Dead Harvest

  But on the balance, what's one innocent life, when weighed against the Apocalypse?

  Truth to tell, I'd known for hours that there wasn't any other way, but it took a while to find the nerve. Just the thought of it set my hands shaking, and filled my stomach with angry, crawling things. I mean – yeah, I take lives every day, but only those that are mine to take. This, though, this was something else entirely.

  This was murder.

  Still, it wasn't like I was taking his soul. Just extinguishing his mortal flame. He'd be better off without it, really. He'd be free to, I don't know, frolic through the fields of heaven or whatever. That's what I told myself, at least.

  From the screaming in my head, I'd say neither of us much believed it.

  The bed frame creaked in protest as I tipped it on its end and wedged it against the wall beside the toilet. They'd taken my belt and laces, of course, but my uniform shirt looked strong enough, and the sleeves were more than long enough to do the job. I stripped to my undershirt and knotted one sleeve of my button-down around the top of the bed frame. Then I climbed atop the toilet and tied the other sleeve around my neck.

  Death, as a Collector, is a strange experience. For one, it hurts like hell. I mean, I suppose dying is never all that pleasant, but we Collectors seem to get a little extra in that regard. Whether it's a header off a bridge or a handful of pills, the agony is always the same. Kind of a stupidity bonus, I suppose. Still, we all try it a time or two before we catch on. The first time you take a soul, the experience is a little rough – most rookie Collectors think death the better option. And every once and a while, you see something that you just can't shake, and you get to thinking maybe this time it won't be so bad – maybe this time, they'll just let me fade to black.

  Believe me, they never do.

  Then there's the simple inconvenience of it all. See, a Collector's not like a demon – we can't exist outside a vessel. And when a vessel dies, any invading soul is expelled. So when we die, we get automatically reseeded somewhere else. If there's a rhyme or reason to where we end up, I sure as hell can't figure it. It could be around the block; it could be around the world. Both of which, I was forced to admit, would be better than my present accommodations.

  Still I hesitated, whether from guilt or some nagging sense of self-preservation, I knew not which. I caught a glimpse of my vessel's reflection in the polished steel mirror bolted to the wall beside me: though his hair had silvered at the temples, and his face was welllined, he couldn't be more than forty – a baby, by my reckoning. His eyes, a piercing blue, seemed to beseech me not to do this. I wondered if I even could.

  Then I pictured Kate, so small and frightened and alone, and my hesitation evaporated.

  I stepped off of the toilet.

  I stepped off of the toilet, and nothing happened.

  At first, I thought I'd just miscalculated – that I'd left too much slack in the shirt, and wound up just standing here, tied to the bed frame like an idiot. Then I looked down. My feet scrambled for purchase a good six inches off the floor. Just the sight of them swinging there made me break out in a cold sweat. And yet somehow, I was still breathing.

  Whatever the hell was going on, I was sure of one thing: this was not my fucking day. I couldn't even manage to kill myself properly.

  'You'll forgive my interference, I trust, but I found your chosen method of egress a touch… drastic.'

  The voice came from somewhere to my right, its honeyed tones resonating off the cold masonry of the cell walls. Hanging there as I was, I couldn't see who the voice was coming from. I opened my mouth to reply. All that came out was a hoarse squeak.

  'So sorry,' continued the voice. 'Where are my manners?' The sleeve around my neck abruptly slackened, and I tumbled to the floor.

  He was a tall, slender man, and he was standing in the far corner of my cell. Though I was looking right at him, he remained fuzzy and indistinct, like something half-glimpsed out of the corner of my eye. His hair was neither light nor dark; his eyes were neither brown nor green nor blue. In fact, I could scarcely be certain he was a he at all: he was more the impression of a man, a collection of vague, impassive features, imbued with an odd internal light and clad in a suit of charcoal gray. Black gloves of supple leather graced his hands. He extended one by way of assistance, and I took it, climbing to my feet.

  'What are you doing here?' I asked. His eyes seemed lit from within, his every movement suffused with preternatural grace. It was all I could do not to look away.

  'Why, Collector, I would have thought that you'd be grateful – after all, I just spared you no small measure of suffering, did I not?'

  'But you – you're a seraph, aren't you? An angel of the highest order. It seems odd you'd deign to meddle in the affairs of Man – or stoop to rescuing a lowly Collector from hanging himself.'

  The angel smiled. 'It seems you know your angelic hierarchy. But tell me, Collector, how well do you know yourself? Your given name, for example, is from the Hebrew for 'heard by God'. Perhaps it is by God's grace that I've come to rescue you. Then again, perhaps I simply wish to save this vessel of yours from prematurely shuffling off this mortal coil. After all, this man is a warrior for good – he deserves better than to be discarded once his usefulness to you is at an end.'

  'So which is it? Did you come here to spare me or to save him?'

  'It is a fallacy of your human perspective that it must be one or the other. Can it not be both? Or, failing that, can it not just be?'

  'You're telling me mine is not to wonder why.'

  'I'm telling you to have faith in the will of God,' the angel amended.

  'Faith is belief in the absence of proof. As far as proof goes, I've seen my share. The way I figure it, that means faith for me is no longer an option.'

  'I speak not of faith that God exists, but of faith that grace lies not beyond your reach.'