My Reaper's Daughter (40 page)

“What’s with this fucking weather?” Phelan demanded, shouting above the

thunder.

“It surely isn’t natural,” Kasid said, but not loud enough for his partner to hear. He

tipped his head back to survey the heavens—wincing as rain struck at his eyes. “Not

natural at all.”

* * * * *

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Leilani hovered under the lean-to beneath which John Dirk had led her. She was

shivering for her dress and shawl were soaked through and water filled her shoes. She

ran the back of her hand beneath her nose, watching her companion trying futilely to

start a fire by which they could warm.

“What was in his office?” she asked. “What killed him?”

“Nothing you need to worry yourself about,” the former foreman told her. “Just

know it was power the likes of which you’ll never wield.”

The housekeeper stared at the white man’s stony profile and her upper lip cocked

with disdain. He was trying to give her the impression he could exert that kind of

power and she knew better. She’d seen the terror on his face when he’d run from the

office. She had felt his fear. Whatever had slaughtered Anthony Simmons had been

something that frightened the tall man.

“What do we do now?” she asked.

John Dirk shrugged, tossing the wet matches aside. He flexed his broad shoulders.

“I do whatever Lord Raphian wishes me to do,” he replied.

“You’re still going after the Reaper man?”

“Lord Raphian wants the bastard.”

Leilani looked away, turning her gaze into the wild afternoon where the rain was

streaming. She contemplated her choices. A part of her wanted revenge on him for

choosing Mystery over her, but another part couldn’t have cared less what happened to

Glyn Kullen now that she knew he was not the one destined for her.

“You are going to stay with me so get him off your mind, wench,” John Dirk

warned.

She turned her eyes to him. “What makes you think I’ll stay with you?” she asked,

dredging up courage she didn’t know she possessed where this man was concerned.

John Dirk actually smiled although that smile was a deadly parody of one that

made her flesh crawl. “Because between us, we have power and we can make a damned

fine living from those of your kind who might seek out our services.” He locked stares

with her. “The Reapers will go after the bokor and take him out. Once he’s gone, we’ll

be the only game in town. I’ll turn Kullen over to Lord Raphian and that’ll be that.”

Leilani drew in a slow, deep breath. She could see the flaw in such a plan. Even if

Kullen met his fate with the Destroyer of Men’s Souls, the other Reapers would avenge

him. They’d not rest until they’d punished the one responsible. Letting them know it

was John Dirk was the only way she’d be free of the dangerous man’s hold.

“That sounds like a plan,” she said, smiling sensually at her companion.

She barely flinched when he dragged her into his arms and slathered his thick lips

over hers. Though his eyes were squeezed shut as he thrust his slimy tongue into her

mouth, hers were wide open, and within them the fire of revenge burned bright.

* * * * *

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Mystery was trudging through the rain, intent on reaching the only two men she

knew might keep the man she loved from harm’s way. Having found no horses in the

stable, she had simply begun walking in a pair of oversized pants, shirt and an old

slicker—the hem of which dragged the ground behind her as she put one foot ahead of

the other. Upon her head was one of Lord Phelan’s castoff black hats, keeping the rain

out of her determined face. Around her waist she had strapped a spare gun belt that

holstered a loaded six-shooter. With her were two things she had gathered from the

house and were now concealed within the dry confines of the slicker. One of those

things was a rifle and it too was loaded with spare shells jingling in the pocket of the

rain gear.

In his cabin, Yves St. Germaine was busy controlling two souls locked within the

perimeters of his magic. One was the white man. The other was a man of color. Now

and again he would turn his fearful eyes to the demon then look hastily away for he

had seen his agonizing fate should he dare to fail Kalfu yet again.

* * * * *

Under the rickety lean-to where he had taken shelter with the woman after whom

he lusted, John Dirk listened to the insistent, whispered voice of the Destroyer of Men’s

Souls—nodding calmly to the instructions he was being given. When the buzzing,

clicking voice of Raphian faded, the tall man grabbed Leilani’s arm and dragged her

with him to his horse. Tossing her upon the nag’s back, he joined her then kicked the

beast brutally in the ribs to set out for an isolated cabin on Burnt Pine plantation where

he intended to lend his support to a brother magic-sayer.

Her arms reluctantly gripping the waist of the former foreman, Leilani Shoad put

her cheek to the white man’s broad back to keep the rain from pelting her face. Her gaze

strayed to the gun at his hip and stayed there as the horse galloped across the sodden

ground.

* * * * *

With a fury greater than it had been in many millennia, the Triune Goddess in

dragon form dove through the Net—that deadly security barrier spread over Terra to

protect it from extraterrestrial invasion—and unleashed a bellow of rage as Her great

copper wings beat once, twice against the driving rain. The scaled wings stretched wide

and then stilled. In a downward glide She bared Her foot-long fangs as a stream of fire

shot from Her gaping maw. Her two-inch-thick claws curved inward toward the rough

skin of Her paw as She soared. Her scales rippled in the rushing wind. Her haunches

tensed. Her great beastly heart beat with a slow, steady intent as bloodlust settled in the

elliptical green eyes. Morrigunia was primed for a fight and only gruesome death

would satiate Her now.

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* * * * *

As Glyn Kullen rode toward the hypnotic voice summoning him, his horse balked

beneath the tight rein its rider had on the bit. Flinging its head from side to side, up and

down, the beast tried valiantly to let the human know the grip was painful. When after

a few miles the man did not get the message, Stannair decided it had had enough and

came to a stiff-legged halt and bucked, sending its rider over its head into the mud.

The Reaper landed facedown on the ground, grunting as the wind was knocked out

of his sails. He flipped to his back, gasping as rain hammered cruelly at his face, and

that was a mistake. Groaning, he twisted to the side to avoid the stinging invasion. He

lay there until he could breath normally again. The unrelenting summoning voice of the

bokor prodded him until he was sitting up, swiping a trembling hand through his

dripping hair, his hat having been dislodged and nowhere in sight.

Drawn by the insistent command, he stumbled through the sucking sludge. The

heavy rain soon washed the mud away in mere minutes but his feet squelched ankledeep in the muck as he walked. The black denim jeans clung tightly to his legs and the

black T-shirt stuck to his broad chest.

By the time he saw the cabin’s lights, he was trembling violently from the cold,

harsh wind whipping the lancing rain over his body. His lips quivered yet his eyes

were fever-bright if vacant—homing in on the call he could not deny.

* * * * *

“Isn’t that Mystery?” Phelan shouted, pointing toward the figure trekking toward

them. “By the goddess, it is!”

The Reapers urged their mounts to a faster clip, and when they reached the sodden

woman, they reined in quickly.

Mystery pulled the rifle from beneath her coat.

“What happened?” Phelan asked, thrusting his hand toward her, demanding the

rifle she carried. When she handed it to him, he didn’t wait for her answer but swung

her up behind him.

“He’s under the bokor’s spell again. He left half an hour ago,” Mystery answered as

she took the rifle back from him.

Phelan glanced at Kasid and both men swung their horses around, whipping them

into a hard gallop.

“How will you be able to find him?” Mystery yelled to Phelan, her words whipping

past her cheek in the wind. She clutched the rifle tight against her.

“We have our ways!” Phelan responded.

Kasid had not heard the exchange but he had plucked the worry from Mystery’s

mind. Each of the Reapers had exchanged blood for just such a reason as this. It would

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be easy to home in on Glyn’s whereabouts. He and Kiel would find him by the blood

scent.

“Lord Naois, the bokor has Kullen again,”
Kasid sent mentally.

“We are with you, Lord Kasid. The drone is tracking you,”
was the reply.

The lightning strikes increased—the ear-splitting, eye-blinding flashes raw on the

nerves—and the wind became a buffeting wall through which they rode. Its breath was

as frigid as the Northland climes, twice as brutal. Thunder boomed and the ground

beneath the pounding horses rumbled. Rain came down in a solid sheet of misery to

obscure the road but the Reapers had Kullen’s scent in their nostrils and they sped

toward him with teeth gritted and eyes hard.

* * * * *

John Dirk spied the Reaper as he tramped through the cloying mud and laughed.

He thrust his chin toward the struggling man.

“He is walking to his doom,” the former foreman scoffed. He urged the horse

carrying him and Leilani past the lawman—who didn’t even look up as they rode by.

Leilani looked back at Glyn Kullen and felt a momentary qualm of regret that the

handsome white man was about to meet his death or—worse yet—have his soul stolen

by the bokor. When John Dirk halted the horse, flung a leg over the beast’s head and

dropped to the ground, he had to hiss to gain her attention. He stood on the ground

with his arms held out to her. She hooked a leg over the saddle and slid into his waiting

arms, bracing her hands on his hard biceps, avoiding his lusty gaze as he settled her

almost gently on the muddy ground.

“St. Germaine is waiting,” the tall man told her.

The former housekeeper of Sagewood turned her head and saw the bokor standing

on the porch of his cabin. She frowned for the man looked none too steady. He was

leaning against an upright, his hands curled around the post.

“Didn’t need to bring the woman here,” Papa Croisement complained to John Dirk

as the white man and the woman of color stepped under the porch’s overhand. “Didn’t

need the peckerwood neither!”

“My Master sent me,” John Dirk said. “A part of that one’s soul belongs to Lord

Raphian.”

The black man snorted, gave Leilani a penetrating look that had it been a flame

would have incinerated her where she stood then returned his attention to the man

plodding toward the cabin.

“That’s right,” the bokor said. “Come to your master, slave.”

“Are you going to kill him?” Leilani asked then tucked her bottom lip between her

teeth for the enraged glance the magic-sayer gave her was like a physical blow.

“Do not speak to me, woman!” Papa Croisement sneered. “You are lower than the

low to me!”

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Leilani backed away from the fury she saw on the bokor’s face and when John Dirk

said nothing to the insult, she dug her fingernails into her palms.

The closer the Reaper came to the cabin, the more intense the storm beat against the

cabin. Lightning was flaring constantly and the wind howled so fiercely it was

necessary to shout to be heard. The air began to have a decided sulfurous stink to it.

“Lord Raphian is coming,” John Dirk yelled.

“Baron Kalfu is already here,” the bokor said in a voice so low the white man could

not hear.

Overhead, the heavens took on a greenish cast amid the dark black and blue bruises

that discolored its surface. Here and there crimson streaks veined savagely across the

tumbling, boiling, rumbling clouds. A low rumble began then the air became filled with

a loud buzzing, clicking cacophony that vied with the skirling wind to batter the

hearing.

“There!” John Dirk cried out, pointing at the two fiery elliptical eyes that had

formed amid one midnight black patch of sky. “My Master has arrived!”

The bokor paid no heed to the white man or his alien demon-god; the woman was

completely forgotten. He was listening to the harsh, angry voice of his own Master as

Kalfu instructed him to make haste in bringing the Reaper to the altar. The ceremonial

knife awaited the white man’s throat and the chalice sat empty, eager for the flow of

blood. He barely paid any attention to the two other riders bearing down on his cabin.

“Be quick, slave!” he bellowed.

From her place pressed between two rockers, Leilani narrowed her eyes, trying to

make out who was arriving. As soon as she recognized the Reapers and Mystery, she

opened her mouth to speak but thought better of it. Clamping her lips shut, she decided

to see how this drama would play out. Death hovered in the air and she sensed it. She

did not want that death to be her own.