by Lisa Medley
“Deacon, Camael has possessed Maeve. We need to find her. Now.” Nate turned to look at the Authority reapers. They were all present. Even Olivia. Tears were welling in her eyes, but she was trying to stay stoic.
“Unbelievable.” Kylen pulled Olivia closer. “And this?” He nodded toward Temperance.
“She’s my guardian angel. No. Not mine.” Ruth squeezed Deacon’s hand. “The baby’s guardian angel. She’s been sent to protect us.”
A great groan rose from the floor below them as the building’s supports began to give way under the strain. The floor shifted, pitching the reapers against the wall.
“We need to get Ruth out of here before this entire building collapses around us.” Deacon said.
“Agreed. Where do you want to take her?” Kylen asked.
“Home. I want to go home,” she said, her voice small.
“That’s going to be a problem, baby. The house is gone, Ruth. Camael burned it to the ground. It’s a long story. I’ll tell you all about it on the way to Oakland Hospital.”
“What do you want us to do, boss?” Ragu asked. “We dispatched a couple dozen demons between the six of us and cleaned up the mess. It was a busy night. When we got to the house, we didn’t know what to do. Everyone was gone, but since there weren’t any bodies or detached souls, we assumed you’d all turn up eventually. We were waiting there when we felt the pull and came right here. Say the word, and we’re on it.”
* * *
Kylen knew Deacon was itching to get Ruth to Oakland, and there was no reason he should bear the burden of their familiar details.
“Deacon, take Ruth. We’ll get things sorted out at home, and we’ll start fresh with our search tomorrow night. It’s dawn and the demons will be down for a while.”
Deacon nodded to him. “Thank you.”
“Bring Nate with you, too. He’s dead on his feet, and he could use the rest. And for God’s sake, take the mutt with you.”
Deacon turned to Nate. “Let’s go. We’ll find Maeve…soon. In fact, the way things have been going, I’m pretty sure she’ll find us. All we have to do is figure out how to free her. You and Ruth did it once, Nate. We’ll do it again.”
“We got this, boss. No worries,” Ragu said, and the reapers murmured assurances, too.
“Come, Bo.” Nate grabbed the scruff of the dog’s neck.
Deacon scooped Ruth into his arms and the three of them picked their way through the rubble and out of the hospital, Temperance following close behind.
* * *
The remaining reapers flashed back to Ruth’s property. Kylen debated whether he should have sent Olivia with the others, but there was no way he could willingly part from her again so soon…or maybe ever.
“Ragu, Samkiel, we need housing here. When Ruth comes back from the hospital, there needs to be a place for her to live. For all of us to live. I want six thirty-foot trailers circled end-to-end there before dark. Leo and Zak, you salt the ground within the circle of protection, and when Nate gets back, he’ll cast it again to include all of us. Dare and Oreo, you’re responsible for filling the trailers with all the household necessities.” Kylen turned to Olivia. “Can you help set up Deacon and Ruth’s trailer?”
“Of course.”
“The rest of you jokers are on your own. Outfit your trailers how you like, but keep the center of the circle clear. Any questions?”
“I have some clothes already packed up in my apartment that Ruth can probably wear. I was planning to give them away when I was…dying.” Olivia swallowed hard but then smiled up at Kylen, and he couldn’t help but kiss her.
So much for his tough-guy persona. One of the reapers whistled, and he broke free to pinpoint the culprit, but by then they were all whistling different tunes to protect the perpetrator. It was clearly an us-versus-them sort of thing. The new guys against the old. But the mood was lighter, and Kylen actually felt good to have a plan that didn’t involve fighting demons. Yet.
“Everyone have their marching orders?”
“Just sayin’, it would be nice to be able to communicate with each other directly rather than relying on dumb luck or random summons,” Oreo offered.
“Done. I’ll take care of communication while we’re in town today. You’ll all have a place to lay your head tonight. Let’s go.”
They flashed off to complete their various missions, leaving Kylen and Olivia alone in the ruin.
“Are you afraid?” Olivia asked.
“Only of losing you.”
“Can Maeve survive this?”
Kylen frowned and circled his arm around her waist, drawing her against him, the sun warm on his face. “I don’t know. I’ve never known of an angel, fallen or not, possessing a human. We’re in uncharted territory here.”
“But you’ll help her?”
“We all will.”
Epilogue
It turned out that Meridian was a spiritually porous city. Camael’s apparent ease in opening portal after portal was no accident—the town sat on a supernatural fault line, where the veil between the realms was at its thinnest. Now that the fallen angel had proven how effectively he could manipulate that weakness, the Authority was working feverishly to clean up the mess while Grim and Rashnu worked the problem from their own angles.
Camael was a busy, busy boy since inhabiting Maeve’s body. Uninhibited by the limitations of a human host body, he was now able to come and go from Hell as he pleased. New portals kept popping up like Starbucks, spewing forth demon after demon. Mercifully, none of them stayed open for long. Camael’s powers still weren’t strong enough to hold one open permanently.
As Kylen stepped into the Maple Park cemetery after yet another interminable night of hunting, he wondered how long it would be before the coming battle tore the city irreparably apart.
He flashed home.
The homestead was a respite from the chaos of the city. They had taken every precaution during the reconstruction, and with the newest wards and protections cast by Nate, the place was basically impenetrable. While before Ruth had originally been the main source of power for the circle of protection, now everyone who lived at the compound was part of the spell. With Temperance’s help, Nate had even secured it against the four elements. Deacon dubbed it the fortress of safety, but Kylen knew that no place was truly safe.
It had been two months since the small rock-sided house had burned to the ground. Still, their ramshackle reaper trailer park had a homey feel to it.
Each pair of reapers had their own shiny, bullet-shaped trailer, with a makeshift common area in the middle. Only Nate lived alone.
Deacon and Nate poured over blueprints and plans for the construction of a new house on the few nights they took off from hunting and destroying demons. It was still the dead of winter in the Midwest, though, and they couldn’t break ground until spring, a good four months away.
Despite their concentrated efforts, Maeve was as elusive as the wind. They’d tried to track her down as soon as they regrouped at home, but apparently Camael’s plans included keeping her out of their sight. Nate spent every night tracking Maeve with Bo. He’d become obsessed with the search.
Camael valued his new ride too much to jeopardize losing her, but he would eventually grow bold and make a mistake. When he did, they would be ready.
Olivia opened the trailer door and carried in a tray with orange juice, sliced fruit and a heaping plate of biscuits and gravy for them both. The trailers were too small to try to cook in on a regular basis, so the common area had been tricked out with a commercial grade kitchen among other things. It took a lot of food to keep nine reapers, Nate, Olivia and a pregnant Ruth fueled up, so they took turns with meal prep. So far, Kylen had only managed to produce take-out pizza on his shift.
No one had complained.
Every time he looked at Olivia, he was amazed anew at his blessings. He was working on believing that he deserved her.
“Oreo had breakfast detail.” Olivia smiled and set d
own the tray on their small banquette table before reaching over to push back the red damask curtains. The curtains were the one interior-decorating concession he’d allowed when Olivia had given up her apartment to move to this crazy compound. He couldn’t keep her safe anywhere else, although he agreed it would have been more comfortable for them to live in a real apartment. She was such a good sport about everything that he hadn’t been able to say no when he’d come home to discover such atrocious curtains hanging on each of the trailer’s tiny windows. Even now it made him smile.
Another small miracle.
“Can’t go wrong with biscuits and gravy.” Kylen pulled her into the booth beside him and nuzzled her neck. “How is Ruth?”
“She’s good. Stir crazy, but good. Nate says her doctor demands bed rest for the rest of her pregnancy. One mess up, and she’s going back to Oakland Hospital. Keeping her entertained is a full-time job. We’ve already watched all six seasons of The Big Bang Theory. It’s going to be a long five and a half months!” She leaned back against him, and he spooned up a bite of biscuit to feed her.
“She’s lucky to have you and Temperance around.”
“Well, let me tell you, Temperance is not very entertaining. Who knew guardian angels were so serious and scary? She’s very…committed in that terrifying-supernatural-entity sort of way.”
“I’m glad that she so fiercely protects Ruth and the baby, especially since you spend so much time with her. That means Temperance’s protection extends to you.”
“You worry too much.”
“You have no idea.” Kylen fed her another bite of breakfast.
“Are you trying to fatten me up?” she asked.
“Yes.” He wrapped his arms around her slightly rounded tummy and pulled her closer. He had managed to put some weight on her but not nearly enough. He wanted her fat and sassy. So far, the sassy part hadn’t been a problem. He loved that about her. She didn’t let anything slide. She complemented him in every way. The light to his darkness, the good to his evil, the mental clarity to his dysfunction. When he was with Olivia, he could almost believe he was a real man after all.
“What are you thinking about?” she asked, feeding him an orange slice.
“That I’m lucky.”
“Yes, you are. We both are.”
Kylen brushed his lips against the back of her neck, just under her ponytail, and blue sparks sizzled across her skin.
“Mmm, that always feels good. Will you hunt tonight, or are you taking a night off?”
“We’ll hunt.”
“And Maeve? Any news?”
“No.”
“I don’t know who it’s harder on, Maeve or Nate.”
“Maeve. Trust me. Being possessed tends to be all consuming. Nate and Bo’s tracking may be the only way we manage to find her at this point. Apparently angels, good or fallen, have a way of staying off the radar when they want to.”
“I hope it’s soon. For everyone’s sake.”
“Yes.”
Olivia turned to him in the booth and stroked her hand along the side of his face. “Now what?” she asked.
“Weapons?”
* * *
Coming Soon…
Reap & Reveal
Book Three of The Reaper Series
Lisa adores beasties of all sorts, fictional as well as real, and has a farm full of them in her Southwest Missouri home, including: one child, one husband, two dogs, two cats, a dozen hens, thousands of Italian bees and a guinea pig.
She may or may not keep a complete zombie apocalypse bugout bag in her trunk at all times, including a machete. Just. In. Case.
Also by Lisa Medley
Reap & Repent (Book 1 of The Reapers)
Coming Soon
Reap & Reveal (Book 3 of The Reapers)
eISBN: 9781460337769
REAP & REDEEM
Copyright © 2014 by Lisa Medley
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