Page 42 of Reapers Don’t Ride

Chapter

Twelve

Gavriel pulled me close, looked at me intently and said, “You’ll probably want to hold on tight. Also, maybe close your eyes.” He winked, and then his enormous wings flipped out, and he leapt into the air. We rushed through Song as a shadow of darkness and death. I closed my eyes and clung to him, inhaling the scent of his skin, buzzing as his blood inside of me reacted to being so close to him. Or it was just me.

I had a reason to hang onto him, so I did, pressing my cheek to his pulse and listening to his blood beat along with the rush of his wings and the wind.

The flight was too short, but not short enough, because when he landed and released me, I promptly fell over.

“Are you all right?” Gavriel asked, bending over me.

I looked up at him, but then started staring at the enormous stone boot behind him. I slowly stood and looked around at the bizarre field of scattered stone objects. “The eye doctor also does statuary?”

“Turns people to stone, but don’t worry. We’ll be fine.”

I looked at Gavriel, feeling a rush of panic. “Turns people to stone?! No. Absolutely not. I’m here for glasses, not some altercation with a sorcerer. It’s not worth the risk. We have a job to do. I never should have gotten distracted. Let’s go back.”

I held out my arms to him, grabbed his shoulders and moved close, ready for him to launch us away from danger.

He gave me a slight smile, his skin so warm, his eyes so beautiful, dark, still filled with death’s shadows. “We’re here. We might as well ask if he can help.”

“You don’t ask for help from people who have that much power. I manage well enough without being able to see words. You can read for me. Even Crucible can probably be trained to read for me. Let’s go back.” I gripped his shoulders and pressed against him, invading his space the better to leave.

He smiled and slid his hands around my waist. “I think if we leave now, he’ll be suspicious.”

“If we stay, he’ll have a nonmoving target. I’ll take my chances. Come on. Fly.” I nudged him back, but he only smiled and held me closer to him.

“You smell nice.”

“That’s because you washed the werewolf scent out of my clothes.”

“No, like fresh bread, or cut grass, fresh, alive, sweet.”

I pulled back, breaking out of his grasp. “I’m dead. Fine. If you’d rather I be a really dead weight, let’s go see this optometrist, but stay behind me, so if he turns anyone to stone, it’ll be me, and you can grab me and fly us out of here before he shatters me. That was a very large boot. Are there giants around here?”

“There were,” a cloaked figure said, stepping out from behind a large statue of a troll. A very large troll, because the cloaked man was enormous.

I stepped in front of Gavriel and rose on my tiptoes, the better to block whatever petrifying spell he had. “Good afternoon. I’m here for glasses. I’m a vampire, but words are blurry. I can still catch a bullet with my hands, but words are harder to catch. I’m sure you’re too busy to help us, so my friend and I will go. Thank you so much for your time.”

The shadowy, hooded figure turned and started walking away, raising his hand in a universal, come-hither gesture.

I sighed and followed. This really didn’t feel like a good idea. “Do you think you could help us?” I asked the cloak of ominous desolation. Were there wings beneath that cloak?

“Us? Does the angel care about whether you can read? Does he want to hire you for bookkeeping?” His voice was dry, almost amused, but too serious for levity. The cloak certainly seemed to hide something. I hoped it was wings.

“Are you an angel?” I asked and then immediately wished I hadn’t. The less said, the better.

“That’s right. Are you?”

“No. I’m a vampire.”

He snorted and then quickened his pace with his long stride towards a small cottage tucked into the mist-shrouded, stone-strewn hill.

It was all so creepy, like intentionally created to cause fear to anyone who dared come near. Had we flown directly north from Singsong City? We must have, but who would live up here on the borderlands between civilization and troll country. Not to mention the giants. Gavriel stayed close behind me, but he wasn’t short enough to use my body as an effective shield.

We finally reached the small building that wasn’t really small, just buried in the ground, covered in weeds, roof and all.

The optometrist ducked through the door, and we followed. I expected more spookiness, but instead, it was a cozy jumble of books mixed with beakers and jars packed with various spell-casting ingredients.