Page 1 of Death and Divination
Chapter 1
Nash
Idied a little that first time I saw her. And each time after that, I died a little more.
Mortal lives are brief as a spark and a reaper’s only interaction with them is when that spark flickers and dies. We are there at the very end, watching and waiting. And when the fire had gone out and all that remains is a rapidly cooling ember, we go to work. We are viewed as the harbingers of death, but increasingly the mortals are able to snatch a soul back just before we sever it. Sometimes a miracle happens and what should have been an extinguished flame springs to life again.
A miracle.
In my case, it wasn’t a miracle; it was a reaper not doing his job. That soul should have been freed from his mortal form, but I delayed, entranced by the woman who was bent over him, fighting to keep him alive. That delay meant the man lived. It was a technicality, but I felt the effects shiver through me, changing me forever. It was then I knew that one day I’d be faced with a choice—andthatwould not be a mere technicality. Allowing a mortal to escape the embrace of death was a dereliction of duty. The born must die. It’s not a reaper’s place to delay or circumvent that cycle. We are not here to grant life or death. We are not here to decide. We are only here to assist death in taking its course.
I know. I’m a real downer at parties. But then, no one actuallyinvitesa reaper to a party. When one of us shows up uninvited, that usually spells the end of the party right then and there. Maybe if we occasionally got invited to a party, we’d be less morose.
I’ve attended a few parties—uninvited of course. They do seem as if they’d be quite enjoyable under normal circumstances. Sadly, by the time I arrive, it’s usually because someone has gotten drunk and fallen off a balcony or passed out in the hot tub while his friends weren’t looking, or decided driving the four-wheeler off the garage roof was a good idea.
Observe. Wait. Reap the soul. It’s a pretty straightforward sort of job. Except for the one time everything changed—that one time I waited too long.
There she was. And the second I saw her, I was transfixed.
“Live. Please, live,” she’d muttered as she leaned over a man still seated in a wrecked car. Snaking a tube down the man’s throat, she attached a bag. A co-worker squeezed the bag and she moved to cut the man’s shirt sleeve off to attach an IV.
The vehicle looked as if the doors and roof had been pried open. Broken glass and bits of metal scattered nearby along with what seemed to be the contents of several grocery bags. I’d seen this sort of thing a million times, but I’d never seenherbefore. I could feel the victim’s soul began to separate from his body, but all I could do was watch this woman as she worked.
“How far out is transport?” she asked.
“Less than two. They’re coming over the mountain now,” a woman behind her replied.
“The spreader’s in place to crack the floor,” a man told her.
She nodded. “Tell transport we’ve got a hot load. Flora, have a splint ready to stabilize his leg. Ricky, get another IV bag ready to go.”
I saw the curl of magic around her hands. The sight of it broke me from my trance and I moved closer. Her magic wasn’t of a healing nature as I’d assumed it would be. No, it was a much more powerful talent. The woman who had so mesmerized me that I’d forgotten my task was a witch, and the magic that surrounded her in a kaleidoscope of color was divination.
She was anoracle.
I caught my breath and took a step back in respect. A healer witch…well, those mortals we generally rolled our eyes at, acknowledging that a powerful healing witch had the ability to stop us in our tracks. But it was only a delay. In the end, we always reaped our soul. No healing magic in the world could do more than extend a mortal life just a moment in the scheme of things.
But divination…. No reaper could see the future. To not only perceive the complex web that makes up the multi-dimension of time, but tounderstandit? To know which threads to follow? To know the outcome, even if that outcome is crouched in probabilities?
That was talent—a gift that the very universe bowed down to.
But even an oracle couldn’t influence the future, only give it voice. Death was inevitable. Surely the beautiful woman with the hair as dark as the underworld itself could see that in her magic.
The sound of helicopter blades filled the air. “Transport’s landing,” a woman toward the back of the scene announced.
The witch set her jaw. “On three, Skip. One. Two. Three.”
Skip engaged a hydraulic device and the floor of the mangled vehicle came apart. The three quickly pulled the victim from the car, stabilizing his leg with a splint and rolled blankets.
“Pulse is one-forty,” Ricky called out as he replaced the bag of fluids.
“Transport has landed. They’re ready and saying they could use help,” the woman behind them shouted.
“I’ll go,” the witch said. “You all head back once we’re airborne.”
With a synchronized movement they’d clearly done thousands of times before, the three lifted the stretcher, moving the victim carefully toward the helicopter, and ducking low under the blades. Then they slid the victim in through the open door of the helicopter. The witch hopped in beside them and without hesitation, so did I. With a slam, the door closed, and the helicopter swayed as it took to the air.
“Pulse is dropping,” one of the other paramedics said.
