Inhuman - Reaped Pt. 02

The eye colors one more time, just in case.

Green = amusement/humor

Red = anger

Blue = fear

Yellow = embarassment

Lavender/Purple = arousal

Gold = confusion

White/silver = irritation

Orange = shock/surprise

Pink = curiosity

Glittering = playful

As always, thank you for reading. Please vote and leave a comment if you feel so inclined. Your feedback is greatly appreciated.

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Charos and Moira were both in my apartment when I walked in, and I about jumped out of my skin when I saw them. Moira had her hood down, her eyes swirling green, but Charos's hood was blank.

~"I tried to tell her this was not right."~

~"I said it's not fair he got an entire night of Netflix and I got left out. Hook a girl up!"~

"Okay, ground rules seem to be necessary," I took the camera out of the bag and set the bag aside. "Don't wait on me like this or I'll be getting visits from the natural death department."

~"You would not be able to see them."~

~"She's saying that being sneaky like this is going to give her a heart attack, but if I'd left it up to you I wouldn't get another invite. Come on, Rebecca,"~ she turned to me and made the most adorable puppy eyes I think a reaper could make considering their eyes are solid black most of the time. Apparently, begging doesn't have a color. ~"It has been years since I got to watch a good rom-com."~

"Oh, you would like the chick flicks," I grimaced at her. "I'm eating ice cream, though."

~"That's dirty pool,"~ she shot back, but she was grinning. Then she looked around, ~"How the hell are we going to watch anything if you don't even have a TV?"~

"Laptop, but I need to check emails first. Make yourselves at home while I get more comfy." I left them in the living room and shut myself in my room. I had just gotten my boots off when Moira appeared in my room. "Privacy is still a thing."

~"Oh hush, we're both girls and he went back to his duties."~ She flapped a hand at the door. ~"You might actually have to call him back. He didn't like showing up uninvited."~

"And you have no problem with it, it seems." I grabbed some basketball shorts and a tank top and went behind the bathroom door to change real fast. "You really okay with me eating while we watch a movie?"

~"You're sweet. You need food to survive, and since none of the reapers can bring your soul home I'm not going to stop you from eating."~ I came out of the bathroom and she wrinkled her nose. ~"You seriously need better sleep clothes. All this abundance and you don't look any better than what I have on."~

I laughed and we went back out to the living room. I checked my emails and was happy to find an acceptance on the last article and then an appointment set a couple days from now to discuss the pitch. That was good news. It meant something in there had gotten his attention enough to want to talk about and hopefully get my next few articles lined up.

"Okay, the screen's pretty small and I only have the couch," I said. Charos and I hadn't watched the last movie on the couch at all, and I did still need to go through the pictures.

~"He said you two were pretty cozy. We should be good so long as you and I don't touch."~

"Something tells me Charos might be sharing too much." I bit my lips together because if it was like in the park, he'd hear most of what I said around his name.

Sure enough, he appeared and said, ~"I said only that we sat together."~

Moira and I both laughed and Charos's eyes flashed yellow for a second. "We can sit like that again if you want," I was still giggling a little. "That way you can see the pictures I got."

His eyes flashed purple for a beat and Moira took up a corner of the couch. ~"Please tell me they have something suitably sappy on Netflix right now. I have been dying to get my emotional fix."~

I walked around the couch and sat on the floor, well away from where Moira was curled on the couch so we couldn't accidentally touch. Just like the oddball properties I'd noticed in Charos's cloak, Moira's didn't seem to take up as much room as I thought it should. I could clearly see she was sitting cross legged on the sofa with the fabric gathered in her lap as though it were a normal thing. Then Charos's cloak moved around me and he settled in behind me.

"What I did last night was pause it any time Charos had to work, and start it again when he got back," I said as I logged in and scrolled through the chick flicks to something that didn't look too corny. "Just let me know when you have to go so I can hit the button."

Moira made some noise that sounded agreeable and I hit play, then pulled my camera from the table. Unlike last night, Charos was much less stiff. He wrapped his arms around my waist and his cheek pressed against the side of my head. I turned on the camera and hit the button for the display, thumbing through the pictures still on the card from the last crime scene. He'd already seen those.

When I got to one where he was mostly in shadow, just a faint cloaked shape beneath the tree, his hand came up to my wrist and I held the camera where he could see better. Even the light from the little screen cast no shadows in his hood. It was like a black hole and gave me no hint to what he looked like. He eased my hands down and I felt his lips brush my ear, ~"I like that one."~

So did I, and not just because his whisper sent shivers through my body. It was a really good shot. Almost all of them had come out usable, but I knew getting them on a larger screen would probably knock a few more out of the running. I turned the camera off and put it up on the table and leaned into Charos.

I tried touching his hands but they were still stuck under the sleeves. He did something and then I could see his hands clear of the cloth. I'd felt them, and had made a vague mental note when I'd seen the one hand that first night, but I hadn't really looked at them. I pulled his sleeve up to his wrist and played with his hand while the movie droned on. There was a scar across his palm, from just below his pinky finger all the way across and down through the meat beneath his thumb. It didn't seem to hinder his movement, though how much of that was because he was a reaper I didn't know.

The movie ended without either of them being called away, and Moira nudged Charos when I leaned forward to change the movie before she disappeared. "Do I need to wait for her to come back?"

~"No. She only wanted to see the one movie."~

I put on a Predator movie and then turned so I was more sideways to him. "Can I ask why you don't put your hood down?"

His eyes flashed yellow, ~"I do not like to."~

"Okay. Can I touch you under the hood without accidentally knocking it back?"

The yellow swirled to green, ~"You cannot take it off."~ He held his hand up and wiggled his fingers, then did whatever he did to take his hand out to cover it in the sleeve. ~"Try to pull my sleeve up."~

I tried. I really did. I pulled the sleeve trying to get it down around his hand, but all it did was pool the fabric at his elbow. His hand never came out of the cloak. "What is this even made of?"

He let out a soft laugh and slid his other hand into the sleeve to free the covered one. Oh, we were so watching Venom after Predator. I wanted to see his reaction to a sentient suit, of sorts. When I pushed on the fabric this time it exposed his arm to the elbow, and the skin was laced with scars. Some were thin, but a few were almost as thick as my thumb. One, just above his elbow, looked like he should have lost his arm to whatever struck the blow. I couldn't imagine reaping souls would do this. "What happened?"

~"They are from past lives,"~ he said. He touched the big one above the elbow, ~"I lost my arm in the Colosseum. When I died, the scar was on this body."~

I couldn't keep the shock off my face, "The Roman Colosseum?"

~"Yes. That was my last life."~ He pulled the sleeve back to his wrist. I took a few seconds to just let that sink in because I was pretty sure the gladiatoral games in the Colosseum had been some two thousand years ago, give or take a decade. ~"You may touch my face, if you want."~

I pushed the coffee table a little and turned to face him fully. Starting low where the hood dipped below his shoulders, I reached into the hood. As my fingertips crossed into the shadow of the hood they disappeared from view. My hands met bare skin and I was reminded that Moira had said there was nothing under the robe, but I was above the belt so it should be okay. His shoulders were smooth with lean muscles that shifted under my fingers as he moved his arms. I felt the slick texture of another scar, but didn't linger over it.

His eyes swirled purple and then closed, shutting off the color show as my hands moved up to his neck and jaw. The stubble was rough under my fingertips as I reached further back to touch his hair. It was thick and longer than I'd expected with an almost rough texture. I pulled my hands back along his jaw and moved up over his cheeks. There was a scar on the left cheek that I traced up into his hairline, and then back down to the corner of his mouth. His breath was warm against my fingers as he turned into my touch, and his lips were full and soft.

He tensed and leaned back away from me, fixing his sleeves. ~"I do not want you to stop, but I must go."~ He disappeared and it was just a little easier when he left.

He was gone long enough that I was about to call him back when he reappeared and sank down to the floor next to me. I thought I saw a dark flash of color under the hood but it disappeared too fast for me to be sure what it was. He sat with his knees up and his arms propped on them and the hood just kind of drooped. "Are you okay?"

~"Do you enjoy the work you do?"~

I had an idea where this was going, and I scooted a little closer to his side. "I used to, when I was able to work in the nursing home. I enjoy writing, but what I write is kind of pointless so I can't really say I enjoy it."

~"I do not enjoy taking souls."~

I didn't know what to say to that, and couldn't imagine what the job of a reaper was like. I did the only thing I could think of. I hugged him. He wrapped his arms around me and the hood came down until his face was against my neck. How do you comfort someone who doesn't like their job but can't quit? You hold them and you say nothing, that's how. And that's what I did. Turns out I didn't have to find anything to say. I just had to listen to Charos.

~"I said that wrong. It is an honor to help the souls go home. Sometimes I fear that all I will ever see is dead bodies. I reap their souls, and when it is time for me to live again I will see dead bodies in life as well. I like being able to touch you."~

I turned my face into the side of the hood and smiled. It felt kind of good to be something other than the crazy girl. Not to mention it felt even better knowing he was real and not just a figment of my imagination.

"I can't know what you go through as a reaper, but I can be here to listen if you need it, or just like this."

His arms tightened around me, ~"I like this."~

He sat back enough for the hood to brush past my face. A flash of purple eyes and then his lips pressed against mine. The kiss was soft at first, just the press of his mouth to mine when he pulled back. His eyes swirled a rainbow of colors and I reached into the hood to pull him back to me. He didn't use a lot of tongue, but made up for it with nips and licks that made me gasp.

When he broke the kiss this time, it was to continue along my jaw and then down my neck until all I could do was tangle my fingers in his hair and hold him to me. Charos came back to my mouth and his lips danced across mine. I didn't want this to stop, but all too soon I felt him tense and knew he'd have to go. I pulled away from him and said, "Go. I'll be here when you get back."

He kissed me again and disappeared. I bent forward and let my head fall to the seat of the couch. Shouldn't there be some guilt about this? Some sense that making out with a reaper was wrong? There wasn't any of that, but I thought there should be for some reason.

My shoulder started to ache and I sat up, stretching my arms up but the ache turned into an awful burning sensation that made me fall back against the coffee table with a groan. Stretching my arm out to the side I looked down to see a rainbow of lines arching across my skin. The burning sensation moved with the lines until a swirled pattern was completed and the pain went away like it had never been. I got up and ran to my bedroom and the mirror over my dresser.

On my shoulder was an elaborate tattoo that looked like filigree. It capped my shoulder and curled around onto my back and down the biceps, rippled across my collarbone and trailed down between my breasts. I pulled the tank top off to see that the end of the tattoo looped under left breast across my ribs. It was beautiful, and it was freaky. I was still topless when I felt Charos pop back into the apartment and tugged the tank back over my head before stepping out of the room.

"Can you see this?" I ask him, pointing at my shoulder.

~"Yes. How long was I gone?" ~

"Five minutes, maybe? It just appeared when you left." I grabbed my phone off the table and went back to my room, snapped a selfie, and sent it to Jake. I needed to know if it was real. I could see the colors in the picture, but that could just be my mind putting the illusion on everything until someone could tell me it wasn't real.

Charos stepped in front of me, pulling at his sleeves until his hands were free. His eyes swirled pink and gold, and I reached under the hood and held his face. Pulling him slightly, I backed into my room in front of the mirror. The pink and gold of his eyes matched parts of the tattoo exactly, though his eyes had spiraled down to orange and back to pink as I felt his head turn to look at my room. All of the colors I had seen in his eyes were on my skin, and a few I hadn't seen. The glitter effect wasn't there, though, so at least there was that. My phone buzzed in my hand and I jumped.

Jake: Nice tat.

Me: You can see it? It just fucking appeared!

Jake: What do you mean?

Me: It appeared. I didn't get it. It got me, I think.

I wasn't sure it was real.

You can see it?

Jake: Yeah. I'm talking to another shifter.

Mind if I share this? Nobody seems to know anything about this stuff.

But I'm trying.

Me: Share it. Let me know if anyone has answers.

I tossed my phone on the bed and ran my hands through my hair. Charos reached up slowly, as though he was unsure of his welcome now, and pulled my hands from my hair and tugged me in against his chest. ~"The last time I was alive, marks such as this were considered gifts from the gods. Perhaps asking a god would help."~

"I don't exactly have the Almighty on speed dial," I grumble, but snuggle in closer to him.

~"The one who will reap you is often considered a god. The Fates are spoken of as though they are gods. There is more than one power that has been referred to as a god since the dawn of time. And there are many ways to speak to them."~

His hands smooth down my back as I think through all the encounters with inhumans I've had. Jake isn't having any luck with asking in the shifter circles, but there were so many other races. He'd said there are many ways to speak to the gods, but maybe it wasn't a god I needed. Just someone from the other side of the veil. I spun away from him and grabbed my phone, scrolling through my contacts. It was late, but she was a night owl. Hopefully she'd remember me and answer.

The phone rang a few times before someone picked up, and I heard laughter and something that sounded like dry leaves on the other side of the line. "Hello?"

"Uhm, hi. Rowan?"

"Yes, this is she." She had what I could only describe as a sultry voice. "How can I help you?"

"I don't know if you remember me. My name is Rebecca White and we met at a horse show about six months ago? I was with Jake Ckodre."

"Oh! Yes, I remember now. How can I help you?"

"This is going to sound really weird, but I was wondering if you can summon someone from across the veil to answer questions about grim reapers."

"I'm sorry. What now? You want me to summon the grim reaper?" There was a shuffling sound on the other end of the phone and the sound of dry leaves came again, giving me chills.

"No, I kind of already have a reaper with me. I need someone who can answer questions about reapers and moira."

"I'm putting you on speaker phone. I have someone here already who might be able to answer that. But honey, playing with the other side of the veil isn't always the best idea." There was a noise and then a light echo as she went on. I put my phone on speaker so Charos could hear. "What do you mean you have a reaper with you?"

I looked at Charos and his shoulders rose in what I was assuming was a shrug. "He's here with me, but can't reap my soul."

"Are you a true moira?" The sound of dry leaves and thunder from the background coalesced into a voice, and I was suddenly very happy Charos sounded like a normal person.

"What do you mean a true moira?"

"You can see him, touch him. He reaches and you do not reach back?"

~"Who are you speaking to?"~ Charos asked, lowering his head next to my ear so the hood hid most of my room from view.

There was a sputtering sound on the other end, then that rasping voice, "I am Vine, boy."

Charos tensed next to me. ~"I am not a boy."~

It sounded like a storm on the other end of the phone, and I got the distinct impression this Vine person was laughing at Charos. I leaned back against him, trying to tell him not to be offended. Then Vine spoke, "Compared to me, you are an infant. Is she your first moira? Have you marked her yet? Which of the Horsemen do you answer to?"

"Wait," I said. "The mark. Is it like a really colorful tattoo?"

A dry bit of laughter, "It would be the color of his eyes, little one. Have you figured that out yet?"

"I'm working on it. Kind of only been uncrazy a couple days now." I could hear Rowan in the background explaining that when she'd met me with Jake he'd told her I was on medication for hallucinations.

~"I answer to Thanatos, and I was not here when the mark came upon her."~

"Fuck, when was the last time you were alive? Thanatos doesn't let his reapers out too often." Vine did something to the phone that made a knocking noise then said, "How many others can you see, little one?"

"Only Charos and Moira," I answer automatically. Charos makes a motion, and I catch a brief glimpse of robes as Moira pops in then leaves.

"Holy shit." I hear a creaking sound, like he just sat in a squeaky office chair. "That changes things a bit. How large is the mark?"

I tap the screen and send the picture to Rowan, "I sent a picture. It extends below the neckline of the shirt, over my ribs on the left side."

"Oh, that's gorgeous," Vine muttered. "Atropos won't like this, but she's an old biddy anyway. Hope I'm there to see her face when she can't just cut your thread. Why did you want to contact someone on the other side?"

"Because nobody knows anything about what I am, and I'm having some trouble differentiating between what's real and what's not," I tell him. "All I could find when I Googled moira was stuff about the Fates."

"That's Moirai, not moira," Vine interrupts. "You wouldn't have learned about the Fates if you were brought up Christian, but you should know the Horsemen. War, Famine, Pestilence, and Death. They were made by the Fates to help filter the souls into the Underworld. Each of them has his or her own reapers, and each of those reapers has a single fated moira. One soul in the entire universe they cannot reap. One soul in the entire universe they can connect with. That's what the mark means. That Charos found you is like winning the lottery, so congratulations, boy. Charos and Moira are to Death what Lucifer and Michael are to the Christian God. It's kind of like watching the kid I used to babysit grow up and get married."