The Grim Reaper's Mate

Chapter 31

His lungs burned as he ran through the darkness. His feet pounded the pavement, one after another, heavy and exhausted from his flight. The sound of his footsteps echoed across the abandoned street and boarded up storefronts. It made the street seem eerie. A city block was supposed to be a lively place. A bubbling crescendo of noise. Car noise, laughter, kids playing their music too loud, all of the sounds of life. The street he was on was dead silent. It wasn't an encouraging sound.

His throat felt dry as his chest rose and fell in an increasing frantic manner. Sweat beaded on his arms, mixing with the ample blood from his various wounds. The cool autumn air would have felt pleasant on his skin if his head wasn't swimming with dizziness from the beating he'd taken. He continued to run, every step was a fresh agony on his tight, blood filled muscles.

He turned down a dark alley between two brick buildings. He narrowly avoided running head first into a dumpster while taking a tight turn into the alley. His foot hit a glass bottle. It went skittering across the asphalt in front of him.

Alex had f****d up; he'd f****d up bad. He'd barrowed money from the wrong people and they wanted payment. God he was an i***t. One cute girl shows up in his life with a sad story and a killer set of t**s, and he decides to end his 19-year streak of staying out of trouble. When she told him of her run in with these people he should have ended it right there. Thanks, but no thanks. Instead he got himself involved and when she split town, he found himself saddled with her debt.

How do I get myself into these things?

He didn't need to look behind him to know they were close. He didn't even need to hear the sound of their footsteps behind him. The sound of his own heartbeat rang like an alarm bell in his head, reminding him of the danger he was in. Not much time now, he thought. He could feel the beginnings of a cramp in his left calf. This chase would end soon.

He turned the corner out of the alley. His eyes shot wildly in every direction, taking in his surroundings. He was looking for options and he wasn't seeing much. The few street lights that remained functional painted a grim picture. Small decrepit homes sat opposite crumbling brick storefronts. The pothole marred street was littered with trash. Everywhere he looked he was greeted with boarded up doorways and windows covered in security bars. This must have been a pleasant industrial area, once upon a time. Now it was an urban corner of hell.

This place had been defaced and forgotten by the world a long time ago. It never even occurred to him to knock on the door of one of the few occupied buildings he saw in his path. This was a part of town where hope went to die. Where you kept your doors locked and your ears shut after dark. He wouldn't be getting any help and he knew it.

He ducked into the first abandoned house he came across that wasn't boarded up with plywood. He understood why it wasn't boarded up the moment he crossed the threshold. Every window in the house was broken. The walls were covered in peeling, puke green wallpaper. Portions of it were peppered with the darker, fuzzy splotches of black mold. Decay seemed to ooze off the walls onto a hardwood floor that hadn't seen a drop of lacquer in a long time. His feet crunched on god knew what as he walked on the creaky wood flooring away from the door. The whole place was a cesspool of neglect and rot. The kind of place you wanted a tetanus shot just walking into.

Perfect.

He found a creaky, narrow staircase that descended into the basement. He tentatively placed his foot on the first step, carefully shifting his weight onto the wooden deathtrap. It held. He took the time to take a small sigh of relief before carefully taking his next step. The whole way down he thought he was going to fall through one of the rafters, breaking his leg or worse in the process. He breathed a much larger sigh of relief when his feet finally felt solid ground once more.

Alex surveyed the room around him. Various boxes and assorted garbage had been haphazardly piled against the walls of the room. Portions of the roof and first floor had caved in under half a century of winters. Rays of silver moonlight shown through the gaps, illumination patches of the stained concrete floor.

Not much time now. He needed to hurry. He dashed towards the largest section of shadow in the dimly lit basement. Ducking behind some old boxes, he knelt down to wait.

He tried to hold his breath, to be as quiet as possible. Every breath sounded like a jet engine. Every shift of his weight, on his tired legs, sounded like a gunshot. He could only hope that the men chasing him would pass by the dark house and continue down the street.

He'd started to believe that he had done it, that he had successfully hid from them, when he heard it. The sound of boots on the rotting wood of the first floor sounded like cannon fire to his ears. s**t, he thought. The doorway to the basement was right in the open. There was no way they wouldn't check it.

No choice now, he thought with growing dread. They were going to find him any minute and he knew there was only one person who could help him now.

Her.

He needed to act fast. He swallowed his growing fear and quietly walked over to a bare section of concrete in the center of the room. Kneeling down, he began to drag his wounded hand over the rough, cold floor. In no time he had drawn a rude circle in his own blood. He tore off a piece of his shirt and let it soak thoroughly with his own blood. He knelt down and focused on the more detailed aspects of the summoning circle.

The design was a familiar one. It had been etched into his mind for as long as he could remember. His mother had always told him to be warry of bindings. It was one of the first things he remembered her teaching him. That the demons of the Pit took bargains made of free will deadly serious. The irony of what he was about to do wasn't lost on him.

He'd just completed the summoning circle when he heard them. They must have heard him moving around downstairs. f**k, he thought.

In his haste, he'd accidently smudged one of the symbols with his knee while crawling out of the circle. A streak of blood now connected two of the symbols, a potentially fatal flaw in the design. He forced himself to a take a breath and forget about the mistake. This wasn't a normal summoning. If he was being completely honest with himself, he knew that it was his blood that would form the real connection.

Alex uttered no spells, no incantations. There were no blood sacrifices or rituals. None of that was necessary. The work was done, now all he had to do was wait. Heavy footsteps pounded down the creaky staircase. He took a deep, calming breath and turned to face the new arrivals.

Two walls of muscle stepped out onto the dirty concrete floor. Goon #1 and Goon #2 looked like they could have been football stars. In fact, given the proximity to the university in town that's probably what they were. A couple of washed out football players, now quite good enough to make it to the pros. Alex doubted that they had developed a gentle temperament from their lot in life. They looked big, mean and dangerous. They also weren't important. Alex turned to the man who stepped in-between them.

The short, balding man was dark of hair. He was dressed in a leather jacket and jeans. The jacket was expensive and would have put off an aura of class if warn by anyone else. Between his gold tooth and greasy skin, Alex felt nothing but nausea and contempt towards the hobbit of a man in front of him.

"H-Hey Butch."

"Alex, Alex, Alex. Now why d'ya have to run? I thought we were friends." The man opened his hands wide, in an inviting manner as he spoke. A fake, overly friendly smile was plastered on his face. His gold tooth sparkled in the moonlight.

"W-We are Butch."

"Then why d'ya run?" Butch said.

"You said that you'd break both of my legs." His voice shook.

"Well sure," he said in a mock cheerful voice, "but see, that's business. I told you if you didn't get me my money, I would break both of your legs. That doesn't mean we aren't friends."

Alex stared at the man dumfounded. He couldn't quite believe that he was having this conversation. Butch put his hands on the side of Alex's arms in a friendly manner. A slick greasy smile was plastered on his face.

"You're not calling me a liar, now are you?" There was a hint of something darker beneath his overly friendly demeanor.

"No," he said looking away from the man's stare, "of course not."

Alex should have saw the punch coming, not that fair warning would have done him any good. Before he knew what hit him, he was doubled over on his knees, his hands over his gut.

"Then why d'ya run?" He'd dropped the cheerful act, now he just sounded pissed. "I don't like running Alex. Gym was never my favorite subject in school. When someone makes me run, it makes me angry."

Alex's lip split open in a gush of blood as Butch's knee connected with his mouth. He lay on the ground now, spitting up blood and worse.

It was then that he felt it. Alex knew when the summoning circle connected. Even doubled over in pain he couldn't have missed it. There was no great flash of light. No dramatics of any kind. One moment he knew; knew it in his bones that the room was empty...and the next moment it wasn't. A shiver ran down his spine as the hair on his arms stood on end. He felt the itchy, overwhelming feeling of eyes watching him out of the darkness. He looked up to find a dark shape standing in the shadows at the edge of the room.

"Hello, child." Said a feminine voice out of the darkness.

"Hello Luna." He whispered like a small child. It was strangely fitting considering that he was staring but at the figure, like a child would stare up at an adult.

"Hey, who the f**k are you?" Butch turned to holler at the woman standing in the shadows.

She ignored him.

"You summoned me at last. I knew you would," she said. Alex heard her smile more than he saw it.

"Ya well, you know..." Alex's words trailed off into a pained grimace.

"You're hurt." She said, her tone hardening.

Butch looked between them. He was off balance by the new arrival and the confusion was evident on his face. "What? You looking for a piece of him too? I'm afraid you'll have to get in line sweet t**s. He's all mine tonight."

Luna shifted her attention to him at last.

"That boy is mine." She said. The room seemed to drop a few degrees. She radiated an icy demeanor that promised violence.

Butch was oblivious to it all, "Ah, but see, tonight, his legs are mine."

"Is that so?" Her words sounded more like a challenge than a question.

The world around them seemed to respond to her words. The shadows grew darker by the second. The sounds of the night dropped off into an eerie, unnatural silence. The two goons looked unnerved. They glanced into the dark corners of the room, straining their eyes to catch a glimpse of something in the abyss. Or maybe they'd started to hear the whispers calling out for them from the night.

"Unless you plan on doing something about it, bitch." Butch was oblivious to what was going on around him. His cocky smile, glittering with his gold tooth, was evidence enough of that.

Alex looked up from the ground. He cast a pleading look at the figure in the shadows. Fresh blood dripped from his split open lip. He wasn't quite sure what he was pleading for exactly. She was as much of a danger to him as Butch was.

Luna caught his eye, her expression impossible to read, "You know the rules. You know that I can't act freely in mortal affairs."

"Yes, I know." Alex said in a small voice.

"Oi, stop f*****g ignoring me." Butch tried to cut in.

She looked interested now. "You know what it will cost you?"

"Yes."

She looked very interested now, "Then say the words."

He wanted help, but it wasn't help that was being offered, but a choice. One that he had been offered many times before. He never wanted to be in this situation, never wanted to have to make this decision. He'd been dreading it for a long time. No options now, he thought.

"I accept your terms." He said at last.

Luna let out a deep, heavy sigh of disbelief. A victorious, almost greedy smiled curled on her lips. A predator that had just been handed her favorite snack.