When Charlotte woke up, she was curled up against Leroy's side with his arm wrapped around her, her face buried in his neck. Her cheeks flared up as she looked at Leroy, his hair falling into his face like it did every morning. She leaned over his chest to look at the clock on the bedside table next to him. It was five o'clock PM; they'd been asleep for ten hours. Charlotte took a deep breath and crawled out of bed to get dressed.
Charlotte took a long shower, letting the hot water run over her as she tried to clear her head. After four years, why did she just now feel uncomfortable with their sleeping arrangement? She didn't need to feel ashamed that she was comforted by his body warmth or that the smell of his skin made it easier for her to sleep.
But for the first time in years, she thought about Peter—really thought about him and everything he'd done for her. If there was a detective after her, she couldn't imagine that spelled anything good for Peter. He'd helped her, and she'd repaid him by not even being concerned for his safety. Why did she get to waltz off into the sunset with her strange Grim Reaper companion and leave Peter with the consequences of what she'd done?
With a sigh, she hopped out of the shower, dried off, and got dressed. When she emerged from the bathroom, Leroy was starting to wake up, stretching his tattooed arms over his head. He rubbed the sleep from his eyes and swung his legs out of bed, wrapping himself in his robe.
"Are you feeling better today?"
He smiled at her. "Much better. There are few things a good night's sleep won't fix."
"Does that happen every time you shadow travel?"
"Not every time, but each time is draining, and I don't usually have to take that many trips in such a short amount of time." He smiled at her, a big smile that showed his dimples and perfect teeth. "Worried about me, were you?"
"You're my friend, Leroy, of course I was worried about you."
He nodded and went into the bathroom to shower. He came back out sometime later, his wet hair falling into his face just as the detective woke with a start.
Charlotte sat up from where she'd been lying on the bed flipping through TV channels. "Um, what are we doing about him?"
After three trips to and from the car to be ready to leave, Leroy slipped into the driver's seat for once, but he didn't go straight for the highway. Instead he started taking random turns, driving until they were so lost in the wilderness that Charlotte was sure they'd never find their way back out. She didn't even know what state they were in, let alone how to get back to the highway. It wasn't until they were completely lost in the wilderness that Leroy pulled off the dirt trail into a small clearing in the trees.
He got out and grabbed the bat from the backseat before popping the trunk. The PI woke with a start when Leroy threw him to the ground.
"Good of you to join us," Leroy said as he gripped the metal bat tighter and squatted in front of the man. "I need some information from you, so if you cooperate, this'll be painless. If you don't, then I guess I get to blow off some steam. Either is fine with me, but I'm guessing your kneecaps won't feel the same way."
The man nodded.
"Great!" Leroy said, pretending to smile, "And if you'll notice, we are in the middle of nowhere. I'm going to take this gag off now, but don't think about screaming because that is just going to waste everyone's time. That'll make me mad, and then I'll have to hit you. Okay?" The detective nodded, so Leroy took the gag off. The man didn't bother to scream. Charlotte took this as a good sign. "Smart man. Are you the Jason Mallory who left the business card on my dining room table?"
"Yes, but you...you were dead. I saw you. I mean, they'd warned me you wouldn't stay that way, but I didn't believe it."
Leroy looked annoyed and muttered, "That's right, I was a tad bit dead, wasn't I? C'mon Jason, I need you to roll with the punches. Who hired you to follow us?"
"I don't know. I never got their name."
Leroy tsked at him and swiveled the bat around in his hands. "Jason how am I supposed to believe that?"
"I swear, I don't know! My instructions were given via text and I was paid from an untraceable wire transfer. I tried to find out who was paying me, but I needed the money and they were careful."
"What was the phone number?"
"It was one of those app-generated ones; not connected to a real cell phone."
Leroy turned around to look at Charlotte, his face scrunched up. "Is that a real thing?" he mouthed, and when she nodded, he turned back around to look at the detective.
"What information were you hired to give your client?"
"I was hired to find Holly Barnes and keep an eye on her until they gave the signal to bring her. If she ran, I was supposed to catch her and then bring her to a drop-spot."
"Where was the drop spot?"
"I would be told where to go once I'd caught her."
"What information did you pass along? You passed along our address, I assume. What about the photos you had in the car?"
The man shook his head.
Leroy clicked his tongue and cocked his head to the side. "Tell the truth now," he said as he stood up and swiveled the baseball bat around in his hands, the muscles in his jaw tensed and menacing.
"I am, I swear!"
"Let's see about that, shall we?" Leroy squatted back down and placed his hands on the sides of Mallory's face and closed his eyes. Charlotte watched in awe as red energy bursts flowed out of the detective and up Leroy's arms. The detective's body started to go limp and the color began draining out of him. With a sharp burst, Leroy pushed all the red energy back. Mallory flew backwards with the blast and gasped for air, all the color rushing back into his face.
"What the hell was that?!" Charlotte asked as Leroy ran his hands through his hair.
Leroy ignored her, instead looking at the detective with daggers for eyes. "What did I tell you about lying to me?"
Mallory's eyes got large and he started pleading with Leroy, but Leroy said nothing as he grabbed Mallory's shirt in his fists and disappeared.
A few minutes later, he reappeared alone.
Charlotte let out a squashed, distressed noise. "You...you just killed him! Why'd you do that? He was cooperating!"
"He lied. His client gave him the instructions to bring you in two nights ago. He's been sending them new photos of you—of us—all year. When you ran, he'd already been planning to pick you up and take you to the airport to meet them."
"How can you know that?"
"I looked into his memories."
"You can do that?"
"All I can really do is confirm something I already think they know, but yes."
"You just murdered someone. Do you even care?"
"Not even a little bit. I couldn't let him go report back to his client. We've got a head start and we need to make the most of it." He went back to the car and slipped back into the driver's seat.
"What was that glowing red stuff?" she asked, slamming the door to the car.
"That was his soul. Buckle up, we've got to hurry. We don't know what kind of precautions they might have had if he didn't show up."
Charlotte buckled her seat belt and looked over at him. "Why was it red?"
His jaw tightened, like he was disturbed by what she'd asked. "Different souls have different colors." He put the car in gear and turned around back the way they came, though Charlotte wasn't sure how he'd remembered which twists and turns he'd taken to get them there in the first place.
"How have I not heard anything about Grims? I mean, there are stories about all kinds of supernatural creatures. But people see other people die all the time! Why hasn't anyone come out and said anything about you guys?"
He shrugged, pulling out from between the trees and onto the highway. "People can't see us when we're collecting souls. It's not that we can all turn invisible or anything, it's like your brains are trained to not see us—to look anywhere but straight at us. You might see a Grim out of your peripheral vision but when you look again to check, it's gone. I've only known one human who could actually see me when I was collecting souls."
"Well then how could I see you just now?"
"I don't know, Char. It's not a good thing though, I'll tell you that much."
She sank back against her seat and thought about it as Leroy pulled onto the highway. "How did he find me?" she whispered.
"He snuck into the house and put a tracking device in that little flip phone of yours." A concerned look crossed his face, "Wait, do you still have that?"
"Yeah, it's in my bag." He pulled the car over onto the shoulder and dug through her bag until he found it. He pulled the back off of it but didn't seem to know what he was looking for. Instead of continuing to look, he threw it onto the ground and stomped it to little pieces under his boot.
"I meant how did he find me out here? When he found me in California over a year ago, how'd he do it?"
"Oh. That I don't know. I didn't look."
"Can you look again?"
He shook his head, "No, I can't, I'm sorry. If I'd been able to collect his soul after I killed him, then I could. But the shadow traveling caused him to dissolve."
Charlotte nodded and fell silent—that twisted up feeling of guilt in her stomach growing worse with each passing moment.
***
They had managed another hundred miles or so from the motel before the ancient coupe overheated and finally gave out. "How did you manage to find the shittiest car in Southern California?" Leroy groaned, leaning over the engine with acrid smoke billowing out from under the propped hood. He closed his eyes like he was deep in thought before opening them again to inspect the car's inner workings.
"I wasn't looking for quality. I was going for whatever I could take the fastest without anyone coming to look for it."
Leroy shook his head. "Well, we'd better go get another."
"Wouldn't a quick fix be easier?"
He raised his eyebrow at her, "There's a crack in the radiator, the water and coolant all leaked out, and the transmission is shot. It's amazing that we got this far."
"Okay fine let's go walk to the main street and look for used ones for sale."
Leroy laughed. "No, no, no. We will not be going any further in another shitty car." He went around to the back of the car, popped the trunk, and started digging around in the back for his duffel bag. After managing to throw his clothes out of his bag and all over the trunk, he pulled out three large stacks of cash and stuffed them into Charlotte's little cross body purse.
Black fog swirled around him and Marilyn Monroe stood in his place, her curves filling out Leroy's clothes so well that she looked like she'd just come off the set of a photo shoot. Marilyn took off Leroy's motorcycle jacket and placed it in the trunk.
"You killed Marilyn Monroe?"
"I did not kill her," Marilyn snapped at her, her voice squeakier than she'd expected. She dropped one hip and crossed her arms over her chest as a pouty expression broke out over her face, making her look just like Leroy.
"I don't get it," Charlotte said as she watched Leroy look at Marilyn's reflection in the car window, pulling his black shirt down to cover her midsection. "Couldn't you turn into a burly guy that can help us push the car?"
She waved her hand. "Screw this car," Marilyn's breathy voice barely disguised Leroy's annoyed inflections. "It's a piece of shit. We're getting a new one."
"How is Marilyn Monroe supposed to help us get a car?"
"She had a charm that could make people believe just about anything."
"Of course, she did. She was a sex symbol."
"Don't be gross—she was not."
Charlotte gave Leroy a funny look, surprised by his sudden modesty. "How is that supposed to help us? You've got a duffel bag full of cash. Isn't that enough?"
"I don't know if you're aware of this, but it's kind of sketchy to pay for a new car in stacks of cash. We wouldn't want anyone to think we did something illegal to get it. The last thing we need is the cops getting called on us." Charlotte was astounded by how much Leroy's mannerisms made the famous icon look like him. Charlotte leaned up against the car and watched as Marilyn threw the purse over her shoulder determinedly, "I'll be right back."
"Won't people recognize her?"
"Only on a subconscious level. They'll wonder why I look so familiar and by the time anyone even gets close to figuring it out, I'll be driving off in a new car." She lifted one sculpted eyebrow and disappeared with a wink.
Charlotte's breathing constricted, sure they'd be found out. She should have known better than to go along with Leroy's crazed plan. She just knew he wasn't right in the head. A hundred years of wasting time had to have messed up his psyche. She laid down in the back of the car and waited, not wanting to be seen on the side of the road. But after an hour of him being gone, she had gotten so nervous and tense that she had to jump out of the car and throw up.
Just then, a black Mercedes pulled over to the side of the road and Leroy stepped out. "Jeez, Charlotte. Eat something that didn't agree with you?"
Charlotte shook her head in amazement, wiping her mouth. "I can't believe that worked."
Leroy flashed that devilish smile at her, "Works every time. Have a little faith." He grabbed their bags out of the old car and threw everything into the trunk of the Mercedes.
Charlotte gave the old car an affectionate pat before slipping into the driver's seat of the new one. The air was tense and quiet with his secrets as Leroy crawled into the passenger seat and propped his feet up on the dashboard. She was more than a little disturbed by the fact that she was so at ease with a man who had just committed about ten felonies in the last twenty-four hours—and who she could only imagine had committed countless more over his century walking the earth.
She didn't start the car right away when he buckled himself in. "Leroy?"
He turned and looked over at her, distracted by trying to find where he'd left his half-finished pack of cigarettes. "Yeah?"
"Now that I know about the Grim thing, are you going to tell me anything about your life?"
He found them and stopped to light one and take a long drag before answering her. "What is it you want me to tell you?"
"Well, I guess first I want to know where the Grims come from?"
He sighed, "Well, I don't really know. I asked the same question some hundred years ago and I got the child answer."
"What do you mean by that?"
He rolled his eyes and adjusted his seating position to better look at her. "I was told that Merlin turned the Knights of the Round Table into the first Grims or something. It was over a hundred years ago, so forgive me if I don't remember the bedtime story super accurately."
"How do you know it isn't true?"
"Because I'm not twelve. I mean, really, Merlin? If there was ever some all-powerful wizard, why wouldn't there have been another one in the last two thousand years, hmm?"
She fell silent, not wanting to bring up her own father's saying that in every folk tale there was a truth that couldn't be explained any other way. "Do you think my dad knew about the Grims?"
"Why would you think that?"
"He was searching for Excalibur. He was convinced that Arthur and the Knights were real—that there was an ancient sword out there for him to find. Maybe he knew a Grim who told him the old legend and that's why he was so convinced he could find it."
Leroy's face twisted up in thought at that. "I don't know, Char. I guess it's possible. But I don't know what a Grim would have to gain from telling your dad all that stuff."
"They'd get to find Excalibur!"
"It's some dinky old sword. Why would they want it?"
She sighed. "I don't know."
"It's probably just a coincidence. Don't create conspiracies out of nothing."
He slunk down a little further into his seat, his eyebrows scrunching up. Something about the legend of the Knights and Excalibur made him uncomfortable. She cleared her throat and changed the subject.
"What did you want to do when you were alive...you know, before you became a Grim?"
"I would have done anything to keep myself from starving in the street. Next question," he said with a flourish, smiling and taking another drag of his ever-dwindling cigarette.
She took a deep breath to ask him her next question; one she'd wanted to ask him since she'd found out he was a Grim. "Have you ever been married?"
That roguish smile tugged up the side of his mouth. "Yeah, why?"
"You never date—or sleep around—even though you have plenty of opportunities. I just wondered if that was because you'd been in love or married before and it hadn't worked out."
His mouth twisted up to the side in thought. "When you've lived as long as I have—and will have to keep living on for eternity—it's hard to let yourself get attached to people. Grims aren't like all those other mystical creatures you asked me about. No matter how much I might love someone and want to protect them and spend forever with them, I can't turn them into a Grim. It's easier to go through life alone than to risk having a brief spot of happiness that'll be ripped from me no matter how hard I try to keep it safe."
She forced herself to look at him, worried about the emotion she might see on his face. He was looking down at his hands, blue eyes brighter than usual. "That's such sad way to go through life."
"Yeah, well, I've lost loved ones to death before. It hurt so bad that I didn't want to live any more. I couldn't breathe. I didn't know how I was going to force myself to get through a single day. I never want to feel that way again, so I'd rather not get attached to anybody at all."
Charlotte bit her lip, afraid to ask her next question. "Have you ever heard of Grims being able to raise the dead?"
He looked up at her, blue eyes boring into hers. "I'm sorry, Char, but no. They can't. And believe me—I looked."
"Then is there a way to contact the dead in...well, wherever they are? If I could just talk to my dad one last time..."
Leroy's warm hand covered hers. "There isn't, Char. I'm sorry. Believe me, I understand wanting a second chance to say goodbye. But life doesn't care whether or not we get closure, no matter how much we might need it."