Reaper (14 page)

The reapers stepped through while Oz hung
back for an instant to take several deep, hurried breaths. The
smoke was faint, but visible above their heads.

“It’ll be okay,” he muttered to himself.
“It’ll be fine. Just go. Just. Go.”

He caught up to the others and helped them
search the cabins. Oz enjoyed an instant of hope when the first few
turned up empty.

As they moved further down, the heat pressed
harder on Oz’s chest. He pulled the collar of his shirt up over his
nose against the thickening black smoke.

The bodies waited for them at the back of the
ship.

Smoke rose through a large hole in the floor
behind the corpses. Oz knew the level below that would be far
worse.

The Bas of a crewmember, an elderly couple
and a teenage girl stood next to their bodies. The girl sobbed. The
glow of others cast light over the carnage like lanterns.

“Cora, you and Oz get downstairs. We’ll meet
you there,” Bard said.

* * *

Cora and Oz backtracked past the first
stairwell. Oz tried to open the door, but it wouldn’t budge. He
leaned into it with all his weight but it still didn’t budge.

“What the fuck is this? It won’t open.”

“Trying to keep the damage to a minimum.
Safety protocols, I’d imagine.” Cora said.

“But no one came down here. We would’ve seen
them.” It surprised and infuriated him. “They couldn’t take the
time to see if anyone was alive down here? Damn them for not being
at dinner?”

“They’re just trying to contain the
fire.”

The second stairwell was open and
deserted.

The explosions seemed to have stopped. Oz
listened, desperate for a sign of life, death—anything to tell him
what was going on below them. His gut told him there would be
water, soon. His heart jackhammered in his chest as they ventured
deeper into the smoke. If not for the hole in the deck above
sucking the smoke out like a vacuum, they’d have to crawl just to
see what lay ahead.

The wolves waited at the edge of the hole,
fire-red eyes pulsing behind the smoke.

“They’re here,” Cora said.

For an instant, neither of them moved.

“I can’t see anything,” Oz said.

“Just go,” she commanded.

Cora squinted, took a deep breath and ran
into the cloud. A pair of eyes bounded behind her.

A low, spitting growl gripped Oz’s spine.
Cold waves of fear flowed over his chest. He could feel its heat at
his back, even as the unseen fire’s heat still punched his front.
The wolf’s heat was distinct; like liquid fire lapping at his skin.
Oz didn’t turn around. He tried not to think. He had to move and
move now.

He didn’t look back, but Oz knew he was being
chased. He’d almost reached a gap in the smoke when his feet
suddenly stopped moving and he toppled forward over something large
and body-like. His face hit the floor first, burning his cheek as
it slid across the carpet.

Looking back at what’d tripped him, Oz could
just make out the cruise line’s logo on the arm of the person’s
jacket. He lifted his feet from on top of the dead crewmember and
looked around for the Ba. Who knew how long the wolves had been
there? Oz and the others might’ve been too late.

Toward the end of the hallway, several
bodies—some crew, some passengers—lay in various positions. A few
sat propped against doors, others lay sprawled across the floor.
Many of the bodies were no longer whole. Oz tried to slow his
panicked breath, and blinked when Cora’s slender legs propelled her
clumsily over the dead. His breath all but stopped when he saw the
fur-covered legs behind her. One, two, three—too many sets to
count.

He dragged himself by his forearms across the
floor toward her. His skin slid along the slick carpeting, and he
tried to forget what that slickness was.

And then he saw it. A Ba. A young crewmember
who, judging by his jumpsuit, worked as one of the ship’s janitors,
nearly drowned in the blackness of the smoke and the heat of the
fire.

Oz pushed himself off the ground and gagged
on the smoke. His eyes watered and his throat burned.

He held the young man’s hands. The Ba’s eyes
darted from Oz to something over his shoulder. Oz brought his hands
to his face just as the gnarled face of a wolf stalked toward
them.

And he realized this was it. This was what he
could control—the only thing he could control. Damn the
consequences, he’d made his decision. It was the only way.

“I’m sorry,” Oz said.

He fell to the ground and covered his head as
the wolf leaped over him, catching the young man’s neck in its
teeth. The wolf’s jaws unhinged and it tossed the Ba upward. It
stood on its hind legs and swallowed the falling Ba, whole.

A terrible metal groan echoed through the
hall.

Oz felt something tug his collar, strangling
him.

The wolf was gone. Cora stood over him, her
face black with ash.

“We need to get out of here,” she said.

Oz stood without a word and they ran back the
way they came followed by the sound of rushing water.

Chapter
Fourteen

The final lifeboat was loading when the
reapers reached the upper deck. Without much trouble, they all
climbed aboard, their collective anonymity forcing them into the
center of the boat to sit shoulder to shoulder. Oz squeezed between
Cora and a reaper he knew as “Smalls.” Cora didn’t look at him.

His plan of inaction sucked. He couldn’t go
back to The Department, and he couldn’t be on Earth without killing
people, so it’d seemed simple. Do nothing. He knew a shitty plan
when he made one, but it was all he had. If he forced the hand of
judgment, so be it. At least it’d be because he chose it.

The moon shone brightly over the open ocean.
No sound could be heard over the sloshing of water against the
lifeboats and the groan of the ship’s hull as it was dragged under
water. It sank slowly, but without putting up a fight. Oz wondered
if nowadays a ship’s captain was obligated to go down with the
ship. Then he looked to the lifeboat drifting closer to his and saw
the captain seated at the front with a vacant expression, clutching
a megaphone to his chest.

Oz dipped his hands over the side to wash the
blood from them, but thought better of it and pulled out again. He
didn’t want to add a brush with sharks to the night’s events.

Most of the ship’s hull was pulled under by
the time their rescue came. It was a smaller, considerably less
lavish ship from the same cruise line. It looked more like a
fishing boat than a cruise ship. A woman at the back of Oz’s
lifeboat scoffed as she clutched her handbag to her chest.

As it drew closer, the waves rocked and
swayed the lifeboat. Oz kept his eyes fixed on a smudge on the
bottom of the boat.

“Seasick?” Cora asked.

“I thought you said it wasn’t happening
tonight.”

“There was no point in worrying you.”

Oz snorted. “Right.”

“So what happened back there?”

He swallowed hard. Oz had hoped he wouldn’t
have to explain himself. “I... don’t know.”

“I couldn’t see anything with all that smoke.
Did you find anyone?”

“Oh. Um, no. I mean, I saw the bodies,
but...”

“I couldn’t believe the wolves were there
already. It doesn’t make sense. They only show up if they’re
certain they will succeed.”

“What do you mean?”

“Ever notice how they don’t show up when it’s
just one-on-one?”

“Maybe they knew something we didn’t.” Smalls
said.

Oz looked up to see Smalls staring at
him.

* * *

Cora wrinkled her nose. The rescue boat
smelled like piss and fish. A string of triangular flags flitted
from the rails almost as an afterthought. Without the ship’s flag
boasting the name of the cruise line, she wouldn’t have guessed
this boat was meant to house passengers. Then again, maybe it
wasn’t.

There was limited space for passengers below
the upper deck, so most were stuck huddled around makeshift tables
out in the open. The crew passed out bottles of water and sleeves
of club crackers. Cora stayed on the upper deck with Oz. Bard and
Smalls disappeared below.

Cora snagged two bottles of water from a
cooler and approached Oz.

“Water?”

Oz shook his head.

He turned away from her and gazed out toward
the sinking cruise ship. Cora wondered about something she thought
she saw during the chaos. It’d been smoky and nearly impossible to
see anything clearly, but it almost looked like he’d
allowed
a Ba to be taken by the wolves. Cora knew it was crazy to think it,
but still.

She left one of the bottles next to Oz’s feet
and set off to look for Bard.

She found him outside the men’s room, picking
at a piece of the door frame with his Swiss army knife.

“Smalls is washing up,” Bard said. “Waste of
time if you ask me. He’s got a pick as soon as we get off this
pathetic excuse for a boat.”

“Does Oz seem a little off to you?”

“Is that a serious question?”

“I mean more so than before we got on the
ship.”

Bard tucked his knife into his back pocket.
“Don’t worry about it. I’ll figure it out.”

“Figure what out?”

Smalls emerged from the bathroom, hair
soaked, and clapped Bard on the back.

“Forget it,” Bard said to Cora and followed
Smalls down the narrow hallway.

“What are you talking about?”

Bard turned the corner without acknowledging
her.

There
was
something to worry about
with Oz. Cora ran after Bard. She’d beat it out of him if she had
to.

* * *

A news crew waited at the port along with a
pair of ambulances and a slew of police cars. It was the kind of
déjà vu Oz could do without.

The surviving passengers and crew couldn’t
get off the rescue boat fast enough. Parents carried children long
past the age of needing to be carried, partly out of impatience and
partly out of an intense gratitude that they were still alive.

Oz needed to see Jamie. To talk to him. He
was the only thing in this new fucked up existence that made any
sense and he needed to know that Jamie was okay.

Cora trotted up to him as he started in the
direction of Mark’s house. Bard trudged behind her.

“Going home?” she asked.

“Home?” He hardly thought of his apartment as
home.

“Well, I just figured you might want to go
for a walk or something. Sometimes it helps to talk a little
afterward.”

He did want to talk, just not to her or
Bard.

“No thanks,” Oz said.

“C’mon, Princess, you can’t—”

“Can’t what? Have time alone? Look, I get it
now, okay? I’m stuck. It’s my job to watch people die and not do a
damn thing about it. I don’t need you two following me around
anymore. I can handle it.”

Bard’s lip twitched. He looked amused.

“Oz...”

“No, Cora,” Bard said, “The baby’s all grown
up now. Doesn’t need Mommy and Daddy looking over his shoulder.
Isn’t that right, sport?”

Bard nudged Cora in the opposite direction Oz
was walking.

“Don’t fuck up,” he said. This time, it was a
threat.

* * *

Oz walked the long way around the perimeter
of the port to avoid the paramedics. Several people had been
wheeled from the ship, bloody and half-conscious. It took three men
to hoist them onto gurneys and into the ambulances. He slipped his
own bloody shirt over his head, leaving a damp undershirt on, and
tossed it into a dumpster. Behind him, the sun barely broke the
horizon. New days were supposed to bring new beginnings, but Oz
felt trapped in a never-ending nightmare.

It was quiet on the walk from the port to
Jamie’s neighborhood. The world was awake but had yet to get
through that first cup of coffee.

The windows in the house were dark, but that
wasn’t necessarily a reason to worry. Jamie could’ve been on his
way to school. Oz didn’t even know what day of the week it was. He
considered waiting on the sidewalk until Jamie came home but there
was no way of knowing if he would come home at all. From his
experiences with Jen, Oz knew she was always one delicate string
away from splitting open. Always stressed. Always anxious. Mark’s
death had no doubt thrown her over the edge. Jamie could be staying
with a relative. Or she’d packed up and moved somewhere that didn’t
remind her of Mark. If she’d done that, Oz had no way of knowing
where to find him. He should’ve come to see Jamie sooner, but he’d
been too wrapped in his own self-pity. Great godfather he was
turning out to be.

There was only one other place Oz could think
to look.

Chapter
Fifteen

After stopping at his apartment to change and
wash his face, Oz maneuvered through morning commuters to
The
Waning Crescent
. He hoped that by some stroke of dumb luck,
Jamie would be right outside the shop, trying to figure a way to
get in without being seen by the owner like he had when they first
met.

He rounded the corner to find a pair of black
birds pecking at a discarded food carton, but no Jamie.

Faced with no other alternatives Oz gripped
the door handle and pulled. He wasn’t surprised when the door
didn’t budge; he was surprised when the handle scorched white hot
on his palm. Oz cried out and fell backward clutching his burned
hand by the wrist, waving it about to try and put out the invisible
fire.

A bead of sweat trickled down the side of his
face. This was new. He didn’t like new.

His palm and the pads of his fingers glowed
red, but otherwise his hand wasn’t damaged. It freaked him out, but
it also made him think beyond finding Jamie. No way could he leave
without going inside, now.