Unleashing Magick

by Debbie Cassidy

  “Carmella.” Vritra scanned my face as if absorbing every detail and committing it to memory and then he pressed a punishing kiss to my lips. “You did it. You did great.”

  “I killed a djinn.” My words were a whisper.

  “You saved my life,” Melody said. “Thank you.”

  Honey joined us, scratched and bruised, but then her wounds healed before our eyes. “I need to rally the remaining troops,” she said.

  “I’ll help,” Melody said.

  They walked into the aftermath of the bloodbath.

  My body ached, every inch on fire with pain. “Someone tipped them off.”

  “What?” Vritra asked.

  “The djinn. How did they know about this meeting?”

  His expression hardened. “Trust me. I’m going to make sure I find out.”

  ***

  So many yaksha dead and too many injured. We were also down several IEPEU agents. Paimon had wanted to kill me, and if not for Alara he probably would have succeeded. How could I have ever thought I loved him? When he’d had me by the throat, squeezing the life out of me, there’d been no compassion, no warmth in his eyes, just an alien determination to end me. Thank the gods for Alara’s intervention. And then there was the question of Mira. Alara had confirmed they had her. Paimon must have taken her back somehow. They probably had her locked up so she couldn’t get back. Would they hurt her? No. Paimon wouldn’t physically hurt his sentinel. But he was hurting her emotionally by taking her free will, by holding her hostage and keeping her from me. If I ever saw him again, he’d pay for what he’d done.

  Wrapped in Vritra’s bathrobe, the arms rolled up to allow me the use of my hands, I sat cross-legged on the bed and finished off the stew Gita had brought up for me. It was meaty and fragrant and filling, just what I needed to regain my strength and get back out there. Turning dragon had drained me, that coupled with the whole anchor thing had totally zapped me. If not for Vritra channeling his asura power into me, I’d probably have passed out and stayed that way for hours. He was sustaining himself and me, and I needed to do whatever it took to stand on my own two feet again.

  After dropping me off with Gita, he’d headed straight back to IEPEU in my place. So this is what it felt like to have someone love you, to have a partner. A warm tingle ran through me followed by a wave of euphoria. I’d found my mate. My dragon purred.

  My phone buzzed and Melody’s name flashed up on caller ID.

  I answered quickly. “Is everything okay?”

  “Yes… No.” She sighed. “Twenty yaksha dead, many severely injured and healing. Our mini army has turned into a ragtag bunch of supernaturals. The plus point is that they’re now out for bloody vengeance. They’ll fight just to kick some djinn arse.”

  How could this happen? “Have you seen Vritra? He went to meet with Varuna about a possible leak at the IEPEU.”

  “Yeah, they’re still investigating. But only a handful of people knew anything about our plans. I can’t believe that any of them would rat us out to the cosmic gods.”

  I fiddled with my spoon. “Then how else could he have known?”

  “Yeah, we have a snitch and we’re going to find them. The place is on lockdown at the moment while they interview all personnel. All calls in and out are being monitored.”

  “Did they interview you?”

  “Yeah. Patrick busted out his special lie detector. But only after they’d cleared him.”

  The majority of the IEPEU wouldn’t know why they were being interviewed, but they’d know that something was up and now everyone would be wary of each other. Not the best way to promote unity in a time of upcoming crisis.

  “I’m stuck here,” Melody said. “Until they clear all the staff or find out who’s responsible for the leak, so it’s up to you to get us those extra boots on the ground.”

  “Me?”

  “Yeah, remember the flyer we found at The Circle?”

  The flyer with the number for the Reapers? I’d tucked it into the pocket of my jeans, the jeans that had been torn to shreds when I’d morphed into a dragon. Oh crap. “Babe, I lost it when I went dragon. My clothes kinda got torn to shreds.”

  “It’s okay,” she chuckled. “I figured that’s what happened so I went back and found another one.”

  “You did?”

  “Yeah, there were several dotted about The Circle. Looks like the Reapers have been doing business there for some time before the void attacked. But then who better to tap for work than vengeful supernaturals.”

  “Text me the number.” My skin broke out in delicious gooseflesh as the door opened and Vritra entered. “Vritra’s back. I thought the IEPEU was in lockdown?”

  Vritra arched a brow and then shucked off his shoes.

  “Not for Varuna and Vritra. Is he back?”

  “Yeah.”

  Vritra pulled off his shirt, exposing smooth taut rippling muscle.

  “Good.” Melody said. “If this number works, if this is for real, you take him with you.”

  Vritra unbuckled his jeans.

  “I will.”

  “And Carmella, be safe.” She hung up.

  Vritra took the plate of half-finished cold stew off the bed. My blood thumped in my ears as he crawled up onto the mattress, his powerful body dwarfing mine. Breath catching in my throat, I sat perfectly still as he undid the robe and peeled if away from my flushed skin. He raked me over with his fiery gaze, pupils expanding to drink me in. My breasts swelled and tightened under the heat of his assessment, and then he lifted me up onto his lap. I wrapped my legs around his waist, biting back a moan as his hardness pressed against me. He nipped my earlobe in admonishment. He was in control, his body tense and eager and this time I was ready to be dominated. One hand digging into my hip, he grasped my chin with the other and claimed my mouth. I surrendered to him.

  ***

  We lay, limbs entwined, chests heaving. My thighs trembled in the aftershocks of the orgasm Vritra had just laid on me.

  “Damn, that was…wow.”

  His chest rumbled in a soft laugh. “It will only get better with practice.”

  Better? “Well, I think we should practice a lot!”

  He laughed, and then his expression sobered. “You were incredibly brave tonight, Carmella. You are an incredible woman. Whatever happens on Friday, you need to know how amazing you are.”

  I pushed myself up to stare down into his breathtaking face. “We’re going to win. We’re going to put Malachi in a box and we’re going to practice this.” I ran an index finger down his chest. “Over and over again.”

  He gave me a slow burn smile. “First we need to make this official.”

  “I’m ready, but there’s something we need to do first.”

  He cocked his head. “And what would that be?”

  I grabbed my phone from the bedside table. “We may have a way to contact the Reapers, and hopefully get a message to Yama. Melody and I found flyers at The Circle which we believe are adverts the yamduth left.”

  Vritra sat up. “I’m coming with you.”

  “Good, because I’m not going alone. Plus, they’re probably going to need paying.”

  He snorted with laughter. “Just dial the number, woman.”

  I punched in the digits and waited.

  The line was silent, and for a moment I wondered if Melody had accidentally given me the wrong number, and then there was a click and a deep voice answered.

  “Reaper services.”

  Um... “Hi, are you a yamduth?”

  Silence. “We are terminators. You pay, we terminate.”

  Okay. “I was actually hoping that we could meet.”

  “No meetings. Money paid via wire transfer upon completion of the job or we come for you.”

  “Yeah? But how will you find me?”

  A low laugh. “We will find you.”

  Creepy much? “Look, I need another kind of service. I need a message delivered.”

  Silence. “Fee will be the
same as a termination.”

  “Fine.”

  “What is the message and who is the recipient?”

  Oh, wow, I hadn’t thought this far ahead. “The message is, “The world is about to be taken over by cosmic gods, send back-up quickly. Please.’”

  “That is your message?”

  “Yes.”

  “And the recipient?”

  “Yama, lord of the underworld.”

  Click.

  “Hello? Hello?” I pulled the phone away from my ear. “He hung up on me.”

  Vritra held out his hand. “Let me try.”

  I handed him the phone and he hit redial. “This is Vritra. You know who I am…Yes. I need a meeting… No, I need it now, and I’m willing to pay…Yes. That sum is acceptable, so where do we—” He dropped the phone into his lap. “The fucker hung up on me.”

  He looked so comically incensed, I couldn’t help but snort with laughter.

  He turned on me. “You think this is funny?”

  I shook my head, biting down on my bottom lip to stem the laughter.

  His eyes narrowed, and his lips twitched. “You know what I do to people that laugh at me?” He raised his hands and wriggled his fingers in a tickling motion.

  “No, don’t you dare.”

  He lunged at me.

  “Well, isn’t this a cozy scene.”

  I jumped, startled, and stared at the figure at the foot of the bed. Huge, wreathed in shadows with a silver whip coiled at his waist.

  Vritra leaned back against the headboard; seemingly unsurprised even though there was no way he wasn’t as shocked as me by the yamduth’s appearance in our bedroom.

  Our bedroom...yeah, sounded nice. Snap out of it, Hunter. Back to the important stuff, please.

  “That was fast,” Vritra said smoothly.

  “When it comes to business, we act fast.”

  I didn’t recognize this reaper. He wasn’t one of the four that had attacked me.

  “Well?” His brow crinkled in impatience. “Time is money.”

  “We need a message delivered to Yama,” Vritra said. “And I’ll pay twice your going rate.”

  The reaper glanced at me. “You were the first caller?”

  I shrugged, sheet clutched to my chest. “Yeah, and you rudely hung up.”

  He pressed his lips together. Probably mulling over the extra cash Vritra was offering. “Even if I wanted to, I cannot deliver your message. The gates of Narak have been closed to me for over a century.”

  He sounded almost wistful. Did he miss it? Did he regret running from his lord? Probably not the best time to ask those questions. I needed to focus on accountability; he needed to know how the yamduth’s actions had contributed to this mess.

  “Only the dead go through the gates, huh? What about those souls you don’t leave for Yama’s reapers?”

  He swallowed and blinked. “What are you talking about?”

  “You know exactly what I’m talking about.” Rage unfurled in my chest as the memory of that night came flooding back, complete with the bloody image that would forever be filed away under heart-wrenchingly horrific. “You and your buddies massacred the yaksha alphas and their families. You took their souls and you gave them to Banner.”

  Vritra didn’t move, but his dragon energy enveloped me in a soothing embrace. Calm, it said. Don’t lose your head. We need this guy. I focused on my breathing, on not losing my shit.

  The reaper stood taller. “It was an unusual request but the price was triple our usual fee.”

  Oh, man he was testing my every nerve. “So, you gave Yama the finger and did the job?”

  His gaze slid to the side, and my mind began to whir with connections. Yama accounted for all the dead souls because they belonged to him. The rogue reapers had essentially stolen from Yama. The urge to blurt out the accusation was almost too much, but if I did, then I may as well shoot myself in the foot. Because if he realized I’d made this connection, if there was a way to get to Yama, there was no way he’d tell us.

  I leaned forward, sheet clutched tightly to my chest. “Do you know what those souls were used for?”

  His eyes narrowed. “That information wasn’t part of our agreement.”

  The darkness that flitted across his face told me it was something that had pricked at his conscience. Or maybe I was just attributing him with feelings he didn’t have. My tendency to try and see the best in people had allowed me to fall prey to Banner. I grit my teeth. He was a reaper who’d taken a horrific job. He didn’t deserve to be let off the hook. If we didn’t need him so bad, I’d rip his ethereal form to shreds with my dragon claws.

  Body thrumming with the need to do violence, I bit out my next words. “Well, let me enlighten you. Those souls opened a gateway that allowed the cosmic god to crawl into our world and shrug on Banner’s body like a pretty suit, and how he and his friends are going to indoctrinate every human in this city. Once they’re done with this city, they’ll set their sights on the rest of our world.”

  His jaw tightened. “It seems like an unfortunate turn of events. But it doesn’t affect the reapers.” He shrugged, but his nonchalance looked strained. “We exist in the space between life and death.”

  “Maybe,” Vritra said. “But your business depends upon conflict. And the cosmic god’s main aim is to remove every iota of it from this world. If they win, then there will be harmony. Every human will be an obedient puppet to their new cosmic masters. And, you, my friend, will be out of business.”

  Hell yeah, go baby.

  The yamduth’s face froze for a fraction of a second and then he exhaled. “We have sensed a disturbance in the ether, but sometimes energies do pass by. They come and go. Visit and leave, but if this cosmic god’s intentions are what you say they are, then there may be a way to get that message to Yama. But I warn you. It comes with great risk.”

  “Tell us,” Vritra asked.

  The reaper inclined his head. “Very well. Some dead do not stay dead. They pass on for a moment or so. In your world, they would be gone for maybe a minute, maybe two, but to them they would have been gone for much longer. Long enough to walk through the gates, long enough for Yama to sense that maybe the tether to life has not fully been severed. These individuals return with a sense of having made a journey, but no memory of what occurred.”

  “Like when someone’s heart stops and then they are resuscitated?”

  He shrugged. “Yes, that is one example.”

  Vritra’s body was a tense mass beside me. “You want to stop our hearts.”

  The Reaper shook his head. “Not yours. Hers.”

  Vritra was out of the bed and lunging for the reaper before I’d had a chance to register what the yamduth had said. Vritra’s hand closed around the reaper’s throat and then he was clutching thin air. The reaper materialized on the other side of the bed, his dark shadow-wreathed form vibrated with indignation.

  “If this cosmic threat was not our fault,” he said, “if it would not affect our trade, I would happily leave you to your fate.”

  I stepped off the bed, taking the sheet with me. I threw the other at Vritra, but he didn’t make a move to catch it, allowing it to slide off his Adonis body and onto the floor. Naked looked good on him.

  I faced the reaper. “Let me get something straight. If the outcome of the coming battle didn’t weigh so heavily on Yama’s aid, I’d tear you to shreds for what you did to the yaksha. You took away sons and fathers, you stripped families of their loved ones. And you orphaned my friend. Your companions hunted me too.”

  The reaper deflated, his shoulders sagging. “We are in the business of death.”

  “No, you were in the business of death when you worked for Yama. You collected souls and helped them pass on, now you’re in the business of murder.”

  He flinched as if I’d slapped him, and the stab of satisfaction was a sharp inhale.

  “The past cannot be changed,” he said. “But I am willing to aid you in getting your mes
sage to Yama.”

  Vritra glared at him. “No one touches her.”

  The reaper focused on Vritra. “Then I can’t help you. You’re a demi-god. You’re immortal. I doubt I could even stop your heart.” He took a step forward. “Even if I knew how to kill a demi-god, it wouldn’t matter. Gods and demi-gods simply become mortal when they lose their divinity. So, you see, I’d have to strip you of your divinity and then stop your mortal heart, and is that what you want?”

  I held up my hand. “Okay, okay, I get it. I’m only part asura.”

  “Yes. Your body is strong. Your spirit is powerful. The plan could work, but there is a risk that we may not be able to restart your heart.”

  “I’ll take it.”

  “No,” Vritra said. “We don’t need Yama. Once we’re mated, the asura will be at full power. That should be enough.”

  “Should? How many asura do we have?”

  He raised a shoulder. “At least sixty.”

  “And you think that’s enough to go up against a djinn army and Malachi and his cronies? Not to mention his army of yaksha.”

  Vritra clenched his jaw, his expression smoothing out into his stubborn face. “I won’t allow it.”

  It was the first time he’d told me I couldn’t do something. He was scared, I got that, but he had no right to make my decisions for me, whatever his intentions.

  He blew out a breath. “Carmella, that came out wrong. Damn. I just… Please don’t do this.”

  There was a flash of real fear in his tawny eyes and my annoyance evaporated. I pressed my hand to his cheek. “I have to. You know I do. But I’ll be back. And if it looks like I’m being a stubborn bitch about it, just give me a shout. I’ll come running because I know you’ll be waiting for me. Trust me, I am not ready to sleep the long sleep.”

  The reaper cleared his throat, probably disturbed by our display of affection. “Do you wish to take the journey or not?” he asked.

  I nodded. “Yeah, I do.”

  “Fine. I can stop your heart, and after a minute has passed, I will restart it, or attempt to.”

  “Like hell I’m leaving this up to you,” Vritra said. He grabbed his jeans off the floor and shrugged them on then pulled his phone from the pocket. “We’re going to need a medical team and equipment.”