Naomi Grim (The Silver Scythe Chronicles) Part 1 Read online

  Naomi Grim

  Book One of the Silver Scythe Chronicles

  (Part 1)

  Smashwords Edition

  Naomi Grim

  Book One of the Silver Scythe Chronicles

  (Part 1)

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author's imagination or, if real, are used fictitiously.

  Copyright 2013 by Tiffany Nicole Smith All rights reserved. No parts of this book may be copied or reproduced in any matter whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. Printed in the United States of America.

  Smashwords Edition

  Cover Design by Damonza

  Twisted Spice Publications

  Other books by Tiffany Nicole Smith:

  Book 1-4 of the Fairylicious Series

  The Thing About Scorpions (Scorpions 1)

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  Naomi Grim

  Book One of the Silver Scythe Chronicles

  (Part 1)

  Tiffany Nicole Smith

  Part 1

  The Assignment

  Table of Contents

  Chapter l

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter l

  Screeching tires followed by the sickening sound of metal colliding with something solid, prevented me from almost dozing off. I peered from around the thick trunk of the pine tree I had been leaning against to see what was happening. My dispatching device had led me there to wait.

  "Where is she? Where is she?" Haley screeched. "Aiden, do you see her?"

  I stood and prepared myself. Falling asleep would have been a drastic mistake. After brushing the dirt from my backside, I grabbed my scythe and watched the two.

  Aiden, on all fours, felt the asphalt for his glasses. "No. I can't see anything."

  I walked out into the shadows cast by the trees.

  "Jessica!" Haley’s scream was more urgent this time.

  The girl lay sprawled on the concrete, and I emerged. Jessica was obviously the one because she had the glow about her. I stood over her. Her eyes widened when she saw me. I could only be seen by the one I was supposed to take. She was definitely the one.

  "Jessica!" Haley screamed, running to her best friend's side. But Jessica's eyes didn't leave mine. She squinted. She was fighting hard, but it was no use. Her time had come.

  What a terrible way to die. Thrown from a car. Bleeding to death on the road. I admired the bright red pool that had formed around her head, soaking her brown curls. Death was a beautiful thing. Nothing was more divine than watching a human's last breath. Jessica's lips trembled as if she were trying to say something.

  "Call 911!" Haley yelled to Aiden as he crawled over. I would be long gone with Jessica's life by the time an ambulance arrived.

  I had been following this trio of friends for almost two weeks. At the time of the accident, they had been coming home from a study group—good kids. I'd almost grown a little fond of them. They were good-hearted and genuinely cared for one another. The one who was to die had only been revealed to me at that very moment.

  With my scythe in my right hand, I squeezed my left fist tight, holding Jessica's gaze. Then I finally felt it. Her life was in my hands. I opened my palm to reveal a black stone that looked like a lump of coal. The lifestone. I would give it to Father, and he would turn it in to Mr. Dunningham, our ruler, for a nice sum of money.

  Haley was hysterical as Aiden yelled poor directions at the 911 operator. My job was done. I closed my eyes and waited to be taken back. A strange sensation flowed through me as I became absorbed in a whirl of wind. Transportation only took seconds. When I opened my eyes, the transporting chamber opened, and I found myself in my kitchen. The chamber was how we traveled from home to our assignments. It took us from the kitchen to anywhere we needed to go and then back to the kitchen again. The chamber also served as our pantry.

  "Naomi, you were gone a long time," said my brother, Dorian. I stood in the doorway of his bedroom. Dorian hadn't even turned around. You couldn't really sneak up on a Grim.

  "This one took longer. She was a fighter."

  Dorian laughed as he adjusted his microscope lens. "I don't know why they bother. You can't fight death."

  "It's in their nature, Dorian. Most people don't want to die. There was a lot of blood, though."

  "Yeah? How'd she die?"

  "A deer ran into the road. Her friend hit it, and Jessica was thrown from the car."

  Dorian nodded. "Nice, I love the bloody ones. Father will be happy with that."

  I left Dorian and went to my own bedroom to hang my scythe on its hook. I'd missed the comforts of being in my own room, but that was the Grim life.

  I tiptoed down the hall to Father's study. I didn't want to disrupt him if he was studying. He sat at his large oak desk, his broad shoulders hunched over a book as usual. I watched him for a few seconds.

  "Hello, Darkness. You made it back."

  "Yes, Father." I walked to his desk and handed him Jessica's lifestone.

  He opened a tiny silver box and placed the lifestone inside. "Good job. How old was she?"

  "Seventeen," I answered. She had just turned seventeen the week before. I'd had to endure a very rowdy birthday party. By the way things were going, I was sure someone would have gone that night.

  Father smiled. "So how many years does that make for you?"

  "Four hundred and thirty-two." I was only sixteen, so I had a long way to go.

  Father made a note on my page of his notebook so we could keep track.

  That's how it worked, being a Grim. When we brought back a life, Mr. Dunningham paid us. That was how we lived. The younger the person or the more gruesome the death, the more money you got. In addition to that, the person's age got added on to our lives. For example, Jessica just added seventeen years to my life, so it was a catch twenty-two. The younger the life, the less years, but more money. The older the person, you got more years and less money.

  We were Grims by birth. There was nothing we had done to earn this job and nothing we could do to escape it. We weren't monsters. We were just doing our jobs. Death was a necessary part of the cycle. Grims didn't cause deaths—we were just there to pick up the lifestones, that's all. It's a common misconception that we collect souls. Souls were different. What happened to a human's soul was between God and Satan.

  When duty called, we had to leave our families and follow the human who was about to die. Sometimes we could be gone for weeks or months. At that moment, my older brother Bram and my mother were away on assignments. It was very rare that our entire family was ever together at once.

  I took the picture of my mother from my father's desk. She had the same features as all the Grims—black hair and black eyes. Our family in particular had pale skin, but Grims came in all colors.

  "You miss her, don't you?" Father asked.

  "I do. I haven't seen her since forever."

  Mom had been on an assignment for two months at a military camp.

  "Well, she came home last week," Father informed me, "then she got called out again. I think your brother will be coming back soon," Father offered, as if Bram were a suitable replacement. Bram had just turned eighteen and thought he ruled the world.

  "Great," I muttered. I had actually been looking forward to a Bram-free night.

  Father turned his attention back to his book so I left him alone.

  Dinner that night was salmon and steamed vegetables. Dorian was halfway through the story of how he’d discovered yet another new life-form. According to him, he had done an experiment with a beetle and turned it into some sort of mutant. Dorian was pondering what he should name the mutant-beetle when Bram came through the transporting chamber.

  Bram slammed his scythe to the ground. I waited for Father to say something about Bram's disrespect toward his sacred scythe, but he only looked concerned. Being Father's Golden Child, Bram got away with a lot more than Dorian and I.

  "What's the problem, son?"

  "It was a suicide."

  Suicides were no fun. We got almost nothing for those. When a person commits suicide, it's not really their time to go, so we're not prepared in advance. The person took their own life before we could get to it, so the lifestone was virtually worthless.

  "Waste of time!" Bram growled. He shook the entire table as he sat, almost spilling my glass of water.

  "Calm down, Bram. We all get those every once in a while," I said softly. He glared at me and I looked away. I knew better than to talk to him when he was angry.

  Bram and Father were alike in so many ways. For one, they were both money and power hungry. They would do anything to stay in Mr. Dunningham's good graces. All they cared about was moving up in society and a mansion in the Upper Estates.

  Right now we lived in the middle of Nowhere.
Really. Our colony of Grims lived in Nowhere, and my family lived in the middle-class section. Nowhere was just that—nowhere. It serves as our waiting area as we travel back and forth between the world and home. There were three sections of Nowhere. Litropolis was the lower end. The people who lived there were poor. Mr. Dunningham rarely gave them assignments. They died early for lack of earned years, and we had nothing to do with them. We lived in Farrington, the middle-class area. I loved it. I loved our home. My friends lived in Farrington, but that wasn't good enough for Father and Bram. Mother once told me that a Grim man's worth was measured by his riches and his home. That was the reason Father would never be satisfied until we made it to the Upper Estates, where Mr. Dunningham and all his favorite families lived. They had thousands of years and anything they dreamed of and desired. They looked at us like we looked at the Grims of Litropolis—like we were nothing. Served us right.

  It was a simple process. Dunningham decided who lived and died. If he didn't like you, he didn't assign you deaths and you expired.

  Bram threw the lifestone onto the table. Instead of the rich, black color it should have been, it was white and crumbly. That's what happened when a lifestone didn't fall into the hands of a Grim immediately. It dried out. If the lifestone was left too long, it would evaporate completely. We always had to be prepared to grab those stones. Bram shook the table again as he stood. I forced myself not to comment. He'd begun to storm toward his room until Father whistled and pointed toward the discarded scythe. Bram huffed, but he picked it up.

  Scythes were precious. They were given to Grims on their thirteenth birthdays, the year we began collecting lives. Each Grim had his name engraved on his scythe along with the words "Long Live Death". We all had a hook in our bedrooms where our scythes were to be hung, and we were never to leave Nowhere without them. One of the many rules of being a Grim.

  I awoke the next morning to the smell of potatoes frying. That meant only one thing—Mother was home. Usually we had fruit and oatmeal for breakfast, but when she had been gone a while, she’d treat us.

  I pulled on my black sweatpants and matching hoodie. Father would have had a fit if he knew I slept in only my underwear. Grims had to be prepared for being dispatched at any moment. I slid my feet into my black flip-flops and ran downstairs, taking two steps at a time.

  Mother flipped potato cakes at the stove. My brothers sat at the table, already starting their daily reading. All young Grims had to study the Covenant and other subjects for hours each day.

  "Mother!" I squealed.

  She turned slightly, keeping her eye on the food.

  "Hello, Darkness," Mother said as I kissed her cheek.

  I wrapped my arm around her neck. "It's been absolutely dreadful living with the boys." Mom and I always joked about how awful it was being the only female in the house when the other was gone. "I missed you so much."

  "I missed you too, my love. Set the table, please."

  After fighting with the boys to get them to clear their things from the table, I finally managed to set it.

  Father came in, scrolling his finger across his tablet.

  "Uh-uh, not at the table, Nox," Mother scolded.

  "I'm in the middle of some important research, Eleanor."

  Mother set a stack of plates on the table. "This is the first time we've been together as a whole family in a few months. Your research can wait."

  Father sighed, leaving his tablet on the counter to join us at the table.

  "So, Mother, tell us what happened," Dorian said.

  Mother placed the bowls of food on the table so we could help ourselves. "I had to follow a family around. Father, mother, and an infant. I kept wondering which one I was supposed to take, but there wasn't a glow until the last minute."

  It was that way sometimes. Our dispatching device would take us to a group of people to follow, but sometimes we didn't know who the Fated would be until right before the end. That person would be surrounded by faint yellow light. The glow was how we knew the person was one of the Fated.

  "Who was it?" I asked.

  "All of them," Mother replied. "The father drove his family off a bridge on purpose. Just slammed on the gas and took them over."

  There was silence for a moment. Well, except for Bram's loud chewing.

  "So," Mother continued, "I'm not sure how this will work. The father committed suicide, but technically the mother and child didn't."

  "Three deaths at once. Either way, Dunningham should be pleased," Father said.

  "Why would somebody do that?" I asked.

  Everyone stared at me.

  "I mean to their family. Why would someone want to kill the people they loved? Were they having problems, Mother?"

  Bram scoffed and shook his head.

  Mother buttered a piece of bread. "It doesn't matter, dear. You know we don't get involved in their affairs."

  "What do you care?" Bram asked bitterly. He always accused me of being too soft. He said I didn't have the heart of a Grim.

  I shrugged. "I'm just curious, that's all. I'd like to know what would make a person do that. I mean, Father would never do anything like that to us, right?" It was impossible to kill a Grim unless their time was up or they had less than one hundred years, but I needed to know that he would never want to.

  Father cut into his potato pancakes. "Of course not, dear. There's no point in trying to understand them. Just collect their lives and move along. That's our job."

  Just then, Father's dispatching device rang. I sighed to myself. We couldn't even have a full twenty-four hours together.

  Father pressed a button and held the device to his ear. "Mr. Dunningham!" he said, sounding a bit too eager.

  That was strange. When we got an assignment, it was usually a robotic voice from the system, not Dunningham himself. There must have been something wrong.

  "Okay . . .Yes, sir . . . Sure, I understand."

  Father hung up and looked at us, wide-eyed.

  "What was that about?" Mother asked.

  "Mr. Dunningham is going to pay us a visit. Right now."

  I felt a queasiness in my stomach, wondering which one of us had broken a rule. Mr. Dunningham never came to Farrington unless he was delivering a speech or someone had done something wrong and needed to be punished. The last time he came to our house was almost a year ago. Bram had kissed a girl, and they had both gotten fifty years subtracted from their lives. Dating and any kind of physical affection was forbidden until a Grim's eighteenth birthday, when they were to become engaged. Father had been thoroughly embarrassed and didn't speak to Bram for two weeks.

  Father hopped up from the table. "Okay, let's straighten up. Children, get properly dressed. He wants to speak to all of us. Chop, chop."

  My brothers and I went upstairs while our parents straightened up. "Properly dressed" meant wearing the Sacred Cloak. We didn't wear it much—only in Dunningham's presence and on special occasions. I hated it. The cloak was hot and heavy. Hopefully, Mr. Dunningham wouldn’t stay too long.

  Chapter 2

  "Nice place you got here," Mr. Dunningham said, looking around as if he'd never been in our home before.

  I knew he was lying. Our house looked like a rabbit hole in comparison to where he lived. I loved our home, though. We were all seated in the living room on black velvet couches. The fireplace was ablaze despite the fact that it wasn't cold out. The reflection of the orange flames bounced off the gray marble walls.

  Mr. Dunningham wore an expensive-looking black suit, a black tie, and a black dress shirt underneath. He kept his head shaved completely bald, and he had a gray beard and mustache. He looked his part— the Lord of Death. I didn't think much of Dunningham. He'd gotten his position by luck. Being born to the previous Lord of Death, who had retired years ago, gave him his power.

  Mr. Dunningham's assistant placed his briefcase on our stone coffee table. She looked to be about twenty, with short black hair and a much-too-tight black lace dress. Bram stared at the ceiling, probably trying to make it blatantly obvious that he wasn't ogling the girl. She took a seat in an armchair in the corner. Mr. Dunningham sat in Father's reading chair—the one that no one was allowed to sit in except for him. Mother and Father sat next to him on the loveseat. My brothers and I sat across from Mr. Dunningham on the sofa in the order of our age.