Grim Reaper's Arc

Chapter 4 of 4

The floor cracked open. Grim Reaper stepped back as stone split down the middle of the ring. Heat poured up. The kneeling courtiers pressed their faces to the ground. From the pit rose a shape wearing the Devil's face, half-formed, red light leaking through its skin. The escaped half-soul had climbed up to answer the twin Grim Reaper had spent. It fixed empty eyes on the thief who ruled its court. "You poured out my other half," the Devil said. "Now I take yours." It raised a claw and the broken hall grew dark. The dead courtiers did not move to help. They watched their old master and their new one, waiting to see which would still stand. Grim Reaper lifted the scythe, but the blade was cold and empty now. No light answered. The Devil laughed and swung. The blow threw Grim Reaper across the platform and into a fallen pillar. Bone struck stone. The scythe skidded away over the cracked floor. Then a shot cracked through the hall. The Devil staggered. A red-haired woman stood in an archway, a compact handgun raised in both hands. She wore a red leather jacket and a hard smile. Grim Reaper had never seen her before, but she was firing at the Devil, and that made her useful. "Get up, bones," she called. "I didn't climb down here to watch you lose." She fired again. The rounds punched into the Devil's soft red skin and bought Grim Reaper three seconds. The woman moved along the wall, drawing the Devil's eyes off the platform. "Ruby Bost. I hunt things that crawl out of holes. You're welcome." Grim Reaper grabbed the scythe and understood the trap in a breath. The empty blade could not kill this thing. But it could still harvest. Grim Reaper had spent the first half to win the court. The second half stood before them now, whole enough to catch. "Keep it looking at you," Grim Reaper called. Ruby fired her last rounds and swore. The Devil turned toward her, claw raised. Grim Reaper crossed the platform and swung the scythe into its back. The blade bit deep. Red light rushed up the shaft and filled the cold steel. The Devil shrieked and folded inward, dragged into the blade. Then the light guttered out halfway. The Devil's shape thinned but did not vanish. The scythe held only part of it. The rest tore free and dove back into the pit, screaming down through the broken floor. The soul had split a second time. Grim Reaper stood over the closing crack, scythe warm again, half a soul caught inside. The court had a captured Devil-soul once more. But the deepest half had escaped again, deeper now, angrier. Ruby lowered her empty gun and looked at the throne above the wreckage. "So," she said. "You're the new landlord. We should talk about what's still down there."