Silver Reaper (Reaper Series Book 3)

by Shelley Russell Nolan

  ‘Are you kidding? You don’t even know me and yet you risked your life so I could get away. I’m not leaving. I’m here to help, anyway I can.’

  ‘Okay then, let’s go up to the suite and wait for Connor and Rhonda to arrive.’

  We squeezed into the elevator and were silent on the ride to the top. Sam wrapped his arm around my waist. Grateful for his quiet strength and complete confidence in me, I breathed in the fresh scent of him, soaking it up to fortify myself for what was to come.

  The suite was an elegant and modern set of rooms, with an expansive open-plan living space that faced a large balcony with views over Easton. None of us paid any attention to the view as Chris took over, ordering room service and supplying drinks. Connor and Rhonda arrived minutes later and were introduced to Rebecca.

  It made me smile to see the sour look on Rhonda’s face when Connor immediately started flirting with Killian’s daughter. What amused me even more was the jealous look in Chris’s eyes because of my brother’s flirting. For her part, Rebecca seemed oblivious to it all. Instead she wanted to hear more about what had happened six months ago, and what all of our reactions were when it happened.

  She was particularly interested in Rhonda’s experience. ‘Wow, I can’t believe they made you marry a man you hated. That must have been so awful for you.’ Rebecca paused to look over to where Chris was setting out plates on the dining table. ‘Sure, you have a son who you clearly adore, but to have to pretend to be in love with a guy who sounds truly hateful, staying with him for nearly twenty-five years, that would have taken a lot of guts. How did you manage to stay sane?’

  ‘Wine. Lots and lots of wine. Connor and Tyler’s father would drive a saint to drink.’ Rhonda held up her glass of lemonade. ‘Of course, ever since my divorce I’ve been sticking to the soft stuff.’

  Rebecca twisted around to where Connor and I sat side by side on the couch. ‘Are either of you still in contact with your father? He sounds like he’s just as bad as mine, and I’m pretty sure I never want to see him again.’

  I grimaced. ‘I haven’t seen my dad since he told me I was no longer his daughter. But that’s his loss, not mine.’

  Connor shifted uncomfortably when Rebecca turned her enquiring eyes on him. ‘Yeah, I’ve seen him once or twice. No big deal.’

  ‘Even though he disowned your sister?’

  He shrugged. ‘He’s still my dad, and I keep hoping he’ll wake up one day and realise he’s being an arsehole and apologise to Mum and Tyler for how he treated them.’

  Rhonda snorted. ‘Never happen. I’ve never met anyone who was more convinced they are right and everyone else wrong than Robert Morgan.’

  ‘What about you, Tyler? Would you like him to change his ways, and be a real father to you?’

  I was silent for a moment, thinking about how to explain what my feelings were for my father. Finally, I shook my head. ‘No. I’m done with hoping he’ll change or accept me for who I am. I moved on from my old life six months ago and he is not a part of it. This is all the family I need.’ I waved a hand over the people in the room.

  ‘Even me?’ Rhonda asked; a wry twist to her lips.

  ‘Even you.’

  And I meant it.

  Now I just had to make sure my family was kept safe from whatever scheme Killian was hatching with Cade, as well as the revenge Talaom was clearly still after.

  Come midnight I was going to get some of my questions answered and what happened next would depend on what I learned.

  15

  Rebecca’s enthusiasm for learning everything there was to know about the dark world she had stumbled into paled when I announced I was being called to reap a soul.

  She sat heavily beside Connor on the couch. ‘You don’t want company, do you? Not sure if I could handle seeing a dead body.’

  I shook my head. ‘You couldn’t come with me anyway, unless you are able to take astral form.’

  ‘Oh, okay. Good to know.’ She gave me a sheepish look. ‘I don’t know if I should be saying good luck, or have fun. My formal education never covered what to do when someone is called to reap a dead person’s soul.’

  ‘Good luck is fine. Not that you have to say anything,’ I said as I looked over at Chris. ‘Is there a guest room I can use?’

  He gave a nod. ‘Second room on the left, as you head down the hall.’

  I quickly found the guest room and positioned myself on my back on a large bed covered with a plush velvet quilt. Considering everything that had happened lately, Rebecca’s blessing of good luck could come in handy. In the last couple of days, none of my reaps had been of the ordinary kind. It would be nice to be called and not find yet another drama to add to the list.

  When the call took me to one of Easton’s largest nursing homes my first reaction was relief. I flitted through the halls in search of my client, thankful I was not about to reap the soul of yet another murdered Tr’lirian. I slipped inside the room of an elderly gentleman for whom every breath was a wheeze and shifted my focus to easing his suffering. Reaping the souls of the elderly had become almost a daily occurrence since the Grim Reaper had been freed from Almorthanos’s taint.

  Not that more of them were dying. Now I was no longer only called for those who died violent deaths, I got to experience the more peaceful ones too. I treated it as a privilege to be able to usher those souls on to the next part of their journey.

  The walls of my latest client’s room were covered with photos. A black and white wedding picture was the largest, showing a beaming young man with eyes only for his bride. Smaller colour photos showcased children and grandchildren, dozens of happy smiling faces to keep him company and remind him of a life well lived.

  I stretched out my hand and placed it on his frail chest, calling forth his soul. Its light was bright and vibrant, a stark contrast to the body he was leaving behind, and it spread to fill the room, saying a final farewell before I sent it on its way.

  I rose up through the roof of the nursing home, intending to return to Riverside Plaza to wait until it was time to meet with Talaom. The moment I was in the open I froze, a shudder rippling through my astral form.

  Something was wrong. I could sense it even though all that met my eyes was blue skies and the familiar cityscape of Easton. I drifted in a circle, wings flapping slowly to stop me straying too far. Everywhere I looked I found nothing amiss and couldn’t pinpoint the source of my unease.

  I closed my eyes, using my wings to keep me in place as I opened myself up to the aether surrounding me, tasting it, sifting through it, hunting for clues as to what was wrong. My shudders intensified and I spread my wings, letting them support me as I stretched my head back until I was facing the sky above me. I opened my eyes and winced at the sense of wrongness that poured into me from above.

  Angellin.

  Rhonda had said it was directly above Easton.

  If what I sensed was coming from Angellin, then there was something terribly wrong within the city where the Tr’lirians dwelled.

  I tore my eyes away from the seemingly innocent patch of sky above me, debating what to do next. Should I return to the penthouse or try to reach Angellin? Before I could second guess myself, I lifted higher into the sky.

  Up I went, strong sweeps of my wings taking me through clouds and into clear air. But Angellin did not appear. I could probably fly right up into space and still not find it. I needed a Tr’lirian to show me the way.

  I returned to lower skies and made my way back to the suite, questions crowding into my brain. How could Angellin be directly above Easton, with Tr’lirians using the astral plane to travel to and fro, but I could not see it even when I was in astral form? There was so much I didn’t know about Tr’lirians and their abilities. But at least I had one of them who would be willing to answer all my questions, hopefully.

  After I reconnected with my body I went in search of Rhonda, finding her sitting on the balcony that overlooked the river sipping a black coffee.

&nbs
p; ‘How was it?’ Rhonda asked as I sat down in the chair beside her.

  ‘It was okay.’ I said. ‘Just a normal everyday reaping.’

  She shook her head. ‘I don’t know how you do it, facing the dead and the dying every single day. I’d go crazy if that was my life.’

  ‘Somebody has to do it. It might as well be me.’

  She peered at me. ‘You’ve changed so much in such a short space of time. I almost don’t recognise you. From a scared little girl desperate for her daddy’s love to a capable and confident young woman in six months. That’s quite an accomplishment.’

  ‘I’m not the only one who changed,’ I said. ‘I could never have imagined us having a civil conversation over coffee six months ago. Now look at us.’

  She shrugged, looking vaguely embarrassed. ‘I should never have blamed you, or your mother, for what was done to me. Neither or you had any idea what was going on, or that Tr’lirians existed.’

  ‘Finding out you were a Tr’lirian finally explained how you always seemed to know when I had done something wrong.’ I shook my head. ‘All those times I thought I was on my own when I broke something or did something I wasn’t supposed to, you were watching me from the astral plane. Talk about having eyes in the back of your head.’

  She gave me a tight smile. ‘Being able to slip into the astral plane did have its advantages during my marriage, not least of which was hiding from your father when I couldn’t face him or slipping away to refill my wine glass without anyone being aware of it. Even if I didn’t enter the astral plane, I could distract myself from what was going on around me by watching what was happening there. It sure beat sitting through all those endlessly boring football games.’

  I leaned back in my chair. ‘What’s it like, to be able to see into the astral plane all the time? It must be so distracting.’

  ‘I’m not always aware of what is going on. Yes, I can see into it, but I have to concentrate to do so, otherwise it would be hard to differentiate between what is happening there and what is happening in the physical plane.’

  That made sense, and it was similar to my own experience. Ever since I had been brought back to life, my soul in Emily’s body, I’d been able to see into the astral plane. In the days immediately afterward, with so much going on, I hadn’t realised the ability to “see” came and went according to my needs. In tense situations instinct kicked in and I was able to see what was happening in the astral plane. Then, after I was returned to my own body and life calmed down I had to think about the astral plane to be able to look into it.

  Chris had the same ability but Connor didn’t, leading us to assume it was the dying and being brought back to life issue that allowed us to see into the astral plane, and not just being part Tr’lirian. For all I knew, anyone who’d died would have the same ability, Tr’lirian or not.

  I shook my head. There was so much I didn’t know about being part Tr’lirian, and how that differed from Rhonda’s life.

  I looked over at her. ‘How does it work for you, when you enter the astral plane? You don’t leave your body behind, like me.’ Any time I encountered a Tr’lirian in the astral plane their form had a haze to it, a smudging around the edges.

  Rhonda shrugged. ‘For us it is simply another mode of travel, one where we can shift through any landscape or obstacle without interference. We could fly where and when we wanted, regardless of weather or fear of being seen by humans. Angellin is a city apart, surrounded by clouds, our food grown on the physical plane. Being able to harvest our crops without being seen became even more important after we withdrew from human contact.’

  ‘How did you get to and from Angellin? I’m sure it is more than a case of just flying through the astral plane from there to Easton and back again, or souls and reapers would be able to do it. Is it like when I went to the Underworld, to speak to the Grim Reaper?’ I shivered at the reminder of that particular journey. ‘When the lost souls came to help me fight Grimm, they found their way through a tear in the barrier surrounding the Underworld.’

  ‘It isn’t a barrier, as such, that separates this world from Angellin, and when I said my home is above Easton that is only true in a certain sense. I mean, obviously you can’t look up into the sky and see Angellin. All you see is sky, and if you were to fly through the astral plane it would be exactly the same. It is our wings that make the difference.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Here on Earth, wings are used for transportation. Birds, airplanes, without their wings they can’t take flight. For us, our wings are even more important. They are the source of our immortally, and they also act as the bridge between our world and this one. Angellin and Demania are like two spheres, one above and one below the physical world, anchored to the same point.’

  ‘Easton.’ I screwed up my mouth, memory taking me back to my brush with Demania. The sense of wrongness coming from Angellin was nothing compared to the foul stench put out by the plane commonly referred to by humans as Hell.

  ‘Exactly. A tunnel of aether connects Angellin to the astral plane above Easton, while a similar tunnel of nether connects Demania to the Underworld. Our wings are the key that opens the portals at the end of the Angellin tunnel.’

  ‘So the only way for you to re-enter Angellin would be if you were carried by a Tr’lirian who still had their wings,’ I said, pushing aside thoughts of Demania to dredge up something Rhonda had said in an earlier conversation.

  ‘Of course, seeing as Cade has exiled all of my clan to the physical plane, I’m sure none of his people would be keen to give me a lift, even if I wanted to return home.’

  ‘Is it the same with Demania?’ I asked, frowning. ‘It can’t be, or one of you would have been able to carry Almorthanos out of there after he lost his wings.’

  ‘Demania is a fixed plane, and the only way to get in or out of it is to have wings.’

  My frown deepened. With the debilitating stench that emanated from the portal between the Underworld and Demania, I was unable to understand why anyone would want to go there in the first place. The memory of being trapped in the chasm near the portal to Demania, and how it had eroded my spirit, reminded me of the feeling of wrongness I’m experienced after I’d left the nursing home.

  ‘Can you sense Angellin, from here?’

  It was Rhonda’s turn to frown. ‘Sense it? As in feel where it is?’

  ‘Would you be able to tell if something was wrong in Angellin, without having to go there?’

  She stiffened. ‘Tyler, why are you asking me this?’

  ‘I’m not really sure, but I think something is wrong up there.’ I told her about the shudder that had swept through me, followed by the notion it was resonating through the aether. ‘It felt out of balance, twisted, distorted. I can’t exactly describe it, but I’m sure the feeling came from Angellin.’

  ‘Do you still sense that wrongness?’

  ‘No. As soon as I moved away the feeling disappeared.’

  Rhonda put down her empty coffee mug and rubbed her arms. ‘Normally I would say you were sensing a disturbance in the aether tunnel that leads to Angellin, but the opening is nowhere near a nursing home.’

  ‘Where is it then?’

  Rhonda gave a slight shake of her head, lips pursed. ‘It is forbidden to tell outsiders where the tunnel is.’

  I let out a laugh, shaking my head slightly. ‘Seriously? After everything else I know, you think telling me where the tunnel opening is will make a difference? I’m not full Tr’lirian, and I don’t have wings, so I couldn’t use it anyway.’

  ‘You have wings when you’re in astral form.’

  ‘Yeah, and they didn’t help me get into the Underworld. I doubt they’d be any help in getting me to Angellin.’ I thought it better not to tell her I had recently tried, and failed, to do just that.

  She heaved a sigh. ‘The tunnel opening is on the outskirts of Easton, heading north. The area used to be uninhabited, perfect for hiding our crops, but with the way th
is town is booming, more and more housing estates are popping up all around it.’

  A bitter taste flooded my mouth. ‘Estates like Greenlakes.’

  Rhonda pursed her lips. ‘Not even Cade would be so blatant as to build his compound directly under the tunnel. But it is close by. I’m sure they’ve done their best to buy up as much of the land in that area to avoid prying eyes seeing what they don’t want them to see.’

  I thought about Kilian’s claim that his dealings with the real estate men Talaom murdered were on account of the need to provide safe havens for his people in other states. ‘When Sam gets back from the station, it might be worthwhile seeing if he can find out more about the estates positioned where the tunnel opening is.’

  ‘In the meantime, what are the chances of me getting a refill?’ Rhonda held up her coffee mug. ‘Seems to me like it’s going to be a long night.’

  16

  I headed into the kitchen and found Rebecca and Chris already there. I stifled a laugh at the way they were purposefully not looking at each other as one made coffee and the other arranged a selection of sandwiches on a platter.

  ‘Lunch will not be a fancy affair,’ said Chris when he looked up at my arrival. ‘The restaurant is booked solid, as are the conference rooms, so the kitchen staff are flat out.’

  ‘Hmmm,’ said Rebecca. ‘Sad when you can’t get a decent meal in your own hotel. Surely they could make more of an effort for their boss.’

  ‘I’m sure they could, but it would be a poor boss who expected them to cater to his every whim when they were already working to capacity,’ said Chris, sounding like he was grinding his teeth.

  ‘Sandwiches are fine,’ I said before Rebecca could respond. I placed Rhonda’s empty mug on the bench beside the coffee machine and grabbed down another cup for me.