For the Birds Read online

  There was a coil of rope under the center platform of the tender. I tied it to a boat cleat and fashioned a noose out of the opposite end. Then I very carefully looped it over the head of my last harvest. Once he was secure, I opened throttle like the kraken had been released.

  I could hear the disgruntled mermaids behind us, and I just knew they would give chase. Kevin was still curled up on the floor, moaning in agony. Keeping one hand on the tiller, I reached down and squeezed his shoulder as tight as I could. I needed him to snap out of it. There was no way I could pull this stunt off on my own. He finally blinked up at me. The blood from his ears trailed down his jawline and throat.

  “Can you hear me?” I asked him again.

  The confusion streaked across his face was answer enough. I pointed to the ship and then to the winch in the center platform. He glanced behind us, and then slowly nodded, pulling himself upright. I didn’t bother looking back. The mermaids would be underwater so they could have the element of surprise.

  I didn’t kill the engine until we were almost on top of the ship. Kevin set to work reattaching the davit ropes, while I reached over the stern of the boat to harvest the last soul. I couldn’t afford to be gentle. There was no telling how close the mermaids were. I reached down and ripped the soul from his body like it was a shuck on an ear of corn. He tumbled onboard and fell flat on his ghostly face.

  “Holy shit! What’s your problem?” he snapped.

  The other souls on the boat, who had been shell-shocked and silent since Eurynome and her mermaids appeared, moved to help the new arrival. I ignored them and went to tie up the other end of the boat. Kevin took hold of the winch and wrestled us into the air. He cranked the handle for all he was worth, pulling us further and further out of the mermaids’ reach.

  Frantic splashing from below drew my attention. A trio of mermaids were taking turns throwing each other up out of the water. They were too far away to reach the boat, but the dangling body of my last catch was an easy grab. One latched onto his legs, throwing the boat off balance. The souls clung to each other as we rocked back and forth, knocking against the side of the ship.

  “Shit!” I fumbled with the knot tied around the boat cleat, until I remembered the hunting knife in my boot. After everything I’d been through, it was little wonder that I found myself more heavily armed these days.

  I sawed at the crusty rope, not quite severing it before one of the mermaids of doom pulled herself up onto the side of the boat. She gave me a victorious snarl, but it was short-lived. I slammed the palm of my hand up under her chin, throwing her head back. She lost her grip on the boat railing and just barely found the rope again. After another split second of hacking, that gave way too, sending the mermaid plummeting back into the ocean along with the dead body. Kevin’s ears were still bleeding, but I could have sworn I saw him smile.

  Saul and Coreen were waiting when we reached the deck. I left the souls for them to herd down to the hold and made a mad dash for the bow of the ship, hoping that I could get the incantation underway before the mermaids dreamed up some new way to sabotage our harvest.

  “Patefacio porta quondam mihi in spiritum mundo,” I said, all in a single breath.

  The portal split open again and the ship lurched forward. I only hoped the mermaids stayed behind. Of course, the portal spit us out only a short distance from the harbor, where a couple nephilim guards waited.

  The temperature was cooler on the Sea of Eternity. I was still soaked from my little swim with the mermaids, so my teeth began to chatter. Kevin stepped up beside me and touched my arm. He didn’t look so good.

  “I still can’t hear anything,” he said awkwardly.

  “Meng Po?” I mouthed.

  His nose scrunched up, but he nodded his head.

  Chapter 5

  “Never take a solemn oath.

  People think you mean it.”

  -Norman Douglas

  I really didn’t like Meng Po. She was crabby and hateful, and I still owed her a favor for the vote she had cast to help me get on the Posy Unit, which is probably why she slammed the door in my face when we showed up at her temple along the southern edge of Limbo City.

  “Damn it, Meng! Open up!” I pounded my fist against the door.

  Jai Ling, Meng’s child soul servant, opened the door and threw her arms around me. “Lana! It’s good to see you.”

  “You too,” I laughed, returning her squeeze. “What’s gotten under your boss’s kimono today?”

  “The same as usual.” Jai Ling shrugged. “She’s upset that we’ve been here for nearly a year, and she still hasn’t made any significant changes to the soul purification system at the factory. Your name might have come up a time or two also.”

  “I bet.” I gave her a strained smile.

  “So what brings you all the way out here?” She opened the door wider and welcomed us inside.

  “Kevin got his eardrums blown by a siren this morning.”

  “Wow. Really?”

  “Yeah. Looks like we’re still popular targets among the rebels. Do you have a tea that might help?”

  “I’m sure I could whip something up.” She grinned at my surprise. “Meng says I’m a natural.”

  Jai Ling was the only youth living in Limbo City. The Fates didn’t employ child souls. It had something to do with their time here not being long enough to fulfill a factory contract before they needed to be installed back into the mortal realm. And since only souls who worked at the Fates’ factory were allowed to live in Limbo City, there were no merry-go-rounds in our park and no kid menus in our restaurants. Grim had given Jai Ling to Meng Po after she was voted onto the Afterlife Council. The old hag had to leave her current soul slaves in Diyu, the Chinese hell, and settled for the aid of a single soul servant for her century long term in Limbo City.

  Jai Ling was a timid little thing when I first met her. She seemed more at home now, bouncing around Meng’s creepy temple in her pink kimono and platform sandals.

  “Make yourselves comfortable in there.” She waved her hand towards one of the rooms adjacent to the foyer. “I’ll be just a few minutes.”

  Kevin plopped down on the corner of the bed, and I took a seat on a wicker bench against the far wall. The room was familiar, with its bamboo paneling and big paper lantern in the corner.

  Usually I was the reason for the visits to Meng’s temple. I still had a grayish handprint on my neck from where a demon had tried to strangle me after she set my apartment on fire last spring. The rebels have always been a nuisance, ever since the peace treaty went into effect, but I had never really noticed them until I started working my way up the corporate ladder.

  While we waited, I slipped out my cell phone and called Josie to update her. She was not thrilled, but agreed to pick up the rest of Kevin’s souls. I was just glad that we wouldn’t have to ask for Kate’s help. She was smug enough without the encouragement. She and Alex had a ferryboat for delivering their souls. It was a good thing too. The ten minutes I had to see them each morning always seemed to max out my brat tolerance for the day.

  When I hung up with Josie, I slid out the phone’s keyboard. Bub was probably still in his meeting with Cindy, but I knew he’d want to know as soon as possible about Eurynome. I hated texting. There was something that felt sacrilegious about butchering language in order to squeeze a conversation into a bite-sized format, but I felt obligated to, since Bub had bought me the fancy little gadget.

  U pissed off mermaids. They attack. I’m OK.

  The phone dinged almost immediately.

  ???

  I tried again.

  Eurynome and co. said u r nosy. Tried 2 drown me.

  I added one of those little yellow cartoon heads, the one with the crossed out eyes and hanging tongue.

  Where r u?

  Meng’s. Kevin can’t hear.

  ???

  Xoxo.

  Bub hated it when I ended a text conversation that way, but really, he was lucky I had held o
ut that long. He would call me later for the rest of the details.

  Jai Ling was back before we knew it, carrying a cup of steaming tea. Like most of Meng’s healing concoctions, it smelled worse than sewage. At least Kevin had already gotten rid of his breakfast. Otherwise, the tea would have done it for him. He staked me with a hopeless frown as I stood.

  I pulled my soul docket from my robe and tore off a blank page so I could scribble a note for him before I left.

  Josie will be by later to check on you. I have to get back to work. Great job today! I couldn’t have asked for a better apprentice.

  He laughed when he read the last line. I hadn’t asked for an apprentice at all. I was barely qualified to have one. I still felt lucky that I had ended up with Kevin, and not just because he had saved my ass today. He graduated from the academy at the top of his class. Honestly, he deserved better. But since Grim had dumped him off on me after his original mentor, Coreen Bendura, had died, we were both trying to make the best of it. He was currently the only reaper from his generation working on one of the specialty units, so being my apprentice wasn’t a complete loss.

  I left the temple and ran into Meng at the pond in the front garden. She was bent over the railing of an arched bridge, feeding breadcrumbs to fat goldfish as they kissed the surface of the water with gaping mouths. She dusted her hands off and gave me the stink eye as I approached.

  “Worthless girl. Oath breaker,” she grumbled under her breath.

  I stopped to glare back at her. “I haven’t broken any oaths. You asked me to mention your request to Grim, but he already knows what you want.”

  “Of course he knows! I told him. You were to remind him. Keep it fresh!” She poked a crooked finger at her temple for emphasis.

  I winced away from her screeching. “Today. I’ll tell him again today. Alright?”

  “Humph.” She turned her back to me and began feeding the fish again, grumbling to herself in Chinese.

  I hating owing deities. They always wanted to collect at the most inconvenient times. I sighed and hurried off down the gravel path that led back into the city. There was a tornado in Kansas that needed to be harvested yet today.

  Chapter 6

  “We have no reliable guarantee that the afterlife

  will be any less exasperating than this one, have we?”

  -Noel Coward

  Grim’s eyes looked like they had caught on fire. I’m not sure I had ever seen him so worked up. I just hoped that the other captains had gone home for the day, because I was sure if there was anyone left on the seventy-fifth floor, they were getting quite the earful.

  “What the hell am I going to do with you?” Grim paced back and forth before the wall of a window behind his desk. “You’re by far the biggest liability this company has ever seen.”

  “Hey, I didn’t lose any souls today,” I protested.

  “You have rebels on your tail at every turn. If that wasn’t bad enough, you bed men in powerhouse positions, making yourself a secondhand target for their enemies as well. Then you consort with council members in order to obtain the most compromising position a reaper can hold. And I know, I KNOW, you’ve got something going on with Horus.”

  I cleared my throat, too tired to argue with him again.

  Grim sighed. “So you didn’t lose any souls today. Forgive me if I’m not overcome with gratitude and newfound approval for your increasingly hazardous lifestyle.” He rolled his eyes and plopped down in the chair behind his desk.

  I cleared my throat again, trying to build up the nerve needed in order to stick my foot in my mouth.

  Grim looked up from his paperwork. “Why are you still in my office?”

  I crossed my legs and tried not to look as nervous as I felt. “I spoke with Meng today, when I dropped Kevin off to be treated.”

  His upper lip curled back. Grim didn’t particularly care for any of the council members, but Meng Po was his least favorite by far. He despised her even more than he despised Horus.

  “And?” he growled.

  I swallowed. “And she wanted me to remind you about the meeting she requested to have with the Fates.”

  “Since when do you care what Meng wants?” Grim’s eyes were beginning to glow again.

  “Since she doctored me up after the demon attacks last spring.”

  “Don’t you mean since she voted you onto the Posy Unit?”

  I folded my hands in my lap. “Well, that too.”

  He gave me a vicious smile. “Sounds like maybe you made a promise you were expecting me to fulfill? That’s really too bad. I’m busy making good on my own promises. If you want to help Meng out so bad, go talk to the Fates yourself.” His face fell back into an annoyed frown. “Now get out my office, Ms. Harvey.”

  “Gladly.”

  I hightailed it out of Reapers Inc., not bothering to stop by my office. I couldn’t stand to be there for another minute.

  The rest of my day was progressively worse. The tornado harvest had been miserable, especially without Kevin’s help. I had run into a couple members of the Recovery Unit, who were harvesting souls in the same area. One reaper actually had the nerve to accuse me of poaching his souls. Oh, how I had wanted to tell him off, but I was short on time and minus a reaper, so I called his boss instead. Right in front of him.

  Bub still hadn’t called, which was unusual for him. After a long ride down the elevator, I flipped open my phone and tried his number again. It went straight to voicemail. I had already left him a message, so I hung up and pushed through the glass double doors of Reapers Inc.

  I blew out a frustrated breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding. The air was crisp and the sidewalks were nearly empty. It would have been a great day for a long walk with the hounds around the park, but they had already gone home with Josie. Usually Kevin was tasked with the duty, since Grim didn’t want them in the office. I thought about taking a walk by myself anyway. I needed the fresh air. Not a minute after the thought hit me, my pocket began to vibrate. I groaned. My cell phone was still on silent, as to not upset Grim any more than necessary during our meeting, which meant that it was the spelled coin Winston had given me. It was his extra special annoying way of summoning me for a meeting. Like I needed another one of those today.

  I slipped into the park and ventured a safe distance into the rose hedges before flipping Winston’s coin in the air. Coin travel had been deactivated in Limbo City last spring, but Winston had found a way to spell a special coin, just for me. If Grim found out about it, or found out about our little visits at all, I was so beyond screwed.

  The coin sucked me through to Winston’s private pocket realm, the Throne of Eternity. The sky was brighter there than it had been in Limbo, which wasn’t too terribly surprising. It was perpetually noon in his realm. Grim thought it made the little cottage more secure. I thought it was a farce. A dozen of the Nephilim Guard would have made the place more secure, but to Grim, that would have just been a dozen more people who knew how to undermine his rule and take over Eternity.

  Winston wore a pair of faded blue jeans and a green tee shirt. He leaned against the open doorway of the cottage with his arms folded gently over his chest, looking older and not quite as comical as when he had first arrived in Eternity. Holding the afterlife together was taking a toll on him. It was hard to see any residual soul matter leftover from the small, cancer-ridden boy I had harvested from a Cleveland hospital, not quite a year ago. After drinking one of Meng’s teas, he had reverted back to an ancient past life, King Tut. His skin was darker now, and he had a full head of black hair that he kept tied back in a low ponytail. He was also man sized, although just barely. Tut had been eighteen when he died. To me, he would always be the ten-year-old Winston.

  “Lana, it’s been awhile.” He smiled as I walked up the front steps and welcomed me inside with the wave of an arm.

  “How are things?” I asked, knowing I would probably get a vague answer before he jumped in with the same lecture I’d hear
d half a dozen times over the past few months.

  “Things suck. So pretty much the same as always.” He laughed and plopped down on a sofa in the living room.

  I sat down across from him and crossed my arms and legs, readying myself for a conversation I almost knew by heart at this point.

  Winston gave me a pleading smile, but it soon dissolved with a sigh. “I don’t suppose you’ve come across any potential replacements lately, have you?”

  “I promise, you will be the first to know when I do.”

  His eyes glossed over, and he swallowed hard. “I don’t know how much longer I’m going to hold out. Things… have been happening to me.” He rubbed his hands together slowly and then turned them upward to examine his palms.

  “What things?” I sat up straighter and unfolded from my defensive posture.

  Winston tucked his hands between his knees and looked down at the floor. “Any time I try to alter the fabric of Eternity, even in the smallest way, I can see through myself. It’s like… it’s like I’m fading.”

  “Fading?” I whispered.

  Khadija, the last soul who had served on the throne, had lasted well over a thousand years. Of course, she was an original believer. All this time I had been comparing the difference between her and Winston to the difference between a new tire and spare. Now it was starting to look more like the difference between a new tire and rubber band. It was an uncomfortable analogy, but the throne job wore away at a soul like the road wore away the tread on a tire. It was the most accurate way to put it.

  I reached out and put my hand on Winston’s knee. “I’m really trying to find a replacement. It’s just harder without the Fates’ help this time.”

  “But you can’t ask for their help without drawing too much suspicion. We have to be careful. I haven’t even told Grim about my… problem. He ignored Khadija for centuries, until she had to take matters into her own hands. I don’t have centuries. I’m not even sure if I have months left in me.”

  “There has to be some way to speed up the search.”