A Book of Dust and Breath

Chapter Thirty Two

Monsters filled the streets. They poured out of the brightly lit houses in twos and threes, joining together on the sidewalks under the watchful eyes of their mothers who warned them not to eat any candy until there has been a chance to examine it.

Max understood that the rituals around the autumn festivals had grown modern and frivolous, but he struggled to shake the unease that had gnawed at his belly every year on All Hallow's Eve. The night preceding the day of costumes and candy did little to help.

Harriet had tugged him into the void shortly before 3:00 am to send him on a reap--Bruce Smith, a ninety-four-year-old man in a farmhouse eleven miles from where Max lived.

He left a note for Lily and set off, relieved to be sent anywhere that wasn't the demon-infested city. Of course, the Host had descended to deal with that mess, but they, too, were often troublesome. Not all the created were as friendly toward the half-mortals as Daniel and Delwyn. If reaping under the noses of the hounds of Hell weren't bad enough, he often ended up enduring snide insults from Heaven's warriors as well.

The Harley ate the miles between the two isolated homes. Two raccoons, an opossum, and a field mouse scurried out of the path of the roaring machine as he drove.

The house stood like an enormous wooden block in the center of a rustling wilderness of drying corn. If any paint remained on the weathered grey walls the moonless dark of night hid it behind a veil of gloom. Max climbed creaking wooden steps and entered another decade.

Presumably, in 1970, the countertops had shone a bright, sunny yellow and the patterns on the wallpaper stood out in gaudy golden splendor. Now, in the dim glow of a cracked nightlight, the whole room looked like the crusted insides of a mustard bottle left open in the fridge for too long.

He passed the Formica-top table with its buffet of prescription and over-the-counter pill bottles and entered a living room where the sofa had been replaced with a hospital-style bed. The old man clutched the railing of the bed. "No!" His fever-bright eyes looked directly at Max. "You can't make me go. I won't go."

Bruce was going whether he wanted to or not, slipping away from life with about as much fanfare as he'd lived it, apparently. Max slipped his hands into his pockets. "It doesn't really work that way."

"I won't go. I'm staying here. I'll..." he broke into a horrific fit of wet, body-wracking coughs. Gasping, he insisted, "I'll be a ghost. I don't care. I won't go."

Max waited.

The man grasped the railing tighter. The coughing returned, took on a new urgency, each round of barking exhales broken by a series of weak, shuddering inhalations. Even gasping for breath, the man continued shaking his head.

"Don't run," Max said, drawing close to the bed. "It'll only make it harder for both of us."

The man's body collapsed back onto the bed and his true self departed the broken shell. The heavily muscled youth rolled from the bed as Max lunged toward him and ran.

Max cursed through gritted teeth and chased him out the back door and into the pitch black night. If he'd followed the road, tracking him would be no issues. His shining blue aura would glow like a beacon, racing through the darkness, but he dodged into the corn instead, his light hidden within the wilderness of rustling leaves.

Max crashed in behind him and slowed to a stop. He could be right behind his quarry or running in a completely opposite direction. He closed his eyes and listened. The dry brown leaves whispered their dying words. Tiny feet, mice or opossums perhaps skittered across the hard-packed earth. A snake's sibilant slither stood out.