The ground was crawling with insects. Centipedes and creeping spiders fled beside mice and rabbits. The birds had been roused from their roosts, taking flight with a rattle of leaves and flutter of wings. A fox and her pups paused when they saw me, then hurried on, heads low as they ran.
Only I went against the tide. The youngest plants — little seedlings, sapling trees, fresh grass — were withering and dying. The air was sharp with the scent of blood and mold, cloying in my nose, like a butcher’s slaughterhouse.
There was a hierarchy in Hell: Demons, Archdemons, and Reapers above all. They were once executioners, having made a delicate pact with the Archdemon royals to only kill those demons who had been outcast.
But Reapers couldn’t be trusted. Demons hunted souls, Reapers hunted death. They craved it, hungered for it. They were as old as the Gods and nearly as dangerous.
I’d heard legends of magicians attempting to summon them. Kill enough people in offering, and maybe you could get one to show up. They couldn’t be contained like demons, nor commanded as we could. Offer them an intriguing enough task, and maybe they’d take it.
Or maybe they’d kill you for bothering them.
The forest had gone deathly silent. It was as if the world had been draped in a heavy cloak, smothered and breathless, the air eerily still. I paused, breathing deeply, my ears straining for the slightest sound.
It had to be close.
A twig snapped, and I whirled around, claws outstretched — nothing. Just that empty, dark forest. Would it pass me by? Would it head straight for Raelynn? She would be driving by now — so long as she didn’t get any foolish, hard-headed ideas. Fucking hell, she had to obey me this time. She had to.
But it was likely the Reaper wasn’t here for her. It was here for me. It was here to get me out of the way, permanently, and leave her vulnerable. Once I was dead, the Libiri could go after Raelynn without fear.
I’d fight death as long as I could if it meant giving her more time to run.
The Reaper didn’t arrive with snapping twigs and howling. It arrived with an ice-cold breath on the back of my neck. I turned, slowly, raising my eyes to the otherworldly beast looming over me.
A black shroud obscured its features, except for the pale ghostly glow of five blinking eyes. A collar of jagged bone, antlers, and claws guarded its neck. Massive black wings stretched from its back, and it towered above me on long skeletal limbs garbed in armor of blackened metal and stone.
It raised a hand, taut with gray skin stretched over long boney fingers adorned with black rings. Strings of teeth, bones, and shriveled bits of flesh hung from its chest. It was a walking amalgamation of death, rot, and pain.
“Demon.” Its ancient voice rattled through me. “Have you come to submit to death?”
I smiled. My veins throbbed black and tight beneath my skin. Strange how the most alive I felt was in the moments before death. “Never.”
“Oh good.” A rumble, its booming laughter, shook the trees. “I do like it so much better when you struggle.”
I didn’t expect its speed. One knock from the back of its hand crushed the air from my lungs, and in the seconds it took my dazed brain to realize what had happened, I was lifting my head from the ground hundred feet from where I’d once been standing, the tree at my back splintered open from the force of my impact against it.
I dodged away, darting among the trees, circling, looking for an opening. The legs — thin bones, breakable — a weakness despite their armor. I lunged for it, but it anticipated my attack. Its claws tore down my chest, digging deep into my skin and burning like acid.
Just scratches, just blood. Easy to endure.
Everywhere I dodged, it was there. Every move I made, it matched. I was dizzying myself, unable to pause to get my bearings. I had to run — I had to draw it deeper into the woods and give myself time to steady. My shirt was soaked with blood. My wounds were still bleeding. They weren’t healing.
It didn’t matter.
Just blood. Just pain. Endurable.
I ran deeper, deeper. Looking for where the trees grew thickest, where it would have to move slower because of its size, or so I thought. But with its long limbs it crawled and flattened like a spider between every narrow gap I slipped through, lunging overhead.
I thought I could dodge it. I thought I’d be quick enough. Instead, when I tried to dart away, I met its claws head-on, and they sunk knuckle-deep into my abdomen and out my back.
Oh, fuck…fuck…
I seized its wrists, bent the bones backwards with all my strength and heard that satisfying snap — then the awful sensation of my guts being shredded as the Reaper howled and yanked its hand back, the bones hanging limply. I wanted to grin…I tried to. I could taste the blood in my mouth. It was coating my teeth, my tongue. My throat convulsed and more came up. Fuck.
Every movement felt like wading through thick mud. I’d broken the Reaper’s wrist, so that was where I attacked, latching onto its arm and letting it lift me from the ground as it flailed and I climbed towards its shoulder. I wrenched the bones there too, cracking them, and sunk my teeth into that rotten flesh — black rancid blood flooded my mouth, bitter on my tongue.
When it threw me off, I knew something broke, and there was a split-second where I realized it was something bad before I hit the ground and tumbled. There was a ringing in my ears. I tried to raise my right arm to inspect it, but…oh.
Oh. That arm was useless now. Damn. It was worse than I’d thought.
I tried to get up. My body refused.
No. No, not yet. Not yet. Get the fuck up.
The Reaper loomed overhead, its wings spread wide. Its laughter thundered through my broken bones and the pain pierced my head. I’d left an open wound on its throat and one limb hung weak and useless, but it was still standing.
Its glowing eyes still blinked calmly down. Unfazed. Unworried. It knew.
I knew.
I should have said a better good-bye. I’d wanted to fight longer for her.
But at least I’d told her. At least I’d admitted the thing that scared me most. The Reaper didn’t seem half as frightening in comparison to my last confession: that I loved her. That I’d die for her.
Funny, I’d always thought I would die angry. That I’d die for hatred and fury. Dying for love didn’t hurt any less; it probably hurt more. But I felt better than I thought I would.
The Reaper leaned down. Behind the black gauze shrouding its face, I saw a flash of sharp white teeth.
“Death is the fate of those who anger the Gods,” it rumbled, as my vision clouded at the edges, every limb feeling wretchedly heavy. “But God has a wish to toy with you still. Here is where I leave you, demon. I am not so foolish as to defy the God.”
