Reap & Redeem

by Lisa Medley

  “Tell me about the bodies, Kylen. How do you know they won’t be found?” Deacon crossed over to Ruth and pulled her into his arms.

  “I took care of them.” Kylen looked up at the ceiling, and then turned to face Deacon. “Don’t you trust me?”

  “Not anymore.” Deacon stared him down.

  Well, well, well. There it is—out in the open at last.

  Relief washed over him, cleansing the pain of the past few months that they had spent dancing around the obvious.

  “Do you plan to take the souls to Purgatory?” Deacon asked.

  “I’d rather not.”

  “Purge them. I’ll take them.”

  Kylen bristled at the command. While he didn’t want to take the souls, he also didn’t like being told what to do. Under any circumstances. He’d been forced to follow orders for far too long. About a hundred years too long. Resigned, he gathered the souls inside him and forced them from his body. They streamed out through his mouth and swirled around his head for several long seconds before Deacon consumed them. His relief was immediate but temporary. The hollow feeling inside returned along with a fresh wave of anger.

  Kylen rose from his chair with slow deliberation and headed to the back door without another word. This conversation was over. As far as he was concerned, all of their talk had accomplished nothing. Six hours until he could hunt the demon who had basically killed the woman in the next room.

  He’d be ready.

  Chapter Eight

  “That went well.” Ruth stroked a hand along Deacon’s face, and he leaned down to kiss her.

  “I’m trying, Ruth.” He trailed three quick kisses down her neck.

  “Try harder.”

  “I don’t know how much more I can do for him. He’s reckless and now his behavior is putting you in danger.”

  “She seems pretty harmless to me.” She wrapped her arms around his waist and he pulled her in for a long, slow kiss.

  “Ahem!” Nate picked up the empty bowl and silverware from the table and carried them to the sink. “Get a room already.”

  The tension broken, Deacon smiled. “Sounds good to me.” He scooped Ruth up into his arms and swung her around the kitchen.

  “Deacon!” she squealed.

  “Come with me. I’ll take the souls to Purgatory and then…” he whispered in her ear. “I’ll take you.”

  He flung her over his shoulder caveman style. “Nate, can you…”

  “Babysit? I live to serve.” Nate rolled his eyes. “I think I’ll take some blood samples from the woman and get the lab guys to run some tests under the radar.… You know, in case we can turn things around for her.”

  “Good idea. Someone should be around in case she wakes up. When you’re ready to leave, have Kylen keep an eye on her. He got us into this mess, so he can help take care of it…and her.” Deacon slapped Ruth’s behind with a playful swat and carried her to the center of the living room. “We’ll be back before dark. Be ready to go demon hunting.” They swirled and shimmied into the consecrated subway.

  * * *

  Nate had no idea where they went when they vanished like that. Of course they were heading to Purgatory first, but then? He assumed it was to some secret lover’s hideaway. At least he wasn’t going to have to listen to them going at it like rabbits in the next room. That had gotten old really quickly the first week he’d been here.

  Finished with the dishes, he hung the towel and dishcloth over the basin. Time to check on their patient again. When he walked into his room, she was still sleeping. She looked peaceful, her shocking white hair disconcerting with her dark eyebrows. Wondering what exactly had happened between her and Kylen with all the blue spark action, he wished he could see her aura, if only to gauge her health.

  As it was, he couldn’t manifest the Reiki mojo without Ruth’s help. She seemed to be the catalyst to activate his powers in that regard. Since returning from Hell, they’d practiced a few times together. Their combined energy had strengthened the circle of protection immensely.

  He smiled. She might have the Reiki mojo down pat, but he could travel without consecrated ground. It was a trick he’d only recently learned how to control.

  Even Deacon couldn’t explain the anomaly that was Nate. Deacon himself had obtained the ability to flash anywhere, anytime when he was promoted to Powers. Every other reaper could only use the invisible supernatural subway to move from consecrated ground to consecrated ground. Since there was a cemetery, church, hospital or funeral home every few blocks in most cities, small towns and even rural areas, it made things pretty damn fast and convenient for the reaper set.

  For Nate, flashing was an unexpected perk. Hell, he hadn’t used his Honda in weeks except for grocery shopping. A guy could only carry so much with him, and popping into the middle of Smillie’s Grocery would have caused more than a few problems. He’d used his skills judiciously.

  Great power equals great responsibility and all that.

  And the demons? They used entrance and exit portals, straight to Hell unless the demon was riding a reaper or some other being that could cross consecrated ground.

  The woman’s vitals were steady and her pulse was a bit stronger, but her pale skin had grown ashen—the Reiki energy from Kylen already absorbed by her body. Drawing two vials of blood from her arm, he wondered if she needed a transfusion. He still had two units of O-negative in the fridge he could use, depending on the CBC panel results.

  He wasn’t a doctor. He was an EMT, but he’d been pressed into more demanding service time and again over the past few months. Over the course of a week that spring, he had discovered he had bizarre untapped supernatural powers, besides his witch abilities, and traveled to Hell…and back.

  His mind still reeled with the discovery, and he’d had to make a lot of adaptations to his life. Like going part-time at his job and moving in with Ruth and Deacon out here in the middle of nowhere. It wasn’t like he could have kept living in an apartment building in the middle of town, given the threat that any number of supernatural beasties might find their way to him. Of course, the changes weren’t all bad—that is, if you could get past the demon hunting, beheadings and body burnings.

  The buzzing on his nightstand drew his attention, and he picked up his pager.

  The hospital. He was getting called in. With luck, he could have them run the blood work while he was out on call. He might have the results by the time he returned home for demon hunting. He grabbed his EMT bag and placed the blood vials into the side pocket. Pulling an icepack from the freezer, he slid it down next to the vials, and then slid the pack over his shoulder as he headed out the back door to call Kylen into babysitting service.

  * * *

  Kylen stared unblinking at the white-haired angel lying motionless on the hospital bed in Nate’s room. Why the hell had he brought her here?

  He hadn’t even stopped to consider it. He’d just reacted.

  Instinct? Doubtful. His primary instinct these days was to destroy, not protect.

  The house was silent with the exception of the various beeps and pulses from the monitors Nate had attached to the woman. She looked like a space traveler tethered to Earth by plastic lifelines.

  Is she really dying? The thought brought on a peculiar twinge in his chest. He was in the business of death. It was his calling and his duty.

  Contrary to urban legend, reapers weren’t creatures of Hell. Reapers were conduits, ferrying souls to Purgatory, where the angel Rashnu sorted them and sent them to their final destinations. Reapers were unaffiliated with either team, although most of them chose to retire in the upper regions rather than the lower. But then Kylen had welcomed his possession, becoming an unwitting pawn in an eternal battle.

  Once a venerated archangel, Camael had been the Chief of Powers and leader of an all-but-defunct group of elite reapers. Only Heaven and Camael knew why he fell, but soon after, he pledged himself to Lucifer and began building an army for the dark one’s assault on humanity, p
lanting the seeds of war by releasing demons at every opportunity.

  It had been an effective strategy until Ruth and Nate destroyed one of his lead demons to free Kylen. In the meantime, Camael had detained Deacon, the reactivated Powers, for long enough to launch a more concerted effort, freeing dozens of demons. And that was the mess they were even now attempting to clean up.

  As Kylen watched the gentle rise and fall of the woman’s chest and the steady zigzag of her heart on the monitor, disquiet roiled inside his own vacuous chest.

  Woman?

  She had a name. He wondered idly if he’d ever learn it.

  She doesn’t have much longer.

  Ruth’s words pinged around his brain. He had no ties to this woman except for the fact that they had both been in the wrong place at the wrong time. Two wrongs make a right, right?

  His brain was fried. Nothing made sense anymore.

  Pressing his rough palms over his closed eyes, he tried to push the thoughts out of his head. He needed a reset. A do-over.

  How many times had he replayed his choices in his mind since he’d been freed? Hundreds? Thousands? Free will was a bitch. On that one thing he and Camael agreed, but for such different reasons. Kylen’s one remaining desire was to make the choices that would somehow lead him back to Kara.

  His real home.

  Exhausted by too much self-reflection and coming off his IV high, his heavy lids fell shut. In seconds his head canted to the side and his body sank low in the chair beside her bed.

  Kylen stalked down the alley. He’d lost track of how many souls the demon had poached this night, but he cringed when he saw where it was taking him. The warehouse district was infamous for the unofficial gatherings that took place in its abandoned buildings. On any given night, there were hundreds of inebriated souls getting their fixes within the brick buildings. This wasn’t the first time Orithidon had brought him here. Dread crept into Kylen’s consciousness, but he quickly stuffed it down. The demon reveled in any emotions he could entice from his host and constantly prodded and poked at his memories. Memories Kylen had quickly learned to protect by purposely burying them.

  For years he’d stayed dormant inside his own body, consumed with his private grief while the demon rained terror and destruction on humans, stealing their souls before ferrying them to Hell. Kylen hadn’t resisted at all, hoping that the demon would quickly burn through his body and abandon him to death.

  No. Such. Luck.

  The demon was able to manipulate his reaper powers enough to heal his body over and over again. He couldn’t use Kylen’s reaper Reiki for external manipulation of humans, but he could keep Kylen going and hoover up a hell of a lot of souls in the process.

  Humanity overall was so morally bankrupt, so far from spiritual purity, so consumed with consumption and unholy matters that it made the demon’s work ridiculously easy.

  Through Kylen’s eyes, he could see the auras of his prey, and he sought out the ones with dirty, mixed-colored auras first. Brown indicated the presence of a dark side to one’s personality—a quality that suited Orithidon’s purpose perfectly.

  Until this night.

  As they climbed through the broken warehouse window and surveyed the room’s occupants, Kylen felt a shift in him as Orithidon formed his plan. He felt his own face twist against his will into an evil grin and heard laughter erupt from his mouth as all eyes turned his way. His eyes closed briefly, hiding his view as he sensed Orithidon summon power from below the earth. The floor trembled and began to split beneath his feet. Screams erupted in the chaos as fear and sulfur flowed through the room like a thick smog, making it impossible for anyone to find the single exit.

  One by one, Orithidon pulled souls from the frantic bodies of half a dozen late-night revelers, leaving their shells to stumble and clamber into one another in the darkness. Systematically, he reached out with his senses and tore them loose from their moorings, consuming them all.

  When the screaming ceased, the fog dissipated. Many of the humans had not survived the premature extraction of their souls. The ones who did wandered—unseeing, unthinking, unknowing—about the room. All that they had been was contained in their soul.

  Now, they were the walking dead.

  From that day forward, Orithidon didn’t bother waiting for “donors” to die. No chasing ambulances or scouring hospitals and graveyards for him. He took what he wanted and found pleasure doing so.

  A sharp gasp snapped him to attention. Temporarily untethered, he tensed and searched the room for danger. His eyes locked on to hers. They were open. She reached for him and without thinking his hand shot forward to take hers.

  The room exploded into sharp, vivid colors, threatening to slam his eyes shut with their brightness. Pain lanced through his sockets, but he couldn’t tear his gaze away from the piercing demands of her arctic stare. Her eyes were the blue-gray of deep-frozen ice. The color of a reaper’s eyes when they carried a soul.

  Brilliant blue energy glowed between their palms, leaking around the edges of their hold. Kylen watched as her bright white aura saturated into a sparkling blue, enveloping her in an iridescent halo. Alive and strong, his energy filled her and her pale color began to transform into a radiant healthy glow.

  Warmth burst somewhere deep within Kylen, and it felt…good.

  Her cheeks pinked and her eyes grew large. As her hand became overly warm in his, he pulled away, releasing himself from her grasp. Her hand fell to the bed, and she raised it to clutch at her thin covering, pulling it snug over her breasts and under her neck for protection.

  Kylen swallowed hard. Inappropriate thoughts of peeling that blanket down her body and opening her like a gift threatened to choke him.

  “Where am I?” Her trembling hands worked the edge of the blanket in a worried frenzy. “Why am I here?”

  Even though he was no longer touching her, Kylen’s color vision lingered this time. Sharp and focused, everything seemed new and shiny. Her hair was such a brilliant white that her blue eyes seemed even brighter in contrast. They radiated an innocence and beauty that staggered him.

  To think that the demon had nearly…

  Her gaze darted around the room, finally landing on Kylen’s face again.

  “You? What happened?” She relaxed slightly, lessening her grip on the top of the blanket.

  Kylen cleared his throat in an attempt to reclaim the voice in which he no longer held confidence.

  “You’re safe.” He straightened, leaning against the hard back of his chair.

  “Safe?” Her eyes blazed, searing into him, and blue energy skittered along his skin, searching for a receptacle. He wanted to touch her again. So much so that he gripped his thighs to stay the ridiculous impulse.

  “Yes.” Well, wasn’t he just the master of one-word conversation. He cringed at the memory of his earlier talk with Deacon.

  Bit by bit, she pushed herself up into a sitting position. Ruth had dressed her in a sleeveless blue satiny gown that had already worked its way off one shoulder. She was so thin and fragile. She wouldn’t have lasted a day as a host. Hell, not even an hour. She was easily twenty pounds lighter than Ruth, who was petite herself.

  “Are you ill?” Kylen held his breath, not sure what he wanted her to say. If her weakness and frailty were the result of the attack, he had no idea how to proceed. They hadn’t tried to “rescue” anyone before, and the Reiki energy they exuded was way too powerful to be used at will on humans. If her condition wasn’t a result of the attack, then maybe it was his fault for juicing her… Hell, he was screwed either way.

  She folded her hands in her lap and looked down at them like she was searching for answers of her own. “Yes. I have cancer.”

  His heart paused, skipped a beat and then kicked up again, resuming its treacherous function. “Where?”

  “Everywhere,” she answered, meeting his gaze. “It’s end stage.”

  His head pounded. Her pale countenance and frailty could be explained away with
that one word. Cancer. His eyes burned, and he rose unsteadily to his feet. Turning away from her, he tried to control the ridiculous flow of…what?

  Emotion? Oh, hell no.

  She flinched like a frightened animal at his sudden movement. He froze, and then eased himself back into the chair, extending his palms in a calming gesture.

  No more sudden movements.

  Couldn’t blame her. After what she’d experienced, it was no wonder she was jumpy.

  “What were you doing in that alley?” he asked, unable to keep the chastisement from his voice.

  “I volunteer at the shelter next door. I cook for the homeless. I was on my way in for the breakfast shift when I saw a kid dragging someone behind the Dumpster.”

  He heaved in a breath and closed his eyes, hoping for patience he wasn’t capable of manifesting.

  “And you thought you could do what?” he asked, amazed and disgusted by her lack of self-preservation.

  “Help?” she whispered.

  “That worked out great. You could have been killed, too. Did that not occur to you?”

  She looked down at her hands again, twisting them together, working her thumb in a circle inside her palm. “I’m already dying. What did I have to lose?”

  What the holy hell? His brain erupted in an explosion of expletives in a variety of languages.

  Chapter Nine

  Kylen’s gut twisted into a knot of anger as the blue energy zinged through him, threatening to immolate him.

  He needed to get out of her room.

  He should not be caring for anyone; he should not be trusted with this woman. A woman whose name he realized that he still did not know.

  His head twitched her way again. “What is your name?”

  She pulled her knees up against her chest beneath the covers, curling herself into an upright fetal position. Tilting her head to the side, she rested her cheek on her knees, her gaze lasering through him.

  “Olivia.”

  He pushed abruptly against the chair with the back of his legs as he stood, scraping it across the wooden floor like fingernails on a chalkboard.