Grim and Bear It
Chapter Four

Rule #2: A reaper's most important duty is to protect a vulnerable soul as it leaves the human body. -The Reaper Code of Ethics, official handbook.

Poppy

It was bullshit that I couldn't have an orgasm while dead and believe me, I'd tried but I could still feel my heart breaking. I couldn't feel temperature, but I could never escape the lack of warmth that came with being a reaper. Nothing had felt as amazing as Jake's hand on my skin in twelve years. He was so warm, so human.

I wanted to shout, yell, cry, be loud in some consequential way that was impossible when I was dead. I could scream for hours in the human world and no one would hear me. Except my sister and any lingering ghosts. Sylvia would probably shove her robe in my mouth after three seconds.

Maybe this was why I liked playing my violin so much. It let me be loud, took the feelings that somehow still clogged my chest and forced them into the world with every swipe of my bow. It was more productive and more beautiful-than screaming.

Since the moment I'd woken up in the reaper world twelve years ago, I'd been told I'd grow to love it. If I gave it a chance, I'd fall in love with the afterlife. I got to be with my family, help humans reach their eternal destinations, and spend the day on the water.

Everyone had been wrong.

With a sigh, I landed next to Sylvia. I never stopped being astounded at how potent the colors of the human world were, even at twilight. I missed colors.

I would give centuries of the eternity that lay ahead of me to hang out with Jake and Eliza tonight, dance with Daisy, eat cake until we got sick, laugh until our sides hurt. Instead, I was outside a brick ranch surrounded by grass up to my knees, waiting for six people's hearts to give out.

"Cutting it close," Sylvia mumbled as I moved to her side.

I didn't bother to respond. I had never been late to a soul collection. Didn't matter that for twelve years I'd done everything that was asked of me and more, I was still the youngest Grim daughter who still needed to have her hand held. It wasn't my fault I hadn't inherited whatever reaper gifts were supposed to be natural to me and that I needed a partner.

I hated this job.

With a nod to Sylvia, I began my pre-death inspection. Shifting silently through the grass, I circled the house while watching the way the air shifted. I followed the rays of the setting sun, searching for any disruptions, splinters, odd reflections, or shadows that shouldn't be there. I may not be able to take souls from bodies like I should, but I'd learned how to see what others often missed. I moved to a group of trees, whose shadows stretched long over the grass...shadows that looked bluer than they should. I took a step closer, pulling my sword from my cloak. The sun went behind a cloud, casting the entire field in a uniformly gray shadow.

I stilled, waiting for the cloud to move. Time was fluid when one was dead and I rarely counted seconds or minutes anymore, instead counting how many souls I had left to gather before the end of my shift. Moments like this, however, felt like eternity.

When the sun returned, the blue tinted shadow was gone. I looked across the field to Sylvia, who was watching me. Everything between me and her looked as it should, but something unseen, unknown still weighed heavy. She raised her scythe and pulled her hood up, signaling that our shift had officially started.

"What'd you replace?" she asked when I returned to her side.

"Nothing."

"Do you believe it was nothing?"

I put my sword away and pulled out my violin. "The colors are too bright here."

"Hmm." She didn't believe me. I wasn't sure I did either. "Let's go."

I lifted my instrument to my chin, dragging the bow across the strings. Unlike the New Orleans reapers, who played upbeat bluesy-jazz to guide the spirits-my request for a transfer had been denied twice I leaned into rich dark tones of a requiem. I needed music that matched my heartache. Humans couldn't hear me unless they had crossed over, ghost instruments being calibrated specifically for dead ears.

The notes unfurled around us, the air shimmering with the melody. Small flickers of light, like lost fireflies, poured from the sound hole and swept onto the wind, headed toward the cottage. These were real fairy lights. It was a trick I had picked up studying fairies, who were a nasty and invasive species. They used the lights their wings produced to lure freshly dead souls into their lair, where they'd swarm and devour.

After nearly losing a soul to a fairy, I stole its wings and used the lights to guide my souls to safety. The lights always pointed me toward the souls we'd be collecting, a cheat for my lack of reaper sight. Stealing wings to use for my own benefit was two-fold-I helped my sister, and fairies left us and our souls alone.

The lights circled in the air and went through the front door. I finished one song, then two, the familiar ache in my chest deepening, warning me the souls were coming. Souls were as unique as their human bodies. Some came somber, some in full I need to speak to your manager force, others danced on the breeze.

"Move," Sylvia ordered.

We walked through the front door and into a combination living room and kitchen, littered with folding chairs and five people slumped at unnatural angles. A man walked through the crowd checking vitals and making notes on a tablet. Sylvia stopped in front of a young woman who looked to be in her early twenties and waited for her senses to tell her when the soul was ready for removal.

It was like picking a ripe fruit. Too early, and the soul was sticky, trapped inside the body. It could tear or stretch on the way out, damaging the integrity. Too late and the soul would begin to rot and turn malicious.

Sylvia lifted a glowing golden string from the woman's chest and sliced it with her scythe. The fairy lights encircled the body and lifted the woman's soul up and set her on her feet. She stared at Sylvia, then me, as my fingers continued moving over the strings.

Realization dawned on her face as she turned and looked at her body, wrapping her arms tightly around her middle. She was wafer thin, her cheeks hollow, a wrap around her head. It was clear she had been fighting a losing battle before today.

She shook her head no and started begging for a second chance, but Sylvia just lifted her skeleton hand and pointed to me. I had left my human skin facade on, trying to make the souls more comfortable. It was easier to play the violin that way anyway.

Sylvia moved on to the next person, then the next, met with shock and surprise each time. "They promised it would work," one said to the other.

"It worked for my sister. There has to be some mistake," a second said.

"Excuse me!" a third called. "This isn't right. They promised-"

I played my music louder to cover their noise. I didn't have the mental energy to argue with them. It wouldn't do anything, and I couldn't change anything. My fingers missed a note at the realization that this was going to happen to Jake, and probably soon. One small slice and the soul and body were irrevocably separated.

Sylvia swung to face me. I didn't miss notes. I looked away and kept playing, refusing to acknowledge that anything was wrong.

The man who was checking the vitals circled back around to the young woman. "Shit." He moved to the next person, then the next, each one as lifeless as the last.

The man yelled to someone else as Sylvia moved to us. "Let's go!"

I moved into a quieter song and shook my head once. "Manifest said six."

"There are no other ripe souls here. Manifest must be wrong."

I frowned but didn't argue. The manifest was 99.99 percent accurate, but the information was still imputed by reapers, translated from the main source. In rare cases, a soul's trajectory could change so much that a person lived. I'd only seen it happen a handful of times in twelve years, but it wasn't impossible. Sometimes a soul ripened slowly with age, sometimes in a matter of seconds after an accident.

It was just...something wasn't right.

The man who had been checking the victims hurried through the kitchen and into another room, dim in the evening night. It was clear he was talking to someone else, gesturing wildly at the unseen person. I played a minor chord, moving the bow in long strokes to disperse more fairy lights.

With a long exhale, I directed the lights through the kitchen and to the doorway. They stopped before they crossed the threshold, dimming and falling into ash. That was an unmistakable warning. I abruptly stopped playing. "Run!" Sylvia and I herded the group out the door and across the field. While she and I could glide as if we were ice-skating, the new spirits didn't have their sea legs yet. They were still moving at human pace, which was not going to save us from whatever the hell was in that room.

Maybe a demon, maybe a soul eater. I wasn't sure and I didn't want to replace out. Sylvia cried out, grabbed her chest, and stumbled. I rushed forward and caught her arm. "You okay?"

She looked over her shoulder and slowed, walking backward. "We've got company." She waved her scythe in the air. "Everyone, stay behind us."

I tucked my violin away and pulled out my sword, then turned. Our sixth soul was careening out of the house. It was a clump of a shadow, with jagged edges and no defining characteristics, followed by a demon who was more monster than "Looks like there were six souls after all," Sylvia said. "This demon just beat us to it and had a little snack."

man.

In a perfectly synchronized movement, Sylvia drove her weapon through the shadow as I drove mine into the demon. The shadow shriveled and fell to the ground, then Sylvia made a slash at the demon as I took a second blow. It tore open a portal in the earth and dove in before I could get in another slice. We staggered back, breathing heavily even though we didn't need breath.

"What the hell?" I whispered. We lost a soul. How'd we lose a soul? I asked her silently. We had a near perfect track record.

She just shook her head in disbelief.

Turning around, we saw four souls milling around in confusion and a fifth running toward the woods. With an expletive, Sylvia took off after him and caught up in seconds. When she reappeared, holding the man by the nape of his neck, she surveyed the group. "Anyone else have any stupid ideas?"

The other four shook their heads.

"Good. Let's get out of here. This place gives me the creeps."