knives. Tia who twirled them in her hands and pressed her thumb against the nob that elongated the weapons into deadly spears. Planting them into the sand by our feet, she peered into the field, cocking our ears for the source of the clacking noise.
We didn’t need to wait long. Dark shapes circled lazily over the field. They were airborne, and every so often descended at random intervals to harvest a chosen victim. Like grim reapers, the angels of the ghost’s second death held a curved blade of some kind, though it wasn’t nearly as long as the scythe carried by reapers in horror movies. The reapers acted like large birds darting in the field after a kernel of corn or a worm, but the act came to a deafening end with a slicing noise, followed by a quick, bloodcurdling scream.
A moment later a gray, loose-limbed ghost, after having his gleaming heart unceremoniously shoved down his throat, was stuffed matter-of-factly into a bag slung across the robed reaper’s shoulder. That was one thing the legends had gotten right. Reapers did wear black robes, long ones that fluttered in the hellish desert wind. They smelled of desperation and decay.
We remained quiet, ready to fight but hoping to be ignored. I watched the reaping with fascination and wondered what Dr. Hassan would think about this place. Asten and Ahmose stood nearby, weapons clenched in their hands, their breathing ringing in my ears.
Just when we were finally safe to flee, a ghost not too far away, one targeted by a reaper, began waving his hands in our direction and screaming, “Invaders!”
Throwing the seized ghost down as if he were a sack of discarded trash, the reaper turned and looked in our direction. The abandoned ghost, with one remaining leg stuck in the mire, frantically attempted to escape the confines of the field. He wasn’t successful. Within the span of a few moments, another reaper appeared, grabbed hold of the struggling specter, and finished harvesting him, along with his heart.
The black-robed form watching us drifted closer and straightened his body out in the air. The horrible clacking began as he twisted his head one way and then another. His hood fell back from the motion, and I saw where the noise was coming from. It was the reaper’s jaw.
From Tia I knew the creature was scenting us through the movement of its jawbone. When it opened its mouth, the tongue, a long black muscle, tasted the air. After it drew the organ back into its gaping maw, the jaw clacked a dozen or so times, as if it was chewing up our scent.
The creature looked more buglike than skeletal, but I could see how it might be mistaken for a skeleton. From a distance, the black-and-white patterns of its face slightly resembled a human skull, but the jaw was shaped differently, more like an ant or a wasp.
The clacking mouth wasn’t moving up and down like a human jaw would but instead clapped together horizontally from either side. And it was a wide mouth, much bigger than a creature that size should have. The noise it made as it hovered above the ghosts reminded me of a swarm of hornets. Glowing eyes burned as it studied us.
After a tense moment, the buzzing noise ramped up several degrees and we noted several other reapers closing in on our location fast. Asten must’ve decided that fighting one off now would be better than waiting for a group to attack, so he loosed an arrow. The starlit diamond head found its target and sank into the neck of the reaper. An unholy screech filled the air, and then the creature floated slowly to the ground, roiling in its death throes.
More screeches rose as Asten loosed arrow after arrow. Soon they were close enough to reach by spear, and I threw one and then a second, managing to seriously wound one while killing the other. The creatures swelled in numbers and we were quickly surrounded, fighting hand to hand. I summoned my claws and slashed, continuing to kill. There was something cathartic about being in combat.
All the confusion I’d felt dissipated, and my mind emptied of its worries and errant emotions. Suddenly I found myself in control of my body. While fighting, my limbs moved seamlessly, instinctually. I drew upon the powers of the sphinx and my call was answered. Never before had Tia and I worked together in such a unified manner, and I relished the feeling.