Deathless

Chapter 8: Jackson

It's her.

My throat's bone dry and tight. My heart pounds along with my footsteps as I stalk toward our office. I slip through the private door, leaving the throbbing music and flickering lights of the club behind me. My heart seems even louder in this narrow staircase. Lucius and Thomas let the door shut behind them, making their way up the stairs behind me. Their laughter ricochets off the concrete walls and clangs heavily in my ears.

Millie is here.

I throw myself into the room. The door slams into the wall and almost knocks Lucius off his feet when he and Thomas slip into the room behind me.

"Easy, Jax," Lucius mutters, dusting off his burgundy tweed. Only a librarian can pull off tweed in a nightclub. He runs a hand across the warm brown skin of his face, taking a deep breath as recovers. Thomas nudges him teasingly as he walks past.

I say nothing, just busy myself with pouring drinks on the small brass bar we keep beside the window. Glass spans most of the wall, allowing us to look down over our little dominion. For the last few decades Lucius, Thomas and I have bought a bar or club or pub in every city I've moved to - and I've lived in a lot of cities. I find us the place, settle into the new city and build a new haven before moving on. We bought a speakeasy in New York during the prohibition, a pub in Ireland, and a beach bar in Hawaii. To my friends, it was a distraction, a hobby. To me, it was an escape. Being a reaper is more than a job to me. It was a calling, but it left me with a lot of empty hours between shifts. And I liked to fill them with as much fun, drink and female company as I could.

"She was cute, that brunette. You should have made a move." Thomas chuckles as he moves deeper into the room. Lucius's face screws up at the question.

"What's the rush? You know I like to take my time?"

"Like you're taking your time with Ginny?"

"I'm waiting for the right moment..."

"Because there couldn't have been a right moment in the last thirty years?" Lucius fights hard, but his stern expression slips into a smile as Thomas's teasing turns to bellowing laughter.

Glasses in hand, I turn back to my friends. They're still laughing as I hand them each the tumbler of amber liquid. Thomas sinks into the settee in the back of the room, his large frame making the deep burgundy fabric dip as he stretches his arms across the back. Lucius spins in the office chair behind his desk as he sits down.

"So, you gonna tell us what's up or do we have to guess?" Lucius sips the whisky, our usual drink whenever we first arrive. Our office is on the top floor of Worship. I'd bought the derelict church the moment I saw it during a reaping. It was a crumbling gothic nightmare filled with squatter's piss and empty cider bottles, but I had to have it. I moved to Bristol a week later.

Lucius stares up at me, his eyes not wavering as I cross the room and slip behind my desk. Sinking into my chair and leaning back, I stretch my legs out across the desk. My stomach still feels like lead from the shock of seeing her again. Of touching her for the first time, her velvet skin under my fingertips. Her scent still clinging to my shirt from where she'd stumbled, like dark berries and spice. I felt overwhelmed by it. Just like I had that day in the hospital.

What is it about this girl that makes me feel this way?

"What makes you think something is up?" I lie. Drinking the rich, fiery liquid too quickly makes the back of my throat burn.

"Because you poured the drinks? You never pour the drinks. Ever."

Thomas chuckles, his body shaking the louder he laughs. Even the ever serious Lucius is grinning broadly.