My Reaper's Daughter (15 page)

watching him from the window, could hear his fellow Reaper speaking to him but

could not answer no matter how hard he tried. Nothing but grunts formed in his mind.

He was all too aware of what he was doing though he couldn’t understand why it was

happening—it never had before. His tongue lolled out of his mouth as he raced beside

the train and the pads of his paws were being ravaged by the sharp edges of the gravel

along the tracks. He could smell the blood seeping from them. His insides felt on fire

with the need to do just what he was doing and though his heart was pounding

dangerously, he could neither slow down nor stop. It was as though he were being

compelled. The agitation swirling in his brain was pushing out everything but the

compulsion to run. With all his being, he wished the train would slow down, would

stop, for if it didn’t, he was afraid his heart would burst. He was rapidly losing strength

and fading back.

It took every ounce of his power to turn his head and look up at Jaborn. He could

not communicate mentally with the man but he hoped Kasid would look into his eyes

and see the desperation. He held the other Reaper’s gaze for a long moment then he

saw Kasid pop out of his seat and run down the aisle.

Glyn dropped back and the passenger car shot ahead of him.

Then the dining car.

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Then the observation car until he was running far behind the train, panting

savagely, becoming winded as he struggled to catch up.

After what seemed like an eternity, the train began to slow. The brakes squealed

brutally and the ground shuddered.

He had almost reached the observation platform when his legs skidded out from

beneath him and he fell forward, his muzzle digging into the gravel. He yelped,

wounded, and flopped to his side, his paws moving as though he were still running.

He heard the crunch of gravel as boots hit the ground but he couldn’t move. His

paws were flailing uselessly and he was whimpering, panting so heavily he could

barely draw breath into his depleted lungs.

“It’s all right,” he heard Kasid say, and then strong arms were gently shoved

beneath him. “I’ve got you.”

He felt himself being lifted. His head lolled over Kasid’s arm. Sweat coated his fur

and blood oozed from the abraded pads of his paws as his teammate carried him onto

the train and to another sleeping car. He whined when Kasid lowered him to a soft

bunk.

“Lord Naois says you need a double dose of tenerse,” Kasid said, and left the

compartment. When he came back, he had a loaded vac-syringe in hand.

The drug burned a brutal pathway along the artery of Glyn’s neck but he no longer

had the ability to make a sound. He was so exhausted, so completely drained, all he

could do was lie there unmoving as the absolute agony spread through his

bloodstream. The double dosage hurt worse than he could have imagined, tearing

through him like white-hot lightning. His red eyes stared helplessly at Kasid.

“They don’t know, Glynnie,” Kasid told him, stroking the damp fur. “It happened

to Cyn and Bev too.”

Glyn shuddered once then the strong narcotic claimed him. The last thing he heard

before the darkness closed around was Lord Kheelan’s worried voice.

“Keep him sedated until you reach Charlotte. We’ll have a healer take a look at him there.”

* * * * *

“This is a new threat,” Lord Dunham told his fellow Shadowlords. “One that may

prove to be difficult to fight.”

Standing at the wide bank of windows that overlooked the roiling sea beyond, High

Lord Kheelan remained quiet. His hands were clasped behind his back as he watched

the waves crashing upon the broken concrete pylons that had once been a magnificent

state building before the Burning War. A severe storm—which they learned from

records archived in one of the sub-basements of the Citadel was called a hurricane long

ago—was brewing out in the dark green waters and lightning was already flashing on

the horizon.

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“Fitting,” Lord Kheelan said softly, “that a storm should be coming our way even as

our Reapers are under attack from unknown forces.”

“Still no word from the goddess?” Lord Naois inquired.

Lord Kheelan shook his head. “Not a peep and that worries me more than the offcycle Transitions.” A loud sigh issued from his throat. “She has been our lifeline,

gentlemen. Without Her…” He let the words hang in the air as the warning they were.

“This situation in the Oklaks Territory,” Lord Dunham said, “obviously started it

all.”

“I disagree,” Lord Kheelan said. He did not look around but continued to watch the

approaching storm. “I don’t think they are connected.” Before Dunham could dispute

his position, the High Lord held up a hand to stay him. “Just a gut feeling I have,

Dunny, but I don’t believe one is the result of the other.”

“They stink of Raphian, Kheelan,” Lord Dunham argued.

“Oh, I’ve no doubt whatsoever of that,” Lord Kheelan acknowledged. “He has set

this shit into motion, but the problems in Kiel’s territory are going to prove to be

something entirely different than Gehdrin’s.” He glanced around. “Mark my words.”

Lord Dunham thought of the dozens of townspeople who had been mysteriously

vanishing in the Oklaks Territory only to turn up dead weeks later missing vital organs

such as brains, hearts, kidneys, lungs and livers. The death toll was rising in the west

and because the disappearances were so widespread, the territory so large and

beginning to encroach into the Exasla Territory patrolled by Reaper Cynyr Cree, it had

meant sending four Reapers to cover the situation.

“So what do you believe is the connection between Cynyr and Bevyn Transitioning

out of cycle way out there and Glyn doing so over this way?” Lord Naois queried.

“Disruption,” Lord Kheelan stated. “It takes the men out of the equation, off-line,

and is no doubt meant to show us how far-reaching is Raphian’s power.”

“And how vulnerable our men are to Him,” Lord Dunham said quietly.

“He’s found a way to reach out and touch them at will,” Lord Kheelan said, “and

that is a terrifying thought, gentlemen.”

“So what do we do?” Lord Naois asked.

“What
can
we do without the goddess’s help?” Lord Dunham challenged.

They two men looked to their leader but the High Lord had no answer.

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Chapter Seven

Glyn awoke four days later naked in a strange bed, in a strange room with the

curtains drawn over rain-lashed windows behind which a storm raged violently. The

thunder had forced him from his slumber but it was the strobe-like pulses of lightning

flaring around the edges of the draperies that brought him fully awake. They lit the

room in an eerie green burst of illumination that made his eyes hurt.

“It was hailing but a moment ago,” Kasid said from a chair across the room.

Pushing up in the bed, Glyn groaned for every muscle in his body ached as though

he’d been given the worst beating of his life. He hurt in places he hadn’t thought about

in years and the headache that pushed between his temples was a torment unto itself,

and although he had resumed his human form, he could feel his fangs. He ran a tongue

over their sharpness and moaned.

Kasid stood and came over to the bed, rolling his shirtsleeve up as he did. “You

need Sustenance before I give you another dose of tenerse. That will retract the fangs.”

He extended his arm. “Drink, my friend.”

Glyn shied away from the offering—not because he did not need what Kasid

offered or because it came from the arm of an Akhkharulian, but because of the tattoo

on the Reaper’s arm. The symbol disgusted him as much as it gave him pause.

“I am sorry. I will…” Kasid started to say, pulling his arm back to offer his right

arm in its place but Glyn reached out to stop him.

“It’s all right,” Glyn said, annoyed that his voice was hoarse and just to speak

seemed to sap what little strength he had.

“I did not think,” Kasid said as he looked down at the tattoo that had been stamped

into his flesh. “It is a vile thing, Glynnie.”

Striving not to look at the representation of the coiled ghoret—the deadliest viper

known to the megaverse and the one thing all Reapers feared—emblazoned on Jaborn’s

flesh, Glyn wrapped his hands around Kasid’s forearm, sank his fangs into the fleshy

underside and drank. As he did, he closed his eyes to the violent pain racking his head.

Kasid stared across the room. There was only a modicum of pain from the bite so

that did not concern him. It was the heat pouring off his fellow Reaper’s body that

worried him. A Reaper’s body heat was higher than that of his humanoid

counterparts—especially so just before and during a Transition—but it should not be as

high as Kasid was experiencing from Glyn Kullen’s touch. A surreptitious glance at

Kullen’s face showed sweat glistening on the man’s unnaturally pale flesh.

“Lord Kheelan?”
Kasid sent.

“A healer is on his way to you,”
the High Lord sent in return.

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“He still has a very high fever.”

“We know.”

Glyn’s hands slipped from Kasid’s arms and the Reaper slid down in the bed. His

fangs began to retract. “Were you speaking to the Shadowlords?” he asked.

Kasid rolled down the sleeve of his shirt and buttoned it. “Did you not hear me?”

Glyn put his fingertips to his temples and massaged. “I heard buzzing but couldn’t

make out the words.”

A frown settled on the Akhkharulian’s features. “They are sending a healer to

examine you,” Kasid informed him.

“How long have I been out?”

“Four days in wolf form. You Transitioned about half an hour ago back to your

normal form.”

“Are we in Charlotte?”

“Aye,” Kasid acknowledged.

“By the gods, I hurt.”

Kasid nodded and turned away, going over to a table where a prepared vac-syringe

lay.

“Hold off until the healer gives you the go-ahead on that, Lord Kasid,”
Lord Kheelan’s

voice interrupted.

“He’s in pain.”

“Understood, but the healer needs to know if there is something else wrong with him that

administering the tenerse might compound.”

“What did they say?” Glyn queried.

“They want to me to wait on giving you the drug,” Kasid said.

Acute disappointment drifted over Glyn’s face but he nodded. He thought of Owen

Tohre’s addiction to the narcotic and certainly didn’t want that for himself. He hoped

the healer wasn’t too long in coming, and when the light knock at the door sounded, he

breathed a sigh of relief.

Kasid admitted the healer, who walked straight to the bed and put a hand to Glyn’s

forehead. The man in the long white robe looked to Jaborn.

“How long has he had this fever?”

“I don’t know, milord,” Kasid answered. “I was unaware of it until he fed from

me.”

“Go ask the proprietor to have a cold bath prepared in the bathing room,” the

healer directed. “As cold as he can get it. When you have seen to that, go to the

apothecary across the street and get as many bottles of rubbing alcohol as they have in

stock.”

“Aye, milord,” Kasid agreed.

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“I will need iced water for him to drink so have the proprietor provide that as

well.”

Kasid nodded and hurried out.

“Can I have the tenerse now?” Glyn asked. His head was nigh to exploding and the

pain was so intense the sound of his own voice reverberating in his ears was

excruciating.

“I would like to get your temperature down first but I can see you are in pain,

milord,” the healer commented. “Perhaps just a little to take the edge off.”

“I’d appreciate it,” Glyn whispered, and almost smiled at the healer’s shocked look.

Obviously the man wasn’t accustomed to Reapers being polite to him.

“How bad is the pain?” the man inquired as he brought the vac-syringe to the bed.

“The worst I can ever remember having.”

“Did anything odd happen before you Transitioned?” the healer inquired as he

injected the fiery drug into Glyn’s neck.

Glyn winced as the painful payload entered his veins. “I was sleeping and when I

woke, it was on me.”

“Very strange,” was the pronouncement. “As I understand it, Lords Cree and Coure

reported the same thing. Both had been sleeping.” He smoothed back the wet hair from

his patient’s forehead. “When we sleep, we are vulnerable, especially when we are

dreaming and the mind is already occupied and unable to protect it from outside

influences.”

“I was dreaming,” Glyn admitted.

The healer nodded. “So were your teammates.”

“Did they have a fever too?”

“Aye, but it passed quickly enough. I expect yours to do the same but it is

sufficiently high enough to warrant a cold bath.”

Glyn said nothing to the plan. He was sweating profusely and plunging into

cooling water would no doubt relieve some of the pain scraping inside his skull. He was

more than ready for Kasid to return with news the bath was ready.

But unprepared to find he had no strength to swing his legs from the bed or stand.