Page 5 of Reapers Don’t Ride

I licked my lips and tasted the lipstick I wasn’t used to wearing. “Your team leader said that I had to work as a team with you. I don’t usually have a partner, except for Crucible, my ferret.” Which I’d never told anyone about. But this man was probably just a figment of my imagination, and the real angel was somewhere else, watching me talk to a shadow. I scanned the roof, and this corner was the only place anyone could possibly disappear.

“You're surprisingly chatty for a vampire.”

I blinked at him. I was one of the most reserved vampires in the world. I didn’t talk, just killed. “And you’re surprisingly chatty for an angel of death."

His eyes narrowed, and he took two steps towards me, his black dress shoes making noise on the gravel while he dragged that shifting cloud of death aura with him. Maybe those were his wings. Maybe he wasn’t a specter. “Angel of death?”

“Are you not the Reaper? Your team leader told me that I’d be working with the angel of death.”

His brows came together in a stern line as he frowned at me, somehow an expression that made him even more gloriously beautiful. “My position as Reaper is supposed to be classified.”

I smelled him for the first time, and it was heaven, but also death. Again, I wanted desperately to wrap myself around him, drive my fangs into his throat and drink him until I’d drowned in his scent and taste. “You’ll have to take that up with Richard,” I said stiffly, trying to not flare my nostrils or show any other signs of my unhinged instincts. I had a blood bag yesterday. I had no reason to have these kinds of cravings.

“My team leader, Richard?” He looked away, sighing heavily, and then I smelled more than just his deliciousness. It was disapproval. He didn’t approve of me, which was expected as he was an angel and I was a vampire, and he was being told to work with a murderer he couldn’t trust. Still, I didn’t like that.

“I know the demon you’re hunting better than anyone. You need me,” I insisted.

He took another step towards me, and then the shadows released his wings and all the other edges of him, leaving me facing an absolutely fearsome creature that would easily stand against the darkness, devouring it like I wanted to devour him. His wings were blades that glittered black and deadly. Nothing close to the feathery fluff of the last angel. This was the other side of the coin, and it was mesmerizing.

He said in a voice as low and soft as his feathers were hard, “I need you? You want to hunt the demon that has already destroyed your life? I am surprised.”

“I know what he is and what he does. There is no surprise that someone who knew him so well would want to destroy him like I did the first time.”

He smiled slightly. "Some surprises can be good."

I laughed and then stopped abruptly. I didn’t laugh. I coughed and then tried to stop making weird strangling sounds. Normal. I was trying to be normal. Not an insane vampire assassin with absolutely no social skills after a century spent being a silent witness. “Sorry, you weren't joking? That is sweet. You clearly haven't lived long enough.” I muttered under my breath. “And this child is the one assigned to destroy Tralcon? Angels are so delusional.”

His lips twitched. "We also have extremely good hearing. You're calling me a child? And in third person? Vampires. So ill-mannered."

I grinned, flashing my fangs. "You have no idea how 'ill-mannered' I can be. I'm an assassin. I was made for killing, not polite society."

He tilted his head at me while my head spun and I tried not to look like I was five seconds from kicking off my shoes and launching at his throat. I wasn’t. For a century, I’d resisted the impulse to take blood, but his blood wasn’t just blood: it was heavenly death in a sharp suit. With wings. And that face that had been beside me in my darkest times, giving me comfort and strength when I had only endless misery. Disconcerting.

He finally gave me a slight nod. "In that case, this child will have to teach you how to dance. The last place there were whispers of Tralcon was at the Host's.”

I bared my teeth on accident. “The vampire king?” His parties were well-attended by everyone who was criminally minded, particularly the undead.

"Some call him that. Would you give me the honor of being my escort for the Vampire King's ball this weekend?"

I couldn’t help the slight shudder at the thought of taking this beautiful piece of art to a place that catered to the evil undead. "You want to go to the vampire king's ball and think we'll get out alive? I rest my case. You’re entirely delusional."

"Neither one of us is strictly alive, so getting out alive would be too much even for a delusional angel to expect. Shall we, or do you have a better idea where we should start?"

He was asking me, almost as if he truly accepted me as his partner. “How old are you?” I asked because I had to know if he was really the hallucination that had been shadowing me for a century.

“Does it matter?”

It mattered so much. “Have you been the Reaper longer than a decade?”

“No.”

“No. Are you sure?”

He smiled slightly. “I am sure. I am outside the constraints of time, but that only makes me more aware of them.”

“Ah. Outside the constraints of time. That sounds complicated.”

“Heavenly magic is as complicated as any other kind. How many angels have you killed?”