A sharp pain in his ribs jolted Oz out of a restless sleep. It took him a few tries to take a successful breath.
“My spot.”
An old black woman covered in several layers of mixed, unwashed clothes stood over Oz with a large stick in her hand, poised to strike.
“The fuck is your problem, lady?”
She whacked him in the thigh. It stung down to his ankle.
“You’re in my spot.” She raised the stick a third time.
“Okay, okay.” Oz stood on shaky legs. “Fine. Take it.”
The woman slid onto the bench and pulled a frightened looking kitten from between her massive breasts and stroked its matted head while she hummed.
He was technically an instrument of death. A deliverer of judgment. And now a crazy cat lady ordered him around. The world had officially gone to pot.
The sun had moved high enough in the sky to be annoying. He wanted sleep. He wanted to curl up into a ball and disappear.
“Boy, you done fucked up,” crazy cat lady said.
“Pardon?”
“You don’t end up sleepin’ on a bus bench—someone else’s bus bench—‘cause you done everything right in your life.”
Crazy cat lady and a magus.
“So what do I do?”
“Simple. Stop fuckin’ up.”
“That’s not simple.”
Crazy Cat Lady glared. “Sure it is. Stay away from my bench.”
“Okay.”
It was that simple, and it wasn’t. He could go back to doing what he was supposed to, but then what? He didn’t have that unnoticeability anymore so there was slim chance he’d be able to go within five feet of the people whose Bas needed collecting. And even if he did, there was still the matter of those who he let the wolves steal. Ethan’s friend was dead because of him—his cowardly inability to do what was required. Oz doubted the reapers were a forgiving crowd. He’d be judged swiftly and with prejudice.
What exactly had he been trying to accomplish anyway? Maybe, in the back of his mind, he wanted to force the hand of judgment.
He wasn’t so sure he wanted that anymore.
His inaction had given some kind of power to the wolves. They didn’t hesitate like they used to. They attacked without reason. In his effort to avoid killing, he’d made it easier for them to do so. Bard had been right. The balance that both he and Cora mentioned was thrown, Oz could feel it, and he didn’t know if it was something he could correct on his own. But he had to try, and he hoped that they didn’t come looking for him before he succeeded.
* * *
They had a distinct smell—the wolves. Rotten meat, worse than any back-alley dumpster or sewer. The other reapers were oblivious to it, but Bard’s nose was sensitive, or maybe he’d only grown to detest it more.
He smelled it the moment Smalls had gone on to his next pick.
Across the street from the restaurant a young couple and their two small children licked ice cream cones. The smaller child was having trouble keeping the ice cream from dripping down his hand. His father struggled to get it under control with the tiny napkin afforded to him by the shop. After handing off his cone to his wife, he walked back inside. An otherwise innocuous shadow along the wall crept in behind him.
Bard raced across the street and when he reached the door, he pulled the handle but the door was stuck fast. He peered inside through cupped hands. The shadow peeled from the wall and took the shape of a wolf. It stalked closer to the father who was ripping napkins from a silver dispenser.
Bard banged his fist on the glass door. “Hey! Get out of there!”
The wolf looked back over its shoulder and sneered.
“Why don’t you come out here and face me you smelly fuck!”
Bard rammed his shoulder into the door.
The wolf snorted a great puff of steam before leaping onto the father, jaws gaping wide. Blood splashed across the glass.
Bard covered his ears against the mother’s screams.
They’d been scavengers, picking on the remains of what the reapers didn’t get to in time or left behind out of some foresight or mistake. Now the air was different. The wolves had become hunters.
He’d bet his fate that Oz was the reason.
* * *
Without his anonymity, Oz wouldn’t starve, but he’d grown so used to eating again that his body tricked him into thinking he required it. He had no money and owned nothing aside from the clothes on his back. He had the typewriter, too, but that was back at the apartment. Oz imagined a legion of reapers waiting just inside the door for him to return so they could—kill him? He was already dead, but he knew from rumors and spending time with Bard that there were things worse than death.
During a stroke of hopeful naiveté, Oz entered a busy coffee shop looking for some caffeine to shake his system awake, but as he reached for another patron’s order, he found his hand slapped, viciously, by a middle-aged woman in sweat pants. Angry looks from the barista and other customers shamed him back onto the street.
People were serious about their coffee, apparently.
Oz didn’t dare attempt the same at a restaurant.
His stomach gurgled and ached. He was tired; his back stiff from sleeping on a cold bench, and if he didn’t eat soon his stomach might cave in on itself.
After a long day of walking and grumbling Oz finally found the highway. He trudged alongside the concrete guardrail. Just when he was certain his legs would drop off, he reached the exit for downtown. Although this put him in dangerous proximity to where Bard and Cora were probably looking for him with torches and pitchforks, he didn’t have a choice. At least that instinct still functioned. He worried that he’d be disconnected from whatever powers were at work and never be able to put his (possibly) redeeming plan into action.
At the bottom of the exit ramp a thin man coated in stink and patches of grime held a sign over his chest that read, Anything helps. Even your indifference.
When he was alive, Oz was fickly charitable, only giving to beggars if they displayed clever slogans on their cardboard signs. He regretted having nothing to put in this man’s SOLO cup.
Oz met his eyes and gave him a nod of acknowledgement. The man waved him over.
“You look rough,” the man said.
Oz couldn’t tell if he was being ironic. “It’s been a long day.”
“Ain’t even lunch time yet and it’s that bad already? Man, I don’t envy you.”
Oz nodded.
“You fucked up.”
“Glad everyone got the memo.”
The man chuckled, fanning himself with his sign. “Good that you’re keeping your sense of humor. Good thing to have when you’ve got nothing else.”
“Well, I’m fixing it.”
“Sure, buddy. Here.” The man dug a small, zippered pouch from his back pocket and pulled a ten dollar bill from it. “You look like you need this more than me.”
Written across the top of the bill in bold, block letters: get a job.
“Talk about mixed signals,” Oz said.
“That’s the truth. I don’t need that negativity. Go get something to eat. Wash up in the bathroom or something before you fix whatever needs fixing.”
“Thank you,” Oz said, slipping the bill into his pocket.
The Universe, it seemed, was working with him, rather than against him. He had hope.
Oz continued along a bland road into town and the sky darkened.
He stopped once for a bagel and large coffee. As he waited in line with his sweaty, crumpled ten dollar bill he felt the urge pulling at the back of his brain to continue into town. It seemed he could deviate from the joystick pull, but only for so long before it became physically painful. At the register, he added an individual packet of Aspirin to his breakfast.
The bagel tasted like pale nothing but it took up space in his stomach, which helped. The caffeine focused his mind enough that he could ignore the hammering of his heart as he crossed into the one-way grid of downtown.
It was a strange feeling going from knowing that no one could see him to knowing that everyone could see him. The sidewalks were mostly deserted, but Oz couldn’t help feeling that every person he passed followed him with their eyes. He might have been paranoid. Or it might have been the fact that he looked and smelled like he’d woken up in a ditch.
Oz wasn’t comforted by the fact that the wolves weren’t following him. It could’ve meant that they already arrived to wherever he was being lead, and if they had, he wouldn’t be able to stop them. Didn’t even know if they could be stopped.
It was simultaneously reassuring and frustrating that the urging pushed him to St. Joseph’s Hospital. On the one hand, it would be difficult to get into the room he needed to be in without drawing unwanted attention. On the other, at least he wouldn’t have to watch a woman poison her husband again. Maybe, just this once, it wouldn’t be a violent, bloody ordeal. He silently wished for someone who would pass in their sleep.
He walked toward the Emergency Room door, but was steered the opposite direction, to the Starlight Children’s Wing. Oz stared at the automatic doors from a distance for what felt like an eternity.
This is what I get, Oz thought. A kid. Talk about karma.
He was doing the right thing, though. He had to keep thinking it or this would never work.
Inside, a woman in scrubs typed behind a desk and violins played Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star softly over the speakers. Orchid plants dotted small waiting room tables but they did nothing to cut the sting of disinfectant permeating the air.
The woman didn’t look up when Oz sneaked past her toward the bank of elevators.
The doors closed in front of him. Oz had no idea which floor button to push.
He waited for a hint, but received none. His lucky number was six. Oz jabbed the button for the sixth floor and the elevator jolted to life. The doors opened at the Intensive Care Unit.
A large desk took up half the length of the hallway, occupied by one medical assistant and several nurses doing nurse-things. The doors to the ward were closed tightly. To get in, Oz would have to find an ID badge or wait for someone to leave.
The woman at the bottom of the tower hadn’t even looked at him. His new intentions might have returned his ability to fly below the radar.
He walked with an intense straightness, eyes fixed forward, hoping that if he drew as little attention to himself as possible, he could pass through. Just as he laid his palm against the door he was stopped by a nurse. She was taller than Oz and held herself like she’d been a gladiator in a past life.
“Excuse me, sir. Can I help you?”
The road to Hell is paved with good intentions.
Oz suddenly became aware of how awful he looked. Awful and conspicuous. He was dirty and was sure he smelled like BO and old food. Why can’t people smell their own stench?
“Me?” he asked.
The woman raised an eyebrow. He lost points with one word.
“Yes. You. Do you have a visitor’s pass?”
“No. Do I need one?”
“If you want to go into the ICU, then yes.”
“I see.”
Oz approached the desk and attempted a winning smile. Charm was not something he was ever good at. She wasn’t swayed.
“Name?”
He blanked. “I’m here to see... my nephew. John?”
It was a common enough name. There had to be a John on the floor somewhere.
“John what?”
“John Smith.”
John Smith, world’s most common name and the first name he could summon under pressure.
“There’s no John Smith on this floor. Perhaps you want to try with the receptionist downstairs?”
Seriously?
Like a ghost, a wolf flickered in Oz’s peripheral vision.
“Look, you have to let me in,” Oz said, a little too urgently. The woman placed a hand on the phone next to her computer screen.
“Try downstairs, sir.”
The wolf sniffed at the door. Yellow smoke erupted from its nostrils.
Oz considered his next move. It looked like he and the wolf were at the same disadvantage – neither could walk through walls. But the wolf was still invisible to the nurse, whose hand hovered over the phone, waiting for some sign that she ought to call security. He was using all of his brain power to concoct a very good reason why she should let him through when the doors swung open and a very tired looking couple exited the ICU. The wolf bounded inside, and faced with no alternative Oz followed as fast as his legs could carry him. The woman screamed for security as the doors closed.
Oz had one chance. He could not afford to screw it up. Oz ran even as his calves screamed for rest. The wolf was fast, but Oz was fast enough not to lose it. He rounded a corner into a long hallway, dodging medicinal carts and confused nurses. Only one door was open on that floor.
But he wasn’t fast enough. Oz skittered into the doorway just in time to see the wolf rip the Ba from Jamie’s body. And as quickly as it’d appeared, it was gone, leaving Jamie’s bent corpse behind.
Oz collapsed in a heap in the doorway. He blacked out just as a herd of footsteps surrounded him.