by Lisa Medley
He should be the one down here cleaning up his mess.
Nate hadn’t known Kylen before the possession, but he was a dark, scary bastard now.
Dude had seemed halfway tolerable after he and Ruth had healed him. As far as Nate could tell, Kylen had grown physically better, but mentally? Seemed like the guy was getting worse and worse since their return from Hell.
Part of the problem was that Kylen and Deacon kept getting into heated arguments over Kara, Kylen’s long-dead reaper girlfriend.
After the last blowup a few weeks ago, Kylen stopped sleeping in the house with them. He’d used some of the reaper hazard-pay settlement Deacon had negotiated for him to purchase a used twenty-four-foot camping trailer. He’d dragged the eyesore home and parked it by the garage. God only knew where he’d found the thing. When he wasn’t out hunting demons, he spent his time out there. Alone. Nate was pretty sure the guy would hunt 24/7 if Deacon didn’t insist they sleep and eat on a regular basis. The guy was obsessed. The fact that they’d only killed a third of the demons so far weighed on them all, but Kylen seemed the most troubled.
Arranging his collection of kindling in a neat stack inside the furnace box, Nate lit it. He watched the flames lick and consume the smaller tinder, and then added some larger logs, waiting for them to catch. He was thankful the firebox was large enough for a body. He didn’t think he could bear to dismember one, even if having the head off was more helpful than he’d anticipated. He wouldn’t mention that to Kylen, though. The bastard didn’t need any encouragement.
Hefting the body into the flaming box, he tossed the head in last before adding two more logs on top of the heap. This was going to be an all-night proposition. It had taken forever for the other bodies to dry enough to burn to ash, since the temperature didn’t quite hit the sweet spot with wood alone. This arrangement was basically an indoor funeral pyre. They’d had to improvise.
He closed the door and adjusted the damper to keep the fire hot. His stomach growled as he headed upstairs for dinner. He hoped it wasn’t barbecue.
Chapter Three
Deacon, Nate and Ruth sat around the small kitchen table eating dinner. At last. It was after 3:00 a.m., but dinnertime was subjective these days, and she knew the men were famished. They’d learned not to wait for Kylen. He rarely seemed to eat these days, despite Deacon’s insistence that he refuel. If he didn’t show soon, Ruth would do what she always did—she’d leave a dish she’d prepared for him by the door of his trailer.
Deacon was still filled with the souls he’d collected from the demon. He needed to get them to Purgatory fast, but not before he refueled. Six souls was the max for most reapers, but with his promotion, Deacon could now carry an unlimited number of souls and now demons as well. Or so he’d been told by Grim. None of them were eager for him to test his limits.
If there was one vital lesson Ruth could take away from her first several months as a reaper, it was this: food equaled energy. It was true for humans but even more so for reapers. Besides decapitation, a fatal loss of energy was the only other way for a reaper to be felled.
Ignoring that all-important rule had landed her in a reaper coma before she’d officially even begun working as a reaper. Nate had saved her.
“This is great, Ruth.” Deacon winked and shoveled in a heaping spoonful of stew.
“Ditto.” Nate wiped the bottom of his bowl with a piece of bread.
“It would have been better an hour and a half ago.” She smirked.
“You know we’re not exactly on a schedule here.” Deacon hesitated and shoved in another mouthful.
“I would know that better if I were out there with you.”
“Ruth, we’ve talked about this. You’ve been doing a great job running the reaping circuit while we’re out. Between you and Maeve, you’ve managed to keep things going so we can attend to our other problems.”
“Right. I collected a paltry two souls today. Maeve collected a dozen. I’m pretty sure she left those two for me as a pity prize. She doesn’t even need me,” Ruth fumed.
Maeve was the replacement reaper, sent to attend to the daily collection of Meridian’s most recent dearly departed while Deacon, Kylen and Nate hunted down the demons. She was nice enough, but she was also brusque. She had made it abundantly clear that Ruth was more of a hindrance than a help.
Deacon reached across the table and took her hand. “I need you, Ruth.” He glanced over at Nate. “We need you. Here and safe.”
Ruth shifted in her seat, uncomfortable with the attention, but she refused to back down. This was not how this conversation had gone in her head. She was tired of doing the grunt work. She wanted in on the real action.
“I don’t want to be safe. I want to help. Besides. Won’t I be safer with you?”
Deacon pulled his hand away. “You’ll be a distraction.”
“You are not the boss of me, Deacon Walker. I can travel the consecrated subway by myself now, you know. Or have you already forgotten the lengths Nate and I went to to save Kylen? Not to mention your sorry ass?” Her heartbeat thumped in her ears as her anger rose. “If you won’t take me, I’ll go off on my own. Maeve can handle things by herself. Is that what you want?”
Deacon closed his eyes, and she could almost hear his gears grind. “No. That is most assuredly not what I want. I want to protect you. I’ve failed before. More than once. Help me make sure that I don’t fail again.”
“You could undo one of your failures.” Kylen stood in the back doorway, his eyes pinched at the corners.
Ruth shuddered. She hated it when they argued, and one thing was for sure—Kylen was raring for an argument.
Nate pushed his chair back from the table and stood, and Deacon raised his eyes to meet Kylen’s.
“We’ve talked about this, Kylen. Time and again. You know I can’t do it… I can’t bring her back.” Deacon folded his napkin and placed it on the table beside his empty bowl with cautious ease.
“It’s not a matter of can’t. It’s a matter of won’t.”
“Yes. Won’t. And you know why.”
Kylen’s body radiated power, and he manifested an aura, something reapers only did under extreme circumstances. Mustard-colored flames, indicating pain and anger, licked at his body as he stalked toward Deacon. Ruth held her breath.
He passed by them both without incident and stopped in the middle of the living room, looking down at the symbols of the demon trap, which were still burned into the wooden floor.
Head down, he drew the scythe from the holder that ran the length of his spine and flicked it open with a snap of his wrist. When his gaze rose to meet Deacon’s, he looked like death incarnate. He shimmered and disappeared into the consecrated subway without another word.
* * *
“Shit.” Nate hissed. “That guy’s got issues.”
“You think?” Ruth moved closer to Deacon.
“He’s not stable. I don’t know how we’d manage to find all of the demons without him, but I don’t think he needs to be around Ruth,” Nate said, giving Ruth an apologetic look.
“Again with the safety thing?” she snapped. “It’s not Kylen I’m worried about. It’s you two. You’ll kill me with your overprotectiveness long before anything else happens to me. Kylen is fine. He just needs…time.” She rose and began stacking the empty plates, smacking them together so hard a chip slivered off and fell to the floor. “He didn’t even eat,” she mumbled, taking the bowl she’d prepared for Kylen and stuffing it into the fridge.
“This isn’t finished. He’ll be back after he’s had time to cool off.” Deacon carried the remaining silverware over to the sink and wrapped his arms around Ruth from behind, nuzzling his face into her hair. “I have to go.”
“I know,” she said, relaxing into his embrace.
“I’ll be back as soon as I deliver the souls to Purgatory.” He pushed her hair aside and kissed the back of her neck. “I don’t want to lose you, too, Ruth. Please don’t do anything dangerous w
hile I’m gone.”
“I’ll try.”
“Try hard.” He leaned his face against the back of her head and pulled her in even closer, his need pressing against her bottom.
He released her and turned to look at Nate. “You know what to do?”
“Right, burn and babysit. I’m on it.”
Deacon’s lips curled into a half-hearted smile as he turned back to Ruth, searing her with his gaze, both a promise and a threat.
Chapter Four
Kylen flashed into Meridian’s downtown cemetery. It was already 4:00 a.m., and he needed sleep. This was his third day without any…at all. Clearly, he was unraveling quicker than usual as a result. He’d barely been able to restrain himself from tearing Deacon limb from limb in the middle of Ruth’s kitchen.
His rage had leaked out visibly—he could tell from the way they’d reacted.
What he needed now was the time and space to get himself under some semblance of control.
A red neon sign flashed Vacancy three blocks down at the Marquette Hotel—sleazy was an understatement. It would do. The neighborhood was raw and dirty, but at least it would provide him with some downtime far away from the others.
He would have loved to track down another demon and take out his frustration on the damn thing. But he couldn’t do that alone. He could maybe find one, but if he beheaded the host, the demon would just stream out and find another one. In this realm, only Deacon currently had the ability to dispose of them.
A fact that continued to piss him off to no end. Deacon had everything—power, an impressive position, Ruth. All Kylen had was cold, hard vengeance, a century’s worth of bad memories…
And a death wish.
He walked into the hotel lobby and leveled his gaze at the ragged young clerk who was reading a magazine behind the iron-barred, bulletproof service window. The clerk looked up, his eyes wide as Kylen paced toward him, steel-toed boots thundering across the worn oak floor. The kid backed away.
“A room.” Kylen demanded.
The clerk didn’t speak. He was too busy staring at Kylen’s right hand.
“Did you hear me?” Kylen followed the kid’s gaze to the open scythe gripped by his side.
Well, shit. He hadn’t even realized he’d drawn the damn thing. Force of habit. His rage had demanded a response. Even if it was subconscious. His motivations didn’t make much sense these days, even to him.
Pawing at the Peg-Board of room keys beside him, the boy kept his eyes fixed on Kylen as he pulled one loose without bothering to note its number. The key jangled against the diamond-shaped key ring in his trembling hand before he tossed it onto the counter. He gave it a shove through the tiny pay slot before backing up all the way to the wall behind him. Kylen scooped up the key and headed to the third floor without another word.
* * *
The room was humid, dark and smelled like a wet ashtray. Fitting. The bedsheets were stained and threadbare. The comforter was worse. Didn’t matter. All he needed was a few hours to recharge without having to deal with the others.
He crossed to the window, parted the sheer curtain liner, and looked down into the alley below him. A working girl was giving head to some sad sack pushed up against the brick alley wall by a Dumpster. His own dick hardened against his will. Christ. Like he didn’t have enough problems.
Satisfied that there were no immediate threats, he pulled the heavy outer curtains across the sheer liner in an attempt to block out the one streetlight glowing through the barred window. He pushed a rickety nightstand against the door. If someone wanted to mess with him, they’d have to work for it, and he’d have time to pull his weapon, which he was still holding.
Convenient.
When he reclined onto the bed, the sheath was uncomfortable beneath him, but it was so much like an appendage, he couldn’t bear to remove it. Keeping the scythe in his hand, he folded it with care and settled it across his stomach.
The pillow was worthless, and he tossed it across the room toward the far wall. Arms crossed and eyes closed, he lay on the bed like the dead. He was relieved to be alone, somewhere where no one knew him, for a few hours. Here, in the dark of a strange hotel room, he didn’t have to pretend to be anything other than supremely fucked up. It was downright peaceful.
Opening his senses to the night, he reached out, searching for the next demon. They were still close. All of them. They hadn’t strayed as far as Deacon had expected they would. Their master was nearby as well. Instructing them, preparing them, leading them.
Yeah, Kylen could feel him, too.
It still surprised him that the connection didn’t seem to travel both ways anymore. Of course, his own personal demon had tried to burn the bridges of communication on its way out while also attempting to destroy his physical body. But that mission hadn’t been completed. Little by little, Kylen had become aware of his tether to the darkness. While he couldn’t communicate with the big boss, Camael, anymore, he could still see and hear flashes of what was happening in Hell and in Meridian. Only in these revelations, in his mind’s eye, was his vision still in perfect Technicolor. The demons were busy. Very, very busy.
Something big was about to go down.
Join us, Kylen. You belong here. It was Camael’s voice, so very familiar to him.
Before he could tune in clearly, the transmission was severed, and his energy was too low to maintain it. The effort had sapped what was left of his reserves, managing to further deplete him, and his limbs grew heavy as exhaustion pulled him under its thrall. He would allow himself to slide from consciousness for just long enough to recharge. It was a luxury he could barely tolerate anymore. Every time he succumbed to sleep these days, he was haunted by nightmares. He couldn’t decide which memories were worse: his demon’s or his own.
* * *
Kara stood hundreds of yards in front of him across the battlefield, making her way from body to body, collecting the souls of the dead warriors. He’d lost count of how many she had already gathered. He had a dozen of his own, filled far beyond comfortable capacity. Kara might well have been carrying a hundred. She was a valkyrie—the ultimate reaper.
Her straight blond hair whipped wild and unkempt in the wind and her icy-gray eyes—the mark of a reaper filled with souls—shined like diamonds in the moonlight. Deacon moved downfield with swift efficiency, collecting souls as he went. Both of them were too far from her to stop what was about to happen.
Kylen heard the scream and raced toward her, reaching her before her wail extinguished. He was still too late. The warrior whose soul she’d attempted to liberate was not yet dead…and he was not alone. The demon who possessed him had been lying in wait for a reaper. As Kylen watched with horror, the warrior rose and smiled. Kara’s head swiveled on her neck, blood pouring from the crescent-moon slash the demon had inflicted on her. He sliced the scythe through her body over and over again until the souls began to pour from her, streaming into his disintegrating form.
Kylen drew back his own scythe and prepared to behead the demon, but stopped when the last soul hovered, its shape becoming visible the instant before it was drawn into the beast.
Kara.
Kylen fell to his knees before the demon, his world crumbling to a halt in a manner of seconds.
Kara was dead.
A hundred years together hadn’t been enough. Not nearly. Deacon approached from behind the demon, but empowered by its consumption of Kara’s soul, the demon blasted him with an orange fireball of energy that knocked him to the ground, rendering him unconscious.
The demon strode toward Deacon, intent on collecting his cargo as well, but Kylen shook off his despair and gathered himself.
“Wait,” Kylen pleaded. “I have an offer.”
The demon turned and considered him, the battle raging on all around them. He looked at Deacon again, hesitated and then returned to Kylen, his curiosity clear.
“What sort of offer, reaper?”
“Your ride is disintegrating aro
und you. The strength you feel now is because you hold a reaper’s soul, but in mere moments the hundreds of souls you carry will wear you thin. I’ll make you a deal. You give me the reaper’s soul and let me take it to Purgatory. When I return, I’ll grant you access to my body. Surely you’d rather ride a reaper than a human?” Kylen held the demon’s black-eyed gaze.
“Well now, that is an offer.” The demon grinned, then gave Deacon a longing look.
Deacon carried at a least a dozen souls, too, and was as weak as Kylen. He’d be lucky to wake from his injury from the orange fireball. He had no idea if Deacon had enough light left to kick-start himself again.
“And I want the other reaper,” Kylen demanded. “He’s not yours.”
“I’m not sure you have room for any further negotiations, reaper.”
“I guess that depends on how much you want a new, nearly indestructible ride,” Kylen added.
“Nearly would be an apt assertion,” the demon taunted.
“Still sturdier than what you now ride.”
“Yes, this is the third one this week. Humans are…troublesome. You have fifteen minutes to go to Purgatory and return to me. If you renege on our deal, I’ll make sure your demise is nowhere near as neat and tidy as your friend’s.” The demon inhaled a great breath, and then forced Kara’s soul from his throat in a long gray stream.
She reformed between the two men, and Kylen stepped forward to claim her. He closed his eyes and breathed in her essence before crossing over to Deacon and hoisting him up over his shoulder. The very ground he stood on had been consecrated by the sheer number of the dead this day. He didn’t have to bother finding another portal to Purgatory. This battlefield had already become Hell on Earth.
