when you insisted on bringing us out here. Seriously, do you ever think before you do something?”
Anunit shot me a sharp grin. “Always. Well, then. I’ll be right here waiting. Please, go fetch my Mixer so we can move on to the next trial. I honestly don’t have much more time to waste on you two. If you want a living body and a chance at making babies, Unending, this is how you do it.”
“There’s no point repeating yourself like this,” I murmured.
“I was right to doubt you.” Joy’s voice shot from behind like a bullet aiming for the back of my head.
Unending and I spun around just as Anunit disappeared. What sort of games was she playing? Had she lured us out here for the sole purpose of discovery? Because I doubted we could stop Joy from descending into a frenzy—both Death and Loren had been clear on how easily she could blow up.
“Believe it or not, there’s a solid explanation for this,” Unending tried, though I could tell from the strain in her voice that we were springing for a long shot here. “I did tell you that Anunit doesn’t know we’re hunting her.”
Joy brought her scythe forward, massive and threatening, its blade glowing a cold and unforgiving white. “I’m not buying it. You’re too friendly, and it sounded to me like Anunit is doing you some kind of favor. Getting you a body? That’s her specialty! Unending, you lied to me. You’re consorting with a criminal,” she replied. “Wait until Death hears about this.”
“Death knows! She’s the one who sanctioned this!” Unending replied.
“No!” Joy screamed, her eyes bulging with rage. “No! Did Spirit send you to get the Mixer? Are you lying to Death, maybe? I wouldn’t put it past Spirit to get you and Anunit to do his dirty work for him!”
I gasped. “Spirit was destroyed. I thought you knew that!”
“He had tricks up his sleeve! He’s not really gone! He can’t be!” Joy was spiraling out of control, and the speed at which she was falling apart was unnerving. I wondered how much worse her issues had gotten since Spirit’s departure and betrayal.
“We destroyed him twice,” Unending said. “Once, twenty-one years ago. And the second time on Visio, where he’d left a backup of his soul. He’s gone, Joy. He’s gone forever.”
Joy didn’t put the scythe away. If anything, she was only getting angrier, if not hateful toward us. I wasn’t sure how we’d be able to navigate this unexpected conflict. “Because of you. Because of you, I’ll never see him again.”
“Oh, Joy…” I sighed. “I thought you were over him.”
She revealed the broken love chain again. “Does this look like I’m over him? It needs to be complete again. It needs him, and you… you took him away…”
How had we gotten to this point? I was utterly baffled, no longer able to even follow this fractured conversation. The only thing that I knew clearly was that Death would need to have Joy replaced in the village, because she had lost her mind in isolation. Maybe Death hadn’t tried all that hard when she’d made Joy… but this Reaper needed comfort and special care more than anything else right now. And we needed to get the Mixer—this had suddenly become a dangerous challenge, since neither of us could stop Joy from lashing out.
“We can still try reasoning with her,” Unending told me through telepathy. “But she looks a bit lost right now. Or… we can do something more… extreme.”
“Like?” I replied in my mind.
“Trust me?”
I sighed deeply, giving her a small smile. “Always,” I said out loud.
Joy bolted toward us, light flashing from her scythe’s enormous blade. Unending disappeared and caught the Reaper from behind, one arm clenched around her neck. She drove her scythe into Joy’s side. The scream that followed made my blood curdle—but it was short. Too short to have been heard beyond the village’s outer circle of white stone igloos. Unending had worked her magic, and Joy was on the ground, hurt and unconscious.
Panting, my wife offered a wry smile. “Well, this is not how I expected this evening to turn out, my love.”
“Will she be okay?” I asked, my pulse racing.
“Yes. She’ll be sore and pissed off, but yeah. I’m afraid we need to move much faster now, however,” Unending replied. “I’m not sure how long she’s going to stay under. I’ve never done this to a First Tenner before, and if Joy is as powerful as one of us,