Reaping Day: Book Three of the Harvesters Series

by Luke R. Mitchell

  They were back in Newark, in the spacious workshop of Jay Pryce, tinkerer extraordinaire, celebrating the end of the raknoth-recruiting world tour.

  “Whoa!” Jarek cried from above. He and Pryce appeared at the top of the spiral staircase in the corner, descending with a pair of wooden crates. “Why’s that a surprise? You of all people know my charms are irresistible!”

  Rachel snorted and rolled her eyes, then immediately regretted it when the Enochians shot her knowing grins.

  Jesus. One kiss and suddenly she had to micromanage every little movement to avoid “sending signals.” She could almost hear their thoughts. Oh, was that a lingering gaze? Oh, was Rachel deflecting because she secretly wanted it?

  It was the end of times, and their fearless group of world-class fighters had all decided to go back to grade school.

  Jarek wasn’t helping with his constant not-so-subtle references to the kiss they’d shared in the tight hallways of Resistance HQ a couple weeks ago, just before the shit had well and truly hit.

  She’d made it clear enough that he should just drop it and focus on more important things, like not dying. Part of her even wanted him to listen. The other part …

  Wasn’t important right now, she reminded herself. Because if there was anyone here she needed to get alone in a quiet room tonight, it was most certainly Alton Parker, who was finally here within her reach after weeks of evasive bullshit.

  She shot a furtive glance at the raknoth and—

  Oh god. Was everyone still waiting for her to say something?

  “Whatcha got there?” she asked as Jarek and Pryce reached the bottom of the steps with their crates.

  Nice one. Smooth as a raknoth hide.

  What they had there turned out to be booze. A veritable horde of it—beers and whiskeys, all home-brewed by Pryce, of course. It was easy enough to see from the eclectic mix of items in the shop around them that Pryce lived for learning, poking, prodding, and otherwise finagling his way through the inner workings of the natural world. Given his and Jarek’s shared love for alcohol, it made sense that home brewing and distilling had made their way high on the list of Pryce’s favorite hobbies.

  Rachel traded a hesitant look with Lea. She’d always had a bit of an aversion to anything capable of muddling her senses, especially when she had important business to tend to. The recently added condition that the fury of a bunch of intergalactic conquerors might come falling down on their heads at any minute paradoxically made her both crave a drink and fear it. But if there was any place in the world that was safe to kick up her boots, it was probably here. And if said important business, namely a firm talk with a bloodsucking alien, was going to happen, god knew she could probably use a touch of the liquid courage.

  So she moved in to join the others in eagerly inspecting the stash Pryce and Jarek had deposited on the worktable. All of the others except Haldin, Elise, and Johnny, that is.

  The three young Enochians were eyeing the crates uncertainly.

  “You guys had alcohol on Enochia, right?” Rachel asked.

  The words sounded stupid as soon as they’d left her mouth. Of course they had. It wasn’t like basic chemistry ceased to exist outside the boundaries of Earth.

  “Alco-huh?” Johnny said. “We just had something we called crack. Fun stuff. Kids loved it.”

  “He’s messing with you,” Hal said. “Of course we had alcohol … You guys take it rectally too, right?”

  “Oh, boys …” Elise smiled at Rachel. “There’s plenty of the stuff on Enochia, but we sheltered youths haven’t ever really had any of it.”

  “Speak for yourself, lady,” Johnny said. “You don’t know where I’ve been.”

  “You’re right,” Elise said. “I always heard those Sanctum parties were out of this world.”

  “I think you mean out of that world,” Johnny said.

  Elise stuck her tongue out at him.

  Jarek distributed mismatched glasses and cups across the table, shaking his head all the while.

  Rachel’s eyes drifted, as they seemed to every time she saw him now, to the dark red lines running diagonally across Jarek’s face—not quite scars yet, but not far off. He caught her staring, and she averted her gaze, heat rushing to her face. Jarek had gone out of his way to make it known that the wounds didn’t bother him and were, in fact, pretty damn badass.

  She was pretty sure it was proof that he actually felt the exact opposite, and while she found the wounds more mesmerizing than hideous, she’d done her best to avoid staring. Whatever he might say, Jarek Slater was every bit as human as the rest of them, with all the self-conscious insecurities that entailed. Or so she told herself.

  “Never had alcohol …” Jarek was saying, still gently shaking his head. “Yeesh!”

  “I agree,” Al called from Fela’s collapsed form over by the shelves. “Strutting around with those unreasonably healthy livers. The gall of them.”

  “Yeah, yeah, Mr. Robot. Like liver disease is really what’s gonna get any of us.”

  Jarek looked like he wanted to take the words back as soon as he said them. But they were out now, and the room went uncomfortably quiet as the weight settled over them. Because he was right.

  Rachel had seen by proxy the raw power of a single rakul, and they were looking at as many as a dozen of them on their hands. Whether any of them wanted to admit it or not, it was a real possibility none of them would—

  Jarek slapped a hand to the table hard enough to jolt them out of their respective funks. “Right then! Let’s drink some drugs, kids!” He clapped a hand to Pryce’s shoulder. “A round for the house on me!”

  “I suppose I’ll just throw it on your tab then,” Pryce muttered, but he was smiling as he opened a bottle of whiskey and began to pour.

  “Oh, you old rapscallion, you,” Jarek said, taking glasses of amber liquid from Pryce and passing them out to the others. “What about you, Alton? Want one?”

  Rachel’s heart quickened at Alton’s name.

  After this drink. They’d toast, they’d drink, and she’d politely ask him for a word. No problem.

  Alton gave a shrug that was more yes than no, and Jarek handed him a filled glass.

  “Good on you, man.” Jarek shook his head. “Alaric pulled the ol’ commander duty card on us, and when I asked Stumpy and that Lietha dude if they wanted to partake in this team-building exercise, they were all, ‘We do not imbibe the foul liquid, human.’”

  “Interesting words from people who drink human blood to survive,” Haldin said, followed in short order by an apologetic glance at Alton.

  “Most of my kind are not particularly interested in or well equipped for what humans think of as friendship,” Alton said, not seeming to particularly mind the jab. “We rarely socialize outside of our own clans. And as for the ‘foul liquid,’ I happen to enjoy the taste of it at times, but it has little effect on my physiology. We are perfectly capable of synthesizing our own pharmaceutical aids internally should the desire rise.”

  “Damn,” Jarek said. “There’s a skill I wouldn’t mind having.”

  “Maker bless your boring human body, sir,” Al said, this time from Jarek’s comm.

  Once everyone had received a glass, they all raised their drinks in cheers, a custom that turned out to be familiar to the Enochians as well.

  “To saving the world, I guess,” Jarek said.

  “No pressure,” Johnny said.

  Rachel clinked her glass to Jarek’s, and others all piled in.

  “Cheers.”

  Everyone drank. Franco, Lea, and Jarek set to clapping Pryce on the back and clamoring about how fantastic the whiskey was. Phineas and Alton sipped their drinks stoically. The rest of the Enochians’ reactions mostly involved strong grimaces and sputtering coughs.

  Rachel, for her part, held it together as dragon fire burned its way down her throat—or at least thought she did until she caught Jarek grinning at her like she’d just done something especially cute. She narr
owed her eyes at him and he turned back to his conversation with Pryce, grinning all the wider.

  Once the burning receded, Rachel didn’t so much mind the warm tingles the drink left shooting through her throat and slowly percolating up to her face and head, nor did she mind the subtle overtone of confidence that floated in as she fixed her eyes on Alton.

  It was time. And he seemed to know it.

  “You’d like to talk?” his voice asked quietly at the edge of her mind.

  Rachel nearly jumped.

  As far as she knew, he hadn’t looked at her once in the past several minutes, but apparently her attention had not been lost on him.

  “Yeah,” she sent back, glancing surreptitiously at the others. “Mind stepping upstairs for a bit?”

  Without a word or a shared thought, Alton turned and strode over to the tight-winding spiral staircase in the corner. Aside from a pair of curious frowns from Pryce and Jarek, no one seemed to think it particularly odd behavior.

  Rachel waited until Alton disappeared above, then she finished her drink and followed, doing her best to ignore the stares on her back and the roiling apprehension in her gut.

  “You’ve been avoiding me,” Rachel finally said after what had been at least a full minute of tense silence.

  She stood in Pryce’s cozy living quarters, facing Alton in the armchair he’d chosen.

  Alton tilted his head, not quite disagreeing. “We’ve been busy.”

  “You’ve ducked out of every room I’ve walked into since Golga’s attack.”

  Was that an amused smirk that crossed his face?

  “You tried to murder brick and asphalt using my body as a battering ram last time we properly conversed in person,” Alton said.

  She held his unblinking gaze.

  What did he want, an apology? The conversation he was referring to just so happened to be the same one where he’d told her that it was his own people—and not just the raknoth people at large, but his own clan—who’d been responsible for both Mom’s death and the attack that had robbed her of Dad and Grams. Emotional volatility should’ve probably been a given.

  If he hadn’t wanted a pissed off arcanist on his hands, maybe Alton should have tried to stop his bastard ilk from killing her family.

  “I need answers,” she finally said. “And not just a vague summary. Details. What was my mom really up to? What went wrong?” She forced herself to unclench. “Who killed her, and where were you during all of this?”

  Alton was watching her closely now. “Having second thoughts?”

  “What? About working with the guys who literally blew the planet back into the dark ages? How could I have doubts about that?”

  Alton’s eye roll was so subtle she wasn’t rightly sure it had even happened.

  He sank back into his chair and crossed one leg with an affected sigh, taking his sweet time about it. “I’ve already told you most of what I know.”

  “Bullshit.”

  Alton held up a hand for peace and quiet. “I’ll tell you the rest if you sit and promise to behave.”

  The sudden urge filled her to flip the armchair with him on it. “Seriously?”

  Alton waved toward the couch opposite him.

  Did the bastard really have to be so smug about everything?

  Still, she was the one who needed answers, so she reigned in the violent thoughts, dropped onto the couch, and settled for speaking a piece of her mind. “I don’t like you.”

  That was genuinely amusing to Alton, judging by the twitch of his lips, but there was bitterness in his expression as well. “Then you are among good company on this planet, human and raknoth alike.”

  Rachel was almost taken aback for a second. Now that she thought about it, she couldn’t recall having seen Alton interact with any of his own kind beyond brief passing in the past couple weeks, but … It didn’t matter. What mattered now was getting the answers she was owed.

  She was about to press again when Alton started of his own volition.

  “I was there the day it happened.”

  Aching pain informed her just how tightly she was grasping her own fingers as she waited silently for him to elaborate. If Alton had been there—Jesus, if he’d been involved …

  How could she bring herself to accept that?

  Alton was watching her, quiet and calm, assessing. “Everything I told you was true. I never saw your mother. But I also stood obediently by as Zar’Faenor compelled four violently-inclined men to go to your house and tie up loose ends. I did as I was told and played jail keeper to your mother’s co-conspirators while Faenor went to join the hunt. I did not kill your mother, but I cannot say my actions were completely removed from the deed.”

  “And who did?” Rachel asked quietly, leaning forward. “Who killed her?”

  Alton thought about that for a few moments before speaking. “She did,” he finally said.

  “What?”

  He shifted in his chair. “She gave them a good chase, from what they told me afterward. If it had just been her, she might have even made it on the run for a while. But it wasn’t, of course. She had her family to look after.” He met her eyes. “She drew them away from your house on purpose.”

  His words settled in Rachel’s stomach like hunks of cold iron. “But what did you mean by … She didn’t …?”

  “They caught up to her in the woods west of your home. The plan was never to kill her—not until she’d reversed our condition, at least. She knew that. She also knew that she had no hope of resisting when scores of us stood by, ready to break her mind and make her do it. It wasn’t until Faenor arrived that she truly made her decision, though, I think.”

  Rachel waited, too ill to speak. She felt like she had the first time they’d emerged after the bombings, that terrible empty moment when she’d realized with utter certainty that everything she’d ever thought of as home was irrevocably gone forever. An image crept into her head, unnerving in its clarity—her poor, beautiful mom, defeated and afraid, standing in the open forest off the old Wissahickon trails, held captive in the steely grip of two raknoth, with several more all around. Something about it was wrong—too real, too detailed for mere imagination.

  “Zar’Faenor was never one to mince words or play games. When Lilly found out you were in danger …” Alton cocked his head. “You are of course aware of the ways one might project their senses further than normally possible?”

  It was a rhetorical question, and Rachel didn’t bother answering it. She was too busy dreading where this was going.

  “Psychedelics were clearly not on hand,” Alton said. “Sleep and deep meditation would have been far too easily counteracted by the raknoth holding her.”

  “She died.” Rachel’s voice came out a whisper, heavy tears pressing at her eyes.

  “She stopped her own heart in the blind hope she’d somehow be able to help you from miles away. And, I take it, she succeeded. They tried to resuscitate her, of course …”

  But Rachel had stopped listening.

  She’d had so many questions to ask Alton, so many important details to clarify. But now the room spun, every thought and memory and moment of crying rage that she’d ever expended over her past shifting as if gravity itself had reoriented. It was like something had broken—a dam she hadn’t noticed holding back all the incongruent memories she hadn’t known she’d had. Fragments of that horrible day oozed forward, indifferent to her plight as she tried to hold them back.

  The blood. The helpless, dull shock that had roared in her ears and rendered movement impossible, like being pinned under an enormous waterfall against cold, hard stone. The terror she’d felt as those men, those mindless demons, had turned their sights on her.

  And the small voice that had whispered that it was going to be okay just before everything had gone dark—the voice that couldn’t have been hers.

  Mom.

  She wanted to say the word out loud. Wanted to let the tears spill over and scream it until her voice left he
r. But she only sat there, silent and still, under Alton’s gaze.

  “She took control,” she whispered. “That’s why I never remembered. It was—” She shakily swallowed a sob and clenched her teeth. She wouldn’t cry. Not here. Not in front of this, this—

  A loud series of whooping cries from below broke through her thoughts, reminding her of the party happening just downstairs. It was bizarre to imagine them down there, having fun, completely unaware that her world was shattering right over their heads.

  “She gave her life for yours,” Alton said. “And to save the rest of the world from my kind, I imagine she was hoping. With her died our hope of curing her arcane blight.”

  “I … She …”

  She couldn’t get the words out. Wasn’t even sure what they’d be if she could. A deep, aching loss pulsed in her chest, growing stronger with every second and every detail that snapped into place in her new perspective.

  Rachel had always assumed it had been instincts that had taken control all those years ago—that she’d snapped and somehow managed to lash out with her powers so violently that she’d taken down two of her attackers, scared the others away, and summarily lost consciousness. People did crazy things in crazy times, right?

  That she couldn’t remember any of it didn’t seem so odd, as certifiably fucked up as the entire scenario had been. Sometimes minds broke. Sometimes they shut things out. But this was something else.

  She had no way of knowing for sure, of course. There would be no evidence to prove anything Alton was saying, aside from the fact that her mom had died in the woods, surrounded by monsters.

  But something deep inside of her was suddenly certain that she hadn’t survived that day on her own, that her mom had reached out from the place between life and death and taken hold of Rachel’s body, wielded her like a weapon to defend her in a way she hadn’t known she was capable of.

  Her mom had died to directly protect her.

  Too much. It was too much.

  Because, after everything she’d told herself over the years, all the time she’d spent wondering what might have been if she’d only been stronger and all the time and patient care John and Michael had put into convincing her that none of it had been her fault and that there was nothing she could have done differently to save her family, she could finally see it clearly.