Reaper's Revenge (28 page)

“We’ll be down shortly, milady,” Cynyr answered. “We will need tenerse.”

“It’s already prepared for you,” Moira assured him. “Arawn’s already been here this morning.” They heard the old lady shuffling away from the door.

“Arawn’s up early,” Aingeal said.

“He would be. He knows I’ll meet the red man this day.”

Aingeal caught her bottom lip between her teeth—now normal once again. “Are you up to it,
mo shearc
? Do you feel well enough to battle Otaktay?”

“I will defeat him, wench,” he said, getting up from the bed. He looked for his uniform and began dressing.

Aingeal knew he was preserving his strength else he would simply have waved his hand to clothe himself. He did not appear to be as weak as he had been the night before and did not stagger or stumble when he walked. She watched him carefully as he retrieved his boots to make sure he wasn’t lightheaded when he straightened up. She could detect no weakness and let out a relieved breath.

“I’m hungry,” he stated, shifting his shoulders.

She knew his parasite was reminding him that it needed to be fed more than the small amount of blood he’d taken from her earlier. He needed Sustenance and a lot of it.

“They’ll have it for me,” Cynyr said absently, plucking her thought from the ether.

“They will want to make sure I have a plethora of Reaper blood flowing through my veins.”

Aingeal smiled to herself. He invaded her mind so casually, so expertly, she rarely knew he was plundering around in there. “How ‘bout giving me back my clothes, Reaper,” she said.

Cynyr sighed, waved his hand and they appeared in a heap on the floor. “Sorry,”

he apologized.

“Did you glean what Otaktay has planned?” she asked as she slipped her legs into her black britches.

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“I had to weave through all the craziness but, aye, I know what he has in store for me.” He glanced at his lady as she pulled on her shirt. “I just have to remember not to let his words make me as fanatical as he appears to be.”

“But you can use his own plan against him,” she advised. “He still considers me his property.”

Cynyr grunted, his disdain for what the savage considered apparent. He looked around him, frowning. “Where is my whip?”

“I saw it at the jail,” she said.

The Reaper was dressed but he felt naked without the dragon-claw-handled weapon. He didn’t bother strapping on his gun belt. There was no need. He didn’t intend on shooting the man who had raped his woman, he was going to take him apart strip by bloody strip.

Aingeal intercepted that brutal thought and shivered. She knew her husband was a powerful warrior and would have no pity for his enemy. Glad she would not be there to see the killing take place, she said a quiet prayer for her mate’s soul.

“You’d best say one for the Jakotai,” he told her. “It will be his soul being snatched up by the Gatherer this day.” He opened the door for his lady and ushered her from their bedroom with a hand to the small of her back.

Outside their room on the little table upon which Moira kept fresh flowers were two containers of Sustenance, one carafe darker in color than the other. There was no need for Aingeal to ask which one went to her husband. She picked up the darker one and handed it to him.

Arawn was sitting at the table with Annie, having a second cup of coffee when Cynyr and Aingeal came downstairs. He nodded at Cynyr, rose to hold Aingeal’s chair for her then walked over to the sideboard to fetch two vac-syringes.

“Mick took over watch for me so I could prepare the syringes correctly,” the Prime Reaper said. He went first to Cynyr. “I didn’t trust the job to anyone else.”

“Where’s your lady?” Cynyr asked.

“With her parents where I hope she’ll stay,” Arawn said.

The injection into his neck hurt worse than at any other time Cynyr could remember. It stung like a hundred bees were puncturing his veins and he even felt it burning all the way to his heart. “Was there something else mixed in?” he demanded, rubbing at the pain in his neck.

“Something the high lords sent via the train,” Arawn replied. “I don’t have a clue what it is or does. Hurts, does it?”

“Like a motherfu—” Cynyr blushed, ducking his head to keep from seeing the expression on Annie’s face.

Annie exchanged an amused look with Moira who was bringing a bowl of scrambled eggs to the table. She picked up the platter of bacon and held it out to Cynyr.

“Bacon, milord?”

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“Mayhaps I should rinse his mouth out a’fore he eats,” Moira said, her eyes twinkling.

“Wait until afterwards, Moira,” Aingeal suggested. “He says he’s hungry.”

“He’s in warrior mode,” Arawn said, taking Aingeal’s syringe to her. “You’ll have to overlook his language, ladies. There’s no accounting for what a man will say when the bloodsong is playing to him.”

Aingeal barely flinched at her injection. She made one swipe across the puncture with the tips of her fingers then ignored it. Her eyes were on the bowl of grits Annie was offering.

“Doesn’t seem to faze her in the least, does it?” Arawn asked.

“Doesn’t appear to,” Cynyr agreed. He shook his head. “Doesn’t appear to have any effect on her grit-ladling, either.” He watched in awe as his lady piled her plate high with the creamy white dish.

“Made some patty sausage for ye, dearling,” Moira said as she brought a saucer of the meat to Aingeal.

“I don’t get any?” Cynyr complained, eying the greasy gray-brown round.

“You got bacon,” Aingeal replied. She scooped the sausage patties onto her plate and cut them up, mixing them in with the grits and scrambled eggs into one big mound.

“Ugh,” Arawn said. “What a waste of perfectly good sausage.”

“You can almost hear the pigs squealing in protest,” Cynyr agreed. Aingeal stuffed a large forkful of the grits-sausage-scrambled-eggs mixture into her mouth and grinned. She sent a silent message to her husband that made him choke on his coffee.

The front door opened and the sheriff came in, rapping his knuckles on the inner door out of courtesy before he entered. He swiped off his hat as he came toward the table. “Lord Bevyn sent me to tell you that savage is out there whooping it up at the edge of town all dressed up in war paint and the like.” He twisted his hat around and around by the brim. “Said to tell you he threw down the lance and is just a’sittin’ there on his pony waiting for you, Lord Cyn.”

Cynyr was wiping his lips and the front of his shirt where coffee had spewed at his wife’s indecent suggestion. “Tell Bevyn I’ll be along as soon as I finish with breakfast.”

Sheriff Brewer nodded. “I’ll do that, milord.” He left with a look of hero worship on his beefy face.

“As cool and as calm as a cucumber,” Moira said, her own admiration for Cynyr showing. “Not a single tremor in that hand of his.”

“You wouldn’t want it any other way, Moira,” Arawn told her.

“You bring my whip?” Cynyr asked as he took the last bite of bacon and toast on his plate.

“It’s in the parlor.”

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Aingeal tensed as her husband pushed back his chair. He glanced down at her.

“Don’t let any of that greasy globbling go to waste, wench.”

Moira’s eyes filled with tears when she saw the Reaper bend over to kiss the top of his wife’s head. That had been the last thing she’d seen her beloved only child do before he’d ridden off to a war from which he’d never returned. She saw Annie look away and knew her daughter-in-law was remembering the same thing.

“Moira,” Cynyr said, garnering the old lady’s attention. “I’d like peach pie for supper. Do you think you could arrange that, milady?”

Quickly swiping at the moisture that had clouded her vision, Moira nodded once emphatically. “With cream, son?” she asked.

“That would hit the spot,” he replied.

Before any of them could say another word, the Reaper turned on his heel and walked out of the dining room. For a moment no one said anything—didn’t move—

then Arawn stood up as soon as the front door closed behind Cynyr’s departure.

“I’d consider it a blessing if you ladies would remain inside until this business is finished,” he said.

“We’ll be here,” Annie said for the three of them.

* * * * *

Otaktay was finding it hard to control his pony. The beast sensed the fury rampaging through its rider and was sidestepping and rising up in agitation. It also smelled the blood from the self-induced wounds that had caked on the Jakotai’s leggings. The horse’s eyes rolled in its head as it fought the tight rein keeping it from bolting. Letting out another war whoop did nothing to help the brave’s management of his steed. The animal bucked, rearing up to slash its hooves at the air. It came down with a jolt that almost unseated the red man.

Swinging his furious gaze along the rooftops of the white settlement, Otaktay sneered. The Reapers had rifles aimed at him, six-guns strapped to their hips, the handles of their legendary whips showing. Six men—less than warriors in his opinion—

all lined against him and he was but one man. He had nothing but contempt for the weapons of the white man. Against the lance, the bow and arrow, the war ax, they were puny armaments. Since he had never seen the lethality of the whips, he had only scorn for such things.

“Cree!” he shouted for the fifth time as he called out his cowardly enemy. “I have come for my woman, you dog of the skies!”

Mick Brady glanced down from his place atop the dry good’s store roof as the Reaper Lord Cynyr Cree strolled off Moira McDermott’s porch. He whistled softly for Cree was dressed immaculately in black silk shirt and black leather pants, the silk and leather shimmering in the early morning sunlight. There was no gun hanging from the 155

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Reaper’s hip. He wore no hat, but in his hand was the infamous dragon-claw handle that made the hair on Mick’s neck stir.

As soon as Otaktay saw his enemy walking from the old hag’s house, he lifted his chin. His instinct was to run the son of a whoring jackal down, crushing him beneath the hooves of his pony, but the man was coming unarmed, on foot, and that would have been dishonorable. He knew his woman watched from some window of the house and he wanted to appear a hero in her eyes when he slew the Reaper. Puffing out his chest, he drummed his heels into the pony’s flanks, bent low over its head and raced toward the Reaper, trilling a war cry as he raced forward. The barber held his breath as the red man thundered toward Cynyr. The Reaper had stopped and was standing there with his arms at his side. He did not move as the pony bore down on him and the brave bent forward to touch Cynyr’s shoulder without harming him. The Reaper staggered a bit from the force of the blow but stood strong, not bothering to watch the pony race around him, wheel then thunder past once more. Reining in his beast several yards away, the Jakotai turned his mount and sat tall in the saddle, watching for any sign of fear on his opponent’s face. When he saw none, he snarled with anger. Throwing a leg over his pony’s head, Otaktay slid to the ground and drew his knife from the sheath at his waist. With a mocking twist to his mouth, he started toward his adversary. “I have come for my woman!” called out.

“No, you have come for me,” the Reaper said.

“She is mine!” Otaktay stated.

The Reaper’s smile was as cold as the highest peaks of the mountain in the dead of winter. “Just because you rape a woman doesn’t make her yours,” he countered. Otaktay stopped, the blade of his knife pointed toward the Reaper. “I did not need to rape my woman!” he snarled. “She came to my pallet of her own accord!”

“And which time was it that might have happened, Otaktay?” Cynyr asked in a calm, deadly tone. “When her coward of a husband sold her to you or on the night you took her from me?”

“She is mine!” the brave repeated, spittle flying from his lips.

“Then come and fight me for her, you spineless seed of a diseased whore,” the Reaper told him.

The red man’s face infused with color and he jerked his arm upward, the knife glinting in the sunlight as he charged, running full out toward his enemy. Mick Brady watched in awe as Cynyr Cree stepped aside at the very last moment, turning to put out a foot to trip the brave. The Jakotai fell face first into the mud and slid forward, his momentum stopped only by the stab of his knife in the ground. The Reaper had made no move for his own weapon and was just standing there waiting for his opponent to scramble up from the thick, cloying mud.

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Twice more Otaktay charged and twice more he landed in the mud. The brave was covered from forehead to toe with the sticky clay but the Reaper’s uniform was as clean as the moment he had put it on.

Arawn, Bevyn and the other Reapers had come down from the rooftops and were now ringed in a semicircle at the end of the street—seemingly to keep the gathering townspeople from harm. Mick saw Brett Samuels and his brother-in-law Vern Walker sitting on the edge of the saloon roof. As he glanced around, he saw no womenfolk among the men grouped behind the Reapers and for that he was glad. This was not something a woman should see.

“That’s one helluva brave man,” the sheriff told Arawn. “Cynyr, I mean.”

“When’s he going to use his whip?” someone in the crowd asked.

“He’ll let the savage draw first blood and then he will attack,” the Prime Reaper said.

Otaktay pushed up from the ground and stood glaring at his enemy. He saw his death in the man’s steady golden eyes but it was—as his grandfather had once said—a good day to die. He charged again and was surprised when the Reaper did not move as quickly as before and the blade of Otaktay’s knife slid along the white man’s arm, opening a deep gash.

Whooping with elation, Otaktay spun around and thrust the knife out again only to have the blade snatched from his hand by a stinging lash that took half his thumb and index finger with it as it snapped back over the Reaper’s shoulder. Pain shot through the Jakotai’s hand and he looked down at the stumps where once his fingers had crooked. Blood was gushing from his hand and he backed away, holding the injured hand close to his bare chest.