Page 54 of Grim
InthePaleMoonlight
M ayday.
I silently voice Rue’s final word. A word that became an endearment, a battle cry, a lament. And now, those two sad syllables dig into the center of my hollow chest and burst back out, shattering me into a rainbow of agony.
The viewing screen ripples out from the middle in liquid obsidian, then goes dark.
I look down at my hands as they tremble. I watch as something wet lands in my right palm. A droplet, followed by another. Reaching up to my face, I touch the result of my heartbreak.
I am crying.
“And that’s all you need to see of that!” Time declares.
“The End,” Fate chimes in. She sniffles theatrically, looking at her sister. “Such beautiful writing. What a wonderful send-off. Some of your most dramatic work.”
“Haunting,” Big D growls, though there is no joy in his voice.
“Where is she?” There is nothing but steel in my throat.
“In Asher’s very capable hands, Kane,” Fate announces condescendingly.
“Take me to ALP. Take me to Rue. Now.” I boom the final word with enough force to rattle the walls of D’s office.
“Thought only I could do that,” he says to himself, though my attention stays locked firmly on the Weaver Sisters.
“Mortals’ pathetic insistence that their feelings matter always makes me smile.” Fate giggles softly.
“Time cares not for your moods.”
“And Fate wrests final control. Always.”
“‘Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains.’” D repeats the quote from earlier with sad sagacity.
“No,” Fate snipes. “Mortals belong to us. We are the only authors, and each soul but a splotch of ink on our pages. Freedom is a phantom. Only the chains are real.”
I am no longer crying. My mind has cleared to a single thought. I have become the final sustained note thrumming at the end of a song. I am a hurricane with no eye. I am that most dangerous of creatures.
“If this place has taught me anything, it’s that true freedom means having nothing left to lose,” I declare in a menacing monotone. “And I have nothing left to lose. So, explain this.”
I do not hesitate.
I pull out Baiulus from my pocket, depressing the silver button, releasing the shank from its center, and driving the blade directly into Fate’s center.
She gasps—just once—but that’s all I allow.
I rip my blade from her chest before replacing it with my fist. I feel bones crack and ribs splinter as her body collapses beneath the weight of my wrath.
Her throat is in my hand before she can conjure another word, and I watch her squirm, watch her lips try to cry out for help.
“Feels pretty free to me,” I whisper, voice trembling with rage and grief and the sharp edge of something I can no longer name. “You soulless monster.”
I snap her neck just as Time tries to disappear into vapor. I reach into the mist and yank her back. My fingers curl around her throat, and she claws at me, eyes wide, lips forming my name.
“And you,” I murmur, tightening my grip until she gags, “where does this fit on your precious timeline?”
I slam her into the marble once. Twice. A third time until the floor gives way and she crumbles beneath me. I rip her hand that’s still clawing my arm off her body and toss it across the room before looking over my shoulder.
Only he remains.
Daryl.
“Huh,” he grunts in surprise.
I stalk toward him, then spy the faintest flicker in his expression, the subtlest twitch of his jaw.
“That was dramatic.”
“Their part of the story is finished now, D. Rue is a part of your domain now. And she is mine.”
Big D snaps his fingers, and his scythe flies across the room into his hand. “Are you threatening me, Kane?”
I continue my march toward him. My knuckles white around Baiulus’s pommel.
“Only if you refuse to do as I say.”
His menacing snarl matches his predatory eyes as he eyes my weapon, then glances at his. “Mine is much bigger, Kane. Don’t start a war you cannot win.”
“I just told you, D. I have nothing left to lose.”
With that declaration, I lunge toward D, Baiulus extended. He sidesteps my first attack and brushes me aside.
I step, turn, and strike again. Madness and menace controlling my motions. D brings his scythe across his center and knocks my blade away. Baiulus skitters across the floor. We both watch it bounce away.
On a primal scream, I raise my arms and grapple D around his throat. His hands aren’t fast enough to stop the contact, and I lean in with all my might, managing to move the ruler of the OtherWorld back a step as my nails dig deeply into his neck. The retreat is infinitesimal but feels significant.
Our eyes lock, and those blue-black flames spark in his.
They redden, and a force emits from D, unlocking my arms and sending me flying across the room.
My back lands flush against a stone wall, and I’m not sure which breaks harder—the rock or my spine.
I lie limply, moaning, seeking the strength to continue my fight.
D walks over slowly, now dragging his scythe behind him, the metal grating against the ground.
As I crawl to a sitting position, I notice the pile of flesh that was Time, rent limb from limb just moments ago, begins to swirl, morph, and coalesce back into her full form.
She cracks her neck from side to side with a lascivious smile.
I glance to my left and see Fate, her stab wound fading into nothing, her eyes popping open. Not even her dress retains any indication of the pain I inflicted, the blood I shed.
All my efforts are futile in the face of their ferocity. Love should be stronger than all of this. I have read the stories. I have heard the songs. I have felt the power of that fierce infinity.
But those are just that—stories. And this is reality. And in truth, nothing lasts forever. Heroes and cowards alike, it does not matter, for in the end, we all die.
“I am capable of delivering to you unspeakable pain, Kane,” D grinds out, placing the tip of the scythe against my carotid artery, against the scar that was my greatest shame and deepest loss. Until now.
“The pain you could inflict is nothing compared to the torment I feel now. Your power pales in significance against the magnitude of a lost love’s ache.”
“How very poetic, reaper,” Fate says. “Some of Rue’s writings must be rubbing off on you.”
At the mention of her name, a surge of energy tries to course through me, but I am well and truly defeated. All of Rue resides in me, but that is still not enough. Only Hercules could wrestle lives back from the dead, it would seem.
“Did you just call me weak?” Big D presses the tip of the blade harder against my skin.
“I misspoke. You’re nothing but a coward.”
He pulls the blade off my neck, twists it a quarter turn, and then smacks the flat edge across my face.
“End him,” Time snarls.
“He has no more use to you, D. He has no place here.”
Big D sucks in a lungful of air, contemplating a fate I no longer care about—my own.
“No,” he begins, the pompous judge handing down his final sentence. “An ending would be too merciful for you at this point, Kane. I made allowances for you. I trusted you to obey me. A small price to pay for the quality of the AfterLife I’ve afforded you as a reaper. ”
“Quality?” I scoff. “Ripping the souls from the loved and loving. Watching children mourn their parents. Or the unthinkably worse, witnessing parents mourn their children. I buried my humanity underneath your ledgers and regulations. And for what? For this? Do your worst, D.” I spit on the ground at his feet.
He stares down to the mark I made on the floor and then travels his gaze up my broken body to my eyes. “Even in pain, you still were given a gift, Kane. Even in suffering, you could still feel. But now, I am taking that away from you. No more suffering. No more pain.”
“And certainly no more joy,” Fate pipes in over his shoulder, rankling Big D.
“Shut up.” D punctuates without averting his gaze from me.
“No more feeling at all, Kane. You will still be of service to me. And you will feel nothing at all. For eternity. It’s not an end for you. It’s an end less . You will receive your new assignment shortly. And soon, Rue Chamberlain will be nothing more than a faded memory.”
“Where are you taking me?” I ask weakly.
He looks at me with decisive finality. A wicked gleam sparkles in his eyes as he slams down his metaphorical gavel, sealing my solitude. “Clerical.”