by Lisa Medley
“What is wrong with you, Kylen?”
Dear God. Wasn’t that ever the question of the hour?
“Nothing.”
“Then talk to me. Are you going to continue to ignore what happened between us?”
“Yes.”
She moved toward him, and he could feel her energy behind him. Still, he was paralyzed; he couldn’t turn and face her. He didn’t want the reminder of everything he couldn’t have.
When she reached forward and touched his shoulder, he closed his eyes in surrender. If her touch alone could reduce him to a withered shell of angst, what would her imminent death do to him? He couldn’t, wouldn’t deal with that inescapable reality.
“Please, Kylen. Tell me what’s wrong. Is it me?”
His heart tore in two.
Yes. No.
“It’s complicated.”
“Then explain it to me. I’m a smart girl.”
Kylen nodded. He couldn’t deny her the truth. She deserved to know that his confusion and indecision was his alone. But when he opened his mouth to speak, the words stuck in his throat.
Olivia slid around him and stood between him and the bunk full of weapons, forcing him to look at her. Her hand grazed the side of his face, brushing down his growing stubble, and his face turned into her touch without his permission. He was like a drowning man clinging to safety.
“Have I done something wrong? Hurt you somehow? Are you repelled because I’m dying?”
“You haven’t done anything wrong,” he said heatedly.
“Then what? I won’t let you leave with this hanging between us. What if this is the last time I ever see you? I don’t want it to end like this.”
Dread slid through Kylen’s stomach. “Don’t say that. You have plenty of time.”
“I don’t, Kylen. That’s why it’s time for some hard truths. What’s tormenting you?”
“Everything.”
“What’s tormenting you at this moment?”
“I can’t lose another lover.”
“You’ve lost others? Who? When?”
Olivia slid her hands up his chest, creating a trail of blue sparks, and wrapped them behind his neck, cradling his head in her hands. He broke under her tenderness. “Kara.”
“Tell me about Kara.”
The floodgates opened, and before he could stop himself, the words spilled from him in a torrent. He was at once relieved and terrified to unleash his most private pain to her. It was the most he’d spoken in a century.
She would be his undoing.
When he finally ran out of words and stood quietly before her, his soul bared, he closed his eyes against the look of pity he was sure to see on her face. After a moment, her lips pressed to his, and relief and regret spilled from him in equal measure. His body was greedy for her again, but there was no time for that now. There might never be again.
And that was the worst pity of all.
“Thank you, Kylen. I know what it’s like to lose the people you love. It’s never easy. Even though you know Kara’s in Heaven, it doesn’t make it any easier. You still never got to properly say goodbye. I’ve suffered from loss, too. Not a lover, but my parents. Now that I’ve met you guys, I do believe they’re in a better place. A place without suffering, pain or even loss. Have faith, Kylen. Faith that we can all be with our loved ones again one day. I do.”
“I’m not worthy of that reward.”
Olivia forced his face to his. “Why would you say that? You are an Authority now, yes? Would they allow you to pledge yourself if you weren’t worthy?”
He was silent for a long moment and then finally said, “I don’t know.”
“Of course not. Somehow you have given me more time, which has been an amazing gift, but you don’t have to feel responsible for me. I was dying before we ever met. It’s my fate. I’m at peace with it. There is good in you, Kylen. Reach for it. Hold on to it. Cherish it. Keep your faith, and you’ll keep your loved ones forever.” Olivia stretched up on her tiptoes and kissed his forehead. “And ever.” She kissed his lips next.
Kylen crushed her against him, kissing her with a ferocity that scared him to the core.
He needed her.
And it might just kill them both.
* * *
“I’ll be back soon,” Kylen whispered into Olivia’s hair as they walked back into the house. The newest reapers had returned and were gathered in the living area. He knew he would have to leave her soon. It still hurt.
“I know. I’ll be here,” she promised.
“Let’s do this thing. It’s time to start killing some demons.” Deacon stepped out of Ruth’s arms. “If we get separated, we’ll all meet back here at dawn. Stay inside the circle, Ruth. No matter what.”
Ruth crossed her arms over her chest and narrowed her eyes in defiance. She wasn’t the type of woman who liked to give an inch. It was something Kylen admired about her. Deacon gave her a hard look. “Promise me.”
“We promise,” Olivia offered on her behalf.
“Thank you.”
Kylen kissed Olivia one last time and followed a bewildered Deacon to the demon trap in the center of the room where the others waited. Maeve was the only one who still hadn’t returned, but Rashnu had made it clear that she was on a different mission at the moment, and he was to continue on without her. Nate held an anxious Bo by the scruff of his neck. Seconds later, the Reaper Authority Force and their hellhound hurtled through the ether to the site of the latest portal to begin their search.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Maeve couldn’t believe she’d just drunk the Authority Kool-Aid. Too bad she’d been officially partnered with Nate rather than one of the new reapers. Nate wasn’t even one of them, and now she’d been assigned to “protect the home front.” Seriously? No matter how temporary this assignment was supposed to be, she was fuming, and she didn’t even bother to hide her disdain from Grim. Nate got a hellhound and a job as a tracker and she got to babysit?
Freakin’ Grim!
She was in it way too deep to renege now, but if she had known beforehand that she was going to draw babysitting duty? She shook her head in disbelief. All her hard work and skills were going to be wasted. She ached to kill demons, not do housework and security for a bunch of reaper frat boys. If they thought for one second she was going to go all domestic on them, they had another thing coming.
She felt like the last kid picked for dodgeball. Maeve had nothing but a long line of successes on her short reaper resume, so what was with the desk jockey routine?
She twitched with rage, but one look from the Seraph convinced her that her fate had been determined. At least for now.
So much for free will.
She was still steaming when Grim pushed her out of his chamber with a touch of his hand, and she landed back in Ruth’s house. When she got there, Ruth and Olivia were scurrying about, strategically arranging bedding for their newest guests throughout the house, and the rest of the Force was MIA. Probably already knee deep in demons. Bastards.
“Maeve! Tell us what happened. The guys didn’t give us too many details. They popped in, and then left again to hunt. What happened in Purgatory?” Ruth tossed a pile of blankets onto the middle of the floor.
“Other than meeting the Grim Reaper? Some mumbo jumbo, some Kool-Aid drinking, a sacred oath, blah, blah, blah, and then I got paired up with Nate. Grim told me to stay here and protect the home front.” Maeve looked around the room expectantly. “Where is Nate?”
“He left with the others. Have you seen the hellhound?”
Maeve felt her face grow hot. She tried not to curse. Really she did. But a string of unholy expletives escaped in a surge as her hands clenched into fist by her thighs. White-hot rage percolated in her gut and oozed up through her as her rage rekindled anew.
Un. Freakin’. Believable.
A noise outside brought her out of her tantrum, and she raced to the front window to peer into the yard. Imps tested the circle, bouncing of
f it in a shower of psychedelic sparks like they were on an electric trampoline.
Olivia joined Maeve at the window. “Are those—”
“Demons’ minions? Yep.” Maeve walked to the couch and flopped down, crossing her legs and winding her arms over her chest in defiance.
“Should we do something about them?” Olivia asked, a worried line between her eyebrows.
“We don’t need to do anything. As long as the circle holds—which there’s no reason it wouldn’t—we get to sit here and wait. Like the good little women we are.”
Ruth paced in front of the window for a few moments, her face suddenly as white as the wall. Sweat beaded on her forehead. “No, Maeve. I think something’s really wrong here.”
A low rumbling began beneath the house, growing in strength until the pictures began to shake off the walls. They stumbled into three different doorways, bracing themselves as the earth trembled beneath them.
“Earthquake?” Olivia asked.
“I don’t think so,” Ruth said, her voice no more than a whisper.
Suddenly the lamp beside the end table in the living room exploded, sending shards of glass flying, and a cloud of smoke puffed out of the power outlet beside the couch, quickly followed by yellow flames. The old couch caught fire within seconds, igniting the throw blanket hanging over its arm.
“Ruth!” Olivia cried as she left her sheltered doorway, racing toward the couch.
Ruth, who was closest to the blaze, had grabbed the rug off the floor and was attempting to extinguish the growing flames.
Maeve reached her first.
“Ruth, stop!” Maeve shouted as she tried to pull her back from the flames. She was an instant too late. Ruth’s long sleeves had caught fire. Wrestling Ruth to the ground, Maeve rolled her in the smoldering rug until the flames extinguished.
As the house continued to shake, presumably under the extreme pressure of the imps’ continued attack, Olivia crouched over Ruth with Maeve, both of them trying to assess the damage.
Ruth’s arms were seared from her wrists to her shoulders, and she kept passing into and out of consciousness.
“Oh, Ruth!” Olivia sobbed. Flames raced across the floor rug from the couch and licked up the wall beside them.
Maeve ran from window to window to assess the outside threat. When the floorboards began to crack and splinter, she jumped into action.
“Shit! We have to leave. Now,” she said, bending over Ruth. “Grab hold of me, Olivia. We’ll flash to the hospital.”
Ruth’s eyes fluttered open. “Can’t flash,” she muttered.
“You’re kidding me, right?”
Ruth shook her head, wincing.
“Deacon told her she couldn’t flash while she was pregnant. They don’t know how it might affect the baby,” Olivia said as she stroked Ruth’s hair.
“Baby?”
Maeve wanted to scream. This was quickly becoming a nightmare. She didn’t know anything about babies and pregnancy, but she did know that their circle of power seemed to be weakening. It was just a matter of time before the imps penetrated it. And God only knew what else was going on. Those flames certainly didn’t seem to have an earthly cause. If she couldn’t flash Ruth to the hospital, they’d have to go the conventional way. Only one problem with that…
“I can’t drive,” Maeve said, her face growing hot with self-disgust.
“I can.” Olivia pushed Ruth’s hair off her face. “Ruth, where are the keys to the Lincoln?”
“In the car.” Ruth groaned, her charred clothes damp with sweat.
Maeve scooped Ruth up into her arms. “We gotta go. Now.”
* * *
Olivia was the first out of the house. A ring of flames circled the perimeter of the mown area—the area in which Deacon had asked her to remain inside. Lines of fire burned like spokes on a wheel, extending from the house to the edge of the circle. Just beyond the perimeter of the flames, dozens of black cats paced at the edge of the woods, illuminated by the fire, their eyes glowing in the darkness. She scanned the periphery on both sides of the house. There were a lot of black cats. Dread settled into her belly.
She opened the back door to the Lincoln and Maeve eased Ruth inside, setting her across the back seat.
“I need to get something first.” Olivia raced up the few steps to Kylen’s trailer. Inside, she stood on her tiptoes, sifting through the myriad of blades on the top bunk until she found what she was looking for all the way against the back wall: the scythe Kylen had let her use for pumpkin practice. She slid two other sheathed push blades into one of Kylen’s much-too-large belts and tied it into a knot around her waist.
If she had to leave the circle of protection without Kylen, she was at least going to take a weapon…or three. He would expect nothing less from her. As she walked down the steps of the trailer, the first cats penetrated the circle of protection.
“Run, Olivia!” Maeve implored.
Olivia watched in horror as a herd of very determined and clearly unfriendly felines poured toward them from the edge of the woods. She turned and raced to the driver-side door of the car, hoping to beat them there. A white-hot slash down the back of her calves was the first indication she was too late.
The claws tore through her jeans like they were chiffon, shredding four deep cuts from knee to ankle on each leg. She dropped to the ground and immediately flipped onto her back, preparing to defend herself with her already-drawn blades. Their ferocity was terrifying and she kicked at them as they continued their attack.
Before she could gather her wits, Maeve was cutting her way through the beasts like a samurai warrior. Olivia rose to her feet, blood filling her sneakers from the wounds on her legs.
“In the car, Olivia. Now!”
Olivia needed no more invitation than that. She dove into the open door of the driver’s seat and slammed the door behind her.
Seconds later, a car door slammed behind her and Maeve was in the backseat.
“Go! And put your foot into it,” Maeve called out to her.
Olivia turned the key in the ignition, and the Lincoln fired up. Cats flooded into the yard, the magic barriers powered by Ruth’s life force completely shattered. Cats flung themselves onto the hood of the car, the windshield and the metal side panels. Soon there were several dents in the paneling as it was driven inward with each assault. Olivia put the car into drive and floored the gas pedal, spinning gravel behind them until the tires took purchase and the car fishtailed down the driveway, up and over a chunky wave of clamoring creatures.
She wasn’t about to cry for the beasts this time.
Fear gripped her gut and shivered up her spine as she struggled to keep the car steady. When the vehicle burst out onto the gravel-packed main road, she spun the wheel to the left and pushed on the gas again as the fiends raced along beside the car.
Since they couldn’t flash and there was no way to call for help, the only thing Olivia could hope for was to outrun the beasts. The cats were fast.
She prayed that the Lincoln was faster.
Chapter Thirty
Kylen didn’t need a hellhound to know that demons had recently been in the alley. Sulfur lingered in the air and six corpses were flailing against the chain-link gate, blocking the exit to the alley.
The demons were ramping up their activity.
Deacon, Nate and the dog were a block over. The remaining reaper teams had spread out, each team covering a grid, block by block across the city. They’d started from the most recently opened portal on the outskirts of town, but the demons had clearly already made their way into the population.
Unfortunately, from the looks of the poor soulless bastards in the alley, the demons also weren’t waiting for their prey to die. They were taking what they wanted with a clear disregard for the previously agreed-upon rules of war.
Virtually brain dead without their souls, these victims maintained only their most primitive bodily functions, with no intention or purpose. They lived, but only on
the most animal level.
And they needed to be put down. Nate kept blabbering on about his Pollyanna hopes for soul restoration, but as far as Kylen knew, no soul had ever been successfully reinhabited in its body.
“What we got here, yippee-ki-yay?”
Kylen turned to see Raguel approaching behind him. Great, just what he needed—an audience.
“You can see them, same as me.”
“Camael’s minions haven’t been wasting any time, that’s for sure. So what’s the plan, cowboy?” Raguel glanced back toward the street as Samkiel joined them.
Kylen stepped into Raguel’s space. “Do I look like a freakin’ cowboy to you?”
“I’m Italian. You all look like cowboys to me.”
“I see that you’re making friends already, Ragu.” Samkiel nodded to Kylen, and Raguel stepped back. “Are those—”
“Wanderers.” Kylen said, finishing his question. “They’ll have to be dealt with. There’s bound to be a whole lot more of them, too.”
“When did they start attacking live ones?” Samkiel asked.
“Recently.” Kylen offered.
“Isn’t that against the supernatural Geneva convention or something?” Ragu asked.
“I don’t think they care about the rules anymore.” Kylen said.
“So what’s the plan?” Samkiel asked.
“That’s what Yippee, I mean Kylen, and I were just discussing.”
Kylen flicked open his scythe and started down the alley. “We put them down.”
“Wait,” Deacon called, entering the alley from behind him.
Sweet Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. When were they going to learn? How many times and how many ways was he going to have to explain this? If these people had a conscious thought in their heads, they’d be begging to be put out of their misery, not debating nonexistent options.
Deacon put a hand on Kylen’s shoulder. “Kylen, think about this. Exponentially, we could be talking thousands of these wanderers in a few weeks with this many demons on the loose.”
“Exactly. So what are you suggesting?”
