Reaper (Dragon Prophecies Book 1)

by Hickory Mack

  “Thanks,” Cross said. “We’ll be right there.”

  Miller trotted off back to their truck.

  “I guess things are going to be a little weird for a while,” Elsie sighed.

  “It doesn’t have to be weird. I don’t want to make you uncomfortable, and I’ll do my best to contain my excitement,” he said, his face stoic. She laughed at him. She’d yet to see much emotion out of him, but she was starting to think he was just so reserved it didn’t show as easily.

  “I need to go back to the box truck.”

  “I can feel it from here, his rage,” Cross said, nodding. “I’ll come with you. I can offer support and help subdue the fox if needed.”

  “That’s really cool of you to offer, but—”

  “Too soon. Got it,” he said, but though his voice was light, his eyes showed his disappointment. That was the key to seeing how he really felt. His eyes gave him away.

  “It is too soon, but it’s more that Wren needs me right now.”

  “The spirit?” He sounded surprised. “Was she hurt by the forest spirit?”

  Elsie was strangely touched by his show of concern for Wren, but she supposed that’s how mates had to be. He would be spending the rest of his life with Wren, whether he liked it or not, so they may as well become friends.

  “Not physically, but emotionally. The physical pain comes from what the hunters have done,” she told him. “Since we met, she’s always been there for me. I have to help her feel better. You’re the third among my mates. Let’s just hope that’s the end of it. I have the emotional range of a fence post most days. I shouldn’t be expected to keep this many people happy.”

  “Keeping us happy isn’t your job,” Cross said. “Your job is to keep yourself happy, and then be happy with us. At least, that’s all I ask.”

  “That doesn’t sound so hard,” she admitted. They walked back to the convoy together, and when it was time for them to separate, she let him take her hand. She looked at how small her hand looked in his and smiled. He was so warm. Cross watched her climb onto the box and gave her a wave before going back to the other guys in her security detail.

  “How did it go?” Wren asked, her face blank.

  “Like you didn’t spy on us the whole time,” Elsie snickered.

  “At least you're in a better mood. Get your fence post ass over here and snuggle me. I need your love,” she demanded, and Elsie grinned. It was the first time either of them had used the ‘L’ word, but it fit. She settled down and let the spirit flop over on top of her. After a few minutes, the convoy started rolling, and they began their journey back to the compound, watching dark, ominous clouds roll across the sky.

  Chapter 30

  It took five days to get back to the compound. On the third day, Elsie was hit by an overwhelming sense of sadness from Saint’s bond. She’d cried out, grasping her chest and looking toward the South. He wasn’t hurt, but something was wrong. There was a strong undercurrent of anger in his sadness. She’d reached out to him through their bond, but he was too distracted to respond.

  Elsie longed for the day their bond was sealed, so she would be able to feel him more completely. Perrie had described it as a telepathic connection, saying some witches could even speak with their bonded mates from great distances. She wanted that so badly it hurt.

  The closer they came to the compound, the more restless Frost grew. The wolf practically vibrated with excitement, knowing he would be free soon. She couldn’t blame him, but she had to admit she’d miss the big fluff ball, even if she didn’t say it out loud. She’d come to trust him and even rely on him in some ways. Despite all his attitude, Frost had managed to grow on her.

  They rolled into the clearing outside the gate, finding the trucks with cages parked neatly to each side, leaving a pathway open for the truck carrying a monster that even now continued to try escaping. The soldiers were on each side of the truck when she climbed down with Wren and Frida, approaching the gate. Her mouth formed a firm line, but it was way too late to back down now.

  Raising the staff, she called her magic and opened the gate. Wren looked up at it, impressed, her hair floating about in a witch-like way from the breeze kicked up by the gate’s appearance. Elsie took her hand and pulled her away. She wanted no part of what happened next, but they couldn’t remove the fox from his enclosure without her.

  “It’s going to be okay,” Wren said reassuringly, touching the pendant around Elsie’s neck. “Come back to me when you can, and I’ll keep an eye out for your demon.”

  “I’m going to come back as often as I can. Every day means every day, right?” Elsie questioned, and Wren nodded with a tiny smile.

  “When Frost leaves, keep that brujo at your side. Spend more time with him and let your bond grow,” Wren suggested. Elsie sighed, but she nodded. She’d accepted Cross, but spending time with him would let her grow more comfortable with the idea that he was her mate.

  “Are you going into the demon town?” she asked, prompting Wren to look in its direction. Neither of them had been there, but they could sense it. Elsie could feel their souls, some of them calling out to her more clearly than others. Wren could feel the interruption in her earth magic where buildings were dug into her land.

  “I haven’t decided yet. There might be interesting things to see there, and I prefer to keep my feet on the ground,” Wren said, wryly looking back at the truck they’d spent five days on top of. “I could use a little recharge.”

  “I understand.”

  “You must come to me on the equinox,” Wren reminded her, and Elsie smiled. It was less than three weeks away now.

  “Do you think Saint will be here by then?”

  “I’m counting on it,” Wren said. “The sooner he returns, the faster we can get out of here. Make sure you keep practicing.”

  “I will,” she promised, then kissed Wren one last time. She’d made no secret of enjoying all the time alone with the spirit over the past several days. The hunters hadn’t expected anything of her except to eat, sleep, and guard the fox. Otherwise, they’d stayed out of her way.

  Wren pressed her forehead to Elsie’s then turned and walked away. Elsie watched until the spirit was obscured by trees, giving a sigh. “Come on, Precious, let’s get this over with,” she said, walking back to the truck.

  There were soldiers on all four sides now, and several stood on top of it, their weapons drawn and aimed at the roof. Elsie snorted. They truly acted as if their darts were going to pass through the metal and into another dimension to shoot the fox. It was kind of insulting. She’d managed to hold him all this way, and now they were behaving as though the Demon Lord would come bursting out at any moment.

  Then she realized that several of them were from within the compound. These men hadn’t traveled with them, and this was their first exposure to the boiling demon of rage that was the devil’s black fox. Even she wasn’t immune to how terrifying he felt, and she was most closely linked to him. She’d figured she’d get over it by now.

  Cross came to stand at her side, barely looking at her. They’d decided that for now, he would continue acting as though he were merely volunteering as her security leader so he could gain access to a nest. It would give him the excuse to be around her as often as they wanted, and they’d just have to be careful not to get too close and give themselves away.

  The truck pulled into the massive warehouse on the top level, and Elsie caught a glimpse of Angus Cornick in his white lab coat, walking among the cages with a critical eye. She briefly wondered if he, too, thought the massive loss was worth it. So many lives lost to capture a single demon.

  Frost padded at her side with Frida weaving between his feet. It still amazed Elsie how he could walk like that without stepping on her or tripping. She tripped on the damned alebrije so often she wasn’t entirely sure Frida didn’t secretly want her dead.

  The truck containing the fox stopped, and two men with power tools worked on unbolting the box so it could be rem
oved. They worked fast, and a few minutes later, a forklift pulled up to transfer the box to a far more compact truck designed for tight spaces and smooth driving surfaces.

  “Congratulations, you caught him. This is going to keep Cornick busy for a long while. I’m sure some of his underlings will thank you.” Security Chief Rand approached, his countenance serious.

  “I sincerely hope they do,” Elsie replied. She had always found it laughable that an organization that prided themselves on having members with fae blood was so casual with professing gratitude. She’d own Cornick’s staff in no time at all if they were really that dumb.

  “We’ll be taking the demon down to the lowest level using the tunnels. It’s slow going, but I think it’s best if you accompany him rather than taking a faster route. If he were to escape in such a tight space, the soldiers guarding him won’t stand a chance,” Rand stated.

  “They wouldn’t stand a chance if they had a tank and a rocket launcher,” she muttered. “Cornick has no idea what kind of monster he’s bringing in among your people. There aren’t civilians living here, are there? If there are, they should all be sent home immediately. Today.”

  Rand frowned at her, but he didn’t answer, which made her worry. Officers often had their families living with them in places like these, but much of the time those families had no idea what kind of work their significant other did. It wasn’t their fault someone they loved was mixed up in this shit.

  Hopefully, Rand would do the right thing and get them out of here before anything went wrong with the fox, and she had every confidence it would. There wasn’t an army and a pair of Demon Lords to help subdue that thing here, underground in a separate dimension.

  They followed the truck into a freight elevator that lowered them deep into the cave system the hunters had carved their installation out of. The layer of brick couldn’t stop the chill in the air or the distinct scent of stale water. Frost sniffed heavily, looking around, and she wondered what he could smell that she couldn’t.

  Elsie touched his fur, grinning when Frida leapt from her shoulder to his. The alebrije had gotten herself so damned attached to the big wolf. It would kind of suck when he was gone.

  The elevator finally reached the bottom, grinding to an ear-piercing halt. The door opened, revealing a series of tunnels before them, each stretching on and on. Yellow tiles covered the walls and arched ceiling where a line of lights ran along the peak. The floor was concrete, and there were no exit doors.

  “How long are these?” Elsie asked.

  “The footprint of the base is two miles long and three miles wide. The tunnels run under the entirety of it, connecting the lowest level to the highest using the freight system,” Rand answered quickly. As the security chief, he must have the entire blueprint of the place memorized.

  “Does that mean the base was built with the intention of transporting a demon this way? I thought there was another gate on the bottom floor?”

  “The gate is actually on a lower level than the bottom floor, but because its only use is to connect this world to Worldbase B, it is not considered a floor of its own. Muriel couldn’t figure out how to put a gate on this level to connect to the world we wanted, so we had to dig deeper to accommodate,” Rand said.

  Elsie absorbed that information with great interest. Before coming here, she hadn’t known there were connection points underground.

  “Who can I talk with to learn more about Muriel and the work she did for you?” she asked.

  “I don’t know that she was especially close to anybody, but you could speak to someone on her security detail... if they survived the mission to retrieve the fox. From what I hear, the casualties were immense,” Rand told her.

  “It seems to me the loss was disproportionately humans and demons. Most of the hunters returned.”

  “Well, it’s unfortunate to hear about the humans, but they knew the risks when they chose to join us here.”

  “Are all of you so callous?”

  “I suppose that after a period of time, yes,” Rand answered. “A person can only lose so many people they’re close to before growing hard to the realities of how we live our lives.”

  “How does that change when you know you’re the reason those close to you were put into those positions in the first place?” Elsie asked. For several minutes, the only sound was the forklift transporting the box ahead of them.

  “I wouldn’t know the answer to that. I don’t give the orders for missions around here. I just follow them,” Rand finally said.

  “That’s bullshit.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “You’re the security chief of what basically amounts to an underground city! You’re telling me you never give the orders to subdue something that’s gotten out of control or send one of your security guys to their deaths?” Elsie asked bitterly. She hated being lied to.

  This time the silence stretched for a long time as Rand refused to answer. The tunnel came to an end with a set of double doors that led into a stark white hallway, brightly lit and cold, but at least it didn’t smell like a centuries old cave anymore. It smelled more like antiseptics and bleach.

  There was a room decked out with monitors and thick bulletproof plexiglass, and they needed to go through two sets of large iron doors that only allowed those with security-enabled fingerprints to get in. Elsie wondered how many other demons had spent their last days here.

  The inside was like a torture chamber in one of the hell dimensions she’d visited. The floor was concrete, with a drain in the center. There were chains, tables, and entire shelves full of devices of varying levels of horror. At the center of the room was a high-tech restraint device that Elsie had only seen once before, though she’d never seen it used. She set the tip of her staff on the ground and leaned on it, watching Cross walk around, looking at the contents of the room.

  Frida sat herself prim and pretty at Elsie’s feet and began grooming herself as if this weren’t the weirdest thing she’d seen all day. Elsie smirked. The cat was at home pretty much anywhere they went.

  “What is all this?” Cross asked.

  “It’s confidential,” Elsie and Rand answered at the same time. He looked at her, and she tilted her chin at him, daring him to say anything to her.

  “They would never admit to doing anything wrong,” she added.

  “We do not consider anything done in this room wrong,” Commander Grant said, joining them. Elsie managed to stop herself from rolling her eyes as she turned to face him.

  “Then why is it classified?” she taunted.

  “We wouldn’t want word getting out of what Angus is up to, now would we? If rumors of our activities were to reach the ears of demon kind, they could make things difficult for us, so we keep it quiet. At least until it’s time to unveil the finished product,” Grant said.

  “The only reason you’re able to get away with any of this is because the demons are not united,” Cross said, drawing Grant’s eye.

  “Which is precisely why we do not go out of our way to give them a reason to do so,” he said. “Angus is busy with the demons outside, so we will take care of this one without him.”

  The truck backed the box as close to the restraint as possible, and Elsie smothered a laugh. They hadn’t brought nearly enough people with them to keep that monster restrained.

  “How are you planning to get him out of there? I’ve already done my part. I’ll release him from the alternate dimension when you tell me, but that’s the end of my involvement,” she said.

  Rand motioned with his hand, and soldiers filed in from outside where they’d been waiting, each and every one of them holding weapons containing the same darts from before. In her pocket, Elsie’s fingers curled around the one she’d taken from them as the last soldier closed the iron doors behind him, locking everyone in with the devil’s black fox.

  “We have this handled,” Grant said confidently. The soldiers got into position, aiming at the door of the box. As soon as they were re
ady, a crew of four nurses and two doctors came forward, standing out in their scrubs and white coats among all the men in kevlar and camouflage. “Open it.”

  Elsie snatched up Frida and took a step back, grabbing Cross’ arm and pulling him with her. She let him go quickly, but for just a second, his eyes flicked her way before they both stared at the heavy door as it opened.

  “What are you going to do if he’s in his demon form?” she questioned, but Grant ignored her, craning his head curiously to get a look at what was inside the box. He looked disappointed.

  “It’s empty,” he said in a flat tone. The soldiers eased out of their tense stances, standing tall and looking confused, while Elsie battled her anxiety. It didn’t matter that she’d spent the last few days becoming accustomed to the demon’s anger. She was still terrified.

  “It only looks empty because you don’t have ethereal magic,” she explained. To her, it looked like there was a film at the entrance to the box, a deep purple splattered with starlight. It had a fluid quality to it, gently ebbing and flowing with the demon’s breath. Frost let out a low growl, and she shook her head at him. “We are not getting involved. Whenever you’re ready, Grant.”

  “Let him out of there,” the commander ordered. Elsie nodded once and lifted her staff, letting the magic form the blade of her scythe. Even more ornate than before, she let her fear and anger guide its appearance. The blade was black as night, with spikes coming off the back end. It looked wicked, gothic, and cruel. She liked it.

  Pouring magic through it, lines in the blade lit up in electric blue, and Elsie tore through the magic of the dimension she’d created. From the demon’s side, the world he’d been encased in for the past five days would fall away to the dark interior of the box as he was forced back into the reality they currently resided in. For several heart-pounding seconds, nothing happened. There wasn’t a sound.

  Elsie felt it the moment the demon came to awareness. His mind was immense, and his power was tangible. He took her breath away. Frida’s back arched, and the fur on Frost’s hackles stood on end.