Reap & Redeem (4 page)

He knew what it meant.

The demons were evolving—her soul had been ripped from her still-living body. It was a tactic his demon had been fond of at the end of its days. It meant they were growing bolder, which would raise the ante for everyone.

This one had been lucky. She’d managed to die in the process. Sometimes they didn’t. Sometimes they were left to wander without their souls. For sport. He kneeled beside the junkie’s body, the unconscious woman still in his arms, and placed his palm over the boy’s chest. Two souls streamed forth: the junkie’s and the prostitute’s. The demon had lost its spoils in its quick departure.

Even in his current state of disgruntlement, he couldn’t leave the souls unreaped.

Inhaling, he drew them into his body and cringed as they filled him, vying for purchase inside him. Now what the hell was he going to do with them? A trip to Purgatory was the last thing he wanted. Especially an unauthorized visit. But it seemed he just couldn’t escape his destiny.

In
his
day—Hell, in the last twenty-plus generations of reapers—the demonic possession of a human body was extremely rare, because few made it topside. It was surprising how often humans actually summoned a demon in the
hopes
of possession, out of a craving for power, revenge or a wide variety of other selfish reasons. The host soon discovered that his or her aspiration, whatever it may have been, was hardly worth the price. Most were lucky to last the week. As time went on, the rules began to bend. Eventually the demons that found their way to Earth learned how easy it was to worm into weak-minded humans and corrupt them. Sometimes that weakness was of a spiritual nature, other times it was a mental or physical weakness; sometimes inebriation was enough of an opening to slide through. Even then it was a one-on-one proposition. One demon, one body. It was bad enough that they were poaching unclaimed souls. But if run-of-the-mill demons could rip souls from living bodies and leave the husks to wander? Those were old, old school tactics.

Lucifer’s handiwork.

Kylen’s demon had taken full advantage of his reaper body and skills to achieve the same results. They’d left their fair share of wanderers over the past several years, but he’d hoped the practice had died with his demon. If any demon could now do it?

Soul raping was akin to waving a red flag in front of a bull. With this development, all bets were off. While one rogue demon might not draw down the wrath of Heaven, this blatant assault on God’s most prized creation wouldn’t escape attention or retribution

The woman had probably been high or drunk, easy pickings, and since the demon had greedily foregone her body in search of another—the one currently in his arms—he’d left her to wander or perish.

God help them all if one of these demons managed to possess another reaper.

The imps mewed and salivated at his feet like adoring pets. He grunted with disgust and leveled his gaze at the lot of them.

“Eat,” he commanded.

The imps hissed, baring row upon row of inch-long, needle-pointed teeth in glee before they fell upon the bodies like hogs on a carcass. The wet sound of soft flesh ripping and tearing was punctuated by the crunch of bone as the fiends got down to business. Both bodies would be consumed before he reached the cemetery. They were very efficient.

Kylen left the alley, unsurprised that the raucous noise wasn’t being investigated. This was not an area of Meridian that encouraged heroism. As he made his way back to consecrated ground with the woman in his arms, not a single drunk wandered out of an alleyway, and no curtains parted for a peek.

He gazed down at the woman’s slender form, her face softly illuminated by the predawn light. As he walked toward the cemetery, her reddish-brown hair was drained of color before his eyes, turning a stark white. Soft and straight, it swayed like a horse’s mane from her head with each step. A hand-shaped bruise began to form around her throat, making him frown.

Exhaustion poured from Kylen as he took the last few steps toward the growing sunrise, which exploded before him in pinks and reds, filling the eastern sky.

Red sky at night, sailor’s delight. Red sky in morning, sailor take warning
echoed in the back of his mind, reminding him of something…something important. As the realization hit, he sank to his knees in the soft turf of the cemetery, the blood rushing from his brain and blurring his vision.

What the hell?

He closed his eyes, and then opened them again, blinking rapidly, trying to make sense of something that made no sense. He could see the colors of the sunrise? Her hair? How? Why now, four months after his liberation? Too exhausted for any more self-examination, it occurred to him again that he’d only gotten an hour of sleep in the past three days. And he hadn’t eaten since when? He had no idea. He was exhausted, undernourished and carrying two souls. Of course his vision was screwy.

Reckless.

Yes. He was.

He closed his eyes again and palmed the nearest headstone. Flashing with the help of a sanctified object created a more direct portal into the consecrated subway and required less energy than dissipating through a large area of consecrated ground. Right now, he needed all the help he could get.

Feeling the familiar tug, he and the woman began to swirl and dissipate into the consecrated subway. Kylen willed them to the closest thing he had to a home.

* * *

“Holy shit!” Nate leaped from the couch as Kylen and a woman landed in the middle of Ruth’s living room. Kylen crumpled to his knees, holding the limp body before him like a sacrifice, the woman’s white hair splayed across the floor.

“Is she dead?” Nate bent to reach for her and Kylen’s eyes blazed at him with what? Rage? And the ice-gray stare of a reaper carrying a soul.

“Are you carrying a soul?” Nate rolled back onto his heels, looking at him intently.

“Yes…” Kylen ground out before falling to the floor unconscious, the woman still lying across his lap.

“Shit.” Nate scooped up the woman and cradled her in his arms like a child. “Ruth!”

Ruth scrambled out of the master bathroom with dripping hair, an oversized towel wrapped around her body. She tightened it and tucked it in as she quickly surveyed the situation.

“Oh my God!” She hurried to Nate’s side. “What happened? How did she get here?”

Nate nodded toward Kylen’s prostrate form as he made his way to his bedroom, which doubled as their personal hospital suite, and carefully set the woman down on the hospital bed that had mercifully gone unused for the past several months.

Arranging her on the bed, he smoothed her hair away from her face and began loosening her clothes to search for wounds or signs of distress that might explain her unconsciousness. He palpated the back of her head, too, searching for a skull fracture or other head injury. Nothing. Her pulse was slow but steady. When he checked her eyes, her pupils dilated, radiating a soft blue glow. It could mean only one thing. She’d been juiced.

Hard.

He couldn’t see auras, but he could see the juice they used and its lingering aftereffects.

No wonder Kylen was so drained. Juicing the woman, carrying souls, bringing her through the consecrated subway. What had happened? And how the hell had he been able to bring her here at all? Only supernatural entities were supposed to be able to use it. So what the hell was she?

“What’s wrong with her?” Ruth had followed him to the open doorway.

“I don’t know. Go get some clothes on, and then gather the IV supplies for me. We’ll see if we can rehydrate her and bring her around.”

Ruth rushed away while Nate continued his examination. Nothing made sense. Other than the diminishing blue light in her eyes and a growing bruise along her throat, she showed no signs of trauma. Ruth returned and made quick work of gathering the necessary materials from the closet.

“Get enough for Kylen, too. He bottomed out and he’s carrying souls.”

“What?” Ruth looked down at the woman, clearly confused about whose soul he might have and how. Join the club, sister. There was plenty of confusion to go around.

Ruth set up the IV hook and hung the bag just like Nate had instructed. She’d become a very adept assistant. After inserting the IV needle in the woman’s hand, Nate watched the fluid trickle down the tubing. He briefly considered restraining her, but decided against it.

“Nate!” Ruth cried.

“What?” Nate whipped around, looking for an attacker.

“Her aura…” Ruth looked up at him, the color draining from her own face. “It’s white.”

Nate sighed. White was not good. He couldn’t see it. Only reapers could. But Ruth had filled him in on the meanings of the various hues and practiced on him plenty of times, decoding his every mood at her whim. It was infuriating.

White was the color of impending death.

Checking the IV again, he shook his head. He’d done all he could for now. He had no idea what was wrong with the woman. She appeared unharmed, and he couldn’t find any evidence of internal injuries.

“Stay with her. I’ll go tend to Kylen.” Nate grabbed the rest of the supplies Ruth had prepared from the bedside table and walked into the living room to deal with the recalcitrant reaper.

Kylen was gone.

Judging from the trail of overturned furniture he’d left and the swinging door, he’d escaped to his trailer. Seriously? He hadn’t even waited around to see how the woman was doing? Nate wondered why he’d bothered to bring her here at all. He wasn’t exactly the nurturing type. Well, one thing was for sure—whether he wanted help or not, Kylen needed it.

Nate walked outside and knocked on the trailer door. No answer. As he turned the knob, he heard a rustling in the woods to his left, beyond the circle of protection. He had recast the circle with all four of them present, giving each of them permission to enter and leave at will, although it was strongest when they were all on site. Ruth’s energy was the main engine that powered it. The rest of them were supplemental.

Lately, he had been reconsidering the wisdom of including Kylen in the spell. So far nothing troublesome had made it through the supernatural barrier…until tonight. He hoped leaving the woman alone with Ruth wasn’t a mistake. She looked harmless enough, and even Kylen wasn’t so far gone that he’d knowingly put Ruth at risk. Not after she’d saved his ass. Right?

He peered into the dark undergrowth at the edge of the woods. He didn’t have a reaper’s super-sensory powers, but something out there raised the short hairs on the back of his neck to attention.

Daylight broke over the tops of the trees, but the light still hadn’t penetrated at the ground level. The line from the Robert Frost poem, “lovely, dark and deep,” came to mind, except he was pretty sure there was nothing lovely waiting for him outside the circle.

At knee level, inside the undergrowth, three sets of yellow eyes glowed brightly in the still black woods. One set blinked, leaving only a vertical yellow, snake-eyed slit, before winking back to its diamond shape. Nate squinted into the darkness, trying to make out a form, but when he refocused, the yellow eyes were gone.

His brain said cat.
Big cat.
Like a bobcat or mountain lion. His intuition and sense of self-preservation spoke of something else. Something…evil. He shuddered and pushed into the trailer.

Dead to the world, Kylen lay sprawled on the bottom bunk on the right end of the trailer. In the guy’s defense, Nate was impressed with his cleanliness. The place was immaculate. Of course, the dude had no belongings. He’d been possessed for a hundred years. By a demon, not material accumulations.

Clean or not, it looked like the seventies had thrown up in here—it was all dark wood with yellow, orange and avocado floral prints on the couch and bedding.

One extra pair of black combat boots stood polished and aligned in a perfect row at the foot of the bed. Four clean changes of black fatigues were meticulously folded and arranged along the edge of the top bunk next to four pairs of black underwear and socks. Black was the prevailing theme.

Seemed appropriate.

A case of gleaming blades of various lengths and shapes lay open behind the row of clothing. Dude had more blades than he did socks. Nate didn’t know shit about knives unless you were talking scalpels.

He glanced around the camper. One used glass sat at the edge of the toylike kitchen sink, a toothbrush lying on the counter beside it. And that was it. Kylen didn’t even have a book or magazine to read. What did he
do
out here alone all the time? He sure wasn’t sleeping, and as uptight as he was, Nate struck jacking-off from the list of possibilities.

That left thinking. Alone. In a camping trailer. That was way more alone time than Nate could have handled, and he wasn’t half as screwed up as Kylen. Not by a long shot. What were a dozen-plus foster homes compared to a century-long demonic possession? Small potatoes, my friend, small potatoes.

Kylen sighed softly before grunting something incoherent and kicking out with one still-booted foot. Nate shook his head and closed the short distance between them. He laid the IV supplies on the top bunk and bent to loosen the laces and remove Kylen’s boots.

Freakin’ reapers pushed and pushed themselves, all of them, Ruth included, and she’d only been a reaper for just over four months. Officially, anyway.

Well, they weren’t indestructible. Just close.

Nate had become the family healer and magical protector by default when they’d discovered he had a few skills of his own. That and being the sole person in the house with an aura had made things…interesting. Everyone always seemed to know what he was thinking and feeling, but he had to read the others based on more cryptic clues. Well, now there was another person with an aura in the house. A white one.

What the hell is going on?
he thought for about the millionth time that morning.

Nate rearranged Kylen’s massive body as best he could, aligning his arm to accept the nutrition IV he’d brought into the camper. He should have probably used three or four of these a week, but he always refused help when he was conscious. Kylen had been living on caffeine and hatred, for all Nate could figure. He’d been a sack of bones and determination after the exorcism, but he’d worked out like a fiend every day since. Even though he was still too thin, he was jacked, too.