by Mina Carter
She nodded at them in greeting but the firm look didn’t disappear off her face, a fact obviously not lost on the captain.
“You want to give me a good reason why?” Reilly asked, his voice level and calm. Since Troy had seen him take on four street-punks, unarmed, and still remain level and calm, that didn’t say jack-shit about his mood.
Laney didn’t flinch at his hard look, nor the vague aura of threat and danger that surrounded him. “Yeah. There’s a demon in there.”
Reilly just looked at her. The dude was ice-cold, but having seen Laney in action, Troy knew he didn’t have a chance if it came to a fight. “That’s not a reason why I need to let a civilian go in before my guys.”
“Unless you got something up your sleeve I’m not seeing. Then you’re going to be looking at a lot more than three deaths.” Her gaze moved over the three of them, then onto the uniformed officers with the cars, before returning to spear Reilly. “I might walk and talk human, but I’m not. I can go one on one with a dragon and walk away. You got anyone who can say that?”
Troy would give Reilly something, the captain was honest to a fault and didn’t let ego get in the way of the job. Already Troy could see the cogs working behind those weird gray eyes as Reilly answered. “No. I haven’t.”
“Okay, good. Keep your people out until I give the word. Got me?” Laney’s expression was tight and something dangerous swam in her eyes. John flinched.
“Got it. We’ll stay out until you give the all clear.” Reilly nodded, as cool as a cucumber. For some reason Troy got the feeling he’d seen something like Laney before. Just how far down this particular rabbit-hole had Reilly been?
Without another word, Laney strode toward the house.
“Hey, no. Wait up.” Caught on the back foot, Troy rushed after her, and grabbed her arm. “How can you tell there’s a demon in there? I thought you said it was humans?”
She looked up and how tiny she was struck him again. Her face was pale. Too pale.
“Because I have to go in there and reap it.”
Chapter Three
There was a demon in the house.
A freaking demon. As in from hell and everything. Not only that, but the email I’d just gotten from head office in reply to my ‘WTF. Where are special operations?’ had been short and succinct.
No resources. Promotion to Special Operations, effective immediately.
Shit. No resources meant not only was there not another Reaper in town, which made no sense with the amount of over-active, non-human lifelines that hadn’t been reaped yet, but also that one wasn’t en-route. Which also meant that big, bad and demon-y in the house was all mine.
Yay. Go me.
Troy’s grip on my arm tightened, his face set. “You are not going in there. No way, no how.”
I blinked at the authoritative tone in his voice. One night and he thought he could order me around? Oh no, that was so not happening. With a roll of my shoulder and a half-step, I broke his grip and glared up at him. Sure, he was fucking hot when he was mad, except when I was mad too. Then hot became irritating as hell. Especially when I was freaking out a little internally.
“Yeah? So you want your guys to go in there? Take it on?” I glared back, not backing down an inch. I’d done this song and dance before. I knew how it ended. “Because all that’ll do is add more souls for me to reap. Sorry, handsome. No can do. I got enough to deal with as it is.”
His jaw worked, as though he fought to hold back an answer neither of us was going to like. This is the problem with human men, they can get a little cave-man at times. All me protect pretty little woman even when they’d got absolutely no fucking chance. Got to give them points for trying though.
The wind whistled around us, whipping my hair around my face as if trying to tell us to get a move on. Finally, Troy nodded.
“I don’t like it.”
Ha! He didn’t like it. How the hell did he think I felt? I was the one who had to go in there and face the damn thing.
“You don’t have to like it, handsome.” I reached up to stroke gentle fingers over his cheek. His stubble rasped against my fingertips, and memories tried to crowd in. I fought them back and put them on lockdown. Couldn’t do that now. I needed my A-game. “You just have to let me do my job, then you can do yours. Okay?”
Not giving him time to answer, I turned and pushed my way through the gate with a hip. With each step closer to the house, I felt the weight of the Grimm settle over and around me. Protecting me. Most times I didn’t need to pull on it so heavily, but with what waited for me inside, I wanted every advantage I had.
I reached the side of the house and paused for a moment, working out where the thing was, the front or back of the house. I don’t do drama, or property damage, if I can help it so unless kicking in the front door would concuss a demon hiding behind it, I’d go around the back. Or find a key.
As if on cue, the pink lifeline in the corner of my vision started to pulse in a line leading around the back of the house. A lifeline ready to reap and everything non-human about me itched to get in there and make it happen. But pink? Seriously? Not just pink but iridescent pink, all pretty and fairylike. It didn’t fool me, I’d been doing this job too long now. In my experience, the prettier lifeline something had, the more dangerous it was.
Humans, for example, had silver lines. Dull compared to a demon line but pretty enough because, let’s be honest, humanity could be freaking horrible to both each other and species weaker than themselves.
Their lines were like a light-show compared to the dead, flat non-line of a Reaper though. Ours are pitch-black, barely visible if they show up at all. Although we walked and talked, breathed and danced in the rain—all that crap—there was nothing there. No one came to reap us. What could? What happened to us after death, I don’t know. None of us do. I mean, it’s not like we can have a near ‘us’ experience, can we?
In my world, sparkles didn’t mean fairy dust and happy endings. They meant trouble, blood, and death.
I slunk down the side of the house, all my bravado gone now that no one was watching me. The place was quiet, eerily quiet. If I was into that kind of humor, I’d say it was quiet as the grave. With three human souls in there to reap, it would be less humor and more accurate. I reached the kitchen door and risked a peek in. Cream trim, beige-speckled surfaces. Two mugs near the sink and a plate. I shook my head. Someone didn’t do their washing up.
The stones of the gravel pathway crunched softly underfoot but not loudly enough to alert anyone, or thing, within the house. I snapped my head around to see Troy and his boss sneaking up the side of the house.
Great, just great. Obviously neither could follow simple instructions. Perhaps a demon chewing on their faces would educate that shit right out of them.
“What the hell are you doing?” I hissed, trying to wave them back. “I told you no one goes in but me.”
They reached my side and the three of us hunkered under the window like peas in a pod. Troy grinned. “Well, technically no one’s gone in yet.”
“Cute.” No point in arguing. It was their funeral, not mine. Although…there were no new silver lines. I looked at them both, one then the other, directly. “Fine. Stay behind me and don’t interfere. This is my world and I see and hear things you can’t.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Troy ruined his reply by winking, but Reilly looked at me. His eyes were pale, but there was a darkness I was familiar with. This man had killed before. He had that dead look only Reapers and soldiers get.
Curious, I reached for the shade and took a look at his timeline. It was as flat and silver as any human’s I’d seen. Nothing supernatural about him at all… but there was an expectancy, a buzz, about it that I’d seen before. Somewhere, sometime soon, something was going to happen to this man to change the course of his life completely.
I just hoped it wasn’t the demon inside the house.
He’d never lacked for courage, and simply being a cop in the bi
g city soon weeded out the cowards, but right now, faced with going into a house with an actual demon, Troy was glad he had backup. He could storm anything with Reilly at his back, but he wasn’t so happy about Laney being in front. His caveman instincts crowded to the forefront and he tried to step in front of her as she reached for the handle. To say the look he received would have frozen hell over would be an understatement. Another notch down on the thermometer and they’d all start singing about building snowmen.
Hands up in surrender, he let her take point. Almost soundlessly, she pushed the handle down and the door swung open with a slight creak. All three froze, waiting for something…anything…to come barreling out of the kitchen toward them.
Nothing happened.
There was no time to let go a sigh of relief because before any of them could set foot over the threshold, a scream rent the air. In a heartbeat, they were through the door, weapons in hand. Laney raced ahead, the light glittering malevolently along the edges of her blades. Troy held in the shiver, gun up, checking his side of the room as Reilly checked the other.
They split up outside the kitchen, and tore through the rooms on the ground floor like a whirlwind. Laney moved easily with them, never getting in their way or in the line of fire despite the fact she was in front. She didn’t walk so much as fade in and out, that weird fogginess he’d noticed before clinging to her like a cloak.
They reached the entrance hall, looking at each other.
“All clear my side,” Reilly confirmed, reaching out to throw the latch on the front door. It was a habit. If they needed backup, or the emergency services, then it would help if they weren’t slowed down. As if on cue, another scream shattered the silence.
“Upstairs,” Laney moved before the sound finished, taking the stairs two at a time. Fear clutched at Troy’s heart, and he couldn’t help his hand moving to grab her arm. Stop her. She couldn’t face whatever it was up there alone.
A hard hand on his arm stopped him. Reilly shook his head. “Don’t. She can handle it. Believe me, those suckers are tough.”
Troy’s jaw hit the deck. The look on Reilly’s face said it all.
“You know what she is, don’t you?”
Reilly nodded, the muscles in the side of his jaw working. “Yeah, she’s a Reaper. Saw one take out a whole pack of werewolves in Afghanistan.”
Troy got the feeling there was more to that story, but they didn’t have time. Moving as one, they stormed up the stairs. They hit the second floor as she kicked in the door to one of the bedrooms. A bellow answered.
Right room first time.
Not pausing for breath, she launched through the door, leaving the two human members of the party to trail after her. Reilly reached the door first, shoulder propped against the frame and gun covering the room as Troy moved past him.
The room was utter carnage. Whites and creams decorated with splashes of deep red he was sure the interior decorator hadn’t figured into the design. The lone hand on the window sill and the long length of gray-pink ropey stuff that he was trying really hard not to mentally identify probably didn’t either.
The demon was not at all what he expected. For a start, creatures from the deepest pit of hell should be…bigger. And they should not look like his nana, or wear cashmere and pearls. That being said, things that look like his nana shouldn’t have claws longer than bread knives nor spit fire.
Laney ducked as another gout headed her way, leaving the two men to scatter to either side to avoid being roasted. The flame hit the wall behind them, charring the paper. Troy screamed. Maybe a little like a girl but he didn’t care. Despite all the weird shit happening in town the last year or so, this was his first demon.
Hopefully, it would be his last.
Thankfully it wasn’t interested in them, instead concentrating on spitting what sounded like curses at Laney. He thought they were curses anyway. He didn’t speak demon, so it could have been a shopping list for all he knew. Laney apparently did, because she bellowed back in the same language and threw a roundhouse kick that knocked it across the room.
“See, I told you. Tough,” Reilly shouted over the noise, and nodded toward the other side of the room. The sight of three bodies there made the job kick in. Skirting the reaper/demon battle in the middle of the room, they rushed to the side of the fallen girls.
Two were done for, the gray ropey stuff turning out to be exactly what Troy had hoped it wasn’t. Intestines and other organs spilled from the ruined abdomen of one of the girls, the cream carpet darkened with blood and her eyes sightlessly looked at the door. The other didn’t have a face. Troy had never wanted to see someone’s brain from that angle. He never wanted to see it again.
The third girl though, was still breathing. Hands over her stomach, she panted each breath and looked at them with desperation. Troy dropped to his knees next to her.
“Hey there, we got you, sweetheart. Don’t worry, it’s going to be okay.” Total fucking bullshit, he could tell from the blood pooling under her and the pallor of her skin that she wasn’t making this. No way was he letting her in on that though. That’s not what they did. Not what he did. He held their hands and told them it would all turn out okay until they couldn’t hear him anymore. Like he would have done for Jilly. If she hadn’t tried to eat his face off.
She nodded at him, flashing a glance at Reilly as he knelt on the other side of her, gun trained on the battle raging only feet from them. Troy gritted his teeth. Bastard had left him to deal with the mushy stuff. Troy couldn’t blame him to be honest. As good as Reilly was as a captain and with the Glock in his hands, the dude was as scary as fuck. Even when he was trying to be charming.
“You just hang in there. It’ll all be done soon and we can get you out of here.” Hands covering hers on her stomach, Troy applied extra pressure but it wasn’t going to be enough. He knew what death looked like and it was looking at him through this young girl’s eyes. She held his gaze almost desperately, like she wanted to cut out everything else going on around them. “What’s your name, sweetheart?”
He could barely hear her whisper as she answered, “M-Mary-Beth.”
“Pleased to meet you, Mary-Beth. I’m Troy.”
He smiled, not missing the bellows of pain and frustration behind them. From the sounds of it, his girl was giving that demon hell. Bad pun but the only one which fit.
Mary-Beth managed another smile, but he could feel her slipping away. A chill stole over her skin, and for a second it looked like a ghostly version of the girl was rising out of her body despite the fact she still breathed. He blinked, shaking his head to clear it. He’d seen a lot of weird shit over the last year or so, but ghosts while a person was still alive was a touch too far.
A scream of rage caught Troy’s attention and a second later Reilly shoved him down, the two of them covering Mary-Beth as Laney flew overhead. She hit the wall hard enough to crack the plaster and dropped to the floor. Troy’s breath caught in the back of his throat. Crap, she was down.
Fear and the need to look after her surged through him, the need stronger than anything he’d felt. The demon roared across the room, loud enough to rupture eardrums, the sound filled with rage and hatred. Gathering himself to rush to her side, he stopped when she looked up, anger on her face.
A hit like that would have been it for a normal person, but not Laney. Instead of lying in a moaning heap on the floor with multiple broken bones, she was on her feet in a flash, blades in hands. Without missing a beat, she roared right back, her words awful ones that made his skin want to crawl off his body and hide somewhere safe. But worse was to come.
He crouched over Mary-Beth, expecting the demon to storm them any second, but he couldn’t take his eyes off Laney. Her roar deepened, the sound reverberating through his bones, and developed into a sound he knew. It was the sound of every one of his nightmares. The ones filled with blood and death as he fought whatever monster stalked his dreams that night.
Before Liberty, it had been h
uman killers from his old cases who took the starring role but since coming back, the cast had increased exponentially. The sound remained the same though: terror and despair, hopelessness and pain. It was his own scream as he faced not his own death, but something far worse. The death of those he loved.
Stunned into silence he couldn’t do anything but watch as darkness gathered behind her, obliterating the cream walls. Her shadow elongated, a familiar robed figure taking shape. The blades in her hands lengthened as she spat at the denizen of hell in its own language.
She took a step forward, then another, and he couldn’t help shrinking back, something in the back of his mind that was very human and very concerned with its own survival, grabbing control and making him move away from a creature all his senses told him was death. His death. The death of everyone in the room.
Heat hit his back, as though an inferno had broken out behind him. He sucked in a gasp, feeling as though he’d been plunged into a sauna on ‘oven-roast’ setting. Sweat broke out over his body. When he glanced down, the carpet by his knee began to smoke, the top fibers singed. Fear hummed in his veins. He had no idea what reapers could stand, but humans couldn’t stand this kind of heat long.
Wincing, he looked over his shoulder to see hell behind them. Literally. The walls and door were gone, replaced by a yawning abyss filled with fire. Probably brimstone as well. That shit got everywhere.
Laney walked past as though they weren’t there. Normally when people said that, they meant someone simply ignored them as they walked by. Laney didn’t just ignore them, she walked through them, as though they weren’t there. The chill from her touch hit like a bullet to the head. He shivered, the heat cut off like a switch, replaced by bitter, bone numbing cold. Fuck, be just his luck to get hypothermia. Hot then cold that quickly wasn’t good. Actually, scratch that. He’d just be glad to get out of this alive.
The demon screamed and threw fireballs. Actual rocks with flames coming off them. For each one it chucked, Laney parried, slicing through the air to deflect the missiles so they bounced off the walls and disappeared. With each step forward she took, the demon was forced back. Each step forward reclaimed a little bit more of the wall until, finally, they could see the door.
