Reaper by Katrina Monroe

enough light for Oz to see Bard struggle
to pin the woman to the ground.
    The two tumbled over and on top of each
other. Bard had the disadvantage of attempting to hold onto the
knife with one hand, while the woman fought back. Bard caught both
of her hands in his grip but she leaned up and dug her teeth into
the soft part of his forearm. She didn’t let go until he punched
her in the temple with the hilt of his knife.
    A trickle of blood dripped from her forehead.
She lay motionless.
    Bard straddled her hips, taking deep gulps of
air. He bled from the gnarled gash in his arm, but he ignored it.
He raised the knife above his head, using both hands to grip it.
The flash of a passing car’s headlights glinted in the blade. Just
before he brought it down, Oz lunged, catching Bard under his
armpits and drove him into the carpet. The knife skipped across the
floor into the kitchen where it twirled beneath a small table.
    “The fuck are you doing?” Oz sat on Bard’s
back and drove his face into the carpet. “You’ve lost it,
Bard.”
    Bard spasmed hard, attempting to thrust Oz
from his back. Oz tipped backward just enough for Bard to gain
leverage. His hand slipped from Bard’s head, which Bard immediately
rammed upward and into his jaw.
    Oz’s teeth crunched and his head rang.
    “You will not fuck this up,” Bard hissed and
threw himself on Oz. “It has to happen.”
    Bard swung without discrimination. Oz held
his hands over his face. His stomach and chest took the brunt of
Bard’s punches. One final jab to Oz’s solar plexus threw him
forward. He was paralyzed on all fours, dry-heaving.
    The girl groaned.
    Oz tried to crawl but pain ripped down his
body.
    Bard already had the knife back in his hand.
He delivered a final kick to Oz’s gut, and then he squatted over
the girl’s now gently squirming body. He plunged the knife into her
chest.
    The girl shuddered once. Gurgled. Blood ran
between her breasts, down her stomach and pooled around her.
    Oz vomited then fell to his side, unable to
tear his eyes from the blood seeping toward him.
    Bard tucked the knife into his pants and
wiped his nose with the back of his hand, smearing red across his
cheek.
    “Find a match,” he said.
    “Fuck you.”
    “Fine.”
    Bard scoured the kitchen, ripping drawers
from their tracks and throwing open cabinets before he returned
with a palm-full of matches. He struck one against the coffee table
and held it next to her hair until it caught.
    “Come out, come out, you stubborn bastard,”
he whispered.
    In seconds, her hair was engulfed and
scalding down her face until her flesh was no longer
recognizable.
    Bard threw a coaster from the coffee table at
Oz.
    “Let’s go, unless you want to get burned up
with her.”
    Oz half crawled, half stumbled, from the
apartment to the sidewalk, and coached himself to breathe. He
collapsed onto the curb. Bard lit a cigarette and stared into the
growing fire.
    “It was a miraculous recovery,” he said, acid
in his voice, “The doctors were confounded. She should’ve
died.”
    The way he said ‘should’ve,’ with contempt,
twisted Oz’s insides.
    He was ten feet from the apartment, but the
heat of the fire had him sweating. Black smoke billowed from the
doorway and as it rose into the air, it morphed into something he
could almost recognize. Something with wings.
    The Ba appeared in the doorway flanked by
flames. She didn’t glow like the others Oz had seen up until this
point. She was the opposite. A fog. The places where her eyes
should have been were cavernous nothings. Hazy extremities came
together to form a vessel.
    Bard tossed his cigarette through her and
into the fire.
    “Not today,” he said.
    Her hands were still cupped when the shadows
inked from the asphalt and beneath the porch. They moved impossibly
fast. The flames hesitated for an instant and an overpowering
silence hovered. It was like someone had covered Oz’s ears. Her
final scream shattered the silence and the