After another few hours of driving, the sky had started to lighten. Charlotte tried to stay as far away from Leroy as she could in the little car. It was uncomfortable since she was driving and still needed to keep a good grip on the steering wheel. She looked over at him in the pink light of the sunrise, studying his face. After an hour of sleeping in the car, he'd regained a bit of color and looked less sickly. Still a little pale, he gazed out the window in mild amusement as the highway scenery rushed past them.
Her eyes were beginning to droop from getting only four hours of sleep in the last two days. She was going to need to eat and get some rest soon; her back hurt from all the driving she'd done. But she couldn't rest until she knew what was going on—what kind of creature Leroy was and whether she could trust him.
"Leroy?"
"She speaks!" He didn't turn to look at her, still looking out the window at the horizon, tapping the door like he was paying more attention to the radio than to her.
"I'm getting hungry and tired. Are you ever going to tell me what happened back there?"
"I'm starving. Let's get breakfast first." She didn't want to go anywhere with him, but her growling stomach couldn't object.
They pulled off the highway into a Denny's parking lot. It was deserted just after sunrise. Leroy popped open the trunk and they looked down at the detective bound and gagged there. "Do you think he's still out?"
Charlotte looked at him, her jaw falling open. "How the hell should I know? I'm not the one who knocked him out and kidnapped him!"
Leroy cocked his head to the side before jabbing the man below the ribs. He flinched and let out a muffed cry. "Grab me the bat." Charlotte got it from the backseat and handed it to him. He took a quick look around the parking lot before striking the detective over the head. Leroy jabbed him again but this time he didn't even flinch.
With a satisfied nod, Leroy headed up to the entrance. Charlotte followed him with hesitation to the corner booth in the back. Leroy ordered a steak omelet and orange juice, while Charlotte got a grand slam and water. Their breakfast arrived, and Leroy ate with an enthusiasm she'd never before seen him have for food.
She couldn't help staring at him uneasily. He still seemed like the same Leroy she'd known for four years, the same Leroy who'd held her at night and who'd helped her at her most vulnerable. And yet, she could not relax without knowing what he was or what he could do. How much of the last four years had been a lie? What if she was just some kind of game to him? Or worse...some kind of prey.
"Please, Leroy, just tell me something. How'd you survive the gunshot? How can you just disappear into thin air like that? It isn't normal."
"Later, Char. I promise I'll answer all your questions later."
Throughout breakfast she kept her eyes glued to Leroy. Whenever he reached out to grab his glass or the salt and pepper, she watched him as best she could despite her drooping eyes.
The instant the door of the diner shut behind them, she asked again, "What are you?"
"How about we get some sleep first? I don't know about you, but I'm dead tired and not in the mood to make a lot of explanations..."
"Stop stalling, Leroy. I refuse to go anywhere else with you until you tell me what's going on."
He took a deep breath and said, "I'm going to preface this by saying that I'm still mostly human. Just not...all the way, one hundred percent human."
Charlotte crossed her arms over her chest. "Yeah I've got a pretty good handle on the human bit. It's the not all the way, one hundred percent part that still needs some explaining. So, what are you? A mutant? A witch? A vampire?"
He scrunched up his face in disgust. "Ugh, no. I'm..." He slumped his shoulders and sighed, "Well, I'm a Grim Reaper."
"Really? You're going to mock me for thinking you might be a vampire, but you're trying to convince me that you're the Grim Reaper? Like, cloak and scythe? Knocks on the door at the moment of your impending death? That Grim Reaper?"
He made a noncommittal gesture that was part nod and part shrug. "Well, it's not just me. There are a lot of us. And I don't have a cloak and scythe—the others do, but I never bought into it. Well, except for this one." He stretched his arm out, indicating the tattoo she'd been running her fingers over in speculation just days earlier.
At least that makes sense now.
"So, um, do you, like, walk people to the Pearly Gates? Arethere gates? Or is it like, a big hallway with a light at the end? Or...or what?"
"That's not how it works. I'm not a tour guide—I don't walk anybody anywhere. It's more like I'm a portal that sends the departed off to the afterlife or the darkness or their next life or whatever it is that happens after you die."
"How can you be a Grim Reaper and not know what happens after death?"
"Well, I've never crossed over myself, have I?"
"Were you...born like this?"
"No, I became a Grim when I died."
"How? Somebody bite you? Slip you their blood?"
He made an annoyed expression, "Again—not a vampire. Becoming a Grim isn't as easy as that. You have to have the Grim Reaper gene, and then it has to be triggered by an unexpected, traumatic death. It's impossible to become a Grim on purpose—which only makes the others even more self-righteous."
"Then how'd you die?"
He shook his head, "It was unexpected and traumatic, let's leave it at that."
"What happened when you died then? Did you just wake up later not dead like when Martin shot you?"
"I didn't even realize I had died for over a week. Figured I just got really lucky."
"Then what happened when a Grim came to kill you?"
He held up his index finger, "No, no, we don't kill people. Not often, anyway. We collectdeparted souls and send them off to the other side. There's a big difference."
"Okay, fine. What happened when the Grim came to collect you?"
"Nothing. There wasn't a Grim called to me. Souls can't be in two places at once—and I'm still kind of using mine."
"How do you know who you're supposed to collect?"
"Well, I sort of get sucked out of what I'm doing and transported where I'm needed. I don't know why certain Grims are pulled for certain people. That wasn't part of my training. It's pretty random except for friends and relatives."
She scowled at him. "It seems like there's a lot you don't know. How long have you been doing this, anyway?"
He looked at her, his demeanor borderline embarrassed, shoving his hands into his pockets. "I'm still pretty new at it. I've only been a Grim for about a hundred years."
Charlotte choked on her own spit in surprise. "Excuse me?Only a hundred? You're...you're over a hundred years old? What year were youborn?"
"1889."
Charlotte couldn't help feeling icky knowing that for the last four years she'd been living with a man over a hundred years older than her; a man born before the creation of the atomic bomb, before automobiles, before radio even. She sat down on the curb in shock, feeling like the wind had been knocked out of her, not sure how to respond. Being a Grim Reaper and having magic powers was one thing but being older than dirt might just be more than she could handle.
"I know it's a lot to take in..." Leroy said, moving over from where he'd been standing to squat down in front of her. He held his hands out to her, palms up, giving her the choice whether or not to take them. After hesitating a few moments, she placed her hands in his. "And I'm sorry that you had to find this out when you were already scared. But I'm still the same person you've known for years...with a few more quirks than you thought."
"You call teleporting a quirk?"
He gave her a nervous smile, "I mean...in Grim circles it's called shadow travelling, but...yeah."
She took a deep breath, "What else can you do? Super speed? Super strength?"
He shrugged. "I can shape shift a little."
"A little? What does that mean?" She asked, narrowing her eyes at him.
"Well, I can only shape shift into people whose souls I've collected."
"That's still pretty cool," she said, scooting so she was sitting at the edge of the curb. "Show me."
Leroy sighed and looked around, apparently worried about shape shifting in the middle of the Denny's parking lot—deserted or not. But she crossed her arms over her chest and made it clear she wouldn't go anywhere with him until he did it. In a thick flurry of black fog, Leroy Whitten was gone and squatting in front of her instead was a young Marlon Brando.
"No shit! That's really cool. Can all Grims do that?"
In another flurry of fog, Leroy stood in front of her again. "Just me. Each Grim has an extra skill than the others. My bonus is shape shifting. Knew a guy who could turn invisible. Heard of another guy who got the short end of the stick and all he could do was predict the weather. Didn't even use it to become a weatherman. Things like that. Some bonuses are more useful than others."
"So how does the teleporting work? Could we, like, shadow travel to Philadelphia if I wanted a decent cheesesteak?"
"Not if you wanted to live after. Shadow travelling rips apart every molecule in your body and reassembles them at your destination. Humans can't heal like Grims can—shadow travelling would kill them."
"Oh. Well then let's not do that."
Leroy nodded sarcastically and stood, holding his hand out to help her up. "Now, if you don't mind, I'm exhausted and I'm sure you are too, so let's go find someplace to sleep."
"Do you even need to sleep?"
"Like I said—pretty much human. Minus the immortality thing."
They walked over to the car, and she crawled into the driver's seat. He slipped into the passenger side and clicked on his seat belt, he turned to look at her and furrowed his brows at the look on her face. "What?"
"Do you have an immortality loophole? You know, vampires have stakes and werewolves have silver bullets. What kills a Grim?"
"There is no loophole. Nothing can kill a Grim."
"Wait—so every Grim that has ever existed is roaming around?" He nodded. "But...immortality could be horrible. What if a Grim wanted to die?"
Leroy looked out the windshield, a far-off look in his eyes. "Immortality is horrible. All you can do is try to make it hurt as little as possible and find a way to cope with eternity."
"I mean, I totally get it—I wouldn't want to live forever. But there's got to be a better way than just coping with it—you could do more with your eternity than just killing time."
He shrugged. "I suppose—but without the threat of dying, life becomes meaningless. There's nothing to drive you to do anything. You have an infinite amount of time, so you tell yourself you'll do it the next day, but then you never do. Even the accomplishments you might make mean nothing because you've sacrificed nothing to achieve it. You still have an eternity to do everything else you could ever want to do. And, well, if you didn't want to do anything in the first place, you're already one step behind."
Despite the depressing subject matter, Charlotte couldn't help smiling a little—it was the largest glimpse into his past that he'd ever given her.
They found a motel nearby and got the only open room. Leroy ran in and got their key and then they parked at the back by their room. They took their bags in first, then Leroy grabbed the extra blanket out of the closet and wrapped the PI in it and carried the unconscious man with some effort into the room. Leroy tied him up to the air conditioning unit as he started to wake up, not allowing him to move an inch.
Charlotte showered and changed into pajamas and came out of the bathroom to find that Leroy was sitting in the middle of the king-sized bed, flipping through the TV channels, the detective's eyes glued to her. "Am I supposed to sleep with him watching me?"
Leroy shrugged, "No I guess not." He rolled off the bed, kicked the guy in the head and went to the bathroom to change. Charlotte settled into the right side of the bed, looking at the unconscious detective before picking up the remote and putting on Friends reruns.
Leroy came staggering out ten minutes later clean and wearing his pajama pants and usual robe. He was gripping the side of the wall trying to keep himself upright as he dragged himself to the bed.
"Whoa, what's the matter with you?" she asked, hurrying to her feet to help him.
"The shadow travelling isn't just super painful, it's exhausting. But I had to go back to get some of my things unless I wanted to sleep in sweaty, bloody clothes."
Charlotte helped tuck him into the bed and then slipped into the other side. Leroy closed his eyes as soon as he hit the mattress. Instead of scooting over into the middle of the bed and curling against him as she always did, she slept along the edge of the bed, still uneasy about how little she knew about the man she shared it with.