Theo Smith’s home was an ordinary row house with an ivy-covered fence in front and neatly kept flowers on the front stoop. Already, Elise was confused. They had come here to Brooklyn, yet the scene of the crime sat right at the edge of Harlem reaper territory. Why had a human been lurking there at all?
Elise allowed herself to consider that Layla’s claim about Theo—that he had not been human when she knew him—was in the realm of possibility.
“You should stay out here,” she told Layla. “His parents probably still think you’re involved in the murder, and I want them to feel like they can open up to me.”
Layla nodded and remained on the sidewalk. Elise climbed the front steps but turned back for a moment. She knew this area wasn’t far from the neighborhood where Layla had lived with her family; she watched the reaper for any sense of acknowledgment. But there was only a sharp bitterness in Layla’s eyes. Elise’s own memories were rife with familiarity; when her parents would come for tea at the Quinn home and Elise would follow Layla to the attic, where they would point at the stars through the tiny round window and make wishes.
To dance the lead in Swan Lake in Paris had always been Layla’s wish.
To perform her own original music throughout the world in front of an awe-filled audience had always been Elise’s dream.
Knocking on the door to the Smith house felt strangely familiar. In Paris, visiting friends involved strolling into different neighborhoods where they lived. There were no vengeful reapers after her in Paris, making her afraid to go out on her own. But here, back at home, chauffeurs drove her everywhere or else the Saint guards brought people to the house. She should have paid attention to the moment Paris began to feel more like home than Harlem.
A young Black woman with tired eyes opened the door. It was nearly midday, but she wore a silk robe and a scarf on her head, like she had just gotten out of bed. A pang of sympathy hit Elise; Theo’s mother was taking her son’s death like a physical blow.
“Theo isn’t home. He’s not coming home. Please stop coming by, and tell his other friends to stop coming by. I can send the funeral information, but I…” Her face went slack while she stared Elise down, as if she was just now seeing her clearly. “You’re not his classmate, are you? I don’t recognize you.”
Elise shook her head. “I’m Elise Saint. I’m here to see you, if I may please have a moment of your time.”
“Saint?” Mrs. Smith’s grip tightened on the door as she noticed Elise’s ring. “Can you help us?”
“I just have a few questions about Theo. I’m hoping your answers will help me figure out what happened to him,” Elise said.
But Mrs. Smith looked skeptical. “You look too young to… You’re even younger than my daughter, Millie.” She finally moved back and let Elise inside. The Saint name was well enough known throughout New York that it either roused resentment, or trust. Elise was lucky to have the latter on her side today.
“I’m sorry, I would offer you tea, but we ran out. It’s the only thing I can stomach right now.”
Once they were settled in the living room, Elise pulled out a notebook and pen. “When was the last time you saw Theo alive?”
A new wave of sadness seemed to crash over Mrs. Smith, her hands shaking while she wrung them together. “The day before it happened. He said he was going to stay the night with friends and that I would see him in the morning, but he never came home.” Her voice trembled. “I knew I should have made him come home. These damn reapers are killing us. Our poor children can’t be normal children.”
“I understand how that feels.” Elise swallowed hard, thinking of how just a few hours ago, Josi wept while she walked up the gangway to the ship. “That’s why I’m here today.”
Mrs. Smith took a deep breath before speaking again. “Theo was a very social young man. He was always with friends after school, sometimes even before school. It’s strange, I feel like I hardly saw him in the days leading up to…” Mrs. Smith’s voice caught. “His usual group of friends came by one day and they asked for him and I was confused because I thought he was with them. That’s when I found out he was hanging around new people. I thought he had joined a gang. He was spending so much time at the Cotton Club, and he came home smelling like alcohol.” She whispered the last words.
The anguish and fear in the woman’s voice was almost too much for Elise to bear. She desperately wanted to stop her, but she knew she needed to hear more. “Do you know the names of the people Theo was seeing at the Cotton Club?”
“I can’t be sure that he ever went in the club. You know that’s not allowed. But he associated with performers and people who supplied products there, I believe. Or so I’ve heard from neighbors,” Mrs. Smith said. “I really don’t…” She trailed off, pursing her lips as her eyes filled with new tears. “I’m not sure how much longer I can go on, Miss Saint.”
Elise leaned across the table and placed her hand over Mrs. Smith’s shaking ones. “Thank you for taking the time to speak with me. Would you mind sharing with me the information you’ve gotten from the police? Autopsy results, anything—”
Mrs. Smith’s frown deepened. “They have not stopped by yet. I’ve gone to the station, but they say they have other cases to take care of first.”
A sour taste filled Elise’s mouth at those words. Still, she stood, smiling gently. “I will get answers for you. I’m so sorry for your loss. I pray his soul is at peace.”
Layla was leaning against the fence when Elise left the house. “How did it go?” she asked.
Elise sighed. “As well as an interrogation of a grieving mother can go.” She paused on the sidewalk, thinking. “Mrs. Smith said Theo spent time outside the Cotton Club. But…why? He was a fifteen-year-old boy who probably had much better things to do.” She stiffened when she felt Layla lean close to her, her shoulder brushing her arm while she looked over the notes she’d taken.
“Maybe he worked there,” Layla said.
“Don’t you think his mother would have known that, though?” Elise asked.
Layla sighed. “Not if it was a speakeasy.”
“Right.” Elise swallowed. “Mrs. Smith said the police have not been by, nor have they helped her at the station. I thought…” She bit her lower lip as it trembled. “I thought we would assist on the case, but I think we’re the only ones who are invested at all.”
A low noise left Layla’s throat.
Elise blinked. “Excuse you.”
“I said ‘of course,’” Layla snapped. And despite the tough exterior she upheld, Elise saw pain darkening her eyes. “No one ever cares when it’s a Black body.”
Elise’s mind went back to the radio report she had heard the day after the murder. “The news opinions are all about how the country’s image is tainted by our growing reaper problem. Yet, there has been no call to action. Sometimes I feel like my family are the only people who care about fixing things,” she muttered.
Layla raised her eyebrows. “You cannot possibly be that delusional.”
“Excuse me?” Elise scoffed. “I’m delusional for believing in my family’s desire to do good for our community?”
“You are delusional to believe that anyone with as much power and money as your father would ever act purely on a principle of goodness. I know you’ve lived in a high-society bubble your whole life, so it might be difficult to believe, but the world is not so black and white. People are more than just good or bad,” Layla huffed out.
The conversation with Mrs. Smith still weighed so heavily on her that Elise did not have the energy to challenge Layla’s words. But her mind hung on to them, turning them over and over while she considered her family’s role in the spread of reaperhood. Everything her father did was to keep their family and Harlem safe. She had never considered the possibility of malice, or some ulterior motive behind his actions. Elise knew her father.
She snapped her notebook shut. “You are so keen on giving me every bit of information except for the proof I asked for,” Elise said coolly.
Layla’s eyes glimmered on Elise. “Okay, princess. I’ll get you your proof. Let’s go to the morgue and see how you do with a dead body.”
The morgue was just as Elise had imagined it to be. Cold and desolate. Antiseptic burned the inside of her nose while they entered the examination room. It was as if the scent of years and years of blood and rotting flesh still lingered, even if it had been cleaned up long ago.
“Damn. I’m kind of mad I didn’t get a Saint ring in the time I was a part of that cult because that thing gives you access everywhere. Imagine all the fancy clubs I could get into…” Layla said as they walked in.
Elise ignored her, reading the name tags in order to locate Theo’s body. “He should be in—Layla, wait,” she called when Layla left her side. But the reaper did not acknowledge her. Rolling her eyes, Elise approached a wall of body drawers. She made it through only two name tags before the insufferable sound of metal grinding on metal pulled her focus.
Layla peered down at a body bag in the drawer she’d opened. “I found him.” Her expression seemed painfully bored for someone in the presence of a dead body. “I recognized his scent. No matter how much you scrub at them, or how much bleach you lather on them, a person’s essence always remains.” She unzipped the bag and inhaled.
Elise wanted to gag. She shuddered and swallowed back bile. The scent of death and decay was rather subdued, but the mixture of cleaning chemicals almost did her in.
Layla, however, was as close as she could get, peering down at Theo, her fingers resting right on his ashen skin. “I can smell the Saint members’ blood in him. But there’s something else…” She looked up and smiled cruelly at Elise. Then she sank her nails into Theo’s throat.
Theo’s blood smelled purely human. His essence, though, was of himself and four other beings. The older Saint member, Thalia, and Layla. The fourth scent was unknown.
“He fed on someone before he died,” Layla said. She reached into his mouth, feeling a gap where his reaper fangs should have been. “He’s missing a tooth.” Layla gestured for Elise to look. Elise, hesitant at first, moved slowly into a position that allowed her to see inside his mouth.
“So he really bit them…” Elise said in a quiet voice. “Why would they hide this?”
“It’s easier to blame reapers for every problem,” Layla muttered.
Elise didn’t react. She continued to stare at Theo, her eyes shifting from sadness to anger. It took Layla a moment to remember that Elise’s friends were dead—likely at Theo’s hands. Death was a common visitor in Layla’s life. It became routine, a daily occurrence that she had grown numb to. She forgot most humans didn’t deal with the macabre as closely as she did. They got to enjoy the beautiful parts of life while reapers had no choice but to partake of the darkest aspects of living. The parts no one wanted to talk about, or acknowledge.
But even before becoming a reaper, Layla knew death was as important and necessary to life as living was. Being a reaper just made her appreciate it more.
Layla removed her hands from Theo’s mouth and zipped his body bag back up. “He might have fed on the Saints, but there is someone else he hunted that night. I can taste them.” She licked the remaining drops of blood from her finger. They were stale and bitter to the taste, but they confirmed her suspicions—there was someone else involved in the crime.
Layla sensed the blood rush in Elise’s cheeks. The Saint girl was uncomfortable. “You did not need to perform your own pseudo autopsy on him like that,” she muttered.
Layla resisted the urge to smile. She had never seen a Saint undone like this before. “Well, this is how reapers work. I told you it would be too much for you.” Her words carried a taunt.
Elise shot Layla a look over her shoulder, flat and unimpressed. Though she hadn’t managed to get a rise out of her, Layla was glad to no longer be scrutinized by those terrified eyes.
Elise reached for the clipboard hanging from Theo’s drawer. “This is how people work,” Elise said calmly. But as she read over the pages, her expression changed. Finally she looked up, a realization widening her eyes. “He went to the clinic for a reaper bite just before the murder. I saw him there… He looked really scared.”
Layla pressed her fingertips to her lips, thinking. “If he frequented the Cotton Club, there’s a chance he got involved with some bad people…or reapers,” she said.
Elise blinked. “So it’s true. There are reapers at jazz clubs.”