Rogue Reaper

by Riley Archer

  “If that’s true”—I took a step forward, and my audience tensed—“why would I care what happens to him?”

  “If your heart is as hard as you say, will you do the honors?” Atlas pulled the whistle from his pocket.

  I let the crimson magic fizzle into nothing, which I’d said I wouldn’t do, but it was okay. Part two, plan A was piecing together.

  I marched right up to Atlas and held out my hand. “I give up. Let’s have at it, High Priest.” Of Shitheads.

  “I need you to prove to them that you’re on our side. But do anything rash,” he said only to me, “and the person you do care about won’t just die. She’ll beg for death and forget her name before she meets that reprieve.”

  I gave him a hard stare, nodded, and snatched the dangling whistle from him. The next part of my plan just became a lot less appealing, and I almost considered ditching plan A altogether.

  Problem was, there was no B, C, or any other letter or numeric code that could wiggle me out of this one. I was screwed. Everything I could think of led to my death or someone else’s. I thought I saw a ghost of a smile on Otto’s face. At least he’d retreated to his happy place.

  I put the whistle’s chain around my neck while Atlas addressed his grumpy crowd, “Sorry for the hiccup, everyone. We’re getting back on track. And later, let’s discuss—”

  One of the witches thudded to the ground, her friends shrieking. Everyone whipped angry glares at me, and I held up my hands in mock surrender.

  “What? It wasn’t me! She probably drank too much.”

  No, seriously. It wasn’t me. I just wasn’t the surrendering type.

  “Get to it, Ellis,” Atlas said through clenched teeth.

  I touched the whistle again, and somebody else dropped. One of the wolves this time. Ooh, his buddies were not happy about it. Growls ripped across their pack.

  I once again showed that my hands were empty—save for the whistle—with not a lick of glowing magic. “It’s not me!”

  As I protested, two sketchy servers entered the courtyard, the short blond one looking at her watch.

  “Three, two”—she glanced up—“oh! It started early. Lightweights.”

  Her lanky partner in crime smiled and batted his pretty lashes. “Ellis, you have made an evil, adorable, connected little friend. He wanted us to tell you he wants the first appearance of Spider-Man ne—ah!”

  The tail end of Jose’s comment was distorted as he dived from a lightning bolt. One of the elemental witches, who had corrected more than one person during dinner to call him a mage, was the attack first, ask questions later type.

  But during his second strike, he dropped too. The bolt skittered against the ground and scorched a sprawling tree shape into the grass. I jumped as electricity traveled the length of the dirt, zapping those closest to it; they vibrated from the voltage and went down for the count.

  Aw, I really miss Mr. Sparky.

  A few more of the creatures who had outlived the shock wave dropped, and I was especially pleased when the incubus Ezekiel took a tumble. Which left the Grim with the woman, Nathaniel, Brendon the vampire, and a couple of wolves who had kept to their paws—though paws seemed too delicate a word for those man-ripping devices. Or reaper-ripping devices since they were gearing for my ex-minions. And now, more snarling wolves poured out of the trees.

  Ash and Jose proved they were not only capable of potent poisoning—or whatever they’d dosed these guys with at dinner—but they could also access dimensional vaults. They pulled small-scale scythes from the air and wove them around in a frenzy of fur and blood. Nathaniel battled alongside them. He was either switching teams or an unexpected ally.

  I caught Jose frown as he beheaded Brendon just before Atlas pulled my attention back to him. The control freak was unfazed, as if he ate lightning for breakfast and all-out brawls were a regular Tuesday in his schedule. By the way, I had no idea if it was Tuesday.

  “I’ll take the whistle back, Ellis,” Atlas said in a smooth tone.

  “I’ll hold on to it for now, thanks.” I’d been on autopilot, backing toward Tanaka as if to defend him with the scarlet magic circling us.

  “Gray, bring the girl here.”

  The Grim approached, the girl in his shrouded arm slack as he dragged her along; she’d fainted, and I didn’t blame her. Another scythe was unveiled, but this time, it was a familiar one. Old, clunky, and lethal.

  You’ve gotta be shitting me.

  The bad boy Batboy was in on it. He’d tasked me with collecting information about the missing rogue reapers, reapers who’d been sucked in by the instrument of doom. Or … he was in on Ash and Jose’s surprise appearance. Friend or foe? It was hard to keep up at this point.

  “Change of weapon?” Atlas said but didn’t bother to wait for an answer. He held out his open palm. “Whistle, or she dies.”

  The Grim let the woman slink to the ground. So … foe?

  “Um …” I tucked a hand behind my neck like I was about to grip the chain and pull it over.

  I took this opportunity to let sneaky magic tendrils weave their way to Sarah’s and Jake’s face-planted corpses. Maybe their brief moment of collapse had freed them of Glinda’s control.

  Atlas’s patience cracked. He reached to rip the thing off me, but Glinda’s shriek from beyond distracted him.

  She was fighting to regain control of her enslaved ginger twins, but my magic had drawn their spirit forms halfway out of their bodies.

  Oops. Not what I’d meant to do, especially since I didn’t know how their souls could still be inside there. Another entrapment probably. It was also likely the reason Glinda could evoke the twin’s guttural responses to their deaths on command.

  Atlas made his way for me again, but an ancient scythe blocked his path.

  What a pleasant surprise. Friend it was then.

  “Gray, when I said to protect her, I didn’t mean from me,” Atlas snarled.

  “Who’s Gray?” Damian asked, lowering his hood. “Oh, yeah. He’s gone. You suspected the wrong guy of bugging Ellis’s phone. Worked in our favor though.”

  “You’re the one I’ve heard of.” Atlas pulled his own weapon from a dimensional vault—the shaft was the length of a standard scythe, but it didn’t have a blade. It held a massive, spiked brick.

  Who does he think he is, Thor on steroids?

  Just in case I could help Tanaka the same way I’d helped the twins, my magic ring closed in on him as I hatched plan B.

  I thought I heard Otto come to, but it was hard to tell with Atlas and Damian’s not-quite sword fight at my back and the bloody mess of shouts coming from Ash and Jose’s direction.

  Glinda was pissed. I was careful not to pull the souls out all the way yet.

  I skipped over to her. “Glinda, the kids quit.”

  Her own magic fizzled against mine, a rusty color in comparison. I was starting to think Alberta’s stone worked, and I was a twinge sad that she’d been electrified.

  “They’re mine.” She reached for me.

  “False.” I backed up even farther. “Don’t you know what the Ars Magia Veterum says about this?”

  “What are you talking about, you daft child!”

  “Okay, I made that up. But there is a rule for this kind of thing,” I ducked as a ghostly copper bullet zoomed at my head. I straightened with a grin. “Finders keepers.”

  Sarah’s and Jake’s souls pulled out of their decomposing cages, and the tingle of the Abyss branched across my nerves. Sarah’s and Jake’s spectral hands enclosed around mine, and the Abyss yawned behind Glinda.

  We charged.

  Magic and rot weren’t the only things up Glinda’s sleeve. She pulled a switchblade from one of the folds in her robes. Her power crackled against it, and she swiped.

  I leaned back to avoid the blade, keeping my hold on the twins. Sarah caught Glinda’s wrist with her free hand. Jake joined her. It was slow and strenuous, but together, they managed to make Glinda slit her own t
hroat.

  It was poetic justice in a way, but it was still gross.

  Maroon liquid trickled down her gray neck.

  “Don’t say I never did you a favor,” I said before I kicked her into the Abyss.

  I checked the battle scenes behind me. Ash and Jose still had things under control, so much that I realized why I didn’t stand much of a chance against them in a pillow fight. Damian was fending off Atlas but barely. For a fragment of a second, I caught Damian’s eye. His movements were slowing. He needed help.

  I looked at the twins. They were extremely lucid for spirits—hopefully lucid enough for me to ask them a favor. I’d need them for plan C.

  “Can you stay a while longer?”

  Atlas caught Damian’s side with his hammer. Luckily, it was the end without spikes, but it still didn’t look pleasant. It sent him crashing down.

  A wicked gleam stretched across Atlas’s face. He wiped sweat from his cheek with the back of his hand. “I didn’t know you’d made this many friends, Ellis,” he said as he set his sights on Tanaka.

  Yeah, yeah. I’m not the friend-making type. Got it.

  He raised the spiked end of the hammer high above his head.

  “Wait!” I screamed and ran over to him. I exaggerated my distress. “Just wait.”

  “Yes?” He barely lowered the weapon.

  “Leave him alone, and I’ll give you back the whistle. I’ll help you find new investors. And”—I glanced at the lawn of bodies—“mend things with the ones who survive. But let Tanaka go.”

  “He’ll cause a ruckus for me at RC, Ellis.”

  “Fine. Then we’ll hold him until we find a way to alter his memory.” I mean, that seemed like something magic could do. “Please. I don’t want him or my mom hurt. That seems like a fair trade for helping you build your own dynasty. For giving my life to you.”

  Atlas sighed and lowered the hammer an inch. “You will stop fighting? No tantrums? No escape attempts?”

  “Yes.” I swallowed my pride. I’d found his Achilles heel. “I’ll be yours.”

  His shoulders broadened. The aspiring dictator loved those three words. He took the whistle from me and slid it down his own neck. “Agreed. Your mom’s and Tanaka’s lives will be safe. Consider the friends gone.”

  The hammer went up, and Damian had just enough mobility to scooch over and swipe at Atlas’s feet before it came down again. Atlas jumped back.

  “Huff and puff!” I yelled.

  It seemed like a nice call to arms, especially since I had originally thought of them as the Red Riding Hood twins. It was time to take down the Big Bad Wolf.

  Atlas made a funny face but remained focused on the rogue launching lazy attacks from the ground. He clipped Damian again, and Damian stopped moving. I kept my eyes on the prize. Now wasn’t the time to get sentimental. It wouldn’t help anyone.

  Sarah and Jake spiraled out of their bodies, the best and only hiding place I could think of.

  They were at my side in an instant. The Abyss stretched open, calling for the teenage souls. Atlas was one stumble away from falling in. His heavy hammer plunged into the shadow portal, the sucking insides thick like lint and tissue.

  Uh-oh. Busted.

  Atlas lunged for me, but as fast as a ghost, Tanaka came between us and knocked him down.

  The Abyss claimed Atlas’s feet. I put a hand on Tanaka’s shoulder. He glanced down at me and nodded. His luminous skin had purple undertones, and he had a gash across one perfect cheekbone.

  Now isn’t the time to get sentimental, I reminded myself.

  I picked up Damian’s scythe while Atlas tried to claw his way out of the portal. Holy hell, this thing was heavy.

  I managed to lift it enough to swing it at my target.

  Atlas dug one hand in and tried to block himself with the other.

  His dumb head wasn’t my target though. The whistle was. It splintered into shards and dust. I knelt before him.

  “I have a proposition for you. How would you like to tell me where my mom is, and I’ll make sure the Abyss doesn’t swallow you whole?”

  He might as well have had fangs; his grin was so sharp. “She’s already lost. You’ll never see her again.”

  I stood and let Sarah and Jake handle the rest. They dived into the Abyss, taking Command Coordinator Atlas, High Priest of Shitheads, with them.

  I kicked in the dust from the whistle before the otherworldly portal stitched back together.

  25

  The Apprehension

  The servers and lady maidens were all bound and gagged.

  So, Ash and Jose weren’t just kind of scary. They were ducking terrifying. In true form, they were currently arguing about nail polish colors while smeared in blood from head to toe.

  “I’m telling you, this red complements your skin tone,” Ash whined.

  “No, it complements yours!” Jose booped her on the nose.

  I shook my head and ignored the tied-up people clogging the foyer. I nodded toward the stairwell. “Third door on the right.”

  Tanaka had a pretty high ranking on the scary meter himself, carrying Damian as if he hadn’t just been tortured for who knew how long.

  Nathaniel gently set the kidnapped girl down, and she stirred.

  “Thanks,” I said to the curly-haired warlock. “Should I know you?”

  Ash and Jose quieted, interested in his answer.

  “No.” He grinned. “I just know how to pick the winning side.”

  Sure, that explained why he’d joined a troupe of magical rebels.

  “Right.”

  I ascended the stairwell. Damian was lying across the bed, and Tanaka faced away, leaning against a wall.

  “Hey,” I said quietly. “Is he okay?”

  “He might have internal bleeding,” Otto answered but didn’t turn. “Ash and Jose should be calling Reaper Collective. They’ll be here soon.”

  I checked Damian’s pulse. His head was all right, but I had no idea what was going on anywhere else. His breath was strong, which was something to be thankful for. Damian hated Reaper Collective, so I didn’t know how Ash and Jose had dragged him into this. Blackmail probably.

  “Can I ask you a question?”

  Otto nodded, and I followed him into the hallway. I kept my gaze locked on his; I wouldn’t be distracted by his open blouse or his bruises.

  “Is what Atlas said true?”

  Otto stared at me for a moment, and then he embraced me. Uh … okay. He had almost been sucked into a demonic whistle, so I supposed this was within the range of normal. It was a response to emotional and physical trauma. I really shouldn’t like it so much. Really. Stop liking it, dummy. When he pulled back, the backs of my eyes stung.

  “We knew Atlas expected someone to follow you. He took the bugged burner phone to a location at the edge of the woods. So, I went and gave him what he wanted. Erik Westbrook gave Ash and Jose all the information they needed to infiltrate Atlas’s staff, and the Ravenstone Coven provided the undetectable sleeping potion—probably another dark something from the Ars Magia Veterum.”

  “They could have killed you!” I slapped the air near his shoulder instead of his actual shoulder. I wasn’t pure evil.

  He caught my hand. His was rough and soft at the same time, callous yet gentle. “I do have a promise to keep, Ellis.”

  So, he had heard Atlas. The rescue wasn’t for me. It was for one of my foster parents.

  “Who?” I whispered.

  There were clatters and new voices downstairs. Otto and I shared a hard look. I tried to convey something like to be continued in mine. Reaper Collective was fast.

  I checked the room, but Damian was gone. What the hell?

  We went to the top of the stairwell. I recognized the face leading a bunch of armed Enforcers up it.

  “Linda!” I propped my hands on my hips. I caught her eyeing the gothic fairy-tale dress. It wasn’t in too bad of shape, considering. “How’s this for adult-angst casual?”


  “Collector Kennicot, Grim Tanaka,” Linda greeted as half of her team moved to check the rest of the estate. The remainder loitered behind us. “You are under arrest for conspiracy against Reaper Collective and its partners. You have the right to counsel …” Her voice became a mousy echo as a bulky Enforcer took hold of my wrists.

  “What? No!” The jerk was strong. I would have put up a better fight had I not just survived a massive one.

  It’ll be okay, Otto mouthed, his hands also being clipped behind his back.

  Time was sluggish as I was escorted through the manor and out the door. Ash and Jose argued with more Reaper Collective officials on the sidelines. A lot of duckings were involved.

  The surviving supernatural rebels were placed on stretchers, also in cuffs. The greenhouse was on fire. The metallic stench of slaughter mixed with smoke was almost overwhelming.

  I bit my lip until a coppery tang filled my mouth.

  My murderer had found a way to haunt me from hell, the needy bastard.

  Also by Riley Archer

  Ellis’s shenanigans continue in NAUGHTY NECROMANCER

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  About the Author

  Riley Archer is a paranormal and urban fantasy-loving writer who firmly believes snark, scheming, magical beings, and disaster is a recipe for delicious adventure. Everything she writes is sure dabble with this formula, and it may or may not get explosive. When she’s not buried in bookish things, she’s probably lost outside somewhere or being smothered by her two furry beasts. Or her husband, who, despite many No Shave Novembers, has yet to become a furry beast.

  You can reach her via email at rileyarcherstories@gmail.com or follow her Instagram.