Chapter 6

6

Jericho

Present

The bitter wind sliced across my face, as I cut through a throng of villagers, on my way to the market square. I tugged at the hood of my leather coat, doing my best to conceal the scar across my lip--my most identifiable mark, aside from the eyepatch, both of them courtesy of the Fallen.

Pedestrians stared as they passed, some undoubtedly aware of who I was, while others likely speculated. They offered a wide berth, a few even choosing to walk into the road in order to avoid me.

Death, they called me. The Reaper of Nightshade.

The ironic part being, the poor bastards were already dead.

They just didn’t know it.

An ashen morning created a gloomy backdrop to the silhouettes of downtown district’s ancient buildings, whose pointed gothic rooftops speared the overcast sky like rising arrows in the distance. The village was one of many in Nightshade, brimming with the lost souls of those who’d recently crossed over from the mortal, or earthly realm. Beyond that small sliver of light in the atmosphere, given off by the soft glow of the nightshade flowers, for which this place had been named, lay a shadowed universe. An endless sea of darkness. Nothingness.

Ex Nihilo.

An even colder and more desolate exile, if possible. It made up the blackness that concealed our realm from its sister world on earth.

The dark immortal twin, where a number of souls had found themselves in the afterlife.

I passed an older woman, whose eyes widened when they made contact with mine, and she gave a sign of the cross, rambling in Spanish. Part of me wanted to laugh. Nightshade wasn’t a place for the devout. Only the non-believers ended up there, ones who questioned the heavens, whose souls were easily corrupted by the dark and shady characters who plucked them off the streets like grapes from a winter vine. A lawless place where the Fallen overlords ruled and humans were nothing more than cheap labor. Tainted souls bought and sold like precious commodities. I wasn’t her threat. Her true threat disguised themselves as normal, everyday people. Very rarely did the Fallen reveal their true nature, even if they were free to roam Nightshade without the ever-oppressive and watchful eyes of heavenly angels who almost never crossed over from the mortal plane. The souls here just weren’t worth the effort of saving, I supposed.

At the end of a long stretch of merchants selling their goods, I found what I’d ventured out into the cold and public for--the blacksmith. Hastening my steps, I approached the equally tall and burly man, whose eyes narrowed on me.

“Van Croix.” He spoke low, undoubtedly hoping to avoid drawing attention.

At my nod, he jerked his head for me to follow, and I rounded his booth toward an unhitched carriage parked behind it.

“Wait here,” he said, before slipping into the carriage, leaving me standing outside.

While I waited, I slid a hand into my pocket and pulled out a silver coin, which I rolled across my knuckles.

At the light tug of my coat, I swung around to find a young boy, perhaps no more than twelve, whose eyes popped wide on seeing me. He backed up a step, apologizing, and it was then I noticed his threadbare clothes draped over a skeletal frame. Starving.

I stopped rolling the coin and held it out to him. With it, he could buy a couple of meals and shelter for the night.

The boy glanced at the coin and back to me, shaking his head. “I can’t.”

“You’re starving.”

“And to make a deal with Death would be worse,” he spat back, his voice shaky and unsure while his gaze still flitted between me and the coin.

“Are you so stubborn?” I continued to hold the coin out for him and flicked my fingers, encouraging him to take it.

Brows lifted in panic, he reached a trembling hand toward me, as if to pick the coin from my palm, but he stopped midway, spun around, and darted off in the other direction.

Frowning after him, I lifted my face toward the sky. “And just how does one redeem himself with the contemptible reputation of Death.”

I shook my head and turned my attention back toward the merchant, who emerged from his carriage, holding a brown leather scabbard. As he unsheathed the weapon inside of it with a satisfying chime of sharp steel, the light glinted off its magnificent surface.

Celestial steel. Nearly impossible to come by in a place like Nightshade, unless one happened to make the right connections.

And was willing to pay the right price.

Only a small slice to the flesh would send someone into the black eternity of Ex Nihilo. One small slice was all I needed.

“Is this what you asked for?” the merchant said, twisting it around in front of me.

I took the hilt of it from his grasp, noting the perfect weight and pitch of it in my hand. “Yes. This will do.” Reaching inside my coat for a pretty handsome payment in coin, I continued to admire the sword he’d crafted for me, and when I offered the payment, the man raised his palms.

“As we spoke, I only want to be spared your wrath. Me and my woman.”

I’d have obliged his offer, if there was any truth to their fears. After a string of disappearances and mutilations, I’d somehow inherited the blame, which further inflamed my reputation as The Reaper, or Death. Even in the afterlife, rumors somehow managed to spread like wildfire.

“I’m no threat to you.” I lifted the bag higher in offering. Like the boy, he eyed it, almost dreamily. That much coin could buy him a number of freedoms from the overlords--fallen angels--who went around collecting taxes and favors from the villagers, and punishing when they failed to provide.

Stubborn, the man shook his head. “Your mercy is enough.”

Fool. Yes, even one’s soul could die in Nightshade, leaving them trapped in the realm with no hope of salvation, or deliverance.

But enslavement to the Fallen just might’ve been worse.

“Suit yourself,” I said, strapping the scabbard under my cloak to conceal it.

“God bless you,” the man said on a relieved breath.

I smirked at that. “There is no God in Nightshade.”

* * *

Iknelt on a rock beside Cassiel, one of only two fallen angels that I had even a modicum of trust in, to call an acquaintance. He, along with his brother, Remiel, or Remy for short, had turned their back on their overlord years before, when I’d been taken prisoner by the Fallen. With their help, I managed to escape, and the two of them had served as something of a security duo ever since, watching over Blackwater Cliff and its surrounding property where I resided.

The path we overlooked ran adjacent to the dense forest that led toward Blackwater Mountain, and below, two men examine mutilated remains that’d been left there. Human remains.

“They’ll blame you,” Cassiel said from beside me. “Don’t be surprised if they come with their torches and demands for your head. The Reaper of Nightshade strikes again!”

I smiled at that, eyeing one of the men lift a blood-saturated shirt from the ground at the end of a stick. “I’m curious to know what’s doing this.” It wasn’t that I cared so much what the villagers thought of me—I much preferred that they avoided me. It was that many of the attacks had begun hitting a little close to the cathedral grounds.

“I’ll scope out the woods and see if I can find anything.”

“Remy can accompany you.”

“I’d rather he didn’t.” Cassiel groaned. “Last thing I want is to be regaled by his latest exploits.”

“Afraid they might rival your own?”

“I’ll have you know I only keep with whores these days. Chaste females are boring.”

I chuckled. “As if you’ve ever known a chaste woman.”

“I’ve known a few. Always had a thing for nuns.”

“How’d that work?” I glanced over to see Cassiel’s lips stretched with a wicked grin beneath eyes the color of ember color that set him apart from the silver-eyed heavenly angels. His matched the color of the very infernal flames which had forged his wings when he’d turned Fallen.

“Quite well, actually.” He nodded back toward the mutilation below. “What do you think it’s like?” he asked, quickly changing the subject. “Absolute death.”

“Peaceful, I’d say.”

He shook his head, still staring off. “Not for me. Not after having betrayed my brethren.” Death for the Fallen was never truly death. Their souls were merely sent back to the Infernal Lands, to be dealt with by whatever demon oversaw them. Unless, of course, they were struck by celestial steel. In that case, they returned to the Nothingness. “If the heavens find me unworthy of redemption, then I will find escape in Ex Nihilo.”

“You would choose eternal darkness and silence?”

“Yes. Should I ever land at the business end of your blade, I ask only one favor of you, my friend. Mercy.”

“You have my word.”