Chapter 5

"Aiden." Ink's voice is raw. He's crouched over Leah, wings half-spread, feathers smoking where the Executioner's light touched him. "What did you do?"

I don't answer. Can't. The reaper blade's still in my chest. I can feel it. Cold. Heavy. Wrong. My knees want to give out but I lock them. Blood's soaking through my shirt, dripping onto the alley stones. The debt tracker on my wrist is burning. Literally burning. The bars that were green are turning red one by one, flipping like dominoes.

Eighteen hundred debts. Eighteen hundred lives I saved. All of them lighting up red.

"The debt will be repaid," the Executioner said.

I'm starting to understand what that means.

Vera's body twitches. Her fingers scrape the wet stone. Then she sits up.

It's not Vera.

I've seen possession before. Demons do it. Poltergeists. Angry ghosts looking for a ride. But this is different. Vera's body moves like it's being operated by someone who doesn't quite remember how joints work. Her head tilts too far to the left. Her shoulders roll back in a way that makes her spine crack audibly.

When she opens her eyes, they're not empty anymore.

They're full.

Full of something I can't look at directly. Like staring into the sun. My reaper instincts scream at me to drop my gaze, submit, back away. I stay standing.

"Aiden Crow." Vera's mouth shapes the words but the voice isn't hers. It's layered. Dozens of voices speaking in unison, some male, some female, some neither. "You offered payment. The Council accepts."

The Lead Auditor takes a step back. The fifty reapers who had us surrounded are frozen, scythes lowered. Nobody moves. Nobody breathes.

"I didn't summon you," the Auditor says. His voice shakes. "This matter was to be handled internally."

Vera's head swivels toward him. The movement's too smooth. Too fast.

"You marked the Vaughn woman for execution. You brought death into this place." The Executioner's voice doesn't get louder but it fills the alley, resonates in my bones. "Where death is called, I come."

The Auditor's face goes white. He looks at the fifty reapers like he wants them to do something. None of them move.

Smart.

The Executioner stands. Vera's body shouldn't be able to support that kind of presence but it does. She walks toward Leah. Each step echoes. Ink spreads his wings wider, puts himself between them.

"Move, familiar."

"No."

Vera's hand reaches out. Doesn't touch Ink. Doesn't need to. He's thrown backward like he's been hit by a truck, slams into the alley wall hard enough to crack brick. He drops. Doesn't get up.

"Ink!" Leah tries to crawl toward him. Can't. The death mark's too heavy. It's pulling her down, dragging her toward the ground like gravity just tripled.

The Executioner crouches in front of her. Vera's face is inches from Leah's.

"You were named," the Executioner says. "The debt was prepared. Your thread was cut."

Leah's breathing in shallow gasps. She's trying to speak. Can't.

"But Aiden Crow offered substitute payment." Vera's hand—the Executioner's hand—reaches out and touches the black mark on Leah's chest. "Eighteen hundred lives. Saved. Recorded. Verified."

The mark stops spreading.

"The debt transfers."

The black ink lifts off Leah's skin. It doesn't fade. It peels away, like wet paint being scraped off, and it moves through the air in threads, thin black lines that snake toward me.

They hit my wrist. The debt tracker. The bars that turned red start filling with black.

It feels like being stabbed eighteen hundred times at once.

I go down. Knees hit stone. The reaper blade's still in my chest and now there's this, this weight, this crushing pressure that's not physical but feels worse than any wound I've ever taken. The black threads keep coming, wrapping around my wrist, burrowing into the tracker.

Every life I saved. Every person I pulled back from the edge. Every debt I earned.

Gone.

No. Not gone. Transferred. Rewritten. Each green bar turns black, and with it I feel the debt flip. I don't owe the Council anymore.

The Council owes me.

Or I owe something else.

"Aiden!" Leah's voice. Hoarse. Desperate. The death mark's off her. She's trying to stand, can't quite manage it. "What's happening to him?"

"Payment," the Executioner says simply.

The last thread of black ink sinks into my wrist. The tracker goes dark. Every bar. Empty. Then they start filling again. Not green. Not red. Black. One by one.

When the first bar turns black, a new kind of pain hits. It's not in my body. It's deeper. Like something's being carved into my soul.

"Eighteen hundred lives saved," the Executioner says. "Eighteen hundred deaths owed. You will collect."

I look up. Vera's face is still wrong, still full of that terrible light, but there's something else now. A flicker. Like someone else is trying to push through.

"No." My voice comes out barely a whisper. "I'm done. I quit. Three hundred years ago."

"You offered payment. The Council accepted. You are bound."

The black bars keep filling. Five. Ten. Fifteen. Each one a name I can suddenly feel etched into my bones. People I don't know. People I'll have to find. People I'll have to reap.

Not save.

Reap.

"You changed the deal," I say. The reaper blade's still in my chest. I reach up, wrap my hand around the hilt. "I offered my debts. Not—not this."

"Debts must balance." The Executioner's voice is final. Absolute. "You saved eighteen hundred. You will take eighteen hundred. Then the ledger clears."

Twenty bars. Thirty. They're filling faster now.

"And if I don't?"

Vera's head tilts. The movement's wrong again. Too far. Bones shouldn't bend like that.

"Then the debt transfers back. To her."

Vera's hand points at Leah.

Leah's sitting now, propped against the alley wall. The death mark's gone from her chest but she looks gray. Shocky. Her eyes meet mine.

"Don't," she says. "Aiden. Don't do this."

The Executioner stands. Vera's body straightens. The light in her eyes is fading, pulling back, getting ready to leave.

"You have one year," the Executioner says. "Eighteen hundred deaths. The names are written. You will know them when you see them."

Fifty bars now. A hundred. The tracker's filling like a thermometer in reverse, black creeping up from the bottom.

"What if—" I have to stop, breathe. The blade in my chest is cold. So cold. "What if I can't?"

"Then you forfeit. And the Vaughn bloodline pays."

Leah goes still.

"Not just her," the Executioner continues. "Her mother. Her grandmother. Her line. Back three generations. Forward three generations. All debts transfer."

"That's not—" Leah's voice breaks. "I don't have kids. My mom's in a cell. There's no one—"

"There is always someone." The light in Vera's eyes is almost gone now. Almost. "Debts find a way."

The tracker hits eighteen hundred bars. All black. My wrist feels like it's on fire and freezing at the same time.

Then something happens that I don't expect.

Vera's mouth moves. Not the Executioner. Vera.

"Aiden." Her voice. Faint. Struggling. "Aiden, I'm sorry. I couldn't—I couldn't stop it from—"

The Executioner's voice cuts back in, drowning her out.

"The familiar's body was offered freely. As vessel. As witness." Vera's hand lifts, touches her own chest. "She will remember. She will watch. To ensure the debt is paid."

"You're keeping her in there?" I try to stand. Can't. The blade's too deep. "She's already dead. She doesn't—"

"She volunteered."

That stops me.

Vera's eyes flicker. The light's almost gone. For just a second, I see her. Really her. The ER nurse who died saving a kid in a car crash. The ghost who's been haunting my coffee shop for two years, drinking espresso she can't taste, helping me save people she can't touch.

"I did," Vera says. Her own voice. Barely audible. "I heard you scream. I came. The Executioner needed—needed a body. I said yes."

"Vera—"

"Save her, Aiden." Vera's looking at Leah now. "Whatever it costs. Save her."

Then the light goes out completely.

Vera's body collapses. This time it's real. She hits the ground and doesn't move. I can't tell if she's unconscious or if the Executioner burned her out completely.

The alley's silent.

The fifty reapers are still frozen. The Lead Auditor's backing away slowly, like he's afraid to run but more afraid to stay.

Leah's staring at me. At my wrist. At the black bars.

"Eighteen hundred," she whispers. "You have to kill eighteen hundred people."

I pull the reaper blade out of my chest. It comes out easier than it should. The wound doesn't hurt. Not anymore. Everything's numb.

"Yeah," I say.

Ink groans from where he hit the wall. He's trying to stand. Failing.

Leah gets up. She's shaky. Unsteady. But she walks toward me. Stops a few feet away.

"Why?" she asks. "You don't even—you don't like me. You think I'm here to destroy you."

"You are," I say. "But your mom doesn't deserve to burn. And you don't deserve to die because of my mistake."

"Three hundred years ago."

"Yeah."

She's quiet for a long moment. Then she looks at my wrist.

"The bars are black."

"Yeah."

"That means—"

"It means I'm a reaper again," I say. "Officially. Bound by the Council. No way out until the debt's paid."

Leah's hand moves to her chest where the death mark was. There's nothing there now. Just skin. But I can see her checking. Making sure.

"I didn't ask you to do this," she says.

I laugh. It hurts. "I know."

"So why—"

I don't answer. Can't. Because I don't know. Three hundred years I've been trying to get out. Trying to go home. And in one second I threw it away. For her. For someone who wants me dead.

Vera's still on the ground. Not moving.

Ink finally gets to his feet. He limps over, looks at my wrist, then at me.

"Boss," he says. "That was the dumbest thing you've ever done."

"I know."

"Eighteen hundred kills. One year."

"I know."

He shakes his head. His feathers are singed. Smoking. "We're gonna need a plan."

Before I can answer, my wrist flares hot. The first black bar starts glowing. Not black anymore. Red. Bright red. And with it comes a name. Not spoken. Not written. Just suddenly there in my head, carved into my brain like it's always been there.

Marcus Webb. Thirty-four. Apartment 6C. 400 East Maple Street.

I know where that is. Six blocks from the cafe.

And I know, somehow, that Marcus Webb is supposed to die. Tonight. And I'm the one who has to make sure it happens.

Leah sees my face. "What? What is it?"

I hold up my wrist. The red bar is pulsing. Urgent.

"It's starting," I say.

The tracker burns hotter. A second bar turns red. Another name floods my head.

Sarah Chen. Twenty-seven. St. Michael's Hospital. ICU. Third floor.

"Aiden." Leah's voice is sharp now. "What's starting?"

I look at her. At Ink. At Vera's body on the ground.

"The collection," I say.

And the first reaper mark appears in the air. Right in front of me. A glowing red sigil, floating at eye level. It spins once. Then it shoots off down the alley, leaving a trail of crimson light.

Toward East Maple Street.

Where Marcus Webb is running out of time.