Dead Reaper Walking (3 page)

“What… Like the Grim Reaper?” he joked, trying for a smile from her pretty lips. “Aren’t you—”

“A little fat?” She cut him off with a smile, but not the one he’d hoped for. It didn’t reach her eyes. Shit. She was serious. She thought she was fat. Realizing that he’d strayed into one of those female danger areas and his response could hit hard and deep, he paused and looked at her directly.

“Breathing. You’re breathing, babe.” Stepping closer, he nudged her thighs wider apart so he could ease between them. She let him, interest and growing heat stark in her eyes. Open. Honest. Not hiding anything. He loved that about her. There was no pretense or coyness. No games. He couldn’t stand games. His bitch of an ex had been all about them. Right before she’d been murdered by the first wave of vamps to hit the town. “And I don’t want to hear you say you’re fat again. You’re not.”

A gentle finger hooked under her chin made her meet his eyes and he bent his head to brush his lips against hers.

“I love your curves. And I loved feeling them pressed against me last night as I fucked you.”

He wasn’t usually crude like that. Unlike a lot of guys, Troy believed in respecting a woman. Treating her like a princess. But that didn’t mean it was all rainbows and unicorns. Sometimes he wanted to wrap a woman’s hair around his fist to hold her still while he drove into her hard and fast.

“And I fully intend to enjoy them again.”

Her breathing caught, the little hitch accompanied by a sudden darkness in her eyes that made him want to push her back onto the picnic table and work through every one of the fantasies plaguing him since he’d woken that morning.

With a groan, he gave up resisting temptation and covered her mouth with his. Her lips were just as soft and perfect as they had been the night before. Sweet and pliable as he parted them with a sweep of his tongue and drove inside to sample her mouth again. She whimpered, a sexy little sound he felt more than heard, and one that kicked his already rampant arousal into high gear.

Breathing heavily, he broke away before things could get out of hand. As much as he wanted them to, a picnic table at the side of the road wasn’t the right place. The last thing he needed was to get arrested for public indecency, especially in the company of a…what?

Resting his forehead against hers, he cupped the side of her neck in one hand. His thumb stroked her cheek gently. “So. Death, huh?”

She gave a tiny little nod, but didn’t pull away from the caress. Instead she closed her eyes, leaning into it. Troy’s inner caveman roared and beat his chest. She was his for the taking. He knew it as sure as he breathed air.

“I’m a Reaper.” Her voice was soft and he got the feeling she’d never said that to anyone…normal? Someone like him who didn’t know what she was on sight. “Not
the
Grim Reaper. More a descendant, shall we say?”

Troy couldn’t help it, a snort of amusement escaped. The idea of the Grim Reaper getting his sexy on was too weird, even for Liberty. “So ol’ Boney got the chance to knock boots, huh?”

The soft, musical sound of her laugh wrapped around his heart. “Yeah, no… That didn’t happen. Few bits missing for that I think.”

She pulled back to look at him. God, she was so tiny it made his heart ache. How could someone who looked so alive be Death incarnate?

“It’s more we carry a piece of him.” She tapped her temple. “In here. That’s what gets passed down.”

“We?” He couldn’t keep the curiosity out of his voice. “There are more of you?”

“Hell yeah.” She smiled, indulgently. Like he was a toddler who’d learnt something new. It was cute so he didn’t take offense. “Whole families, all over the world. I inherited it from my grandpop.”

Families. Grandpop. The ground might as well have rocked beneath his feet as the world tilted and grew. Shit, and he’d thought the boggarts were bad. Finding out there were whole families of Reapers blew his mind.

“So, that’s what brought you to Liberty?” He slid his hand down to the back of her hips, spreading his hand out to pull her up snuggly against the erection trapped in his pants. It was so not professional, but he didn’t care. He needed her to know how badly she affected him.

She nodded and tilted her head at the slight pressure of his fingers. He didn’t pass up the offer, as manipulated as it was, and slid his mouth along her neck to the soft spot behind her ear that made her shiver.

“Yeah. If there’s a reap to be done nearby, I can see it. Like a line in the corner of my eye.” Her hands swept up his arms and over his shoulders to clutch at his collar, as though she needed something to hold onto. She paused, her body stiffening. “Lines. Lots of them.”

“It gets that bad? How do you see?”

He nuzzled her neck again, but she pushed him away, her expression concerned. “Shit. New lines. There are souls to be reaped. Silver…I mean human ones.”

Decoding her words took an extra half second, then a chill ran down his spine. Reaped meant someone was about to die. More than one someone. He took a step back, the cop training forcing its way to the forefront.

“Where? How many?” More important questions to ask at the moment than who. Identity came later, after they’d stopped whatever was going to happen. If she knew someone was about to die, then surely they could stop whatever caused the death.

“It doesn’t work like that. I don’t get details. But I’m violent deaths.” She slid off the table and strode toward her bike. Stones crunched underfoot. “So if it’s calling me, it means an accident, or murder.”

The chill emanating from the bike matched the one that wrapped Troy in its coils. Like it watched him, judged him, and found him wanting. Very much wanting. If it had lips, it would have curled them and bared its teeth. His steps slowed. He didn’t want to get near the thing, but she strode on.

“Stop that,” she snapped, slapping the tank as though the bike were alive. Troy was very much afraid it was. “I like him, so if you scare him off, there’s gonna be a scrapyard in your immediate future. And a crusher. See how you get out of that.”

She swung her leg over the saddle and for a moment he thought he saw a swirl of something, like black robes, out of the corner of his eye. He shook his head. There was no way she’d grown by a couple of feet and acquired a scythe. She’d said herself she was just
a
reaper, not the big guy himself.

She kicked the bike into life. It roared, the sound far deeper and more animalistic than he’d expected. Hell, he didn’t know what to expect. Not from her. She grabbed the handlebars, turning the front wheel then paused to look at him.

“Unless you like riding pillion, I suggest you keep up,” she said with a jerk of her head toward his car. “And you might want to call for backup. Three at the same time is bad.”

Kicking the bike into gear, she twisted her wrist and roared away. He turned and raced for his car, yanking the door open and sliding into the driver’s seat in the same movement. The door was still open as he hit the gas, only slamming shut when he skittered sideways onto the road.

Spotting Laney up ahead, he gunned the engine to keep up. He still didn’t know how this all worked, but his mind was already a few steps ahead. If she knew when people were about to die… that was one hell of an early warning system. Used right, they could get there and stop the death. He didn’t buy into the whole ‘our lives are pre-destined.’ If they could stop whatever it was killing these people, then they could save lives. Surely?

One hand on the wheel, he speed-dialed the station as he drove, taking note of the direction they were heading. “Yeah, hello? This is Regan. I got possible homicides on the west side of town. Turning onto Fourth, now onto Weston Avenue. Get me some units down here. Not sure what we’re going to find, so call an ambulance as well.”

He clicked the cell off and concentrated on following the speeding bike. Whatever else she was, she was a hell of a rider. He’d never seen anyone throw a bike around like that before, her turns so low her knee almost kissed the ground. But each time he thought she was about to come off, she pulled it back and sped off, proof that neither bike nor rider were anything close to ordinary.

Lights ahead brought a smile to his face. Several cars with all their lights blazing pulled around a house. He slowed to a stop behind Laney.

“They’re quick,” he commented as he got out the car. “We might have a chance here.”

More cars pulled up. John and the captain were already out of their vehicles, guns in hand. Troy frowned. That was unusual. Reilly normally didn’t head out on scene, but didn’t live too far from here so perhaps he’d been on his way home.

John looked up at the sound of Troy’s steps, surprise on his face. “You psychic or something now? We just got the call. Neighbors reported screams.”

Troy’s weapon was in his hand before he could think about it. “No shit? I just called in myself.” He jerked his head back toward Laney, who had paused in front of the building with her cell phone in her hands, thumbs tapping away.

“Got a tip off. Paranormal. A good one though,” he added, as two pairs of eyes cut to her with suspicion. Last thing he wanted was any of them taking a shot at her. Mostly because he wasn’t sure what the hell would happen.

Reilly nodded, his eyes way too speculative for Troy’s liking, but then his attention turned back to the building. “Screams to the rear. Family house. Registered to a Mr. and Mrs. Kaufman. I’ll take the front, you two take the back?”

They headed for the front gate, but before they could get through Laney shouted, “
Stop!”

All three wheeled around, the captain with a less than impressed expression on his face. Laney walked toward them, tucking her cell into her back pocket. “No one goes in there but me.”

Reilly looked at Troy, his sidelong glance full of
wtf?

“Captain, this is Laney. My…” What was she? He didn’t want to say ‘hookup last night.’ The guys didn’t need to know they’d been up close and personal. “My paranormal insider. Got me here before it went out on general dispatch. Laney, this is my boss, Captain Reilly, and my partner Detective Johnson.”

She nodded at them in greeting but the firm look didn’t disappear off her face, a fact obviously not lost on the captain.

“You want to give me a good reason why?” Reilly asked, his voice level and calm. Since Troy had seen him take on four street-punks, unarmed, and still remain level and calm, that didn’t say jack-shit about his mood.

Laney didn’t flinch at his hard look, nor the vague aura of threat and danger that surrounded him. “Yeah. There’s a demon in there.”

Reilly just looked at her. The dude was ice-cold, but having seen Laney in action, Troy knew he didn’t have a chance if it came to a fight. “That’s not a reason why I need to let a civilian go in before my guys.”

“Unless you got something up your sleeve I’m not seeing. Then you’re going to be looking at a lot more than three deaths.” Her gaze moved over the three of them, then onto the uniformed officers with the cars, before returning to spear Reilly. “I might walk and talk human, but I’m not. I can go one on one with a dragon and walk away. You got anyone who can say that?”

Troy would give Reilly something, the captain was honest to a fault and didn’t let ego get in the way of the job. Already Troy could see the cogs working behind those weird gray eyes as Reilly answered. “No. I haven’t.”

“Okay, good. Keep your people out until I give the word. Got me?” Laney’s expression was tight and something dangerous swam in her eyes. John flinched.

“Got it. We’ll stay out until you give the all clear.” Reilly nodded, as cool as a cucumber. For some reason Troy got the feeling he’d seen something like Laney before. Just how far down this particular rabbit-hole had Reilly been?

Without another word, Laney strode toward the house.

“Hey, no. Wait up.” Caught on the back foot, Troy rushed after her, and grabbed her arm. “How can you tell there’s a demon in there? I thought you said it was humans?”

She looked up and how tiny she was struck him again. Her face was pale. Too pale.

“Because I have to go in there and reap it.”

There was a demon in the house.

A
freaking
demon. As in from hell and everything. Not only that, but the email I’d just gotten from head office in reply to my ‘WTF. Where are special operations?’ had been short and succinct.

No resources. Promotion to Special Operations, effective immediately.

Shit. No resources meant not only was there
not
another Reaper in town, which made no sense with the amount of over-active, non-human lifelines that hadn’t been reaped yet, but also that one wasn’t en-route. Which also meant that big, bad and demon-
y
in the house was all mine.

Yay. Go me.

Troy’s grip on my arm tightened, his face set. “You are not going in there. No way, no how.”

I blinked at the authoritative tone in his voice. One night and he thought he could order me around? Oh no, that was so not happening. With a roll of my shoulder and a half-step, I broke his grip and glared up at him. Sure, he was fucking hot when he was mad, except when I was mad too. Then hot became irritating as hell. Especially when I was freaking out a little internally.

“Yeah? So you want your guys to go in there? Take it on?” I glared back, not backing down an inch. I’d done this song and dance before. I knew how it ended. “Because all that’ll do is add more souls for me to reap. Sorry, handsome. No can do. I got enough to deal with as it is.”

His jaw worked, as though he fought to hold back an answer neither of us was going to like. This is the problem with human men, they can get a little cave-man at times. All
me protect pretty little woman
even when they’d got absolutely no fucking chance. Got to give them points for trying though.

The wind whistled around us, whipping my hair around my face as if trying to tell us to get a move on. Finally, Troy nodded.

“I don’t like it.”

Ha!
He
didn’t like it. How the hell did he think
I
felt? I was the one who had to go in there and face the damn thing.