An Affair with Death
An excerpt from a novel in progress by thePearl.
CHAPTER 19
Shamus: An Affair with Death
They’d come for him in the night, pulled him from his bed, and shoved him into the flight craft without so much as a hello. Shamus didn’t mind that, though. He was a man of little words, and the less he must exchange with Ethereals the better. He’d save his words for the ones who mattered. He couldn’t help but allow a smug smile to unfurl on his lips. He was going home to Agatha. And yet.
He felt a small tug of disappointment at leaving this place behind. No one was more surprised than he. Some small part of him would miss this. It’d changed since he’d been stationed here all those years ago. Yes, he’d miss the gardens, now grown up from pitiful sticks and bare branches into a lush paradise of blooms and green. He smiled to think of the dried flowers hidden between the pages of a large tome he’d pilfered off of the wretches’ library shelf. The flowers were every shade of purple– every shade of Agatha. But a pang stole his smile away again at the thought, he’d miss another flower, one who’d bloomed unexpectedly, stubborn as a dandelion through concrete cracks: the woman. She’d had a love of growing things, too. He felt a momentary wave of regret that he’d stolen the book. Gabriel wouldn’t care, he knew, but Lorelei would. She’d miss that big, unwieldy text. She liked to steal them off of the shelves, too, when she thought no one was looking. Silly wench, didn’t she know that he was always looking? He smiled at the thought, then cursed himself. Dammit. He would not go down this path. He would not allow this little obsession with the silver haired bitch. Bitch. That’s what she was. No better than the ever-breeding dogs that waddled with such pride about the Reaper towns. What a waste. What a terrible waste. He’d told the Authority as much, in his most recent report. He’d let the words flow with reckless abandon, sent the file, and immediately regretted it.
Dread settled around his shoulders, warmer, more familiar than the cloak he’d donned for this summons. They’d called him back to account for those careless words. He hoped the reckoning would be for Gabriel and not for himself. Though he’d only uttered the truth, and perhaps that’d be enough to save his sorry skin. The Authority treasured truth above all else, and when he’d reported that Lorelei was wasted on a life as some humble breeder, he hadn’t lied. For better or worse, she was meant for more. She was made to destroy– anyone could see it, should they really look. That strange flash in her eyes, the way her skin lit from within when she burned with some unfathomable conviction. Hairs on his forearms rose a salute to that kind of power, an electricity that reeked of ozone and set the heart to pounding in terror, whether a man cared to admit it or not.
He’d seen it twice, and that’d been enough. They’d been in the garden– always in the garden– the last time it’d happened. Shamus had reached out to touch a small constellation of bruises along her inner wrist, his hand behaving entirely without his permission. She’d stumbled back from him, leaving the tingling of hellfire untouched along the tips of his fingers where they’d caressed a meager swipe on her skin. He snatched his hand back in horror, “He hurts you.” He’d meant it a question but it came out an accusation. She looked at him with those haunting eyes and a pressure built in his inner ear as he returned her stare. When the painful buzzing was too much to bear, he tore his eyes away from her stare, forced himself to look at his feet, to somewhat unwillingly bow his head in her presence.
“Yes.” She uttered the one word, echoing with a hollow ring in his ear before she fled on silent feet back into the mansion. The tree she’d fallen against in her hurry to be away from him groaned. Shamus looked on in terror as it burst into spontaneous bloom, swelled like a river freed from the entrapment of a man-made dam, and then began to crack, starting at the uppermost branches, weaving spiderwebs downward, until the ground where roots tunneled began to shake. The tree tore asunder and lay dead across the garden walk. And he knew then, she’d done this terrible, powerful, inexplicable thing. He knew then, that she held something more wonderful than life itself inside of her. She’d an affair with death, and he wanted in.