Rider had been hopping from one subconscious to another, attempting to pinpoint the location of the Reaper. He knew there was one nearby, but hunting in NYC was never easy. So many minds in such a compact area made it tough to find anyone.
He’d just left a small boy dreaming about a day at the zoo with his parents when he got the sense a Reaper was in the same building. Jumping out of the dream, but staying in his spirit form, Rider felt with his mind. She was definitely close by, and she was no stranger.
Following his instinct, Rider propelled himself into the mind of a woman on the third floor. Her sleep was not purely natural, as the empty bottles next to the bed would confess, and once he wound his way through thick layers of black, inky tendrils of depression and alcohol induced stupor, he landed in a dream that looked very much like the room she slept in.
The woman, an African American lady who appeared to
Nat stood before a wide window, staring out at a rocky mountain range illuminated by a red and orange sky. In the distance, two dragons chased each other through the air, bursts of fire punctuating their attempts to char each other beyond recognition. Occasionally, one of the lumbering beasts would collide with the mountainside, sending a boulder or two tumbling into the valley below. While the red dragon seemed to have the upper hand at the moment, its elongated neck and sharp, black talons formidable, the smaller, more agile black dragon was able to thwart his foe by darting around behind him. Nat was secretly cheering for the black dragon as he could identify with its underdog position, but he also wouldn’t have cared if they both turned each other into piles of ash.None of it was real, of course. He could visualize whatever he liked out of this window since, in this realm, he could control matter much more easily than in the human world. Somet
Ru awoke to the sound of her cell phone ringing. She glanced at the clock and saw it was past 10:00. Wiping sleep from her eyes, she picked up the annoying device and saw Candice’s face smiling up at her. With a deep breath, she answered. “Hello?”“Hey there, sunshine! Whatcha up to?”Ru wondered how someone who likely drank half her weight in tequila shots the night before could sound so chipper. “Nothing,” she replied, pulling herself up into a half-sitting, half-slouched position. “What are you up to?”“Did I wake you?” Candice exclaimed. “You’re almost always up with the rooster. What’s going on?”“Nothing. I just… had a rough night.” Thoughts of her dream, and the aftermath, filled her mind, and Ru looked down at her free hand. Had she really created a glowing blue light there a few hours
Cutter found a table toward the front of the coffee shop. He’d left a few minutes after he’d gotten off the phone with Ru. Having stayed up most of the night after leaving her, he was exhausted, so the coffee house didn’t come as a suggestion just as a neutral place to meet but also as a place where he might find a reboot. He sipped the strong java and felt a little more alive as he stared out the window, waiting for her to arrive.He’d been hoping she’d call all morning. Surely, a situation like the one the night before would give her a little bit more of a clue that his story wasn’t fictional. She’d have to have some idea that it wasn’t just an ordinary dream. He wondered what information Liddy had shared with her about Seraphina, and if it was also helping her see the truth in his claims.. Still, finding Seraphina would be even more of a challenge than finding Ru.He saw her walk in and
“What about Larkin’s ancestor. Ronobe? Where is he?” Ru asked“Same place as Larkin,” Cutter replied. “Although he has managed to escape many times, which is how Larkin came to be.”“And Thanatos mentioned his father. Azrael?”Once again, Cutter nodded. “He was sent to Hell a long time ago, but like Ronobe, he occasionally escapes, and one of us has to catch him. Azrael is one of the few original Archangels who have fallen that continues to operate on this side of eternal damnation from time to time.”“Why is that?”“Because, originally, he was sanctioned by God with the duty of collecting names and recording them in the book. But once we realized he was allowing Reapers to collect unmarked souls without ramifications, he too was damned.”Ru took another sip and then puzz
Ru sat on her sofa in lotus pose, attempting to connect with her inner-self. She’d always made fun of her sister, Danielle, when she talked about her yoga, but after she’d returned from the coffee shop, she’d begun to contemplate everything Cutter had said. As she graded stacks of papers and lesson planned for the next few weeks, the back of her mind was running through the possibilities of everything he had disclosed. If Cutter and Nat were able to take on a spirit form and somehow jump into her dreams, shouldn’t she be able to do the same thing? Of course, thinking that she could would mean she bought into Cutter’s fanciful stories about her origins, and even though she wasn’t quite sure she accepted any of it, how else could she explain the fact that he knew what she’d dreamt the night before? She hadn’t called him and recounted the vivid dream, after all.So, with the lights dimmed, and the sun setting,
Talking to a hot guy in the grocery store was new to Ru, but she was really starting to dig this guy. She waited patiently for him to answer her question about whether they were new to Reaper's Hollow or if they'd lived there a while.“No, we just moved here. Yesterday, actually. Jess has been looking for a teaching job forever, and she finally got one. It’s in Tarrytown, but we weren’t able to find a rental over there. Luckily, one opened up here, so we moved in. She’s very nervous about starting her new job on Monday, but I keep telling her it’ll be fine. That, coupled with moving from the big city out here, well, you can imagine… it’s stressful.” Ru nodded along as he continued to talk. With a crooked grin, he said, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to unload all of that on you.”“No, not at all,” Ru assured him. “I just happen to be a teacher myself,
Her phone was ringing. Why did it seem that the only way she could wake up on the weekend anymore was from someone barging into her brain—either literally or through the use of her ringtone—to blast her out of sleep?She looked at the clock on her nightstand and saw that it was past 10:00 and wondered why she’d slept so long. After she’d come back from the store, she’d fallen asleep watching Netflix with Piper and hauled herself to bed before midnight. She hadn’t had any vivid dreams, not that she remembered anyway. With a loud exhale, she picked up her phone, fairly certain whoever was calling would be sent to voicemail before she could answer now anyway. When she saw it was an unknown number, she thought all the more reason not to hurry. Somehow, she managed to accept the call before it transferred to her messages. Falling backward onto the pillow, expecting either a recording or a sales call, she mumbled, “Hel
Wilken’s was one of the only decent places in town to eat, though there was a truck stop out on the main highway headed toward Tarrytown, and they’d gotten a McDonald’s a few years ago, though the latter certainly didn’t fit the description of good eating for Ru. She knew the café would likely be very busy on a Sunday afternoon, but hopefully not until the church crowd got out, which should give them time to get through lunch without a rush. It had occurred to her that she might see some of her students, but she didn’t think there’d be too many questioning glances since Kyle’s sister would also be there. It wasn’t like this was a date. At least, that’s what she kept telling herself.She’d decided to go casual, tossing on a pair of jeans and a blue sweater. Granted, she had chosen that color because it played up her eyes, but it wasn’t like she was wearing a dress. She hadn’t e