Thunderhead (Arc of a Scythe #2)(49)

“You’re a scythe, dear. Don’t be so hard on yourself.”

“Are you saying that Scythe Goddard was right? That in a perfect world, even scythes should enjoy what they do?”

“Certainly not!” Marie said with appropriate indignation. “The simple pleasure of being good at what you do is very different from finding joy in the taking of life.” Then she took a long look at Citra, gently held her hands, and said, “The very fact that you are tormented by the question means you are a truly honorable scythe. Guard your conscience, Anastasia, and never let it wilt. It is a scythe’s most valuable possession.”

? ? ?

The first of Scythe Anastasia’s three gleanings was a woman who chose to splat from the highest building in Fargo, which was not known for its high buildings. Forty stories, however, was more than enough to do the job.

Scythe Constantine, half a dozen other scythes, and an entire phalanx of the BladeGuard hid themselves in strategic locations around the rooftop, as well as throughout the building and the streets around it. They vigilantly waited, on the lookout for a murderous plot beyond the scheduled murderous plot.

“Will this hurt, Your Honor?” the woman asked as she looked down from the edge of the icy, windswept roof.

“I don’t think so,” Scythe Anastasia told her. “And if it does, it will only be for a fraction of a second.”

For it to be an official gleaning, the woman couldn’t leap on her own; Scythe Anastasia had to actually push her. Oddly, Citra found pushing the woman off the roof far more unpleasant than gleaning with a weapon. It reminded her of that terrible time when she was a child that she had pushed another girl in front of a bus. Of course, the girl was revived, and in a couple of days was back in school as if nothing had happened. This time, however, there would be no revival.

Scythe Anastasia did what she had to do. The woman died on schedule with neither fanfare nor incident, and her family kissed Scythe Anastasia’s ring, solemnly accepting their year of immunity. Citra was both relieved and disappointed that no one had come out of the woodwork to challenge her.

? ? ?

Scythe Anastasia’s next gleaning, a few days later, was not quite as simple.

“I wish to be hunted by crossbow,” the man from Brew City told her. “I ask that you hunt from sunrise to sunset in the woods near my home.”

“And if you survive the hunt without being gleaned?” Citra asked him.

“I’ll come out of the woods and allow you to glean me,” he said, “but for surviving the full day, my family will receive two years of immunity instead of just one.”

Scythe Anastasia nodded her agreement in the stoic and formal manner she had learned from Scythe Curie. A perimeter was set up to mark the boundaries within which the man could hide. Again, Scythe Constantine and his team monitored for intruders and any nefarious activity.

The man thought he was a match for Citra. He wasn’t. She tracked him and took him out less than an hour into the hunt. A single steel arrow to the heart. It was merciful, as all of Scythe Anastasia’s gleanings were. He was dead before he hit the ground. Yet even though he hadn’t made it through the day, she still gave his family two years of immunity. She knew she’d catch hell for it in conclave, but she didn’t care.

Through the entire gleaning, there was no sign of any plot or conspiracy against her.

“You should be relieved, not disappointed,” Scythe Curie told her that night. “It probably means that I was the sole target, and you can rest easy.” But Marie was certainly not resting easy, and not just because she was the probable target.

“I fear that this goes beyond just a vendetta against me or you,” Scythe Curie confided. “These are troubling times, Anastasia. There’s too much violence afoot. I long for the simple, straightforward days, when we scythes had nothing to fear but the sharp blades of our own conscience. Now there are enemies within enemies.”

Citra suspected there was truth in that. The attack on them was a small thread in a much larger tapestry that could not be seen from where they stood. She couldn’t help but sense that there was something huge and threatening just beyond the horizon.

? ? ?

“I’ve made a contact.”

Agent Traxler raised an eyebrow. “Do tell, Greyson.”

“Please, don’t call me that. Just call me Slayd. It’s easier for me.”

“All right then, Slayd, tell me about this contact of yours.”

Until today, their weekly probation meetings had been uneventful. Greyson reported on how well he was adapting to being Slayd Bridger, and how effectively he was infiltrating the local unsavory culture. “They’re not so bad,” Greyson had told him. “Mostly.”

To which Traxler had responded, “Yes, I’ve found that in spite of the attitude, unsavories are harmless. Mostly.”

Funny, then, that the ones who were not harmless were the ones Greyson was drawn to. The one. Purity.

“There’s this person,” he told Traxler. “This person who offered me a job. I don’t know the details of it, but I know that it’s in violation of ?Thunderhead law. I think there’s a whole group of people operating in a blind spot.”

Traxler took no notes. He wrote nothing down. He never did. But he always listened intently. “Those spots aren’t blind anymore once someone’s watching,” Traxler said. “So does this person have a name?”