Reaper Read Free Page B

does need to rest occasionally. You kill it, I can’t
guarantee they’ll give you another one. Which reminds me, look
before stepping into traffic from now on. I didn’t agree to scrape
your face off the pavement because you’re a dumbass.”
    Bard said something else, but Oz didn’t stick
around to hear it. He ran from the doorway to the bathroom and
locked himself inside. There was a small, cracked mirror hanging
above the sink, but hugging the door like he was, Oz could only see
the reflection of his shoulder in the foggy glass.
    Could he really think of it that way? His shoulder? His t-shirt hung over it without bunching or
looking like it was still on the hanger. It was a nice shoulder, no
doubt, but it definitely wasn’t his shoulder. There was a
lot he couldn’t remember about his life, but one always recognizes
their own body parts.
    Oz closed his eyes and reached for the sink.
He groped along the porcelain until he stood directly in front of
the mirror. One, two, three quick breaths. Holding the third, Oz
opened his eyes.
    He’d died relatively young. This guy he
occupied was old, mid-forties, easily. Lines etched his cheeks and
forehead, surrounding deep set, warm brown eyes. In his old life,
Oz’s eyes were blue. The hair on his new head was one of those
weird shades of brown with a name like umber or burnt
something-or-another. He rubbed the course patches of scruff on his
chin and cheeks. He couldn’t rock a beard in his old body. This
guy, though...
    Bard kicked the door.
    “C’mon, Princess, we gotta get moving.”
    Oz took one last, long look at the stranger
in the mirror, not quite sure what to make of him. He opened the
door. “Who am I?”
    “Please save all existential questions for
someone who gives a fuck,” Bard said.
    “No. I mean,” Oz made an open-handed wipe
motion over his torso, “this. Who is this?”
    “It’s nobody.”
    “It’s somebody.”
    Bard shrugged.
    “It’s... weird,” Oz said.
    “I didn’t see you complaining when you were
prancing in the park.”
    “I’m not complaining I just want to
know—”
    “Look...” Bard snubbed his cigarette on a
windowsill. “Not everybody is a person. They’re would-be people.
This guy that you’re wearing isn’t anybody. A rented tux. So, if
you’re done bitching, we’ve got a job to do.”
    “So is that what you are, then?”
    “Am I what?”
    “A... tux?”
    Bard crossed his arms. “I’m someone who is
here against his will, Princess. If I could get out of dealing with
you, I would. My job is to teach you how to do the work without
fucking up. That’s it.”
    “Then why are you here? Why didn’t you just
say no? There’s more of you, right?”
    “Because there are worse things than
death.”
     

 
    Chapter
Four
     
    Rented tux. Heh. Bard would have to
write that one down. Too bad he didn’t feel compelled to carry a
notebook in his pocket anymore. Perhaps he’d renew the habit.
    The new guy still pranced behind him. He’d
have guessed Oz was a poof if he hadn’t caught the fool leering at
Cora. Not that Bard disliked poofs. He knew plenty of them.
Employed entire casts of them in life, in fact. There was just
something about this Oz character that poked the lizard part of his
brain, telling Bard that he was... off. Being a poof would’ve
explained that.
    And Bard got stuck babysitting him. Why did
he always end up with the new recruits? It wasn’t like others
weren’t capable of training them. Cora knew just as much as he did
and was more willing to put up with the questions and problems that
inevitably came with fresh meat. They were like children—no,
infants—wobbling and stumbling in their attempt to do something as
simple as walk.
    Why him?
    Because of one mistake more than a century in
the past. Bard shook his head. He didn’t want to think about
it.
    It was interesting (in a way that a train
wreck is interesting) that Oz had come from The Department. There
hadn’t been a reaper recruited