My Reaper's Daughter (41 page)

“Glyn!” Phelan shouted, but his voice was picked up and flung away by the

howling wind.

Kasid’s mount was a few lengths ahead of his partner’s. His hand was on the gun

strapped to his leg. His stare was locked on the white man who stood beneath the

overhang. He turned to look back at Phelan, sending a mental declaration that he would

take care of John Dirk.

Phelan nodded as that psychic warning came to him.
“I’ll take out the bokor,”
he sent

back then he looked from Glyn to the huge black man standing on the porch and back

again. His right hand left the reins and closed around the butt of his six-shooter.

Mystery lifted the rifle and pointed it straight at Leilani, her lips drawn back.

Realizing that rifle was aimed at her, Leilani raised her hands and shook her head

violently from side to side.

Glyn continued his mindless, unseeing trek toward the cabin.

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The bokor ignored the men riding toward him and was beckoning the Reaper

forward with a wave of his meaty hand.

John Dirk was keeping his attention on the boiling clouds where Raphian’s eel-like

head was beginning to protrude from the sodden heavens. A wide, merciless grin to

match the gaping maw of the demon was stretched across the tall man’s beefy face.

Mystery closed one eye, rocked a cartridge into the chamber, and sighted the other

woman down the length of the barrel.

Phelan raced his horse to within three feet of Glyn and hauled back on the reins.

His gun cleared leather. He trained the weapon on the bokor and started to pull the

trigger.

Kasid’s gun was out as well and the Reaper had a bead directly on John Dirk’s

heart.

From out of the glooming came a small, piteous cry for help. Every head swung

toward the sound except the bokor’s and Glyn’s. Those two men were staring at one

another, an invisible chain locking them in place.

“It can’t be!” Mystery protested, for she knew the sound of her own child’s voice

even in the pouring rain and blustering wind. She snapped around in the saddle and

the look on her face turned ghastly.

Struggling in the arms of one of her uncles—one of Mystery’s brothers—the little

girl was beating frantically against her captor’s shoulders but the man holding her

seemed unaware of the child’s actions. Though her little hands raked fingernails down

his cheeks, he did not appear to feel it. His eyes were as vacant as Glyn’s and his

plodding walk told everyone there he was one of the bokor’s mental slaves.

“LaVon, no,” Mystery cried out. “No!”

‘Take him out, Jaborn,” Phelan yelled at Kasid then fired his own weapon. For the

first time in his unnatural life, the Reaper missed his target, the bullet performing a

forty-five degree arc in the air and striking the wall just above Leilani’s head.

Eyes fearful, mouth sagging open, Leilani let out a horrified shriek as Kasid fired

and she dropped to a rigid squat with her arms over her head. A small puddle of urine

appeared at her feet. She shrieked again when John Dirk’s body hit the wooden

planking just in front of her—his surprised eyes staring at her.

Kasid’s bullet had not missed.

A roar of enraged sound filled the heavens with the white magic-sayer’s death but

the flashing red eyes and fang-filled maw of the demon Raphian was sucked back into

the tumbling clouds.

Oblivious to everything happening around them, Glyn and Mystery’s brother

continued toward the cabin. The child in LaVon’s arms had gone still as gruesome

death had struck only a yard away from her. Her little body was no longer struggling

within her uncle’s hold but trembling violently.

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Ignoring Phelan’s shout to stay where she was, Mystery scrambled down from his

horse and ran toward her child, dropping her rifle in the process.

Kasid quickly dismounted, and with gun in hand, started toward her, obviously

intending to cut her off. He yelled her name as he ran, warning her to stay away from

her brother.

Having missed his shot, Phelan hissed with fury and started to take another but the

bokor was no longer standing on the porch. In the split second it had taken Phelan to

glance at Mystery throwing herself from his mount, the black man had simply

disappeared.

“Where the fuck did he go?” Phelan yelled at Leilani, who had raised her head and

was staring at him from beneath her crossed arms. When the terrified woman only

shook her head, the Reaper cursed vilely, threw a leg over his horse’s head and slid to

the ground, his fingers tightening on his weapon.

Kasid managed to snake an arm around Mystery’s waist and lift her free of the

muddy ground, swiveling her around on his hip as he struggled to confine her.

“Be still, wench. He might hurt the child!” he told her.

“Valda!” Mystery shouted, her arms out to her daughter.

“Mama?” It was a tiny little squeak that was nearly lost in the rampage of the storm

but Glyn faltered at that sound and he stopped, swaying. He blinked. Blinked again

then began to turn his head slowly toward the child behind him.

“Come, slave!”
the bokor’s angry voice rang out from the interior of the cabin. An

eerie greenish glow came from the opened doorway and from behind the simple cotton

curtains on the windows.

Phelan was streaking toward the porch when a bullet came from the cabin,

whizzing past him close enough to pluck at his shirt. Before another could follow, he

dove for the ground, tucking and rolling and coming to rest at the corner of the

building.

Dragging Mystery with him as bullets started flying at them next, Kasid

manhandled Glyn’s mate out of harm’s way, shielding her behind his horse and

Phelan’s. He got her to the other side of the cabin, barely noticing Leilani scrambling

toward them on all fours.

Valda’s uncle passed Glyn whose vacant eyes tracked the little girl holding her

arms out to him.

“Daddy Glyn!” Valda whimpered, tears running down her cheeks. “Daddy Glyn!”

Glyn’s entire body quivered as the rain beat down on him. He continued to watch

the child as she was being carried toward the porch. His strangely glazed eyes swung to

Phelan who was plastered against the cabin wall, ducking beneath the window and

making his way to the open door.

“Slave!” the bokor bellowed.

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Glyn flinched as though he’d been struck and he took a few lurching steps forward

then stopped again.

“Glyn, help our baby!” Mystery pleaded with him as she tried her best to break free

of Kasid’s hold.

Phelan was only four feet away from the man holding the child. He knew if he shot

the poor bastard anywhere save his head, he most likely wouldn’t feel it and would

keep right on walking. Other than blowing out both knee caps to fell Mystery’s brother

and cripple him for life, he saw no other way to stop the lumbering man. Making a

decision he would regret the rest of his life, he leapt toward LaVon, throwing his body

against the mesmerized tool of the bokor to knock him down.

From the interior of the cabin, a single shot rang out to hit—not the intended mark,

not the Reaper—but the little girl clutched in her uncle’s arms.

Unaware the child had been hit, Phelan twisted around and fired his weapon into

the sickening green glow inside the cabin. This time his bullet did not miss and the

bokor’s head exploded in a mist of red. Almost instantly the green glow vanished in a

spiraling, serpentine wisp of smoke that poured from the cabin’s roof, leaving in its

wake the stench of brimstone.

In the heavens a mighty clash suddenly rang out as though two massive bodies had

collided and the sky turned as black as pitch. Two beings were locked in immortal

combat amidst the churning firmament. One had armor-plated copper scales and raking

talons, a breath of liquid fire. The other had but its darkness with fading greenish veins

running along its malodorous length. The hideous shrieks and ululating hisses, vicious

growls and straining grunts from the two combatants blew the glass out of every

window in the cabin.

“Valda!” Mystery screamed, seeing her child slumped against LaVon. She twisted

savagely away from Kasid and went to one knee on the planking before scrambling up

and rushing toward her daughter.

With the death of the bokor, both Glyn and LaVon came out of their stupor. Lying

flat on his back, LaVon pushed himself up with his elbows, his dazed eyes lowering to

the child in his lap. Standing where he was, Glyn shook his head, striving to regain his

senses. The moment he saw the tableau on the porch, he knew.

With a roar of pain and sorrow the Reaper raced forward, falling to his knees beside

the bleeding child. He shoved Phelan aside and gathered the little girl against him,

rocking back and forth as he howled in grief.

Mystery came to an abrupt halt as she reached her child. The bullet had struck

Valda in the center of her chest and the gray cotton of her bodice had blossomed with

blood. All she could do was stare at the spreading crimson flower, unable to stoop

down or make another sound.

“Valli,” she heard Glyn say over and over again as he sobbed as though his heart

had broken.

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Phelan stood and put a hand out to help the child’s uncle to his feet. He shook his

head slowly when the big man of color would have questioned what had happened.

The Reaper was aware of Kasid and Leilani approaching, of Leilani reaching out to

touch Mystery only to have Jaborn knock her hand away.

Glyn slowly looked up, staring disbelievingly into Mystery’s stricken face. His lips

were trembling, his body quivering as he held Valda. He cocked his head to one side

like a hurt animal that did not understand. His chest heaved raggedly, he closed his lips

and swallowed then he lowered his eyes to the little girl’s still body.

“Glyn?” Phelan questioned softly. “Why don’t you let me take her?”

Glyn’s arms tightened around the child. He slung his head from side to side

brutally then pushed to his feet. Valda’s head was draped over his left arm, her little

legs over his right. Her blood glistened on the front of his wet black T-shirt. He gave

Phelan a long, hard look, their amber gazes fusing.

“Don’t,” Phelan whispered.

Kullen did not so much as bat an eye. He moved past Phelan Kiel and into the

interior of the cabin. When Mystery would have followed him, Phelan shot out a hand

and grabbed her arm.

“No,” Phelan insisted, and pulled her back as his teammate entered the cabin and

kicked the door shut behind him.

“Let go of me!” Mystery snarled, but Kiel kept a hard, tight grip on her arm.

“You can’t see this.”

Kasid stepped forward. “Phelan, we can’t let him…” he started to say, but Kiel

growled like a wounded bear.

“Stay out of it, Jaborn,” was the order.

“What is he going to do?” Mystery asked, fear showing on her drawn features.

“What is he going to do?” When neither man answered, she called Glyn’s name, yelling

for him like a woman possessed.

Kiel and Jaborn flinched in tandem as Lord Kheelan’s voice ripped through their

brains.

“Don’t you dare!”
came the violent hiss from the Citadel.
”Kullen, no!”

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My Reaper’s Daughter

Chapter Nineteen

Phelan left the relatively dry comfort of the shed where Mystery cradled her

daughter in her lap. The rain had slacked, the thunder had stopped and now only a

faint, distant thread of lightning lit up the eastern sky as the storm settled down to a

gentle drizzle. He glanced at the cabin that was burning briskly despite the rain,

wrinkled his nose to the smell of charring flesh but relieved the bodies of the two

magic-sayers were being consumed by the flames. As the wood snapped and popped,

sent flickering embers up in a refreshingly warm wind, he picked his way across the

muddy yard. His destination was a large spreading oak tree under which Kullen sat—

back against the tree, shoulders slumped, knees crooked with his wrists resting on

them, head down.

The Reaper jumped when a roof timber fell but kept walking until he was standing

beneath the canopy of the oak, a few feet from his teammate. There, under the thick

awning of the leaves, he hunkered down and pushed his hat back, turning his head to

study the cabin’s destruction.

“I sent Kasid and LaVon over to the plantation house to bring back a carriage,” he

said then was quiet for a long moment before continuing. “Your lady is singing softly to

the child.” He looked back around, his attention settling on Glyn. “She has a truly

lovely voice.”

Glyn’s eyes were open and he was staring at the ground between his spread thighs.

He did not acknowledge Phelan’s words, did not even blink. His chest barely rose and

fell with his slow, measured breathing. In the dwindling light of day, his face was a

ghostly color, the dark tan seeming to have faded in the span of a few hours time.

“I don’t know where the housekeeper hiked off to,” Phelan went on. His voice was

low, expressionless. “She just up and disappeared after we set fire to the cabin.” He