Page 116 of Reaper's Pack

Today, sunrise was a beautiful affair, the sky dotted with light grey stretches of overcast. As the sun crept over the horizon, rosy hues tinted the underbelly of the clouds. A gorgeous landscape painting, possibility and promise warming all around me—and Lunadell’s tallest skyscraper beneath me. I stood with my toes kissing the sharp corner building, the stonework cool to the touch. My black robes billowed in the gentle morning winds, my hair wild and free, my scythe’s blade catching the first sunbeams spilling over the city.

My city.

In the week of biting storms, every day grey and miserable, my pack had passed the trials. Through the foulest weather, they had tracked their souls, rounded them up, found my scythe in a city of snaking roads, in a test laden with angel trickery. Knox had been able to shift and lead. Declan’s back bore the scars of Charon’s cruelty, but faintly now, allowing him full mobility. And Gunnar—Gunnar did as he was told, unflinchingly, obedient and anticipatory of my slightest command.

My pack had impressed the angel responsible for administering their trials, but their story had made the rounds upstairs already: the hellhound pack willing to sacrifice themselves for their reaper.

And then, of course, I was the reaper who had killed Charon—but that was neither here nor there. The god’s death had been a necessity; I had just been carrying out my duty to protect the souls of this realm and nothing more.

Never mind that it brought me immense joy to cleave that fucker in half, to slice his awful head clean off his shoulders—

No matter. Enemy vanquished, trials conquered, my boys and I could finally move forward.

Now the real work began.

Death had started whispering in my ear last night, his sweet voice relaying the names of impending deaths, souls for me to reap. Ages. Occupations. Addresses and locations. Crimes. Punishment. Illnesses and family sorrows. It was ongoing and ever-present, relentless—and would stay that way until a suitable second reaper was located to take on Alexander’s former pack and reap Lunadell alongside me. Until then, it was all mine, from the downtown core shaking off the night at my feet to the sleepy suburbs on the perimeter, right on out to the scattered farmsteads to the east. Mine.

Alexander’s former pack—

No.

Julian’s pack. That was the alpha’s name—Julian. He and his had been reaping with stand-in reapers until last night, one day after my pack’s success was formalized, when all the substitutes went back to their posts and I returned, officially, to my sacred duty. The seven hounds had worked flawlessly with me through the night, following orders, corralling souls. None were as sweet as Declan, nor as swift as Gunnar, and I preferred Knox’s quiet confidence to Julian’s barking. But they had done the job, and that was that. We had escorted twelve to purgatory during their shift, mostly from a cluster of retirement homes, and I’d ordered them to spend the day resting, dismissing them just before sunrise.

They would meet me back here at sunset, and it would start all over again.

Hidden along the celestial plane, I closed my eyes and listened, Death’s seductive song tickling my ear. More to reap today, more tomorrow, more forever.

The whisper faded into the depths at the sound of claws on stone. I glanced over my shoulder—and there were my hellhounds, my boys, my pack. Red-eyed and focused, shifted and ready for work. Right on time. They strolled across the rooftop, enormous black hounds in all their glory. There were no more wards around our territory, no more talks of leaving this life; each one saw the merit in it, the responsibility and necessity of shepherding departed souls into the beyond. They were ready, at long last, to reap.

After three months away, I was out of shape, a full night of reaping weighing heavily on me—until now. The sight of my pack refueled me, rejuvenated me, breathed life back into me. I stood a little taller as they approached, smiled wider, loved harder.

“Only nine souls today,” I said, ruffling Declan’s ears when he hopped up on the skyscraper’s ledge alongside me. “An easy start.”

Knox nosed at my hand, my leg, as he fell in line to my right, Gunnar next to him. Facing the city once more, I squinted against the sunrise, then bit back a knowing smile when I caught three black noses wriggling. They smelled the promise of orchids in the air, the scent of souls. Knox lifted his head, ears stiff, eyes scanning the cityscape, while Gunnar’s lean figure trembled with energy. Declan, meanwhile, peered up at me with his tongue lolling out of his mouth, his tail wagging.

I had missed this—the anticipation before a reap. Training the pack had been life-changing in so many ways, but I craved the work again. For ten long years, reaping had been my life, my obsession, my purpose. Today, I returned to it just as fervent, but it was no longer my obsession, my life, or my heart. These three hellhounds possessed both my life and my heart, but I loved that I could finally share my passion with my mates.

“Prepare yourselves… Ten seconds out, Dennis Roger Pinkerton, fifty-two, heart attack,” I told them. “In the shower, the poor thing.”

The pack stiffened, counting down the moments until release. We all looked north to the clustered upscale condos, an explosion of orchids in the air, the celestial plane humming with a new soul.

“Okay, boys…” I tapped my scythe on the rooftop, my heart full to bursting. “Let’s get to work.”

THE END