Sixth Grave on the Edge(62)
“My job is to mark souls?”
“Yes.”
“But I’m a portal. I thought my job was to help people cross.”
“That’s only part of your job. You can see guilt, deception, maliciousness for a reason, Charlotte.”
“So, I mark them as liars or murderers or what?”
“You’ll know when the time comes.”
“But I don’t have the right to judge people. I’m pretty sure the Big Guy upstairs would be upset if I went around judging his flock.”
“You will not sentence the guilty. You simply filter their passage after death. You sift through them and prepare them for their final journeys. Think of yourself as one of those machines that sorts coins into the right slots, separating the quarters from the dimes.”
“I’m a sorter?”
“Of sorts,” he said, flashing his teeth.
“No,” I said, mentally stomping my foot. “I want it all. What is my job, exactly? What can I do, exactly?”
“You realize when your human body ceases, you will be shown everything.”
“I’ll get a crash course in grim reaperism?”
“Something like that.”
“But what about until then? While I’m still here on earth?”
“Your only job as far as I’m concerned is to live. This isn’t usually a problem for reapers. No reaper has lived as long as you have. Ever.”
“I’m only twenty-seven.”
“Exactly. And that’s about twenty-two years longer than most have ever lived.”
“Reyes told me that, too. That most reapers’ physical bodies passed quite young and they did their jobs for the next five hundred years or so incorporeally. I’d always wondered how they knew what to do. I didn’t realize it would be downloaded into my brain when I pass.”
“So, he’s not keeping all the fun facts to himself. Just the important ones.”
Another wave of heat suffused the room.
The Dealer glanced up. “I felt that.”
“Lay it out for me,” I said. “Let me have it. Marking souls is my job? That it?”
He leaned back in his chair again. “I could tell you and piss off Rey’aziel, an entity we most definitely want on our side if we are going to win this thing. Or I could take his lead and let you figure it out as you go.”
“I vote for option A.”
“I can only assure you that when you’re ready, you will see souls. You will know how to mark them. You already know when to let people cross, when to help them or force them across. You’re already on your way.” He studied his hands. “While you are the key player in all of this, Rey’aziel holds the most sway in your destiny.”
“Why?”
“He’s the Thirteenth beast. Or didn’t he mention that?”
Reyes appeared again in all his cloaked glory, the darkness that undulated like a black ocean of night filling the room to capacity. I was getting good intel. I didn’t need him disrupting this font of information.
“Reyes isn’t a beast, and he’s certainly not a hellhound.”
“Close enough. He was only slightly more civilized than the Twelve. Why do you think Lucifer sent him to kill you?”
“Then why? Why does Satan want me dead so bad if not for the lock and key thing?”
“What lock and key thing?” he asked.
“It’s just, that’s what I thought this was all about. They told us that if the key is inserted into the lock, we would open a portal straight from hell into heaven. Blah, blah, blah. And now you’re telling me that has nothing to do with it?”
He lowered his head in thought. I’d thrown him. His brows slid together and he chewed on a nail as his mind raced. Like any human might do. It was hard to see this kid as anything but a kid. I knew from past experience, though, how big a mistake that would be.
“I don’t know,” he said, scanning me from head to toe. “If you’re the lock and the key is—”
Dawning showed on his face. I saw it, and felt it, the moment it hit him. He took a wobbly step back, absolute astonishment knocking the air out of him.
I glanced down at myself. Chocolate brown top. Black jeans. Killer boots. “What?” I asked him.
“I can’t believe I didn’t see it. You said this friend of yours has the prophecies. Do you mean Cleosarius’s prophecies?”
“Yeah. And?”
“If I can see them, I’ll give back the dagger.”
“Deal. But, seriously, what?” I gestured to myself.
He winked and led me to the door, encouraging me to get out with a light shove. Even light it was rude. “By the way, I didn’t ransack your apartment.”