Rise (Reaper's Redemption Book 3)

by Thea Atkinson

As if she heard me, Sarah thumped a cup down onto the counter and at the sound, Nicki tried to squirm out of Callum's arms. He set her on the floor. We both watched her spin on her bottom for several moments before crawling up the hallway with the owl hooting along behind her.

  A glance at Callum told me his thoughts on the matter were the same as mine. Just hours ago, she had needed to be toted everywhere. Now she was mobile, if not close to ambulatory. It made me uneasy. A goddess trapped in a child's body had to be a burden. What if Nehkbet hated me for it?

  What that might mean wasn't something I wanted to consider. Not yet. Tomorrow. When I'd had a good night's sleep and a belly full of bacon.

  As I'd been lost in my thoughts, staring at Callum without actually seeing him, he had somehow moved closer without me realizing it. He towered over me in the hallway. The glint of his green eyes reminded me of old Pepsi bottles. I found myself blinking up at him, confused and awash in emotions and post trauma stress. I had the feeling he might reach out and touch me, maybe even pull me closer.

  I both wanted it and didn't at the same time.

  Just two weeks earlier, he'd called me a kid. That I didn't know what to do with my emotions. He also said he would wait for me to figure it out. Now here he was staring at me as though he expected something of me that I didn't understand and couldn't give.

  "I imagine it's a lot for you to take in," I said and noted that my voice was shaking. "All of this on top of finding out you have angel blood in your veins."

  He squeezed his eyes closed as though he were bracing himself. Two shuddering exhales racked his broad chest. I thought he might be holding back tears. I felt a rush of sympathy for him. I'd struggled too.

  I sighed. "It's alright," I said, a whisper that I hoped was empathetic. "I get it. I've been there too."

  He blinked his eyes open and they were clear and focused. No tears in the depths anywhere, just an odd far away look that I hadn't expected. Whatever it was moved behind his eyes like a cloud swirling in the centre.

  "I can't sleep at night," he said. It sounded like he needed to clear his throat.

  "That will get better," I said.

  He inched closer, out of Sarah's line of sight. "I keep remembering everything. Thinking about everything."

  I nodded. "It was pretty awful," I said. "But eventually you'll adjust." I didn't tell him I had. One lie was enough for the night.

  He hummed a thoughtful note that could have been agreement. "Not just that." He traced my jawline with the edge of his thumb. "Thinking about you."

  I didn't expect that. I felt my chest flush and my throat went all tight and constricted. His thumb whispered down the column of my throat and traced my collarbone over the edging of my T-shirt.

  I couldn't move for the excitement of it, the shock.

  "I'm not sure what it is," he said. "I'm alright until I'm standing right in front of you." His finger paused at the edge of my collar and his black brow quirked in query. When I didn't protest, that finger slipped beneath my T-shirt and tickled the top of my shoulder. I felt my knees sag. It was as though every bit of me wanted to melt against him.

  I had no idea what was appropriate right then. I knew he was going to kiss me and I resolved not to do anything stupid like I had at the hospital by pushing away from him. I actually thought I might be able to remain composed, a perfectly adult woman waiting for a much-anticipated kiss. In the moment that I thought I would lift my face to his, my mouth blurted out something ridiculous.

  "I met the tooth fairy," I said.

  To his credit he didn't back off or show his surprise at such an unexpected statement. His other hand snaked around my waist, cupping the small of my back and urging my hips against his. Every part of my body felt electric with the expectation.

  "Did she look like Tinkerbell?" he murmured playfully and lowered his head closer. All evidence of the contrite youth bearing down under an irate girl's temper was gone. Back in its place was the confident, assured man. The bib of his fireman's overalls gaped away from his chest and as he shrugged it back into place, the material emitted a soft bit of smokiness.

  He was a breath away from my lips and his touch down was like a moth fluttering against the corner of my own. I couldn't breathe for the anticipation.

  "He," I said against his cheek, unable to stop the flood of ridiculous words. "His name is Warren."

  The hand against the small of my back grew more firm. I had the feeling he was waiting for me to turn into his kiss, but was getting tired of waiting.

  "Warren?" he said. "Should I be jealous?" He nuzzled his cheek against mine. I could feel the stubble of his 5 o'clock shadow scratching against the surface of my skin. I thought if he hadn't been holding me, I would have had to cling to him to stand up, then I realized I was clinging to him.

  It was Sarah's voice, slicing through the air as though it had made a mighty karate chop down between the two of us, that got my attention.

  "You met a fairy?"

  "Fae," I corrected, dragging my eyes from Callum's mouth to peer over his shoulder. I pulled free of his embrace, but noticed from the corner of my eye that his gaze was still locked on my mouth. My hand went to the back of the door, and I felt around for the knob. Something to cling to get my bearings. Callum wasn't moving out of the way. He still towered over me, looking down at me as though he was drugged. I wasn't sure why he was acting so off, but in some ways, I liked it. In some ways it was inconvenient. Like now.

  "You met a fae?" Sarah clunked closer, her shoes tattooing her progress across the tiles. She dropped two steaming mugs onto the pass-through counter. Then she came closer, her arms crossed over her chest. "Those things don't show themselves to anyone." Blonde brows met together over her sky blue eyes and her hand went to her hip.

  I shrugged. It didn't seem a big deal anymore. Maybe it was a sign of how used I was getting to have my life interfered with by supernatural beings. I tried to find a way to push past Callum. He was as movable as a mountain, and I had to give him a nasty glare to get him to shuffle off to the side.

  "I should have thought of mentioning it before," I said. "But with everything going on..."

  Sarah looked back over her shoulder into the kitchen. I could see Nicki sitting on the floor holding out the owl's wings as though she was dancing with it.

  "I still don't know what happened," I said and Sarah looked back over her shoulder at the toddler.

  "She's fine as far as I can see," she said. "But what the heck it means, who knows?"

  She peered at me as though I knew the answer and I twisted one hand into the other. I had the feeling we were both thinking the same thing: that whatever it meant was tied to the reason she had been laid to rest in those canopic jars in the first place.

  "Do you think I had something to do with that?" I said, testing Sarah's reaction to help me gauge my own. "Azrael wanted her bad enough. Do you think he knew something about her in the days to come that made her dangerous? That I let it loose anyway?"

  "Who knows anything about Azrael or what he thinks," Sarah said. "What has he done except make your life miserable?"

  "You got that right." Callum waggled his fingers at Nicki who laughed outright as her owl skittered across the floor in an attempt to escape her embrace. "Besides," he said. "How can she be dangerous? Look at her."

  "Maybe it just is, then." It was a hopeful thought, one not sounded out in my chest at all. The tight way it was constricting told me there was more to it than just the way a goddess grew.

  I remembered those three new teeth as Nicki smiled at me earlier. It made me think of Warren, and a suicidal fae was much better a line of thought than the mysterious growth spurt.

  "His name was Warren, the tooth fairy, I mean," I said. "He told me he was very old. Very nearly the first."

  I tried to give the label with the same sense of importance he had delivered it with. But I had the feeling I failed. Sarah's mouth was just twisted up as she looked at me.

  I could smell the
chocolate clear across the room and it made my stomach gurgle. I crossed the hallway to pick up a mug.

  "It was very strange visit. He wanted me to kill him."

  "Did you?" Callum said with an edge to his voice. "Did you kill the tooth fairy?"

  I spun on him, trying to figure why he was so strangely hot and cold.

  "Really?" I said with an edge to my voice that surprised me. "What kind of monster do you think I am?"

  "Yeah," Sarah said, an angry splotch of red on her cheeks. "She's Nathelilum but she's not a killer. What has gotten in to you?" she cocked her head sideways as though she was trying to figure out a puzzle that she didn't like the look of.

  He jammed his hands into the pockets of his bibs. "I don't know," he said and raked a hand through his hair. I noticed it was trembling. "I don't know much for sure anymore."

  While the drugged look was gone, it had left a sort of tightness to his face that was echoed in his shoulders. "Maybe I just better go." He looked at me as though he expected me to beg him to stay and when I didn't, he sighed.

  "I'll come by tomorrow – maybe late afternoon – and we'll do some training. Maybe we both need some physical exercise."

  He tried to grin at me, but it came out as a grimace. All I could do was nod at him mutely. I let him go and waited until the door closed behind him before I let out a low whistle. Definitely not normal. Not this night. Not one bit.

  "I suppose it's not his fault," Sarah said, sighing as he watched him through the window in the door. "I've known since I was a girl that I was a necromancer. Your grandfather has known he was a Druid since forever. Callum just found out he was crack to the supernatural community a couple of weeks ago. I guess he needs time to adjust."

  Time was the least of it; I knew that from experience. I had never adjusted well to any change, let alone a big one like this. I told myself it was lucky for Callum he knew how to put out fires. I had spent a lot of time lighting them.

  "So you're willing to give him some slack?" I said.

  "Heck no," she turned around and dropped the curtain back against the window. The glint of humor in her eye said she would, though.

  I smiled. "Yeah, maybe he should suffer a little bit."

  "Just a scooch." She pinched her fingers together to indicate how much. "Poor thing," she said. It's a big deal realizing for the first time that the afterworld really does exist but that you will never see either Paradise or hell."

  It was the first time she had admitted to caring one way or the other. Her blasé attitude about it surprised me.

  "How long have you known?"

  She shrugged. "I try not to think about it much," she said, but I had the feeling she wasn't being completely honest. She blinked at me. "There are Nathelium who aren't fallen angels, you know. If you don't get me, one of them will." She made a great show of smiling broadly. "So if I got to go, I'd rather it was you."

  "No one is going to 'get' you, Sarah," I said. "Least of all me. We'll find a way for you to pass blissfully into some cottony paradise."

  She snorted. "I'd rather it was a chocolatey paradise."

  I picked up the cocoa and blew on it because I didn't like where the conversation was going one bit. Easier to dodge the matter all together by picking the original thought back up.

  "Well, Callum doesn't seem to be dealing well at all," I said. I had the feeling that he had accepted what he was, but that he didn't understand what good it would do or what it mattered. And maybe it didn't matter. Maybe it didn't mean anything. I just knew if it was me, I'd be fighting it all tooth and nail so no doubt he was doing the same.

  I couldn't help shaking the thought that a guy like that, who was used to taking charge and being the heroic fireman would want to know what good he could do with the information, and if it wasn't a positive outcome, he would find it difficult. It had certainly seemed to throw him off his footing.

  "He tried to kiss me," I admitted.

  She grinned. "I saw that."

  I hung my head, embarrassed. "That's why you interrupted us."

  "Not at all," she said, elbowing me in the ribs. "You just really threw me with the tooth fairy comment."

  "Imagine how I felt. He wanted me to kill him."

  She sank into the hall chair, crossing one leg over the other. "Not that I don't believe you or anything," she said. "But why would he do that?"

  "I have no idea." I crouched down in the hallway, facing Nicki, and waggled my fingers at her. She ignored me in favour of grabbing her owl by the leg and flipping him upside down.

  I felt Sarah's finger tapping the top of my head. "Fairies are very nearly immortal," she said. "You know that don't you?"

  I looked up at her and saw her holding her mug with both hands. Her dyed black hair was hanging over one shoulder. "Don't you?" she said again.

  "How would I know that?"

  She sighed. "Of course. Right. You're still very newly supernatural." She grinned over the edge of her mug. "But they are. They are one of the longest living supernatural creatures I know of. Very powerful. Their magic is something that is part of them. Like skin or a heartbeat. If he said he was very nearly the first, he must be older than Nicki."

  "Almost everyone is older than Nicki," I said.

  She gave me a dry look. "You know what I mean. Older than Nehkbet."

  I nodded. Of course I knew what she meant. I just didn't want to think about it. It wasn't something you could forget, and it wasn't something that you took lightly.

  Which was exactly what we had been doing. Acting as though caring for a demigod was normal. We weren't ready for the fire that had happened in her bedroom because we weren't expecting it.

  "I just want to forget about it," I said sighing and pushing on my thighs to stand. "I don't know why he wanted what he did, but he was here. Look, we have enough going on right now, Sarah, without wondering why a tooth fairy is tired of living."

  "You don't think it could have anything to do with my family do you?" she said.

  We hadn't heard anything from her family since the day two weeks earlier when someone had left a death card from a tarot pack on our doorstep. We had expected horrible things in those first few days, but when nothing happened and no one came to collect Sarah kicking and screaming off to some sacrifice in order to raise back from the dead an old family necromancer, we began to think life was normal indeed. At least we acted so. I began to think it was an empty threat altogether.

  "I can't imagine it would have anything to do with your family, Sarah," I said. "They haven't tried to contact you at all except leaving that card. If they left that card."

  She ticked the side of her mug with a fingernail. "I wish I could share your confidence, Ayla," she said. "Because I know my family. And it's just a matter of time."

  CHAPTER 6

  When Callum had said he'd come by in the morning, maybe late afternoon, I had totally expected sometime at least after eleven. Especially knowing that both Sarah and I had gone through a tough night. With Gramp gone to his little convention and Nicki threatening to grow out of the T-shirt we had hastily put on her because she had become too big to fit into her little onesie, neither one of us got to bed before 5 AM.

  I might have been dreaming about tooth fairies again, but when a cold blast of liquid shot into the corner of my eye as I lay in my bed, I was up like a shot instead of like a drunken cat and was stumbling bleary-eyed across the carpet in my bare feet before I could even open my eyes.

  Whatever it was, I would be ready this time.

  "I told you I wouldn't do it," I said, slapping at the stream of water that still came at me, this time soaking my chest, my hair, my neck. No matter which way I twisted, the stream caught me. As I opened my mouth to swear at Warren, a blast went into my mouth, making me sputter.

  "Time to get up," said a familiar voice.

  Callum. Knowing it was him and not the very old tooth fairy attacking me sent conflicting emotions through me. On the one hand, I was relieved I wouldn't have to
argue with a supernatural creature who had already threatened to pull my teeth out of my head with some very painful magic, and sheer humiliation because I knew my T-shirt was an old and ragged thing that was no doubt completely soaked. Water dribbled out of my mouth onto the floor.

  "I told you I'd be by in the morning," he said. "A recruit doesn't make her trainer wait."

  I gripped the edge of the bureau with my fingers as I suffered the stream of water hitting the small of my back. "All I heard was afternoon," I said.

  The stream of water stopped and I heard him pumping the gun in vain. Empty. Good. Maybe I could pull a sweatshirt out from one of my drawers before I decided to elbow him in the throat. I was fumbling around inside my sweater drawer when he came up behind me and slipped his arms around my waist. I was so shocked, I froze with my hands clenched around something soft and thick. My hoodie.

  I felt him spoon into my back as though he had done it a thousand times before.

  "What are you doing?" I said.

  Both of his hands wrapped around me, then, and for a second I thought he would bury his nose into my neck. The way he drew in a heavy breath, I certainly imagined he might. Then I felt a tremor run through him and in the next instant, while I was still thinking he was being sweet and gentle, he lifted me straight off my feet and swung me up over his shoulder, caveman style. I'm sure he would've called it fireman carry, but it felt very brutish and primitive and, I had to face it, incredibly sexy.

  Even so, I found myself beating against his back with my fists. From my spot hanging down his back, I could see one of my sweatshirts dangling from his hand.

  "What?" he said with a chuckle. "Did you really think you'd get out of training today?"

  His words were stern, but there was something deep and unsettled in his voice.

  "I wasn't planning to," I said. "But that was before the soaking. A girl needs to get dressed first."

  "In my day, I had to put out a fire with nothing on but a pair of boots in minus 10 degree weather."

  I jabbed his kidney. "Nice image," I said. "And no doubt you had to walk ten miles in the snow to get to it."