فصل 14

14

Tyger and the Emerald Scythe

“You’ll have to do better than that, party boy.”

The wild-eyed, wild-mannered scythe in bright green kicked Tyger Salazar’s legs out from under him, and he hit the mat hard. Why did they call the flimsy thing a mat when it was every bit as bruising as the teakwood floor of the penthouse sundeck on which they sparred? Not that he minded. Even with his pain nanites dialed way down, he’d come to enjoy the endorphin rush that came with the pain of training. It was even better than splatting. Sure, jumping off high buildings could be addictive after a while, but so was hand-to-hand combat—and unlike splatting, fighting was different every time. The only variation he found in splatting was when he hit something on the way down.

He was quickly on his feet and sparring again, getting in enough good blows to frustrate Scythe Rand. He got her off balance, took her down, and laughed—which only made her angrier. That was his intent. Her temper was her weakness. Even though she was far better than him in the brutal martial art of Black Widow Bokator, her temper made her sloppy and easy to outsmart. For a moment he thought she might run at him and start brawling. When her temper took over, she pulled hair, gouged eyes, and ripped at every exposed bit of flesh with nails that could score stone.

But not today. Today, she kept her wildness in check.

“Enough,” she said, backing out of the circle. “Hit the shower.”

“You gonna join me?” Tyger teased.

She smirked. “One of these days I’ll take you up on your offer and you won’t know what to do.” “You forget I’m a professional partier. I know a thing or two.” Then he took off his sweat-drenched shirt, letting his sculpted torso serve as a visual parting shot, and sauntered off.

As he took his private shower, Tyger marveled at his enviable situation. He had fallen into something pretty sweet. When he arrived, he thought it would just be a normal gig. But there was no party, no guests besides him. It had been more than a month since his arrival, and the “gig” showed no signs of ending anytime soon—although he assumed if it truly was an apprenticeship, it would have to come to an end eventually. But in the meantime, he had the run of a lavish penthouse, and all the food he could eat. His only requirement was exercise and training. “Gotta buff out your body for the days ahead, party boy.” She never called him by his name. It was always “party boy” when she was in a good mood, and “maggot” or “meatbag” when she wasn’t.

Although she never confessed her age, he guessed it at twenty-five—and a true twenty-five. There was something about an older person who reset back to their twenties that made them easy to spot. There was a staleness to their youth. But the emerald scythe was going through life for the first time.

Truth be told, he wasn’t entirely convinced that the woman even was a scythe. She did have a scythe’s ring, and it appeared to be real, but he never saw her go out gleaning—and he knew enough about scythes to know they had a quota to fill. What’s more, she never met with other scythes. Wasn’t there some sort of meeting they were obliged to attend several times a year? Conclave, it was called. Well, perhaps this isolation was a Texas thing. Rules and traditions were different here than in the rest of the Mericas. They didn’t call it the Lone Star region for nothing.

Regardless, he wasn’t about to look this gift horse in the mouth. In a family where he had always been an afterthought at best, he had no problem being the center of someone’s attention.

And he was strong now.  Agile.  A specimen to be envied and admired. So even if it was all for naught, and the emerald scythe turned him loose without as much as a goodbye-and-thank-you, he could return to the party circuit without missing a beat—and with a build like he had now, he’d be in high demand. His ripped physique would make him high-end eye candy for sure.

And if he wasn’t let go, then what? Would he be given a ring and sent out to glean? Could he bring himself to do it? Sure, he had pulled his share of pseudo-lethal practical jokes—hadn’t everyone? He still smiled to think of his all-time best one. The diving pool at his high school had been drained for maintenance, and Tyger had the bright idea of filling it with holographic water. The school’s best diver went up to the ten-meter platform, and proceeded to do a perfect swan dive that ended in an unintentional splat. The moan he let out before he went deadish was classic. It was almost worth the three-day suspension and the six weekends of public service levied on him by the Thunderhead. Even the diver, after getting back from the recovery center a few days later, admitted it was a pretty good joke.

But deadish and dead were two entirely different things. Did he have it in him to end life permanently, and do it every day? Well, maybe he could be like that scythe whom Rowan had apprenticed under. Scythe Goddard—who knew how to throw great parties. If that was part of the job description, Tyger could handle the rest of it, he supposed.

Of course, Tyger wasn’t entirely convinced that this was an apprenticeship for scythehood. After all, Rowan had failed his apprenticeship. Tyger found it hard to believe that he could succeed where Rowan had not. Plus, Rowan had been changed by his experience. He had turned all dark and serious by the mental challenges he had been forced to face. There were no such mental challenges for Tyger. His brain was pretty much left out of it, and that was fine by him. It had never been his best organ.

Perhaps he was being trained to be a scythe’s bodyguard, although he couldn’t imagine why a scythe would need one. No one was stupid enough to attack a scythe, when the punishment was the gleaning of one’s entire family. If that turned out to be the case, he wasn’t sure he would accept the job. All the severity with none of the power? The perks would have to be primo for him to agree to do it.

• • •

“I think you’re almost ready,” the emerald scythe told him over dinner that night. Her bot had just served them each a lean slab of steak—and real steak, not the synthesized stuff. Natural protein was, after all, the best for building muscle.

“Ready for my ring, you mean?” he asked. “Or do you have something else in mind?” She offered him an enigmatic smile that he found more attractive than he wanted to admit. He hadn’t found her so when he first arrived, but there was something about the vicious, yet intimate nature of Bokator sparring that changed a relationship.

“If it’s for a scythe’s ring, aren’t there trials I have to face in conclave?” he asked.

“Trust me, party boy,” she said, “you’ll have that ring on your finger without ever having to go to conclave. You have my personal guarantee.” So he was going to be a scythe! Tyger ate the rest of his meal with gusto. It was both heady and chilling to finally know the nature of his destiny!