Page 10 of Veil of Death and Shadow (Order of Reapers #1)

10

MAREENA

Present Day

“ H ear me out,” Aidan said, blocking my path. I didn’t usually stop by the med center this early, but since I stayed up most of last night experimenting with some baked goods, I figured it was best to clear out some room in the diner. “You and I—dinner and one drink tomorrow. I could use a night out, and I think you could use a meal that you don’t have to cook as well.”

My stomach dropped at the earnest plea on his face. Something about saying no to Aidan felt like finding a dog and dropping it off at the shelter. There was no feeling good about it, no matter what the circumstances were. Even if, odd as it may seem, the shelter was the safest place for the dog, its best chance of reuniting with its family.

“I told you before,” I said, shifting around him to start organizing some of the supplies a few people brought in this morning. I didn’t work here anymore in any sort of official capacity, but old habits were hard to kill, and if I was going to be here, might as well make myself useful. “I don’t think it’s a good idea. We’re better off as friends and,” I turned around to face him, hoping he could read the sincerity in my face as clearly as I tried to infuse it in my words, “I really don’t want to complicate things. You’re a good guy, a great one, even, but I’m not in the space for dating or anything serious right now.”

It was the truth, for all the reasons I’d originally turned him down the first time he asked, but also because, for the last week, my thoughts had been incessantly circling around Kieran and that whirlwind of an evening at Incendiary.

In fact, memories of that night had been occupying my thoughts so thoroughly that I’d half-convinced myself that I saw him creeping at the window a few minutes ago. It was just a brief flash, there and then not, but enough to prove that Kieran had gone from plaguing my dreams with spicy flashbacks of that night, to haunting my waking reality as well.

Fucking figured.

Best sex of my life, and the guy immediately bailed.

Like, what the hell was that? Feeding me some line about forgetting him and then just dipping before I even got the feeling back in my legs? Who did that?

More than anything, I was annoyed with myself for being so annoyed with him.

Hadn’t he told me that it was a one-time thing?

Hadn’t those always been my rule anyway?

Hell, wasn’t that the exact thing I was trying to outline for Aidan now?

No attachments, casual.

But to go from intense, life-changing sex in one minute, to leaving me alone in a dark alley the next had been more than a little jarring, and I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that my ego was a little bruised.

Maybe that was just how demons fucked. The whole point of a club like Incendiary.

Not that I knew what kind of demon he even was. The possibilities had been plaguing my thoughts though. There’d been no wristband on his arm signaling he was human.

“I never said I was looking to walk you down the aisle, Mareena,” Aidan said, his entire face lighting up with the kindness baked inside of his smile. “Casual works for me, but so does friendship. I like talking to you. Do you like talking to me?”

“I do, but?—”

“And I would like the chance to maybe talk outside of a building filled with my patients. That’s all. I don’t have a ton of friends or free time, and I just think it might be a nice change of pace for us both. To get away from here, away from Frank’s for a night.” He shrugged. “I’m not asking or expecting anything more than that. A change of scenery.”

“That’s all?” I asked.

“Look,” he sniffed, his smile turning coy, “I’m not not hoping you might change your mind on the dating front at some point. But I’m also good with just friendship.” He grabbed the pile of bandages I’d sorted through and started placing them in the different bins he liked to keep stocked in the various rooms. “And to be clear, I don’t mean to suggest that friendship is a consolation prize. I like talking to you. I think we are good at talking to each other. I would just like to be good at talking to each other somewhere that isn’t here.”

I laughed, considering him for a moment. This broke my rules, but would chatting with him over a meal really be all that different, more dangerous, than what we did every day in the med center? “Okay, Aidan.”

“Okay?” He straightened; face drawn in shock. He hadn’t really expected this approach to work, had he? “As in you’ll go?”

“Tomorrow.” Truthfully, a little company wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world.

Sora had been so busy in the last week that I’d hardly spoken more than a few words to her outside of the dinner shifts.

Between the diner, her salon, and a new mystery person she’d been seeing, but refusing to talk about, we’d been like two ships passing in the night.

Some ships sink, not all ships sink , I reminded myself.

Aidan was right, barring the slight awkwardness between us since the first time he’d asked me out, our conversation had always been easy. Enjoyable. There was no reason we couldn’t go back to that. Maybe a different setting would even help—shed some of the heaviness that came with working at the med center, surrounded by pain and death all day long.

My walk back to Frank’s had been an odd one.

You know that very strange prickling sensation, the one you only got when someone was watching you or following you? Well, I had it the entire time. A sixth sense tingling at the back of my neck.

Twice, when I looked back, I noticed a strange man.

Both times, he kept a few blocks behind me, like he was trying to keep some distance, and I couldn’t see his face. He wore a hood—an odd choice for June in Seattle, but whatever—and between that and the early morning rays of the sun, it was difficult to get a proper look at him.

When I got to Frank’s, he’d disappeared, but I locked the front door, just to be safe.

I doubted we’d have any customers for a few hours, other than maybe Claudine in a bit, so I ran upstairs to see if I could spot the hooded figure from the windows and the safety of our apartment.

Sora left after the early breakfast shift and wouldn’t be done with her clients until late tonight, which meant I had the place to myself.

Again.

I used to enjoy the solitude, but lately it was starting to feel almost like a prison. There were no distractions when I was alone with my thoughts.

And it wasn’t like the old days. We now had generally reliable electricity, but the internet hadn’t reached the capacity that it had in the past. I couldn’t doom scroll or watch videos from my favorite creators, people I’d never met but somehow convinced myself I cared about—the things I used to do create the illusion of connection. In some ways, it was better this way, but in a lot of ways, it was worse. Especially since I did my best to keep my in-real-life relationships surface level.

I opened the window in the kitchen, letting in some fresh air, and stepped out onto the balcony to survey the street below.

No mysterious, ominous stalker.

I relaxed against the railing, feeling a little ridiculous for being so paranoid in the first place.

The whole being-alone-so-much thing was clearly getting to me.

Dinner with Aidan would be good. Necessary, maybe.

Oddly, despite the fact that we lived above a diner, there wasn’t much food in our place, so I grabbed a glass of water and sipped it while I watched the people pass below.

Something soft brushed against my hand, and the shock of it sent the glass spiraling to the ground. The crash of it shattering against the pavement echoed through the street.

Fuck. I loved that glass. It was from the Before, and it wasn’t like I could just order another one online and have it delivered to my doorstep in a day or two.

Black feathers eclipsed my field of vision, and I took a few steps back to let the little hellion in through the sliding door.

“You scared the shit out of me, Menace,” I announced, as if my overreaction wasn’t abundantly obvious to the both of us. “A little warning next time, yeah?”

But the crow didn’t go for his usual welcoming nuzzle, nor did he attack the small cup of peanuts Sora had left out on the small balcony table.

Instead, he went soaring into the kitchen, the crack of his caw amplified by the silence of the apartment.

If I’d still been holding the cup, I would certainly have dropped it now.

The hooded figure from the street stood in the kitchen, cursing and trying to dodge Menace as he flew towards him.

Fingers trembling, I stepped inside, reaching aimlessly for the closest thing that might be used as a weapon. Realistically, in a kitchen, that should have been a knife, but we kept those downstairs where they got the most use. We almost never cooked up here. No need when we had access to a much more efficient kitchen in the diner.

That left Sora’s metal water bottle as the best option, so I grabbed it and thrust it in front of me, wielding it like a sword. “What the hell are you doing in here? Get out. Now.”

The man had regained his composure, though he turned towards Menace as if it was him I was interrogating.

“Not the bird,” I snapped. “You.” And, because for some reason my brain decided it needed to be clarified, I added, “The crow lives here.”

Slowly, as if he still wasn’t sure, the hooded man turned back to me, his face still hidden from sight. “Me?”

“You see any other creepy cloaked men in here?”

He slid the hood off, and I found myself looking at familiar hazel eyes.

My bottle-wielding arm relaxed. “Kieran?”

“Uh,” his gaze darted about the room like he was just as confused as I was, “yeah. So you—uh,” he wet his lips and my focus stalled on them briefly, “you remember me then?”

“Do people usually forget you after you fuck them against a wall?” I studied him, not entirely sure whether I was terrified or angry or confused by his intrusion. Probably all three, if I was being honest. And a tiny, traitorous part of my brain was maybe even a little excited. I didn’t think I’d ever see him again. “What’s with the cloak? It’s summer.”

“Bad hangover. Sun and,” he gestured vaguely around the room, not pointing to anything specific, “this can all be a bit abrasive until my eyes have had a bit to adjust.” He blinked. “And I don’t feel warm.”

“I—” I didn’t know what to say in response to that, so it was probably better to move to the more pressing issues. “How did you get inside? I locked the door behind me.”

He shrugged. “Locks aren’t a problem for me.”

“And you think what—” I narrowed my eyes, “that makes it okay to break into people’s places, just because you can?”

“I didn’t break anything.” He arched his brow, the earlier surprise evaporating from his expression to make room for something more . . . smug.

“Not the point,” I shot back. My pulse was fluttering like a hummingbird, and I couldn’t be entirely sure how much of it was from fear or how much was from the way his eyes roved over me, the echo of hunger from last week still preening at the surface. “Why are you stalking me? When I was walking home—” and then, recalling even earlier than that, I lifted the water bottle higher, “and at the med center. You were there—looking in through the window, right?”

“Hm, so it’s not just this building that breaks through then.” He tapped the wall, as if inspecting for a hollow spot. “Thought it might be infused, similar to the club but,” he shook his head, gaze landing on me, “it must just be you.”

What the fuck was he on about?

“I don’t remember you talking in half answers and riddles last week.”

There was a wicked glint in his eyes as they narrowed on me. “As I recall, we didn’t do much talking last week.”

I swallowed, lost for words at the taunting smirk on his face.

He tilted his head, studying me like I was a puzzle he couldn’t quite parse, and I felt suddenly like a mouse cornered by a cat. “You’re an unusual girl, Mareena.”

“You followed me home and then broke into my apartment,” I jostled the bottle in his direction, the water sloshing in a way that was not at all threatening, “all while dressed in sorcerer cosplay—and you think I’m the unusual one?”

“A fair point.” The side of his mouth twitched, briefly, into a sharp hook that had my stomach tightening. That particular smirk, and the memory of how it felt pressed against my skin, had had a recurring role in my dreams this last week. “If it makes you feel any better, I didn’t think you would remember, let alone see me.”

“In what world would that make me feel any better?”

“Perhaps only in mine,” he said, though it was spoken in the gentle rumble of a whisper.

“Get out of my apartment,” I snapped, “and leave me alone.”

Great sex or not, there was no way my libido was going to win the war with my brain on this one.

“I’ll give you some space for a bit, sure,”’ he said, as if it was his idea, and a magnanimous one at that. Without another word, he turned and left.

I waited to hear the door in the living room open and close, but after a long stretch of nothing, I charged in, water bottle lifted and at the ready. “I mean it, Kiera?—”

The living room was empty, the door closed, no intruder in sight.

I took a few steadying breaths, then opened Sora’s water bottle, draining it in one gulp, half convinced the last few minutes were nothing more than the combination of a bad night’s sleep and a figment of my imagination.

And if not, he was gone, so maybe it was best not to linger on the intrusion.

After greeting Menace, properly this time, and refilling his water bowl, I made my way downstairs, ready to start prepping for the next rush.

The door was locked, just as it had been when I’d run inside.

Did he go through a window when he left?

Or was this just more proof that I’d imagined the entire thing?

It wouldn’t be the first time my brain conjured up a hallucination—though this had certainly been more involved than I was used to. My visions didn’t usually speak to me or interact with my environment.

I unlocked the door and shifted the sign to open, forcing my thoughts away from all things Kieran.

Normalcy. Routine. That was what I needed.

“You look bothered, dear.”

“Oh.” My head shot up and I found Claudine and her friend, Greta, sitting in their booth. I was so lost in the cadence of my thoughts, the gentle rhythm of my knife cuts, that I didn’t even hear them come in. “Sorry, I’m fine. Weird morning. How are you both? Do you want your usual?”

“Please,” Claudine said, shimmying her shoulders in excitement when I started the kettle.

Greta glanced at her friend, amusement etched into the lines of her face, before turning to me. “Nothing for me, thank you.”

“So, tell me dear,” Claudine said as I set the tea in front of her, “what’ve you been up to this week? How’s the journal work coming? Any new gossip in the pipeline?”

“It’s coming.” I walked behind the counter and then leaned on it, watching them as my own cup of tea steeped. It was a slow day, as Tuesdays always were, and I was clearly desperate for conversation, so the rest of the prep could wait a few minutes. “Most of my week has been uneventful, but I have a not-date set up for tomorrow night.”

“Ooh,” Claudine hunched closer, while her stoic friend sniffed hesitantly at the steam coming off the tea. “Tell me, tell me.” She clapped her hands together. “Is it that nice boy you mentioned before? The one at the med center?”

I bit back my smile, nodding. “We’re getting dinner.”

She wiggled her brows suggestively.

“As friends,” I clarified.

“Youth is truly wasted on the young.” Claudine took a deep breath. “If I was you, and had those legs of yours, I’d spend every night with them wrapped around a different man.”

I choked on my own tea.

Greta barked out a laugh. “Don’t scandalize the poor girl, Claudine.”

“I did meet someone last week though,” I added, suddenly feeling the need to defend myself and my well-used youth, though I wasn’t sure why. “One-time fling.”

Claudine’s eyes widened, a large smile cracking her face in two. “I knew there was something different about you today. You’ve got that glow about you. The kind only a good naked tango can unleash.” She leaned forward; the steam of her tea abandoned to the periphery of her attention. “Well go on, give us the details, dearie.”

I took a sip of my tea, letting the water scald my tongue rather than loosen it. “There’s nothing to tell. Like I said, one-time thing. What’s new in your lives?”

Claudine batted her hand, as if it was of little consequence. “You need to work on your storytelling skills, girl. How are we supposed to live vicariously through you when that’s all you give us to work with?”

“Perhaps she wants to discuss something other than her sex life, Deenie,” Greta said, and I found myself wanting to hug her with relief at the suggestion.

I nodded. “Literally anything else.”

The woman pouted; the expression so childish that I laughed at the odd contrast with the wisdom in her eyes. “At least tell us what he looked like?”

“Like an adonis, I’m sure,” a deep voice said.

My blood froze at the familiar Irish lilt.

Kieran stood at the door. A door I hadn’t even heard open.

He’d ditched the cloak in our brief time apart and was now dressed in a much more sensible black T-shirt and jeans.

The inviting gleam on Claudine’s face had dried up, replaced by a scowl. “Get out of here, boy. Leave her be. I mean it. She’s ours.”

Greta’s gaze darted between the intruder and me; her expression unreadable. She patted her friend’s hand. “This isn’t our business, Deenie.”

“Sure, it is,” Claudine said. I was pretty sure the woman thought everything was her business. “I mean it, Kieran. You leave her alone. This is my one afternoon of enjoyment.”

“You know I can’t do that,” he said, though there was a softness to his tone.

“You all know each other?” I asked, though judging by the alarm his presence had inspired in the women, I wasn’t sure that they were exactly on friendly terms if they did.

“Something like that,” he said, his focus locked on them. “You certainly attract an odd sort, don’t you, Mareena.” Then, back to them, he added, “I’m not even sure how you two found her—or got here altogether. There’ll be hell to pay if anyone finds out.”

“Don’t threaten them,” I snapped, my brain catching up to the chaos from earlier. “And stop stalking me. I mean it. Get out of here, Kieran or I’ll—” Well, I wasn’t sure what I would do. It wasn’t like I could call the cops or anything. Even in the Before, they usually caused more harm than good.

Luckily, I was spared the necessity of landing on a solution.

“Oh my god, I’m so late.” Sora burst through the front door, her face coated in a sheen of sweat, like she’d run here. And Sora didn’t run. “Please tell me my client hasn’t shown up yet?”

“Not that I’ve noticed,” I said, “but I haven’t been downstairs.”

“Good, that means one thing is going my way today at least.” She walked past Kieran, not sparing him so much as a glance, and pointed at the cup of tea in the booth. “Cool if I grab this? I haven’t had any caffeine yet and I don’t have time to deal with a headache or start a pot of fresh coffee.”

Without waiting for a response, she swiped the cup and took a sip, her nose scrunching in distaste. “Mint. Not my favorite.” Her eyes lit up. “Does that mean your therapist already came by today? Damn, was hoping to finally catch a glimpse of her and introduce myself. Let her know I’m a big fan of her work. Next week, maybe. Anyway, catch you later, okay? Feel like we haven’t properly spoken in ages. So, tonight? After the dinner rush. We can open a bottle of wine or something, hang out with Menace. I even miss that old rascal, which is really saying something.” Then, without waiting for a response, she disappeared into the back hall, where there was a staircase into the basement and her little studio.

“I—” I opened and closed my mouth several times, trying to put words to the confusion. It wasn’t like Sora to completely ignore customers, even if she was rushed—let alone steal their drink.

She hadn’t so much as spared a glance at any of them.

“Ladies,” Kieran sighed, “are you telling me she doesn’t know?”

And Claudine had been sitting right in front of her. Was she so out of it that she’d missed the woman entirely?

“Know what?” I asked, half locked in a daze.

“Sorry, dearie,” Claudine winced, “it was just so nice to pretend like it was the good old times again.”

“Good old times?” My brain was molasses as I tried to make sense of the different threads.

“She means when we were alive,” Greta added, patting her friend’s hand again.

My chest tightened and I stared at them, really looking at them this time.

They were both seated at the table, and while Claudine’s position was mostly normal, practiced, Greta’s leg had sunken into the booth, like there was a hole it’d passed through.

Catching my stare, she shifted, her leg reappearing as it hovered above the floor.

Then, my focus latched onto the now-empty table, where the tea had been.

She’d never taken a sip. In all her visits, never once had I seen her touch something. Now that I thought about it, I’d never actually even seen her come through the door.

She was always just seated in the booth.

I’d assumed it was because she had a knack for arriving when I was busy or distracted, only half paying attention to the dining room, but maybe it was something else.

Sora hadn’t noticed her, and looking back now, whenever Claudine prattled on about the few customers who’d come in during her visits, they’d always ignored her. I’d assumed it was because she was being nosy, poking into their lives, making observations and offering unsolicited advice.

But maybe they hadn’t seen her.

“You’re ghosts?” The word felt strange on my tongue. “Dead?”

Claudine shrank into the booth, her face contorted into an exaggerated guilt, the way a child might be when their parents caught them lying. “Sorry, dearie.” The guilt morphed into a wince. “But oh, I do hate that word.”

“Technically,” Kieran crossed his arms over his chest and leaned against the wall, “they’re phantoms. Ghosts aren’t real. At least not as far as I’m aware.”

“Phantoms?”

“Kind of like shadows of their former selves, captured and stuck in the Between. Most will slip away slowly, disappearing altogether within a few years,” he said, his tone nonchalant as if he was simply explaining how two plus two equals four, and not cracking my entire ontology at the seams. “Almost like a polaroid image in reverse. Happens most commonly with demons who’ve met a particularly violent death. Though, in very rare circumstances, I’ve encountered humans who’ve experienced it, too. The Undoing changed the game a bit, with humans absorbing the shadow magic. The specifics of it are a bit blurry now.” He shrugged. “Those of stronger resolve occasionally stick around a bit longer. It’s rare for them to make it to this realm, to interact with the living.” He shrugged. “Like I said, you’re an unusual girl, Mareena.”

Claudine stood up and walked over to me.

Well, walked might be a poor way to describe it. It was more like she floated, shifting through air, her feet hovering above the ground.

Eyes soft with concern, she pressed her hand to my cheek—only I didn’t feel it, I didn’t feel anything except a soft, breathy chill.

“You’re dead,” I said, the words stiff. My brain felt numb.

Claudine nodded. “I’m dead.”

Figured, finally had free access to a therapist and she was dead. Sora would at least get a kick out of that. “And ghosts are real?”

“Phantoms,” Kieran clarified.

I shifted my focus to him, stepping away from Claudine’s chilly not-touch. “But you can see them, too?”

I wasn’t sure whether this made me feel better or worse.

“Yes,” he said, his expression unreadable, “I can.”

“And you?” I let the question drift off for a moment.

His stare snagged on mine, holding me in those eyes until time seemed to stop. “I’m dead, too, yes.”

My breath caught as the different pieces of a puzzle I couldn’t yet identify started to shift into place.

The fact that, like Claudine and Greta, he didn’t seem bothered by doors or locks.

Did that mean he could shift through walls too?

I don’t feel warm.

Wasn’t that what he’d said earlier? I’d been struck by the odd phrasing at the time, but there’d been more pressing issues.

Like the fact that he was standing in the middle of my kitchen, uninvited.

He wasn’t exactly like Claudine and Greta though.

Now that I knew what they were, now that I let myself really see them, the differences started to emerge. The women weren’t quite as vibrant and here as he was—their skin papery and grayer, their movements more fluid than any human’s would be. They weren’t transparent or anything, but there was something strangely . . . airy about their appearance. Ephemeral, almost.

And the longer I stared, the more the image of them collapsed into the visions I occasionally had—another world, transposed on top of this one.

Did that mean it was real? This world I’d been conjuring for years, trying like hell to ignore.

Was it this Between place he mentioned?

And what about Kieran?

People could see him. Lenora and Ren at Incendiary—they’d even spoken to him.

But then just now, Sora had walked by without giving him so much as a glance.

And well, while Sora was only rarely interested in men, Kieran was the sort of guy who kind of demanded a second look.

His touch had also felt nothing like Claudine’s had—like a shadow against my skin, a distinctive lack. His had been solid, heated.

“Give her some space, ladies.” Kieran gestured to the women, and they faded away. Gone entirely.

His stare rested on me, not without compassion, but also devoid the heat I remember from last week.

“You’re different than they are.” I swallowed the waver in my voice. “I touched you.”

“I am,” he said, a brief, self-satisfied smirk cracking through his otherwise unreadable expression, “and you did.”

“What are you?” Though I wasn’t sure I really wanted the answer to that question. “And why are you here? Why are you following me?”

He sat down in the booth, occupying Claudine’s usual spot, his arms spread wide over the back ledge as he studied me.

“Think of me like a guardian angel of sorts,” he said, the corner of his mouth flickering into a soft frown, there and then gone, just as quickly, “and you, thanks to a cruel twist of the fates, are apparently my new charge.”