The Reaper doesn’t move, doesn’t flicker, doesn’t react, doesn’t even appear to breathe. It’s simply present, like a piece of equipment that was turned on so long ago nobody remembers when it was installed.
I study it openly now, clinical curiosity overriding whatever instinct might tell me to look away. “Does it ever approach?”
Cassian shakes his head. “Not unless someone dies. Then it comes to the bed, or the floor, or wherever they are. Reaches through them, takes something, and then it’s gone.”
“Like a phlebotomist for souls,” I murmur.
Talon grimaces. “Jesus. Are you okay? Slow down man.”
I ignore him.
“Have either of you seen more than one at a time?”
“No,” Cassian says. “They seem to be bound by territory. That’s probably why this one came for both of you.”
“Fascinating,” I whisper.
It’s looking in our direction, yes, but not at us. Not at Talon, not at Cassian. Through us and past us, as if we’re furniture between it and something far more important.
I wonder why it’s still here.
I push myself upright and the table creaks beneath me. The movement sends a pulse of pain through my chest and a spike of molten light behind my right eye. I ride it out, keeping my breathing even.
“Can it hear us?” I ask, more to Cassian than the entity itself. Then, because I need to know, I address it directly. “Why are you still here?”
No reaction. No startle, no human gesture of acknowledgement. Its posture is identical to the moment I first saw it, patient and fixed, as if the entire world has been reduced to a single invisible countdown only it can see.
I step off the table with my muscles protesting as gravity reasserts itself. My legs feel unsteady but they hold, and I take a few slow steps toward the corner, toward the thing that refuses to be anything more than a function.
“How the hell do you have the strength to get up?” I hear Talon ask behind me.
I don’t answer him. My attention is locked on the figure in the corner and I close the distance until I’m near enough to study it properly.
“Can you see me?” I ask it. “Do you know who I am?”
Nothing.
I stop an arm’s length away. Up close, the light from the scythe is even stranger. It doesn’t so much shine as cancel out thedarkness around it, erasing shadow without fully illuminating anything, while its clothes absorb the surrounding light instead of reflecting it. The face underneath belongs to a middle-aged woman with soft features and pale blonde hair, but there’s nothing alive behind the eyes.
“Why are you still here?” I ask quietly. “No one is dying in this room.”
For the first time, something changes.
The Reaper’s attention shifts and it turns its head toward the adjacent wall. One step toward the plaster, then another, and then it simply passes through. Coat, scythe, hood, light. All of it slides into the wall as if the barrier doesn’t exist.
My heart rate spikes despite my best efforts.
“Oh,” I say, already moving. “I wonder where it’s going.”
I cross the room in three strides and press my palm flat against the smooth plaster where it disappeared. Behind me, I hear Cassian push off the wall.
“They only move when someone’s about to die,” he says calmly. “At least that’s my theory.”
For a moment none of us move.
Then it clicks.
“Come on,” I say, already heading for the door. “We follow it.”
