1
TIMOTHY
“Am I dead?” he asked.
The ghostly visage of blond beachy waves and a muscular build hit me like a punch to the chest. I couldn’t breathe.
“Aaron?” The name escaped my mouth before I could bite it back. Suddenly, I was boiling in my tailored suit. My skin itched all over.
The spirit of the man in front of me looked at me with confusion and fear, then scanned the room as if in search for something familiar.
The sand-filled antechamber was lined with columns that bloomed at the top like flowers, their shafts covered in Egyptian hieroglyphics. It felt like a step into Ancient Egypt, an illusion hidden miles below the Sinopolis hotel.
I looked closer as the initial spike of adrenaline eased at seeing the man who had left Las Vegas three years, ten months, twenty-two days, and approximately eighteen minutes ago.
Loosening my tie ever so slightly, I reminded myself that, as the scribe and recordkeeper, it only made sense to have such a keen sense of the passage of time.
Instead of bright aquamarine eyes, I was met with a dull green. Whenever Aaron had been pensive, a line pulled between his brows. This man’s forehead wrinkled in concentration, and the similarities fell away.
NotAaron.
But the deceased man in front of me bore a striking resemblance to the man I lov?—
I stopped midsentence in my own head, cutting off the word I’d been about to form.
Immediately editing, revising, I took control of the narrative.
The man I hadstrongfeelings for, and one night of passion.
I have to taste you.
A hot shiver ran through me at the memory of both the rasp of his words and his scruff against my skin before it settled into a cold, empty pit that seemed to have developed in my stomach nearly four years ago.
I hadn’t realized how starved I was for the shape of Aaron until I saw it on another man.
“You are indeed dead.” I rose from the seat on the dais, straightened my tie, and slid a hand down my suit. “And you have skated the thin edge of a life well lived and one of destruction, which is why you are now here, Mr. Morris.”
His eyes traveled past mine, falling on the elaborate ancient paintings of the Egyptian god of the dead, Anubis.
In the mural, the jackal-headed god weighed a soul against the feather of Ma’at, deciding whether the man before him would be sent to the jaws of Amit to perish or cross to the Afterlife for an eternity in paradise.
Mortals had spent centuries calling him the Grim Reaper, weaving him into fables and cautionary tales until he adopted the name, feeling it aptly earned.
Grim wasn’t here to judge this soul.
That duty now fell to me. Mortals didn’t whisper my name with the same fear. The world called me Timothy now, which lacked the gravitas of Thoth, God of Wisdom and Recordkeeping, but blended better in the modern world.
“You have been in the chambers with me, reaping souls since the beginning of time,”Anubis said as he clapped a hand on my shoulder.“There is no one I trust more to keep the balance, Thoth. While I’m away, keep the order. I have complete faith the souls of this world are in the best hands.”
Grim entrusted me with the scales, and I carried that weight without hesitation. It was my duty to keep the balance, and I had no intention of failing at it.
Even if the work pressed harder each day. Even if the silence of these chambers felt heavy without him.
Order required strength. I would be strong.
Suppressing a grimace, I pulled up my sleeve to reveal a tattoo of a feather. The outline lit up with blue power as it peeled away from my skin, forming into a three-dimensional object I plucked up with my other hand.
“Hey, man.” James Morris threw his hands up in defense, eyes wild at the display of my power. “I’m a good dude.”
