Infinity Book 3

Zayla

As I follow Lucifer through the reaper complex to my new office, I have to hurry to keep up. My new father-in-law is a high-energy type of guy, and he moves as if he’s racing to stop the end of the world in its tracks.

Actually, maybe he is.

I really wish he would remember that I’m pregnant. Even if I’m a long way from showing, my body is still feeling it.

Or maybe it’s the aftereffects of the night I had with Soren.

I smile wickedly at the memory. Unfortunately, Lucifer picks that second to swing around and look at me, to see if I’m listening.

“What are you smiling about, Zayla?” he asks. “Do you think this is funny?”

There’s nothing funny about what he’s been telling me.

“N-no! I was just—”

“I know this is all new to you,” he says. “I’m counting on you here.”

“I can do my job,” I say. After all, it’s the only way Soren and I can be together. “I just need to figure out how to do it.”

“Well, all right, then,” Lucifer says, throwing open the door to an office. “Welcome to your new base of operations.”

For some reason I’ve never thought of reaping souls as being so…so…organized. But I guess it makes sense.

My office looks like it could be in any corporate high rise building in New York or Chicago. Sleek glass-topped desk, ergonomic chair, even a sleek desktop computer.

Or what looks like a computer.

I pull the chair up to my new desk and look around for a keyboard or a mouse.

Nothing.

“How…?”

Lucifer leans in and waves his hand in front of the screen. “Hey, Fates! You girls awake?”

The glass goes from black to white, then clears to show the inside of the Fates’ office.

Their office is decorated like a cave, with a flickering fire and lots of mysterious stuff hanging around.

I wonder where they are, in what realm.

Through the screen, I can see one of the three Fates, lounging on a velvet sofa and yawning.

“Lucifer! Why are you waking me up now? Don’t you know how much work your son and his—” Her words cut off when she sees my face in her screen. “Zayla! How was the honeymoon, sweetie?”

I’ve never been called sweetie so much before, and don’t know how I like it coming from an immortal being.

“Fine…” It’s embarrassing, but I can’t remember this Fate’s name. “Uhh…”

“It’s Mitzi, darling,” she says before yawning again. “I’m glad you had a good time. But we’ve been slammed since you and Soren took off. Glad you’re back.”

Lucifer is still standing beside me, ready to continue his lessons in reaping. “Mitzi, baby,” he says, “I’m trying to show Zayla everything she needs to know today, so that she can hit the ground running tomorrow. Where’s her printout of the list?”

“Top desk drawer,” the Fate says. “It’s gotten longer every day, with no one around to do the reaping. You’ve got some catching up to do, girl!”

Without even saying goodbye, the screen goes dark.

I reach down and pull open the top drawer of my new desk. As I do, a stack of paper printed with names starts pushing out of the drawer, growing higher and higher until it nearly reaches the ceiling.

“How—What?” There’s no way I can ever even lift that massive stack of printed sheets.

“Here,” Lucifer says, waving a hand at the pile of paper. It changes into an iPad, which he lifts from the drawer and places in my hands. “Mitzi’s old school. Printouts on paper—very bad for the environment. Every name on the list is here.”

I scan the small screen. It’s a never-ending list of names, with addresses, ages, and a few facts about their lives.

I have not been looking forward to this.

I mean, I took this job so Soren and I could finally be together. It was definitely a trade-off.

I reap the souls of the humans whose names come up on the Fates’ list. He reaps the supernatural souls.

Killing these people, but it goes against everything my family taught me about protecting the weak, about helping others.

Now, I’m going to be ending lives.

Hundreds of lives. Thousands. Sometime in the future, I’ll look back and remember killing a million people.

How do I live with that?

How do I tell my child that’s what I’ve done with my life?

“So, I’ve got to run,” Lucifer says, leaning down to give me a kiss on the forehead. “Let me know if you have any questions. I’ve got an orientation on hell to run right now, but I can always pop out for a minute if you need me.”

And with that, he is gone.

I am alone in my shiny new office.

With a list a mile long of people whose souls I have to reap.

Somehow, I need to get through this.

It is hours later when Ana knocks on my door.

“Zayla,” she says, sticking her head around the edge of the etched glass door, “I just thought I’d stop by and see how you were doing.”

I’ve been pacing while I read the list, trying to find a way to reconcile what I have to do with every value drummed into me by my parents.

“Not great,” I say, dropping down on the edge of a sofa against one wall. “I don’t know how I can fucking do this,” I go on.

Ana crosses the floor, picking up the shoes I’ve kicked off so that I could pace comfortably, and placing them side by side next to my desk.

“I know I could never do it,” she says. “Not just because I want to have more kids. But because…”

Her eyes won’t meet mine. But I know what she’s referring to.

I glance back at the iPad in my hands. The very next name on the list—

Marie delGado: age 5. Location: Buenos Aires, Brazil. Cause of death: Car accident.

I scroll through the rest.

Little Marie delGado isn’t the first child on the list. She won’t be the last.

A child too young to even know what her life could have been. Too young to understand why she’s dying. How do I make her understand?

I mean, when I go to Buenos Aires to reap this child’s soul, I need to tell her what has happened to her. Why she has to come with me.

Leaving her mother and father, her home. Going alone to Heaven. Does she even have anyone to meet her on the other side?

This is too cruel.

I can’t fucking do it—

I wish someone else could do this instead of me. Not that I’d wish this on anyone. But still, a wave of regret and resentment washes over me. I wish I had known I would be asked to take children away from their homes and families and lives.

Maybe Ana had the right idea.

And let’s face it, if not for me getting this job, becoming the human reaper, I couldn’t be with Soren at all. Ever. I would be forever kept from my love. My heart.

Ana sits down on the sofa beside me and wraps her arms around my shoulders, pulling me into a hug. “I’m sorry it has to be you—”

I hug her back. “Thanks,” I say. “But…what the fuck else am I going to do?”

“Exactly,” she agrees. “And if not—” she places a hand gently on my abdomen. “You wouldn’t be expecting this little miracle.”

I put my hand on top of hers and smile back at her. Our foreheads come together and we sigh in unison.

“I only hope she—or he—is as wonderful as your Gracie.”

“I’m sure he or she will be,” Ana says. “After all, they share the same bloodline. The powers of the phoenix. It’s nice that our kids have a supernatural for a grandmother, even if we’ve never met her.”

Ana stays a while longer so that I can tell her about Soren and my honeymoon. All the delicious and exotic food, all the afternoons swimming in the ocean, all the nights fucking in the sand. In the bed. On the floor.

After she leaves, I go back to the list.

Maria delGado. How can I—?

How can I reap the soul of a child?

I don’t hate Ana. I’m not jealous of her. But right now…

I really wish it were her in this office, wearing stiletto heels and a business suit, instead of me.

With a sigh, I slip the iPad back into my desk drawer. I have an appointment at 4:00 and I can’t be late.

It’s time to get fitted for my black robes.

Reaper fashion could really use some updating.

I look terrible in black.

By the time I get to the office the following morning, I’m feeling queasy. And it’s not just morning sickness.

I work my way down the list, growing more uncomfortable with every reaping.

The humans I reap seem confused for the most part. Although a few seem grateful, the ones dying from cancer or other painful illnesses.

But when I reach the name Marie delGado, when I appear in her hospital room at the foot of her bed, my heart stops.

Marie delGado is five, maybe six years old. It’s hard to tell for sure, because she looks so small.

So washed out.

Little Marie is standing beside the body on the bed, her spirit holding her own body’s hand.

“Wake up!” she says, shaking the lifeless hand.

She suddenly realizes I’m there in the room with her. She turns to me and I see tears running down her ghostly cheeks.

“Why won’t I wake up?” she asks. “Where’s my mommy? She should be here to wake me up. It’s time to go home.”

What can I say to this tiny spirit?

Do I tell her that her mommy will never see her again?

Do I tell her that I’m here to take her to heaven?

I can’t…

I just can’t.

I turn and disappear into the portal I used to enter little Marie’s hospital room.

I can’t reap a child. I just can’t do it.