Chapter 108 - Under the Bridge

  Morrigan stepped out of the shadows onto a narrow span of cracked concrete. The quiet night was broken only by the wind and distant hum of passing cars.

  Pulling out her list, she scanned the last name for tonight:

  Dwayne Katz, age 42, 2:13 A.M., Under the Redwood Overpass, East Side—Overdose.

  She frowned. The Redwood Overpass was notorious for being a slummy alcove that is better avoided. The wide bridge stretched over a dried-up creek on the eastern edge of the city, where there were often tents propped up amidst the garbage or people just laying around in the early hours of the morning.

  Noir appeared at her side with his usual silent grace, yellow eyes reflecting the faint glow of the streetlight. Morrigan looked down at him and didn’t feel the tug of anger towards him from earlier tonight. He was always pragmatic and focused on his role as a reaper’s assistant. That's just the way he was, and she supposed it was only natural he wouldn’t understand why her so-called ‘social dramas’ mattered. She let out a quiet sigh while the silence between them was only interrupted by the scuffing of her boots.

  “Look, I’m sorry about earlier,” she said. “But that doesn’t change the fact that I’m in a really frustrating situation and don’t know what to do about it. But I guess I shouldn’t expect too much from you or take it out on you.”

  Noir’s tail flicked in slow deliberation. “I was not demanding an apology, Morrigan.”

  Morrigan felt her eyebrow twitch. “Would it kill you to just say, ‘it’s okay, and I’m sorry too for being insensitive’? Or something like that?”

  He turned his gaze up to her. “I maintain this dilemma stems from your insistence on staying somewhere that complicates your role as a reaper.”

  “I know you think I should just leave. But I only got to be a human for sixteen years, and who knows how long I’ll be a reaper. It could be decades, centuries… eons… I’ll probably meet a lot of people in that time… normal and supernatural. But I’ll only ever have one mother. And I’ll only ever have one high school best friend.” She held down her hood as an errant gust of wind blew her white hair momentarily across her face. “I guess… I’m worried about a future where I’m living out my eternity as a reaper, and I look back on that 16-year-old girl I used to be and the people I hurt by leaving them behind. I only get this one opportunity to make things right, and if I don’t…”

  Noir tilted his head. “And how long do you plan to keep up this balancing act—teenage runaway by day, reaper by night?”

  Morrigan exhaled. “I don’t know… I guess until I feel like Morrigan Livingston’s life has had some closure. A year, maybe two? After that, I can vanish from everyone’s radar—go live in the cabin, or wherever’s convenient, and fully embrace my duties. But I can’t walk away yet.”

  Noir studied her in silence for a long moment, eyes glowing in the half-dark. After a moment, he turned his gaze back toward the overpass, where shadowy figures moved like ghosts among the tents. “And Pepper? She is not a part of your old life. You met her as a reaper.”

  “Na… I don’t see it that way. A reaper wouldn’t end up in a youth shelter. I met her as Morrigan Livingston. Even if I was technically already dead. Besides, I like her. I don’t want to abandon her either.”

  “I see…” Noir said, then stopped as the space beneath the bridge finished rising over the horizon and Morrigan could see a flicker of fire within a steel barrel, amidst the small community of tents positioned between the comparitively collosal support columns. As Morrigan walked closer, the tang of smoke and stale liquor drifted through the air, and she could pick out the low murmur of voices and an occasional cough.

  Her phone read 2:03 A.M.—ten minutes before her client’s scheduled demise. She was early. She walked a slow circle around the camp, focusing her perception blocking to make her appear as if she were one of them. Most of the people here looked lost in their own personal hells.

  She passed an older man wrapped in a grime-stained blanket, who mumbled incoherently as she came too close, but he then turned away, uninterested.

  Another man sat on a broken slab of concrete—probably some long-forgotten construction debris—and he rocked back and forth softly with a lost expression in his eyes. Morrigan stopped and stared at him for a moment, not because she had some inkling that he was Dwayne Katz, but because of something about that empty, hollow look in his eyes.

  The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

  That was it—that man looked like a hollow, except he was a flesh and blood human being, still alive. Her thoughts returned to Juniper, Pepper’s older sister. She had deteriorated into a featurless, screaming phantom that only knew sorrow and regret. But, reconnecting with her little sister, being shown some love or maybe a reminder of who she once was, reversed the hollowing to an extent, and for a few crucial moments right at the end, she got to be Juniper again. Morrigan wondered if it could be the same for that man. If someone were to come along and help him get back on his feet, could he be fixed? Could that blank gaze be rekindled into someone who still had hope and dreams and a decent life to look forward to?

  But helping these people was beyond her role as a reaper and certainly beyond her abilities as a 16-year-old runaway.

  A low rumble of traffic rolled overhead, indifferent to the bleak scene below. Morrigan glanced at her phone again, the digits ticking closer to 2:13. She sighed, resigning herself to wait. If a soul slipped from one of these tents or from the shadows beneath the bridge, she’d see it. Until then, there was nothing to do but observe the fragile state of these people’s lives and wonder how the world could let them slip so far through the cracks.

  Morrigan found a nice shadowy spot under a support column and perched herself on a cracked cement block where she could keep an eye on the camp. It was now 2:11 and Dwayne Katz, whichever one of these people he was, would soon be dying.

  As she waited, she couldn’t take her eyes off the scenery, and not just for the sake of spotting her client. She wondered if her mom and dad might have ended up in a place like this had her mom not inherited their house. That would mean Morrigan herself probably wouldn’t have made it, or ended up in foster care at the very least. In a way, her great-grandmother—a woman she’d never even met—had saved both her and her mother’s lives simply by leaving them the house. It was an odd thing to think about.

  Noir leapt gracefully onto the block beside her, his tail curling around his paws as his glowing eyes surveyed the scene. Morrigan looked back to her phone, just in time to see it tick over to 2:13. She also noticed there was an unread text from Emma, but Morrigan didn’t open in yet, saving it for when her job was complete. She probably just wanted to know if Morrigan was almost done.

  Then, movement caught her attention—a man in his early forties, stumbling out from one of the makeshift tents. He clutched at his stomach, his face pale and drenched with sweat. His uneven gait led him toward the shadows of the bridge, away from the warmth of the fire, and right towards Morrigan.

  “Do you think that’s him?” Morrigan asked quietly.

  “I would say it is a strong possibility. Just be sure if you reap a client before their actual death that you confirm they are the correct one first.”

  Morrigan nodded and slid off the concrete block, then circled around the support column to stalk the man who was now disappearing around the other side. He made a gagging sound, fell to his hands and knees, then began wretching more violently. Morrigan looked over her shoulder; nobody in camp was so much as looking his way, but they must have heard him.

  Morrigan summoned her scythe and gripped it tight as she watched his body convulse. She was tempted to just take the swing and end his suffering, but as Noir had just warned, she had to be sure this was in fact the right person. Granted, all signs pointed to that being the case, but on the off chance she got it wrong, it would be killing someone who was just sick and not actually dying.

  Then, with one last heave, he fell to his side and rolled to his back. White foam was coming his mouth as a few last convulsions sputtered a few more bubbles from his lips. Then, he lay completely still with his eyes open.

  Morrigan closed her eyes for a moment and let out a breath. It seemed his spirit was not rising from his body, so no last words were necessary. She rose her scythe and then sent him on.

  As the glow of her scythe faded and Dwayne Katz’s soul drifted away, Morrigan took a moment to gather herself. The heavy silence of the camp pressed in around her, broken only by the distant crackle of the barrel fire and the occasional cough from one of the other residents.

  Just before she was going to turn away, her eyes drifted to his jacket pocket, where the corner of a cigarette pack was visible. “Shit…” she muttered under her breath as she kneeled down to get a better look.

  “Really?” Noir asked. “You’re considering it?”

  “It’s not like he’s going to need them anymore,” she muttered, slipping the pack out of his pocket. “Just insurance, in case I can’t think of a better way to deal with my little ‘social drama.’”

  I wonder if stealing something off one of my clients adds points on the sociopath scale…

  Noir sat, his glowing eyes unyielding. “You think this will resolve the situation?”

  “Just to buy some time. If they are serious, I really don’t want to get kicked out of the shelter. But why do you care so much all of a sudden anyway?”

  Noir said nothing, though his tail flicked once in response. Morrigan cast a final glance at Dwayne’s body, then stepped into the shadows, letting the darkness carry her away from the overpass.

  By the time she stepped free from the shadows, the bridge was far behind her, and she was in an empty open field. She slipped her phone out of her pocket to finally check that message from Emma.

  “Agent E has arrived at meeting point alpha. What’s your status agent M?”

  “We’re still doing the agent thing?”

  “Uh oh, someones in a mood.”

  Morrigan smiled slightly, though she didn’t really feel like smiling. That scene she just witnessed kind of killed any enthusiasm she could muster tonight.

  “Should be there in ten minutes,” Morrigan typed, then slipped her phone back into her hoodie pocket and stepped into the shadows once more.

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