The Blunt Reaper

Voss released her, and Mara moved at once. She did not run. Running might have convinced one of the surrounding Reapers to intervene, and dropping either object would have been disastrous. Instead, she walked steadily toward Rook with the sphere held in one hand and the bottle raised in the other.

No one tried to stop her.

Rook watched her approach with an expression caught somewhere between anger and disbelief. His gaze remained mostly upon the lure.

Mara stopped in front of him. The chain between them was gone.

She looked up at him. "Our contract is finished. Why are you still here?"

Rook stared at the bottle. "You stole something from my coffin."

"That doesn’t answer the question."

"I’m deciding how much trouble it would be to take it back."

Mara smiled and stepped closer. She leaned toward his ear, keeping her voice low enough that no one else could hear.

"Help me."

The contract snapped into existence.

Pale light wrapped around Mara’s wrist and crossed the space between them before burying itself in Rook’s blackened arm. The Brand flared, and the chain formed with enough force to pull them half a step closer together.

Rook stared at it while Mara moved behind him before the Last Watch understood what had happened.

"You have got to be fucking kidding me."

Voss’s face twisted beneath the cowl. "How? There aren’t any Abominations here!"

Mara raised the bottle from behind Rook’s shoulder. "There is no need for them to be here."

"That isn’t how the contract works."

"The rule never said the danger had to be an Abomination," she replied. "I had to be in danger, ask for help and be heard by the nearest Reaper."

"There are many of them here, it could have been anyone!" Rook said.

"That’s why i whispered it."

"You ended the previous contract!" Voss said

"And then I asked for help again." She smiled

"You created the danger yourself." he replied

"No. You grabbed me by the throat. That part was entirely your decision."

Voss looked toward Rook. "You knew she was going to do that."

Rook was still staring at the newly formed chain. "Nope."

"You expect me to believe this surprised you?"

"I thought she had a plan. I didn’t know it was this irritating."

Mara touched the sphere in her hand. The darkness within it had gathered once more along the surface nearest Rook. "It worked."

"That is considerably worse."

The Brand burned brighter when one of the Last Watch stepped toward them. Rook felt the warning immediately and turned, causing the Reaper to stop before completing the movement.

"Careful," Rook said. "She’s contracted again."

Voss pointed at Mara. "She exploited the rule."

"Sounds like the rule works."

"You know what this means."

"Yes." Rook returned the knife to his coat and lifted the coffin onto his back. "It means I’m obliged to protect her from you."

"I want my sphere back."

Mara tucked it carefully inside her coat. "It was never yours."

"I pulled it from the Abomination."

"Rook opened the body."

"My people restrained it."

"Last I saw rook was the one doing the restraining, your people only threw rope."

Voss looked between them. "You two have known each other for less than a couple days, and you’re already insufferable."

"Give us time," both rook and mara said at the same time.

Rook caught Mara by the shoulder and moved her toward the eastern road. "Keep your guard up. We need to leave the Bastion before he decides losing half his people is worth trying again."

Voss’s Reapers shifted around them, and the contract reacted. Pale light tightened between Rook and Mara while the Brand spread a faint heat through his arm. Rook placed one hand upon the coffin, ready to pull the first weapon he touched.

No one attacked.

The lure remained visible in Mara’s raised hand, and every member of the Last Watch knew what would happen if the glass struck the ground during the fight.

Voss watched them pass through the broken eastern gate. "Next time, you won’t escape."

Rook adjusted the coffin against his back. "You’ve said that three times now."

"One day, I’ll mean it."

"That explains why it hasn’t worked."

Mara followed Rook onto the road beyond the ruins. The scattered lantern light weakened behind them, replaced by the darkness outside the Bastion. She waited until the Last Watch could no longer easily reach them before lowering the bottle.

Rook held out his hand. "Give me that."

"No. I like it, very shiny."

"You nearly called every Abomination in the city."

"But I didn’t."

"That isn’t reassuring."

"It worked."

"That is even less reassuring."

Mara moved the bottle away when he tried taking it. "You should be thanking me. I recovered the memories, escaped Voss and renewed our contract."

"I didn’t want the memories, I was already planning to kill Voss, and the contract is the part I like least."

"You’re welcome."

Rook glanced back at the ruined gate. Several figures remained beneath the blue lanterns, watching them leave.

"Keep the bottle inside your coat," he said. "If anything sees it, smells it or senses whatever filth is inside, we’ll have more problems than Voss."

Mara carefully returned the lure to her pocket. "I thought you said Abominations couldn’t see lantern light."

"The bottle isn’t a lantern."

"I knew that."

"You also stole it without knowing what it did."

"I saw one like it in the shop, under, Abomination Lure. Get this, someone wrote under it "If it fails, demand a refund. If it works, you won’t be able to."

"Must have gotten changed, the one I remember said; break the glass to make your final mistake everyone’s problem."

"Oh, that one is more dreary. I like."

"Anyway, stop grabbing stuff from my coffin. Everything in my coffin is dangerous."

"That was how I narrowed it down."

Rook stopped walking. Mara took another step before the contract pulled faintly between them. She turned and found him staring at her with exhausted disbelief.

"What?"

"You searched my coffin while I was fighting a Fourth Rank."

"I was hiding behind it. There wasn’t much else to do."

"You could have remained hidden."

"I did. I searched it while hidden."

Rook closed his eyes briefly before resuming his walk. "When we leave the city, you’re giving it back."

"We have left the city."

"When we’re farther away."

"How far?"

"Far enough that breaking it won’t become my immediate problem."

"That distance doesn’t exist."

"Then I suppose you’re keeping it."

Mara smiled and followed him into the dark, carrying the corrupted memories of a creature that had known Rook while he was alive. Behind them, the blue lanterns of the Eighty-Sixth Bastion slowly disappeared among the ruins.