Reaper Unhinged (Deadside Reapers Book 6)

by Debbie Cassidy

  Uri grabbed him around the waist to halt him. “We can’t. Grayson. You know we can’t.”

  “He’s human,” Ponytail snapped. “We can’t kill him. Besides, we need intel.”

  “He probably radioed for backup,” Uri said. “We took down three, but there could be more on their way.”

  She picked something off the ground. My radio. It must have fallen off when I got shot.

  “Busted,” she said. “Let’s hope Ursula got a lock on the signal before it died.”

  “Then we move,” Grayson said. He hooked an arm around me and took my weight. “I got you, Fee.”

  I shook my head and pulled away. “No, I won’t be a liability.”

  “Here.” Ponytail held up a metal contraption that looked like a dart gun. “This will help.”

  She pressed it to my arm, and a sharp sting followed, and like magic, the pain ebbed. It was still there, but it wasn’t all I could think about.

  “You good?” Ponytail asked.

  “I’m good.”

  “Okay, so let’s get to work.”

  Hunter

  I don’t fight when they stick the collar on me, and I don’t fight as I’m led to the labs.

  The stone and the chill tell me we’re below ground, at least until we climb the first flight of metal stairs, and then the terrain is all hardwood floors and magnolia walls. The scent of disinfectant fills the air. I don’t look at the lab to my left, and as we turn right, I don’t bother to check out the vampire holding rooms. There are several. They keep the creatures in twos and threes.

  “Meek today, aren’t we?” one of the guards says to me.

  “Maybe the Loup has lost his bite,” the other one said.

  One of them shoves me, and I pretend to stumble.

  They laugh.

  Let them think I’m weaker than I am. My Loup may be suppressed, but that doesn’t mean I’m powerless. My body is a honed machine, but I’ve held off on using it because I know I’ll only get the one shot. I can’t blow it.

  There’s static, and then a voice fills the hallway.

  ALL ACTIVE UNITS TO SECTOR C. INTRUDERS DETECTED.

  Shit. Fee, it has to be.

  “Should we go?” one of the guards asks.

  “No, you idiot, they have the fangers for that shit.”

  “Oh, yeah.”

  “Yeah.”

  The super vamps are going after Fee.

  The lab comes into view, and the white doors swish open. The guards shove me inside, and the doors close behind me. I surreptitiously scan the room. Yes, the vials are where they always are, and there are two syringes on the tray filled with the same amber fluid that’s in the vial. My pulse quickens.

  My needle-happy host turns to me with a smile. “Ah, hello there. Did you sleep well?”

  The bastard always does this. Small talk, as if I’m here voluntarily. As if this is some kind of fucking summer camp.

  I don’t usually engage, but today is different. “I could do with a mattress.”

  His brows shoot up. “You don’t have a bed?”

  “No. Look.” I sigh. “I get it. I’m stuck here for…however long you decide. I’m not human, I get that you probably think of me as a beast, but even a dog is given a comfortable place to lay its head.”

  He frowns. “Yes, well. This won’t do. I’ll look into it. Please, have a seat.”

  A seat? He means the tormenter chair, of course. As soon as I sit, the metal bands will engage, and I’ll be trapped. I need to act now and fast.

  The control to my collar is on the table to his far right. The vials on the table to my right. Several are already in syringes. I might be able to grab the syringe, but then he’ll incapacitate me by grabbing the collar control.

  There is only one thing to do.

  I lunge at the table where the control is, knocking it to the ground with a clatter. Mr. Needle-happy bellows, but I’m already across the room, and then I have a syringe in my hand.

  Guards enter the room, guns pointed at me.

  “Don’t shoot him!” Needle-happy says, his eyes on me. “Put the syringe down, and no one will get hurt.”

  “Really? Funnily enough, I don’t believe you. I have the scars to prove it.”

  His eyes flinch at my words. “That formula is specifically designed for the vamp species. It could kill you.”

  A few minutes ago, I might have reconsidered, but Fee is here. I know she is. She’s on the island, and she’s defenseless without her outlier power. I have no choice.

  “I guess we’ll find out.” I slide the needle into my skin and push down the plunger.

  Cora

  Okay, so now I’m pacing. Where the fuck is Hunter? Did it work? Did he get the juice he needs?

  Fuck. The announcement comes again.

  ALL ACTIVE UNITS TO SECTOR C. INTRUDER ALERT. LOCKDOWN IN PROGRESS.

  It’s Fee and the gang. It has to be. We need to shut down the wards, and we need to do it fast.

  The sound of boots running down the corridor has me flying toward the cell door. I know it’s him before I peer out of the tiny window.

  There’s blood on his face, but I doubt it belongs to him. Shit, has he killed humans? Not the time to quiz him.

  The door opens with a clang, and I’m out.

  “This way. Stay close,” he orders.

  I’m not about to argue. He’s the one with the special juice in his system.

  We get to the end of the stone corridor and take a left. There’s a door up ahead with a guard slumped to the floor beside it at a funny angle. We get closer, and I see that his keycard is slotted into the wall but still attached to his hip by a length of plastic.

  Hunter shoves the door open, and then we’re clambering up a flight of metal steps where another door awaits with another unconscious guard keeping sentry.

  Jeez, dude.

  “Move,” Hunter says. “Right now, it’s all hands on deck outside, dealing with the intruders.”

  “Fee.”

  “Yes. They have guns. Lots of them. I doubt Fee and the pack came similarly equipped.”

  Of course, they’d have relied on their powers.

  I follow Hunter through a maze of corridors. We pass labs, and I catch sight of people laid out in beds with drips attached to them feeding blood bags.

  “The vamps they intend to turn are down that corridor,” Hunter says. “I haven’t come across any super vamps yet.”

  “You think they’re outside?”

  He doesn’t respond. Instead, he presses a bloody card to the door we’ve stopped in front of. I feel the buzz of power coming from the room, and my body reacts to it like a nympho in a cock store.

  There’s a beep, and we’re in.

  It’s dark, or it would be if not for the glowing silver symbol etched into the ground. The air above it wavers and shimmers.

  “Can you deactivate it?” he asks.

  I’ve seen this symbol before. I’ve seen it in a vault under a fake store, and I know just what to do to shut it down.

  “Yeah…yeah, I think I can.”

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Fee

  The building was a monolith of black stone. I couldn’t see any windows. If it had windows, they were hidden or shuttered. It was getting too dark to see, to be honest, and without my Loup ability, my eyesight wasn’t outlier sharp.

  We crouched behind a rise, watching the building below, looking for signs of life. There was forestland all around it, and to get to it, we’d need to track through the woodland, but so far, aside from the three humans who’d accosted us on arrival, we hadn’t come across a single soul.

  But this was it, the place linked to the super vamps and the missing humans. It had to be. Cora was in there somewhere, and so was Hunter.

  I had to get them out.

  Grayson crouched to my left and Uri to my right. Their presence was reassuring. We could do this, even without our superpowers. Crap my side ached. Had the bleeding stopped? I was too scare
d to check. I didn’t feel lightheaded. That was a good sign, right? Hard to know when I’d never been shot before.

  “We’re going to head down,” Ponytail said – I really should find out her name. “You stay here until I give the signal.”

  “What’s the signal?” Grayson asked.

  She tapped the radio at her chest and then pointed to the one Grayson was carrying. “Listen for static.”

  She slipped away with two other Magiguard, making for the trail to our left that led down into the woodland. The plan was to get to the edge of the forest and then scope from there. Maybe send in a unit.

  “Ursula should be here by now,” Uri said.

  “She’ll come.” Grayson sounded confident.

  Me? Not so much. My radio with the tracker was busted. I doubt there’d been enough time for her to catch the signal, let alone lock onto this location. Why in the hell hadn’t she given Ponytail a tracker? Why me?

  It didn’t matter. It was done.

  We were on our own.

  We could do this.

  Long minutes passed, and then Grayson’s radio buzzed, and Ponytail’s voice came through.

  “We’re clear, “she said.

  And then the radio went dead.

  My nape pricked in a warning I didn’t understand.

  The remaining Magiguard were around us, ushering us to move.

  I glanced back at my Loup team, unease a worm in my belly.

  “We move,” a male Magiguard said. “Brit’s orders.” He led his team away from the rise and around it, heading for the narrow trail that led down toward the building.

  Grayson signaled our Loup to move, and then we fell behind the Magiguard as they took the trail. My stomach began to knot.

  Something was wrong.

  The Magiguard continued down the trail. There was a bend up ahead, and they disappeared from view.

  A sick feeling bloomed in my stomach. The fucking gunshot wound effects, no doubt. Urgh. We rounded the bend next to find all the Magiguard gathered in a clearing. I caught sight of Brit’s dark eyes. Her jaw was clenched, and her brows were pinched.

  Why were they on their knees?

  And then the full picture formed, accompanied by Grayson’s curse and the click and clack of weapons being engaged.

  Not ours, but the enemies’.

  Huge, hulking figures in black materialized out of the shadows on the other side of the clearing, and I didn’t need my outlier senses to know these weren’t humans.

  The flash of fang and the gleam of crimson-ringed irises told me that just fine.

  “Move!” someone barked from behind us.

  How the fuck had they gotten behind us?

  Grayson grabbed my hand and pulled me toward him, shielding me with his huge body.

  Ponytail glared at us. “I said static was the signal, not speech.”

  Fuck, so that was why my alarm bells had rung. Damn it.

  The Magiguard male who’d ushered us to follow orders looked sheepish.

  “Get on your knees,” another voice ordered.

  My heart sank as I dropped to the ground and finally got a proper look at the shadows around the clearing.

  Shadows that moved and weapons that gleamed dully in what little moonlight found its way into this clearing.

  We were surrounded.

  Cora

  Dammit, this would be so much easier if they hadn’t taken my phone off me. I had a picture of the page from the binder in the vault, and the instructions were clear. Sure, I’d read it and stuff, but I was obviously missing something.

  “I thought you knew what you were doing,” Hunter says.

  I ignore him and continue to circle the, well, circle. I need to remove the anchor symbol. There’s only meant to be one, but there are several here. Do I remove them all? Do I have to pick the right one?

  “Do something,” he growls.

  I glance up at him, ready to unleash with some cutting words, and change my mind.

  He looks…bad. Like I’m-about-to-keel-over-and-die bad.

  “Hunter?”

  He shakes his head, one hand going to his abdomen. “Please, just do it.”

  “Hunter, what’s happening to you?”

  “We could get interrupted at any moment. The super vamps could get hold of Fee at any moment and—”

  He breaks down in a cough, and blood sputters out of his mouth.

  Motherfucker. “Hunter!”

  He holds up a hand to ward me off. “The fucking wards, Cora.”

  Shit. I need to do something. Fuck it. All the anchors need to go.

  I work fast, using a rock I’ve found to scrub at the paint so that each anchor symbol is broken. The light begins to dim.

  Yes. It’s working.

  I disrupt the final symbol and stand back.

  Any second now.

  Nothing.

  “Cora?” Hunter rasps.

  “I don’t get it. It’s supposed to be deactivated. I disrupted all the anchor symbols.”

  Hunter coughs wetly. “The middle.”

  “What?”

  “The one in the middle,” he enunciates, glaring at me while wiping at his bloody mouth.

  Fuck, shit. How did I miss that one? I climb into the circle and hit the final symbol. The lights flicker and go out, and then a hot wave of power surges up from the tips of my toes to the roots of my hair.

  “Powering up, baby.” I turn to Hunter. “Do you feel—Fuck!”

  He’s on the ground.

  I rush over and pull him into my lap. He’s barely conscious and there are blue smudges beneath his eyes.

  “Hunter, what the fuck.” I shake him.

  He opens his eyes. “Save Fee.”

  “What did you do? What… The serum? It’s the serum you took, isn’t it.”

  His eyes flutter closed.

  I want to jump to Fee, but I can’t leave Hunter to die. He’s her mate. I need to get him help. The lab might have a solution. But Fee…

  Oh, God. Yes. “Jasper!”

  The air crackles and my tormenter appears. His face is dark like thunder, and he advances on me, ready to claim me and take me out of here. It’s so fucked up how I can read his face.

  “No!” I grip Hunter tighter. “You need to find Fee. Help her and whoever came with her. Please.”

  “I don’t give a fuck about Fee,” he says.

  “But you give a fuck about me, so, please. Do it for me.”

  He looks like he’s about to tell me to go fuck myself too, but then he takes a deep breath and nods.

  “I’ll do it. But then you’re mine. For a whole week.”

  His…I know what that means. I have no choice. “Deal.”

  He winks out, and I hug Hunter close and make the jump to the lab.

  Fee

  The super vamps closed in. Barrels of their guns pointed at our heads and hearts. One move and they’d shoot—the warning was written all over their faces. They were fast and strong even with the magic being muted.

  The evidence lay on the forest floor to my far right in the broken body of a Magiguard who’d tried to fight back.

  The super vamp broke his spine.

  How was this possible?

  How were they retaining their abilities, unless…Unless it wasn’t magical. A genetic modification, maybe? Then why use vamps? Why not humans? I was so confused, and there was no time for this train of thought because I was pretty sure we were about to be executed.

  “Who wants to go first,” one of the super vamps said. He stepped forward, and moonlight bathed his features—cold dead eyes, sharp cutting cheekbones.

  “Boss, orders were to mass execute,” another super vamp piped up.

  Cold Eyes turned his head to the other vamp with an icy look. “If I want your input, I’ll fucking ask for it. This is my show, and I’ll run it how I fucking want.”

  The other vamp snapped his mouth closed and nodded curtly. “Boss.”

  Cold Eyes stepped up to a Magiguard
and held the gun to his head. “I think this one will be a headshot.”

  “No!” Brit cried out.

  The shot was a soft pfft, and the Magiguard keeled over.

  He’d done it.

  He’d pulled the trigger.

  The Magiguard was dead. Eyes open, unseeing dead. Oh, fuck. Oh, fuck!

  Brit tucked in her chin, shoulders heaving as she fought to keep her shit together.

  The super vamp unscrewed the silencer off his gun. “This should make a more satisfying sound.”

  No one spoke. No one tried to reason with him, to stall him, because his dead eyes told us that there was no stopping this. To run would mean to be gunned down. To attack would mean to be gunned down. We were fish in a barrel, and he had his gun pointed at one of my Loup. Dexter, that was his name. He was quiet. Kept to himself but was a mean fighter.

  Cold Eyes lowered the gun to Dexter’s chest.

  “Stop!” The word was out before I could check myself.

  The super vamp turned his head to look at me. “Did you want to go next? Is that it?”

  Grayson tensed beside me, but before he could speak, Dexter lunged at Cold Eyes. The super vamp spun, and a shot screamed into the night.

  For a moment, there was only the rush of blood in my ears, the heave of my breath, and then Dexter’s gurgling death throes filtered through the whooshing in my head. My vision blurred, and I blinked back tears, maintaining eye contact with my Loup until the light in his eyes died.

  Super vamp toed Dexter’s body and then moved up the line, skipping another Loup to stop at a Magiguard.

  There was no preamble this time. He shot her in the head.

  Brit bit back a cry. She was next. Oh, fuck.

  He aimed the gun at her chest and then took a step to the left, coming to a stop in front of…Uri?

  Oh, shit.

  “No!” I lunged toward Uri, but Grayson snagged my waist and hugged me to his chest.

  The super vamp’s mouth curled up at the corner. “Oh, you really care about this one, don’t you?” His eyes narrowed. “How does it feel to know you’re powerless to save him?”