  "My name is Darius. I am part of... an order."

  "Like a secret society or something?" Peyton asked.

  Despite the situation, Darius grinned. "Something like that. I can't tell you much, but Voss was going to murder you. Until I stopped him."

  Peyton glanced over her shoulder at the body of Doctor Voss lying on her hallway floor. Then she returned her gaze to the seemingly empty space in front of her. "Why would you save me?"

  Darius wasn't certain how to answer that question. He didn't know what made him intervene. He had never intervened before, never even felt the need or desire. Peyton was looking around now, wondering if he was still there, his silence worrying her.

  "I don't know," he said honestly. "But I think... I am going to get into a lot of trouble for everything I've done and said to you, but... I don't think this was supposed to be your time."

  Peyton looked right at him, but still couldn't see him. Darius was suddenly struck by how her bright blue eyes seemed to shine and noticed that they were tinged with a shade of green. "What do you mean, 'my time?' Who would you be in trouble with?"

  Before Darius could answer, there was a sound like a small explosion behind him and he felt a blast of wind on his back so strong it nearly knocked him over. Even Peyton seemed to feel it, as she covered her ears and cringed from the wind. Before Darius knew what was happening, he felt his feet lift off the ground as he was snatched backwards by some invisible force. He flew backwards with unfathomable speed, disappearing inside what he recognized to be the void. In an instant, Peyton and her home were gone from sight and Darius felt as though he was flying very fast through a darkened tunnel, the walls close by all around him. Then, just as suddenly, his feet hit solid ground and he collapsed to his knees, falling on his hands to steady himself.

  "What have you done?" a loud voice demanded.

  Looking up, Darius found himself in the cave, on all fours beside the River. And standing in the River, looming above him, was a very angry Charon, glaring down at him with a vicious frown. If he had eyes that Darius could see, he felt they would have been narrowed with fury, maybe even glowing from the level of anger that was now pulsating from Charon's body. The water surface around where he stood was churning and boiling, no longer calm and peaceful as it was upon Darius' last visit.

  "What have you done?" Charon repeated.

  Darius pushed off his hands, but remained kneeling, looking up at Charon from the edge of the River. He was momentarily afraid that Charon would make him look at his reflection in the River. That was a fate he was not yet willing to face.

  "Charon, I don't know what happened," Darius began.

  "Don't you?" Charon snapped, his ethereal voice powerful and commanding, more angry than Darius had ever known the usually peaceful and calm Charon to be. "Really? I'll tell you then. A man just came to the River, confused out of his mind, more so than is natural for anyone who comes here. I peered into his memories and saw his soul torn from his body and cast through the void. I saw a man taken from life before his time was up. Is this not the very thing you sought guidance for not so long ago? A Reaper going against the design and destroying all that we have worked tirelessly towards for a millennia to maintain order? Tell me, Darius, what were you thinking?"

  Darius remained silent, thinking, trying to gather his thoughts.

  "I didn't know at the time why I intervened," Darius said solemnly. "But I couldn't let that girl die."

  "It is not up to you to decide who lives and dies," Charon said simply.

  Darius nodded. "I know. But it's not for the rogue to decide, either. Charon... this woman, Peyton, she is the one I asked you about before. The one with no fate. I saw her fate be written, that she was to die a vicious and pointless death, but I know it was not supposed to be that way. This rogue has ruined a great many things, but I simply couldn't allow Peyton's life to join that number. She is important, I know she is. I can feel it. Why else would this happen?"

  Darius then pulled up his sleeve and showed Charon the watch, with its pearly-white hands still frozen in place. Charon stooped lower to see better, then the rage on his face gave way to surprise.

  "What is this, Darius?" he asked, his voice having softened somewhat, but still grave.

  Darius shook his head. "I don't know. It happened right after I intervened in her murder. Before, she only had no fate. But now... now she has no death."

  Charon stood up straight again, looking troubled. The water around his body began to become more subdued, the frothing and boiling becoming less and less fierce.

  "This is not possible," Charon stated simply. "She is a mortal. All mortals die."

  "There's something else," Darius said, slowly lowering the watch. "After I saw that the countdown on her lifespan had stopped... she heard me."

  "What do you mean she heard you?"

  Darius rose from his knees and stood before Charon with all dignity and seriousness. "Exactly that, Charon. I spoke and she could hear me."

  Charon placed a white hand over his chest in his surprise. "Did you somehow allow her to?" he asked. "Was she on the brink of death?"

  "No. She was mostly unharmed. She couldn't see me, but she could hear me perfectly."

  Charon half turned away, absently scratching at the bandages over his eyes as he thought.

  "I have never heard of such a thing," Charon muttered, more to himself than to Darius. "A mortal human... first no fate. Now no death." Charon turned his speech back to Darius. "Even if you did intervene, her fate would have simply been rewritten again, and the hands of your watch should be counting down for her. How did she react to hearing you?"

  Darius shrugged a little. "Surprisingly well, actually. Better than I would have imagined anyone to. She asked me who I was."

  "And you told her?" Charon pressed, all anger gone and now replaced by his inquisitive nature.

  "I didn't tell her I was a Reaper, but I did tell her my name."

  Charon was silent to think again. He was silent for a long time, having a lot to consider. This had never happened before, not to any Reaper or to any mortal.

  "I think we should perhaps keep this to ourselves, for now," Charon said.

  "Shouldn't we tell Azrael?" Darius asked.

  Charon shook his great head. "No. Not yet. Not until we have something to tell him. But don't misunderstand me, Darius," Charon said, his voice suddenly turning harsh again. "This does not mean I approve of your actions. There is simply more to consider now. More that I need to look at. There is a bigger picture here, something that is yet to become clear." Charon's voice trailed off as he got lost in his own thoughts, but he soon snapped out of his reverie and returned his attention to Darius, no longer angry.

  "I feel I should tell you something, Darius. Perhaps you will be able to help me figure out something."

  "I will help however I can," Darius replied.

  Charon appeared to take a deep breath, his huge shoulders rising and then falling as he prepared himself to say what was on his mind.

  "After your previous visit," he began, "I was thinking about the woman that Jeremy saw fall victim to the rogue. Now, I remember every single soul that has ever passed through this cavern, Darius. Every one. From the very first human that was little more than a wild animal and barely even conscious of his own existence, all the way to each soul that has passed this day. But that girl... I never saw her, Darius. She never came through here."

 
There was silence as Charon let the information sink in. Darius felt uncertain, confused.

  "But..." Darius began, fumbling to form his sentence. "But she died. Jeremy saw her."

  "Not quite," Charon replied. "What Jeremy saw was the rogue tearing out the girl's soul. What happened to it after he removed it... clearly he didn't send it through the void. The rogue has a different plan in mind for the souls he Reaps."

  “What could that possibly be?" Darius asked.

  Charon fixed Darius with a stare that, despite his lack of eyes, made Darius felt as though Charon could see straight through him. "The rogue is eating souls."

  Darius felt the cold wash over him like a wave. The act of eating a soul... As far as Darius knew, the very possibility was only a rumor, a myth, never to have really happened and completely impossible. To eat a soul was a vile and disgusting act, even worse than cannibalism. With cannibalism, one only eats the flesh, but the soul is free to move on. Eating the soul, though...

  “But then her soul is trapped!” Darius almost shouted. "Trapped inside the rogue! How? How can a Reaper do this? It's worse than Hell! If there was ever a fate worse than death, that's it! The worst fate imaginable. Charon, this is so much worse than we thought."

  Charon nodded. "Yes, Darius, I know. Which brings me to my next point. I suspect I may have been wrong when I told you why this Peyton of yours had no visible fate. I no longer believe that to be the case. I now believe that Peyton did, in fact, have a fate all along."

  "But I would have seen it," Darius pointed out. "Right?"

  Charon looked suddenly sad and defeated. "Not necessarily. I suspect the rogue is somehow hiding their actions, which is how he has been able to operate without Azrael discovering him. So, the reason you are not seeing Peyton's fate-"

  "Is because the rogue is after her soul," Darius finished in a whisper.

  "Yes," Charon nodded. "The rogue has targeted this woman and hidden her fate. You saw her fate only because it changed when the man named Voss decided to kill her, which changed the design. You intervened, preventing that from happening, so now her fate has returned to that which the rogue has in mind."

  "What can we do?" Darius asked. "We can't allow the rogue do this to Peyton."

  "No, of course not. I think you need to keep an eye on the girl. Watch out for the rogue. And if he shows himself, call on me. I will drag him down to the River, as I did with you. Only I will force him to look into the water and see his reflection, and Tartarus will claim him."

  Darius nodded, suppressing a subconscious desire to shudder at the thought of Tartarus coming forth and claiming another being, a sight Darius had seen only once and hoped to never see again.

  "I should go back to Peyton, then. I should be ready for when the rogue appears." Darius turned to leave, but stopped when another thought occurred to him. "Charon," he began, slowly turning to face Charon once more. "If the rogue is... eating souls... Why? What possible reason could there be to do such a thing?"

  Charon fixed Darius with a look that, despite having no eyes, told of countless years of age, his face suddenly heavy with worry.

  "That is a question only the rogue can answer, my friend."