Page 2 of Mortal Things

Earlier this morning, I’d received my latest mission from Raven: to claim the soul of a mortal whose time is up, a man who has been evading him for years. He had given me the name, the location, and the time where I would find the man, and I’d headed out this afternoon to do his bidding.

Here’s the thing about gods. They are not immortal in the way you think. There is one power that we have over them: Gods need mortal things in order to exist.

Our world, with its planets and stars and swirling webs of gas and dust, is a tapestry of energy. Millions upon millions of threads of it, all born from a sacred and mysterious force: the first light of the universe. Call it the Big Bang, the Primordial Singularity, Ex Nihilo, the Genesis of Everything, whatever you like. That first light is the most powerful thread of energy that ever existed, from which branched an infinite number of others. Those threads are what birthed the first gods, the guardians of the world. Then that first thread of energy vanished, never to be seen again.

As I head inside Paddington Station, I recall once asking Raven where that first light had come from, and where it went. Something cannot come from nothing, after all, and nothing can vanish entirely. The universe must stay in balance. But Raven isn’t the kind of god to explain much, and I’m not the kind of human who just accepts things on faith alone. It’s no wonder we argue a lot.

To be honest, I don’t think he knows, either.

There are hundreds of gods, and over the ages, they have been worshipped and interpreted in every way by every civilization. But like all sentient beings, gods grow hungry. And while their energy is immortal, under the correct circumstances, gods’ physical bodies can be killed.

They replenish their own strength with threads of energy in the mortal world. If they do not absorb enough, they perish, fading away. It is their insatiable hunger for this energy that motivates them to influence our world in all sorts of ways.

The god of War needs blood on the battlefield in order to survive. The god of Water craves fresh rain, and the god of Wind desires the furious might of hurricanes. During the Mughal Empire, the goddess of Love prompted Emperor Shah Jahan to construct the Taj Mahal. And during World War I, the god of Death demanded the lost items of the fallen, so they could be returned to the human souls resting in his realm.

In order for the gods to collect enough energy from our world to survive, they must send out their assistants by the thousands. Mortals who have made a deal to work for them.

Their Harbingers. Like me.

The deal is this: When your time comes to face death, you are offered a second chance to live—if you pledge yourself to the god who chose you.

Living again is a defiance of the natural order, so to compensate for it, you must give up your free will in order to work for your patron god. Every gift comes with a sacrifice. Even the gods must obey the universe’s need to remain balanced.

We are their thieves. Their mercenaries. Their soldiers of fortune.

Every god has Harbingers in the mortal world to do their bidding until death finds us again—whether from accidents or demands of the job or simply old age. In return, we are paid in money and in life. Our missions can be anything. Mortal objects to fetch. Mortal people to influence. And sometimes, in my case, mortal lives to take.

Each Harbinger is gifted with a drop of their patron god’s power. For me, that is the power of Death, to claim the soul, the thread of energy in someone’s body. When I touch a target, they will suddenly feel weak, the energy draining from them. Hold long enough, and they die.

Sometimes I’ll go several days without a new job. Sometimes weeks. But always, inevitably, a messenger will show up at my door with a black envelope, a single dark feather molded against the flap with a pearly white wax seal. My instructions.

We may call them acts of god, but it’s Harbingers who make them happen. We are behind it all—every natural disaster, every devastating war and moment of heroism, every innovation and upheaval of society. Even every celebration of joy. We are the reason the world is in constant commotion.

Another tingle jolts through my arm and cuts through my train of thought. I straighten, then look down at my ring again.

As always, it senses my target before I do, and now the eye gives me a meaningful glare before glancing toward the station’s southeast corner.

I study the crowd but don’t see a hint of the man whose name and location were printed on the black card in today’s envelope. Maybe the guy had decided not to come here after all, had chosen to stay back at his apartment, like I thought he originally planned. I sigh as I sweep my ponytail of brown hair forward over one shoulder. When I hesitate a moment longer, though, my ring sends a stronger shock through me, making me startle.

“Okay, for gods’ sakes,” I mutter, shoving my hand back in my pocket so I can’t see the eye glaring pointedly at me. “You don’t have to get so testy.”

It’s the week right before Christmas, and with this weather, the station is jammed with anxious travelers all staring at the board, hoping their train won’t be delayed. My finger is still tingling, and I look around, trying to spot the source of the ring’s agitation. A year as a Harbinger has honed my ability to pick out a target from the crowd, but even so, I still take a moment, scouring the shifting sea of souls before my gaze settles on him at last.

There, standing near the front of the board, is a man with glasses and a leather jacket, a briefcase in hand and a duffel bag hanging over one shoulder. He’s staring down at a crinkled ticket and checking the board constantly for his train, and his shoulders are hunched, as if for protection.

My mark.

Once, I had dreamed of saving lives. Instead, I’m tasked with taking them. I want to scream at Raven, unleashing my eternal anger at him for doing this to me, for forcing me to become his Harbinger.

I never wanted this. I never wanted you.

I can imagine his bitter smile in return, those endless gray eyes staring into my soul.

Always, always, I want to ask him why. Why did you choose me?

Always, I beg him to set me free. But always, he refuses.

After all, what do I know? He is a god, and I am just a mortal.