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horse had fire in its eyes and sparks at its hooves. The rider’s black leather coat billowed out behind him, cracking the air. She couldn’t see his eyes through his dark glasses, but she wasn’t sure she wanted to.
    Maybe he was some kind of demon. Or not.
    He raised a scythe the same size and shape as Azrael’s. Except the tarnished blade had a serrated edge caked with either rust or blood. She shivered uncontrollably. The dark reaper reached back, pulling the scythe through the air effortlessly, and brought it down toward the crowd. Azrael shifted, blocking her view.
    “There’s more than one of you,” she mumbled, her stomach churned. She was no longer sure if she was even still breathing. She was glad she hadn’t seen the second scythe cut through the crowd. Something told her that blade didn’t cut as clean as Azrael’s.
    Furrowing his brow, Azrael glanced behind. His head snapped back a moment later. His wings unfurled partially, further obstructing her backward view.
    “Don’t look at him. Look at me or Pallidus or the ground, whatever you have to, but don’t look at him.”
    “Why?”
    Before Azrael could answer, the dark reaper pulled along side them. He glanced at her, then Azrael. His mouth curled in a sneer. “You’re a fool to bring her. If you want to scare her to death, you should have left her to me.”
    Azrael pointed his scythe in the other reaper’s direction. “Leave her be, Kol.”
    Kol laughed. The sound reminded Sara of the laughter heard in haunted houses as a child, dark, maniacal and not at all happy. He pulled his glasses down, revealing the blackest eyes she’d ever seen.
    The world fell away. Dizziness swept through her as though she stood at the edge of a high cliff about to topple over. Her head swam with vertigo. The wind she hadn’t felt before suddenly buffeted her body. Rain stung her face. Her grip on Azrael loosened. She cried out, clutched at him, the sensation of falling too real. Her stomach knotted, unknotted, rolled and dropped. She was going to be sick.
    “I have you, you won’t fall.” Azrael shot out with his scythe, nearly striking the other reaper. Kol moved out of the way, shoved his glasses back into place and urged his horse on. The creature’s hooves rent the air with swirls of smoke and thunder.
    “He’s gone.” Azrael’s jaw hardened into stone.
    Her equilibrium returned. She shuddered. “What...who was that? Another reaper?”
    “Yes. In a sense.” The word was a growl. “Kol is my brother.”
    “Your brother?” That Azrael would claim such a being worried her. “He’s a...” What could she say? Your brother’s a real jerk? I think he tried to kill me?
    “He wouldn’t have hurt you. He was only being Kol. Testing you to see if you could see him as well. It will not happen again. I promise.”
    “Only being Kol? Testing me? Like that makes it all right?” Anger replaced fear. This whole excursion had just become some sort of bad Tim Burton movie and she was in no mood to become anyone’s Corpse Bride .
    “I’m not making excuses for him. There are none. He is unpleasant at best, but he is who he is.”
    The wind and rain disappeared. The protective bubble that enclosed Azrael and Pallidus included her once again. Feeling slightly mollified, Sara couldn’t help but probe further. “And that might be?”
    “Kol is a different kind of Reaper than I am. He’s a Thresher. He culls the souls that no longer deserve a mortal existence. Where I reap souls that are ready and deserving of a merciful death, he reaps souls that have misused their time.”
    Thresher. Thinking about what that meant made her stomach knot again. She swallowed. “I don’t like him.”
    The slightest curve bent Azrael’s mouth. “Neither do I, much of the time. But one cannot pick their family, can they?”
    She settled against the hard warmth of his chest, letting it relax her. “No, I guess they can’t.”
    “I have more work to do.” The statement