"Here, in the Shadow Realm. In a building called Halba, near the House of Ushzu."

I look up to the list on the wall one last time. I look at my sisters and me, immortalized as nothing more than names carved in stone. I take a step away from the Reaper and cast my pen across the paper.

I do not know who made me. I only know I belong near the top. And I don't care who you are or what realm you're from, I owe you no name to put on this list of future souls ripe for stealing. Let me be a shadow in your reaping and we will call your debt fulfilled. 

I let Ashen read the note. I take another step away. The flame brightens in his eyes as the red light rises in mine.

Get whatever texts you need here, Reaper, if you ever needed any at all, I write. Then take me to see the hybrid so I can finish this bond between us and be done with this realm for good. 

I watch as his gaze shifts from my words to me. I hold his eyes long enough for the flame within his to grow brighter. Long enough for him to understand. Long enough for Ashen to be sure that when I say this realm, what I really mean is him.

OceanofPDF.com

Chapter 17

If I thought the walk to get to the library was tense, every step since our conversation on the second floor has been next-level awkward. Ashen says nothing. I write nothing. We shoot the occasional dark look at one another, but whenever our gazes collide, they repel.

We leave the library and walk along another road in the near dark. The fog still obscures most of our surroundings, but I get the vague sense we're walking back in the direction of House Urbigu, like we're on a giant circle that will eventually lead us there. The sounds in the mist are still unnerving, as is the quiet in between. There's no reassuring palm to guide me through the Realm this time. One of Ashen's hands stays in his pocket as we walk. The arm closest to me is wrapped around a stack of texts, lineages of werewolves and vampires and the crimes they say we have committed.

I can't say I blame Ashen for being extra frosty. But really, it's for the best this way. If he thinks he's going to be all flirty and I'm just going to tell him all my secrets and place my trust in him, he's got another thing coming. I haven't survived this long by letting my guard down to a hot guy with a sick body and some pretty words. Besides, he's a Reaper. A very successful Reaper. It's not like he has actual feelings for me, aside from the desire to kill.

Despite trying to focus on the darker side of Ashen and the instability he brings to my formerly quiet life, I still feel a little bad for pushing him away. I know it's just the residue of his lure in the dark. I have to remember, that's what he's meant to do. He gains access. He mines information. And then he kills. But part of me still can't help but believe he is different from the rest, that he feels something about his role in this Realm. That he feels something for me.

These thoughts roll like marbles hitting one another in the confines of my mind, bouncing with every step in the silence of the fog. Just as I'm starting to think we'll be walking for an eternity, we finally arrive at Halba, a squat, circular building of grey stone.

There's nothing detailed or artistic about it other than its unusual shape. Compared to everything else I've seen here so far, it's a bit drab. It seems utilitarian, like a storage building or a post office. Maybe this is where Reapers' Amazon packages are delivered. Yes, I've decided this is where they pick up their Roombas or vitamins or hemorrhoid cream. I think Ashen is becoming attuned to my thoughts because I barely crack a faint smile and I can already feel his glare scorching the side of my face.

Ashen pulls open the door for me and a rush of cold air spills across my skin. There are compartments along the walls, each one numbered, each one with a silver handle. In the center of the circular room is a stone pedestal and a large book that lies open, a quill and ink at its side. Ashen passes by me, heading toward it. I watch as his finger traces through the numbers on the ledger.

"Forty-seven," he says, more to himself than to me as he places his books on the floor.

Is this a morgue? I ask in a note that I pass to him.

"Yes."

I guess I never thought about the Reapers wanting or needing a morgue. The crimes for which they reap our souls always seem so arbitrary, to the point that they're sometimes outlandish. It’s not like there’s ever a trial, or an opportunity to provide a defense. They just decide, accuse, and mete out their ‘justice’. As such, I find it more than a little surprising that they would go to the trouble of bringing bodies back here. I have a fleeting image of Ashen dragging some poor immortal corpse into the cauldron but it catching fire so he winds up in the Shadow Realm with an armful of smoking bones. Again I start to smile, and again I feel him glare. This time I glare back until he huffs and folds his fingers around the handle of compartment forty-seven and pulls.

I've seen a lot of dead shit. I've seen a lot of fucked-up shit. But I've never seen anything like this.

The drawer slides open to reveal the hybrid, lying prone on the cold and clinical steel. A thin misting of silver fur flows across its body, and standing it must have been taller than Ashen. It's male, powerfully built, every muscle defined. Thick, elongated nails curve from the fingers and toes. It has a face that seems too human to be a wolf, and too doggish to be a person.

It's fuck-ugly.

So I write a note to Ashen that says:

It's fuck-ugly. 

"Yeah, I know."

Was it in the middle of phasing between wolf and human? 

A fleeting grimace passes across Ashen's face. "No."

Gross.

“It was once Arne Larsen, before this was done to him. That much we know.”

I lift up the thin white sheet that lays over the creature's reproductive organs. Ahh WAP, always coming through for the win. All praise to Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion.

Yikes. Not a garden snake, it's a king cobra. 

The Reaper reads my note and sighs.

That's some next-level hentai shit right there.

The Reaper lifts his eyes from my message to my face with a slow, exhausted blink.

Do you think if he mated with a female hybrid they would get stuck together like wolves in the wild? What do they call that, a 'tie' I think? 

"Your mind is a terrifying place."

Imagine how much money he could make on Onlyfans. 

"Other than determining he has a disturbingly long dick, have you come up with any other stunning revelations about the hybrid?"

Not yet. 

"Great."

I give Ashen a sweet smile and he gives me a weary glare in return. I look back at the hybrid, replacing the sheet. I try to find a wound on his body or head, but there's nothing obvious.

How did you kill it? I write.

"We didn't. It was already dead when Cole found it in one of Abdulov’s shipping facilities."

So then how did it die?

"We don't know. There were no external wounds, no evidence of trauma."

I run my fingers across the chest to ensure I'm not missing something. There's no hidden Y-incision stitched beneath the fur.

You haven't performed an autopsy, so you don't know if it died by virtue of the fact it's a fucking frankencreature that's not meant to survive in the first place. 

"The only Reaper who can perform one is hunting a warlock for the Crime of Exposure."

What, the warlock was on Onlyfans too?