Chapter 1
“I had a friend who was a clown.
When he died, all his friends went to the funeral
in one car.”
—Steven Wright
Time worked differently between the mortal side and
Eternity. That’s how Kevin, Eliza, and I were able to coin off from the Limbo
City harbor in full daylight and end up in the pitch-black night on Coney
Island. Thankfully, reapers didn’t suffer from jet lag.
Eliza folded her hands behind her head and reclined
on the roof of the Ferris wheel gondola. The stars sparkled in her eyes, and
her breath fogged the crisp winter air. Kevin stretched out beside her, chin
propped in the palm of one hand. His gaze darted from his watch to the deserted
amusement park below, where our marks would be arriving any moment.
A handful of security lights lined the chain-link
fence that enclosed the park, separating it from the beach to the south and Brooklyn
to the north. The candy-striped rides and coasters were quiet in the
off-season. There was no crowd to navigate, no potential doppelgangers to
complicate our assignment. I expected this harvest to be a cakewalk despite its
medium-risk status on my docket. Which was why I’d caved when Eliza had asked
for a better view as we waited.
The moonless night melted into the ocean, blurring
the horizon. I pulled the hood of my robe tighter around my neck and squinted,
trying to find where the stars in the sky ended and their reflected twins began.
They danced across the water as the waves kissed the shore.
Moments like these made the mortal realm seem
almost tolerable.
I dangled my legs over the edge of the gondola roof
and sighed. “Sure is a beautiful night.”
“To die,” Kevin added with a morbid, horror-film
cackle.
As if on cue, a bloodcurdling scream tore through
the park. My pulse quickened at the promise of death, but I held up a hand,
signaling my apprentices to stay put. We already had the best seat in the
house.
A second later, another scream bubbled up from the
shadows, clearer this time. Then a woman stumbled across a halo cast by one of
the security lights.
Usually, I would scoff at the clumsy damsels that
couldn’t seem to stay on their feet while fleeing slasher film killers. But
then again, none of them had been in shoes ten sizes too big. The technicolor
wig and obscene amount of makeup running down the woman’s face finally pulled
the full picture together.
“A clown?” Eliza hitched an eyebrow. “That’s a
first.”
“Not for me. I scored a French mime in the 1840s,”
I boasted.
“Didn’t you run a solo circus harvest back when we
were with the Posy Unit?” Kevin asked, his eyes glued to the shadows, searching
for our sad clown’s pursuer.
“Yeah, but all the clowns made it out alive. And it
wasn’t supposed to be a solo harvest.” I pressed my lips together,
deciding not to dig up the past. Kevin had been clean for a decade, and he hadn’t
missed a single day of work in all that time.
“You said we’re picking up three here, right boss?”
Eliza asked, shifting focus back to our current assignment.
“Yup.” I glanced at my watch. “One might already be
dead, but he should be nearby. We’ll collect him after the show.”
“Oh, goody.” Kevin rubbed his hands together and
scooted closer to the edge. Eliza rolled her eyes, though she sat upright to
have a better look herself.
I was curious, too. The clown had surprised me. Of
course, the profiles on my docket stuck to the basics unless a harvest was
high-risk. I knew that the three souls we were picking up tonight all worked their
nine-to-fives as telemarketers at the same company, selling extended
warranties. But I didn’t know the specifics of their side hustles or hobbies.
Apparently, clowning around was also something they had in common.
I saw the bloody knife before our killer,
confirming my theory about the first victim. Then the light hit her pancake
makeup, the stark white punctuated by black brows, rosy cheeks, and red geisha
lips. Her lavender leotard and matching tutu were splattered with more blood,
and she stalked rather elegantly after her blubbering prey, balancing on the
toes of her ballet slippers.
“Please!” the crying clown begged, tripping over
her floppy shoes again. “I didn’t know. He said you’d broken up!”
The killer clown slashed her knife through the air.
She was too far away to do any damage, but the other woman screamed and tore
off, heading for the Ferris wheel and forcing us to lean further over the edge
to catch the next act.
“Should we… move?” Eliza whispered.
“There.” I nodded to the rooftop of a nearby
attraction. “The spooky one with all the skeletons.”
We rolled our coins and reappeared in time to watch
the clowns begin their assent up one of the support legs of the Ferris wheel,
awkwardly scaling the open-lattice metalwork. Neither of them was wearing the
proper shoes for such an activity, but the ballerina seemed to be having an
easier go of it.
“Man! I wish we had some popcorn.” Kevin huffed and
climbed up the backside of a skeletal dragon perched above the entrance of the
building we’d moved to. Eliza snorted, but she craned her neck to watch as the
clowns neared the center of the wheel, their limbs hooked hazardously over
metal beams, panting breaths fogging between their faces.
The ballerina took another swipe with the butcher knife,
this time making contact across the sad clown’s forearm, drawing an
earsplitting squeal from her. It was an overzealous strike, and the ballerina
wobbled on her feet from the momentum. She grasped for the nearest beam,
letting the knife slip from her hand. It clattered between the rungs before
freefalling to the pavement below.
“You crazy bitch!” the sad clown screamed,
clutching her bleeding arm to her chest. She was suddenly braver now that the
knife was out of play. “No wonder Ron was afraid to dump you!”
Not to be discouraged, the ballerina clown braced
her back against a beam and reached into the sleeve of her leotard, retrieving a
silk handkerchief—or twenty. They were knotted together, likely for a less
nefarious purpose than strangling her cheating ex’s side piece.
She waited for her flopsy-footed quarry to begin down
the metal lattice. The knife was on the ground, and I could see the hopeful
glint in the sad clown’s eyes. She thought there was a chance she could reach
it first and survive this.
But as soon as she was a rung below the ballerina, the
colorful noose slipped over her head. Flopsy garbled out a strangled cry and
clawed at her neck, releasing her hold on the Ferris wheel base. Her oversized
shoes wobbled against the beam she was perched on, just barely holding her
upright.
Eliza sucked in a sharp breath and covered her
eyes, immediately peeking through her fingers. I stifled a smirk. There was no
escaping the morbid curiosity that came with being a reaper. It was in our
blood.
A hollow scraping sound drew my gaze back to the
Ferris wheel. Flopsy’s giant shoes had finally failed her. She kicked at the
metal beams, trying to regain her footing. But it was too late. The ballerina
released the rope.
The sad clown’s skull bounced off a crossbeam on
the way down, concussing her enough that she didn’t even muster a scream before
her body smacked the pavement and began the telltale oozing of a violent death.
“Is the ballerina butcher our third?” Kevin
whispered. “Or is there another victim hiding around here somewhere?” He was
entirely too eager.
I huffed. “Do you really want me to spoil the
surprise?”
Okay, so maybe I wasn’t exactly discouraging this
behavior. But was loving your job such a bad thing? Besides, these extra
colorful harvests were a rare treat.
“No, don’t tell us,” Eliza said, now fully invested
in the final act.
Sirens echoed in the distance. A second later, red
and blue lights flickered across the dark skyline of Brooklyn.
I turned back to the Ferris Wheel, waiting to see
how our murderous ballerina would react. I expected surprise or panic. Maybe
some nervous fumbling. But she remained calm, graceful even, as she slipped
down one of the diagonal rungs. It was as if she were following the steps of a
choreographed dance, performing a show for the ghosts of her victims—or us.
And then the toe of her slipper found the spot
where the sad clown’s split skull had bloodied the beam, making it slick. Much
too slick for her murderous victory pirouettes.
Even her swan song was elegant. It wailed in
harmony with the approaching sirens, cutting off sharply as she met her end in
a colorful pile of skewed limbs beside the sad clown.
“Aww,” Kevin groaned. “That was a cheap finale. Not
even a shootout with the fuzz?”
I shook my head. “Clearly, I’ve been giving you too
many gangster harvests.”
“I thought it was poetic justice,” Eliza said. “And
I can’t wait to question their souls. This should be good.” She hitched up her
robe to retrieve the retractable scythe holstered on her hip.
Warren, armorer to the Nephilim Guard, was also
contracted through Reapers Inc. to design a few harvesting gadgets. Since we
were personal friends, that meant my team and I got to test drive said gadgets.
For better or worse.
The retractable scythe was his latest creation. And
mine had been jammed since last Tuesday, after I’d gotten the business end
stuck in the eye of a hellcat. In Chicago.
The creatures had been appearing more frequently on
the mortal side, but no one could figure out where they were coming from. Was
there a rift in the soul matter that separated one side of the grave from the
other? Or perhaps a new old god with a bone to pick now that the Throne of
Eternity had been dissolved and there was no longer an infinitely powerful soul
lingering in the shadows like Grim’s invisible watchdog?
It wasn’t really my place anymore to seek out the
answers to these questions—even if it was making my job more
problematic. That was Afterlife Council business, and I was more than happy to
stay off their radar these days. I just wished their problems would stay off my
radar.
In the meantime, I needed a tune-up on my
retractable scythe. I still preferred my battle axe when it came to most high-risk
assignments, but until the hellcat issue was resolved, I required something more
practical to get me through the workday in one piece.
“I’ll go track down the first soul,” Kevin offered,
shouting over the nearing sirens. I nodded and pointed Eliza at the two clowns
under the Ferris wheel.
“Let’s get this show on the road before they turn
into chalk outlines.”
"Life After Death" will be available December 21st, 2021.
Find it at your favorite e-bookstore today!
https://angelaroquet.com/books_life_after_death
