Reaper Unleashed: Deadside Reapers: Book 7

by Cassidy, Debbie

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Epilogue

  Other books by Debbie Cassidy

  About the Author

  Copyright © 2020, Debbie Cassidy

  All Rights Reserved

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, duplicated, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior written consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  Cover by Sanja Gombar

  Created with Vellum

  Chapter One

  The woman stood in the doorway to the pack house, surrounded by blooms of spring and the air of summer. He hair was dark and loose around her shoulders. The dress she wore was gauzelike, and although it covered her from breast to toe, it was practically transparent. But it was her face that captivated me.

  She had my face.

  Oh fuck.

  There was only one person this could be.

  “Eve?”

  “Well met, child,” she said with a smile. But the smile didn’t reach her eyes. “We don’t have much time. You must come with me.” She held out her hand. “Hurry.”

  Grayson grabbed hold of my arm. “Fee isn’t going anywhere.”

  He’d never spoken for me like this before. Grayson let me make my own decisions. Not today apparently, and I couldn’t blame him. There was an eerie otherworldliness about Eve. An alien quality that made the gooseflesh on my skin peak and after all the shit that we’d just been through—the super vamp attack on the Island run by the ouroboros and my return from the dead—more otherworldly shit was not something either of us needed or wanted.

  “I must speak with her,” Eve said to Grayson. But her attention remained on me.

  Looking at her was like looking into a mirror. That face… My face. And I knew that expression. It was fear. It was desperation.

  “Please, Seraphina,” she said. “I cannot stay on this plane for long, but I swear to you, I will return you safely once I have spoken with you. Your death has resulted in a travesty that must be rectified.”

  “Lilith?” I tipped my head to the side. “Your curse on her has been activated, hasn’t it?”

  She blinked, looking momentarily thrown. “Lilith?”

  Why did she sound like she had no idea what the heck I was talking about? “Yes. Lilith. You told Azazel something bad thing would happen to her if I died. I died.”

  “Ah, that…” She looked sheepish. “There was never a curse on Lilith.”

  “What?”

  She waved a dismissive hand. “I gave Samael my oath that I wouldn’t harm her.”

  Wait a bloody second. “But you compeled Azazel to keep Cain’s bloodline alive. You told him that if he didn’t, Lilith would be hurt by his failure.”

  She sighed. “I compeled Azazel to protect my son’s bloodline, but I knew he might fight my compulsion, and so I added a little extra to the deal. I told him that Lilith would be hurt if he failed, and I cursed him to be unable to speak of it to her, or to pass the knowledge to her in any other manner living or dead.”

  But she hadn’t factored in Cora…which made me wonder. Was Cora more than just a tulpa?

  “You lied to Azazel.” Grayson sounded disgusted.

  I was beginning to understand that my mate was a huge believer in honesty and transparency.

  Eve’s attention flicked to him for a fraction of a second before settling back on me. “I did what I had to in order to protect this world,” she said. “And your death is on the brink of undoing it all.” She held out her hand. “I need to explain to you. I need you to come with me. Please child.”

  She’d lied to Azazel, but the tremor of fear in her voice wasn’t a lie. I’d died and come back, but my gut had been screaming that something was wrong ever since. Eve had the answers I needed.

  I nodded. “I’ll go with you, but I want your oath you won’t harm me, and that you’ll return me back here.”

  “You have my oath,” she said quickly.

  “Fee….” Grayson exhaled. “Fuck.”

  I hugged him. “I’ll be back soon.”

  And then I bridged the distance between me and Eve, took her hand, and stepped into spring.

  * * *

  Clear blue skies, floral fragranced air, the chirp of birds, and chatter of woodland creatures surrounded me.

  Eve didn’t let go of my hand straight away. Instead, she studied my face for long agonizing seconds.

  “It’s like looking in a mirror,” she said softly. “My doppelganger...”

  I wasn’t sure I wanted to be anyone’s doppelganger, but there was no denying it. Aside from her hair color, we could be identical twins, and it was unnerving holding her hand. It was almost like holding my own hand.

  Instead, I focused on the meadow around us, the bubbling brook, and the blossoming trees. This was like something out of a fairy tale, down to the wood cabin behind her. A neat well was built to one side of the cabin and a chicken coop sat on the other side.

  It was too perfect to be real.

  “What is this place?”

  “My home.” She released me and looked about as if seeing it for the first time. “I crafted it a long time ago. It’s safe here. A place out of time. A place untouched by chaos and corruption. I can’t leave for longer than a few minutes.” She sounded wistful. “But I didn’t bring you here to talk about that. I need your help, and I need you to understand how vital that help is. The only way to do that is to tell you a story. Will you listen?”

  There was no denying I was curious. “Fine.”

  “Sit.” She indicated the soft grass that blanketed the ground.

  We both sat and tiny blooms immediately sprung up around us. I inhaled the sweet scent and was instantly relaxed, but alarm bells went off in my head at the same time.

  “What are these flowers?”

  “Lianthum’s. They’re indigenous to my home. They relax the mind and soothe the soul. They won’t hurt you, but they will
allow you to absorb what I tell you. They’ll allow you to access the memories locked in your mind. Memories that you own due to your connection to both me and Samael.” A quicksilver emotion crossed her features. “They will help you recognize what I tell you to be truth.”

  “Ancestral memories?”

  “Yes. You have them, but they aren’t easily accessible.”

  Sounded fair. “Okay, I’ll listen.”

  “It all began when a mortal fell in love with an angel.” Her smile was nostalgic. “That mortal was me and the angel was Samael. He was formidable, hewn from light and filled with passion. We were friends at first, and yes, there was an attraction there, but I knew nothing would come of it. At least I believed it to be so. But he came to me one night, heart-wounded and weary, in need of soothing. I gave myself to him, mind, body, and soul. For a few days, my heart was filled with joy. Not even Adam could take that away from me. We’d been estranged for so long, you see, coming together only for comfort from time to time. There was no love between us. Not like Samael and I, but then Samael left.” She paused and swallowed as if pushing back an emotion she wasn’t ready to taste. “My angel left to be with his one true love, and it almost broke me, until… Until I discovered I was with child. His child. I had a piece of him to keep with me always, and then there were two heartbeats and my joy doubled.”

  “Cain and Abel.”

  “Yes. I bore Samael two, strong, healthy sons, but they didn’t exhibit his celestial grace. They were more mortal like me. Still, he loved them, and he visited as often as he could, but Lilith wasn’t happy with the arrangement. Although she’d forgiven him his transgression, she was unwilling to forgive me. And my sons were a constant reminder of Samael’s infidelity. So eventually, Samael’s visits petered out and Adam, bless his heart, stepped in to help raise my sons. We had another together too. Seth, and we were content for a time.

  But as my sons grew, I recognized the vast difference in their personalities. Abel was sweetness and light, and Cain…” She paused again, searching for the right words. “Cain was filled with darkness and anger. He would lash out at the slightest provocation, and it was this temper, this darkness, that led him to murder his brother.”

  I’d heard the bible story but never like this. “Samael came to you then, didn’t he?”

  Her brows shot up. “Yes, how did you know?”

  “Lilith spoke to me a little about this. She said he came to see you when his son died.”

  “Lilith met you and didn’t try to kill you?”

  I filled her in briefly on my trip to the Underealm and the way Cora had been able to speak of Eve’s curse.

  Eve’s eyes grew wide. “You created her?”

  “Yes, but she’s her own person.”

  Eve looked like she was about to say more then she snapped her mouth closed and nodded. “Yes. Back to the story. Where was I?”

  “Samael came to see you when Abel died.”

  “That’s right, he did. He recognized Cain’s pain. The darkness inside Cain, spoke to Samael. He recognized it as his own personal turmoil, one he’d controlled his whole existence, and so instead of punishing Cain, he sought to aid him. He bound Cain to him through a mark.”

  Fucking hell. “The mark of Cain?”

  “Yes, I believe that’s what they call it. But the mark is so much more. It’s a link to Cain’s roots, to the strength to wrestle the demons in his soul and conquer them. Samael is a celestial touched by chaos. The darkness is a real thing inside him and inside Cain also. Through the mark, Cain was finally able to control his inner demons but,” she sighed, “we didn’t anticipate the side effects.”

  “What kind of side-effects?”

  “Firstly, Cain adopted Samael’s immortality. He became undying, and secondly, he unlocked an ability to access the miasma that permeates the ether and seeps onto the earthy plane. My ability. He was also able to access the power of chaos, a darker form a magic. The power corrupted him, and he did some awful things. There was no way to reach him. We couldn’t kill him because the mark made him invulnerable. And there was no known way to remove the mark, so Samael and I did the only thing we could. We put Cain into a deep slumber and locked him away. I found a pocket of reality, an uninhabited dimension where he would be safe from discovery, able to sleep for eternity. We left him there.”

  Something stirred in the back of my mind. The brown door in the archives in Purgatory. The voice…. The voice… “You left him in Purgatory.” Oh god, the pieces were falling into place, but I needed to hear the rest to be sure I had this right. “Go on, please.”

  “It wasn’t Purgatory back then. That came after, but yes. When it became Purgatory things changed. Samael became afflicted. Losing time and lucidity. He came to me and we concluded that the connection he had to Cain must have switched to a two-way connection.”

  “Cain was reaching out to Samael?”

  “Yes. Influencing his mind and driving him crazy. Maybe it was the presence of other souls in his vicinity that fed him, or maybe it was a natural progression of his power, we couldn’t know for sure, but there was nothing to be done about it. Samael got sick while visiting me and fell into an unnatural sleep. Lilith came for him, and she blamed me.”

  “She thought you cursed him.”

  “Yes, and somehow convinced herself the only way to break the curse was to sever my and Samael’s bond by killing our children and their descendants.”

  “Abel’s bloodline and Cain’s…”

  “Yes, but Samael and I had anchored Cain’s slumber spell to his bloodline. As long as they lived, he would remain incapacitated.”

  Fuck. It was all coming together. It was all making sense. “Which is why you cursed Azazel… To keep Cain locked away.”

  “Yes.”

  “But then…then I was cursed… At least I thought I was. But now I think…I think I may have come in contact with Cain…”

  She sat forward. “Did you go into Purgatory?”

  “Yes.”

  “I think I saw him, but I can’t recall what happened”

  She lightly touched my temples. Colors bloomed before my eyes, then I was slipping backward, falling into the deep recesses of my mind, deeper and deeper until a memory rushed up to greet me.

  The darkness was filled by a soothing male voice.

  “Come closer, blood of my blood.”

  Yeah, creepy much? “Who’s there?”

  “You don’t know me, but I’ve known you forever. You belong to me, child.”

  Not likely. “I think you have me confused with someone else.” Where the fuck was the door out of his place?

  “Please. Don’t go. I’ve been so lonely.”

  There was a heart-breaking tone to his voice that made me hesitate. “Who are you? Your door didn’t have a name on it.”

  “I am forgotten. Lost. Alone. But you can help me.”

  A spark of heat ignited in my solar plexus.

  “Do you feel that? It’s our connection.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Come closer and I’ll explain it.”

  Yeah like that was going to hap—

  What the fuck? I was moving forward as if my feet had a mind of their own. It took a moment to wrestle control and stop, but even as I did, my body tingled, alerting me to the fact that I was too late.

  There was danger in front of me. And I was already too close.

  I froze, barely breathing.

  “You have a valiant heart,” the voice said. “I have known this for a long time, and what I’m about to do brings me no pleasure. I’m sorry… So sorry.”

  Ice pierced my mind.

  “Crap!” I jerked out of the memory and slammed back into spring to find Eve watching me with intense scrutiny.

  “He touched you and formed a connection with you,” she said. “And then manipulated you to end your life.”

  “He tried.” I rubbed my forehead, but the icy sensation still lingered. How could I have forgotten
that? “He failed.”

  “But you died.”

  “I did. My friends stopped my heart and then… Then they brought me back.”

  No need to go into detail, especially when I didn’t recall much.

  “Yes, I felt your death and your return. I’ve been reaching out to check on Cain’s bloodline for a long time. Your death means that—”

  “He’s awake.” Oh shit. “He told me he was sorry. That he was so very sorry.” My chest felt hollow.

  “Cain is charismatic, beautiful, and compeling. He is his father’s son in so many ways, but unlike his father, he cannot be trusted. He will say whatever he needs to get what he wants.”

  He wanted to be free, and he needed me dead to do it. The tulpa attacks had been him. “He’s been trying to kill me for months. He used tulpas.”

  “It seems he’s found a way to exert his influence on the earthly plane after all. He’s stronger than I could ever imagine, which makes what we have to do next even more imperative.” She gave me a pointed look.

  Wait, was she saying what I thought she was saying? “Are you asking me to find him?”

  “Yes.”

  Oh crap.

  Chapter Two

  Eve wanted me to find Cain. She wanted me to actively pursue the immortal who’d been trying to kill me for months.

  I stared at her in horror. “Are you serious?”