Dire (Reaper's Redemption Book 2)

by Thea Atkinson

  The two vessels in question squatted next to each other on the carpet like toads waiting for someone to manhandle them. The parchment was in front of Sarah, lying at her feet next to the empty plate of pie. She was browsing it with an industriousness that told me she didn't want to look at the bundle of terrycloth at all. None of us did.

  The baby was wrapped in a towel and placed several feet away from everything else. I noted that Gramp had laid it with some care so that its feet were facing east.

  "I guess it is some sort of resurrection thing," I said, trying not to sound discouraged. It certainly seemed plausible now with an actual humanoid thing all but mummified in an earthen vessel, buried in our back yard as though it was the plains of Giza or something.

  I had handled the paper long enough as I'd carried it up the stairs to know it had the feel of waxiness. Someone had obviously painted beeswax over it to keep it safe from moisture. So whoever had it been knew they were going to plant it into the ground and knew that dampness might be a problem. They hadn't wanted it to deteriorate. The added protection of a pottery jug with a seal made it even more secure. The person had wanted it to stay buried--at least for a while.

  "Can you read it?" I asked Sarah.

  "I told you ten times already, yes. But I need time. Egyptian necromancy isn't exactly simple."

  She lifted a delicate shoulder and her T-shirt slipped down at the collar. I could see the sun kisses she had ended up with after a long afternoon of tanning on the roof of the foster home. I felt a longing for those days right then.

  "So it is Egyptian. And it is to raise the dead." My lower belly churned uncomfortably.

  She gave me a long look and turned the spell to face me. Evidently, she thought the hieroglyphs and parchment spoke for themselves regarding their nature.

  "Okay," I said. "Okay. Just checking."

  She lifted the parchment with both hands and inspected it more closely. I watched as her eyes ran the length of the paper.

  "Pretty sure it's from the Book of the Dead. It has that sort of feel. Maybe it's a protection spell. That would follow with the logic of everything else." She lifted her gaze to mine from beneath her bangs. "Or it's a spell to send that little thing flitting about the room like a drunken hummingbird," she said pointedly.

  If she thought that was funny, I didn't enjoy the humour

  "Don't tease me," I said.

  "Or maybe our little one is really Cupid," she said, her eyes trailing to Callum's face.

  I growled at her. "Not funny, Sarah."

  "And not the time for jokes." Callum crossed one ankle over his knee same time as he crossed his arms over his chest. Oh the dear, pragmatic fireman. He wasn't enjoying any of this.

  "Come on," she said. "Think about it. The death of love." She rolled her eyes to the ceiling with a sense of histrionics and then levelled me with that blue gaze of hers that said she was only half joking. She knew what she was doing, and it wasn't just to tease us.

  "None of this is pleasant," she said. "I know that. But I can't have you all thinking I'm about to raise some zombie baby to do my bidding." She looked at me pointedly.

  "Protection," Gramp said from his chair, gaining everyone's attention. He waited until all eyes were on him before he spoke again.

  "That stone was jasper," he said. "I recognize it." He reached down to his ankles and pushed his red wool socks from his feet. He shook the material free and then stretched his toes. The blue veins in the arches bulged and let go. Everything about that movement looked weary.

  "I've been an earth druid since I can remember," he said. "I know jasper when I see it."

  "Makes sense," Sarah said. "The Egyptians used the stone a lot in burials. They had some of the most potent magic in the world. Even their writing was said to contain power."

  "Egyptian or not," he said. "Jasper is all about protection."

  "Trust a druid to know his rocks," Sarah said with a smile.

  "My guess is that someone put it there with that baby to protect it," he said.

  Sarah shook her head but she didn't look at him unkindly.

  "I don't think so," she said very gently as though she was consoling a grieving loved one. "There's no need to protect the dead, only the living."

  "Maybe it's protecting something else," Callum suggested. "The family, for instance."

  Gramp shook his head. "It didn't protect Rowan," he said softly and I knew by the use of my mother's name how badly this was all affecting him.

  My gaze trailed over the walls to the pictures that hung there, a record of my family's history. The curio cabinet still held a photo of my mom as a kid smiling out at the camera. Two front teeth were missing from her smile but it was a broad and happy one. Years later, as she aged, the pictures remained just as happy and content until her teen years. I realized something as I looked at the picture of her at about sixteen. She was staring out at the camera in a candid moment. My grandfather had framed the picture because he loved it so much. He'd always said she looked thoughtful and pensive. A grown woman in a young girl's skin. But looking at it, I realized there was something deeper beneath her expression. She looked haunted.

  "They looked like wings," I said, remembering the infant's body. "Don't you guys think so?"

  "The thing that attacked me and Ayla had wings," Callum murmured.

  "Most definitely," I muttered. Just thinking about those wings made me shudder. I didn't want to bring them to mind again. I couldn't imagine slipping beneath the covers one more night while that thing believed it had free reign of my bedroom.

  Gramp sighed heavily and turned away from the bundled towel. His mouth pressed into a thin line.

  "Folks around here don't talk about the strange things that go on in Dyre. They turn a blind eye or a deaf ear to them, or they smother it all into the dark places of their minds and ignore it. I protected my property with all of the natural elements available to me for years. If that burial cache was out there when you were attacked, Ayla, then it doesn't take a sorcerer or a reaper to figure out both are connected somehow."

  "So if it's not protection, it's resurrection," Sarah mused. She waved her hand toward the towel. "Do you know any necromancers in your neck of the woods?"

  "Just your ancestor and you," Callum said and she glowered at him. He shrugged as though to say it was true, and her lip disappeared behind those pretty white teeth of hers.

  "I hate to say this," she said. "But I think I have to translate the spell."

  I knew she was right, but the thought of it made me nervous.

  Gramp crossed his arms over his chest. "And I think we have to make sure there are no other surprises in the yard," he said.

  Sarah nodded. "The final ingredient you might say," she said. "Canopic jars always came in fours."

  They exchanged looks that might have meant something to magical folks but it had both Callum and I digging our toes into the carpet self-consciously. I wasn't about to pretend I knew what passed between them or even that I wanted to know. My few short glimpses into their world was already disconcerting enough without adding the notion of exhuming an entire yard of dirt in one night.

  "You both can go out there and dig if you want to," I said. "I'm going to make up a bed on the sofa. There's no way I'm sleeping in that room again tonight."

  Gramp gave Callum a meaningful look and he jumped to follow me up the stairs.

  "A little room," I said, eyeing the way he tagged my heels. "Nothing's going to jump out at me in one trip to my bedroom." I pointed to the pile of throw pillows on the end of the bed and waited for him to gather an armful.

  "I think Gramp's original idea was the right one," I said. "We get that thing to come to us and we nail it."

  He didn't cock his head at me so much as blow out right disdain through his lips.

  "I've been trying to get you to face me out in the backyard, and see what that's got you."

  "That's different," I said. I gripped a pillow close to my chest, my hand running over
the silk.

  He stopped mid-collection and stared at me dumbfounded. "Different? The girl who runs off in panic-stricken terror if I so much as say boo?"

  I planted one hand on my hip. "I killed that doppelgänger, didn't I? I even killed that maniac in the church." I supposed it didn't matter that both of those executions had been accidental happenstance, so long as they were dead. "I'm a reaper, remember?"

  He threw the pillows onto the bed and spun to face me. I fully expected him to lose his cool, but there wasn't one line of anger in his face. I wondered how he did that, kept such cold detachment when I knew he was furious.

  "You killed the maniac out of self-defense," he said quietly. "You're not the same now."

  I sucked the back of my teeth, defiant. "How would you know what I was like before?"

  I started to cross my arms over my chest, but he reached out and snagged my fingers with his. That tingle of connection ran through my fingertips up past my elbow and I felt a moment of dizziness as it overcame me.

  In one fluid motion, he stepped backward and sat on the edge of my bed, pulling me there onto it with him.

  "Post-traumatic stress," he said. "A lot of people suffer from it after an awful situation like that and don't even know it."

  His voice was soothing, infuriatingly so. How could he know what I was suffering? What made him think I was any different now than I was before? He hadn't known the person I was before Azrael had turned me. All he knew of me before was the tortured teenager who didn't fit in and who set fires now and then to teach the neighbourhood nasties a lesson or two.

  "You have no idea," I muttered. "You with your gorgeous face and hot physique and teams of people fawning over you because you're so darn nice." I hadn't meant for it to sound so bitter, but there it was. Laid out in all its sour glory. "It's disgusting," I tacked on for good measure.

  I expected him to storm from the room, burned by the insult. He should have. Instead, he put his arm around me with his palm cupping the opposite ear. I was able to resist for all of three seconds before my cheek fell to his chest. That wonderful smell of soap and pheromones wrapped around me, but I still tried to struggle my way out of his grip.

  "You can't push me away, Ayla," he said. "No matter how hard you try."

  "You'll run if you know what's good for you," I muttered and managed to blink back the burn in my eyelids.

  His chuckle was a low and throaty thing. "That's your department. I don't run."

  I knew he was trying to joke about our training in the backyard and I appreciated the change of subject. I wasn't comfortable crying in front of anyone, and I would be mortified if it had to be him over something truly ridiculous as my failed training attempts. I thought I could hear his heart thumping in my ear, and I snuggled closer to test for the rhythm. I wondered if I was very still, would I be able to make both of our hearts beat at the same rate.

  "I'm not a coward," I said.

  "I know."

  "It's hard not to run when something's chasing you."

  "I know," he said. "That's exactly why I was starting with that. It's very difficult to fight that primitive instinct, but I think you were making progress."

  "Liar," I said.

  He chuckled. "See? Not so perfect after all."

  He gave me a quick squeeze much the way a parent might a child and I felt a new kind of sadness wash over me. I pulled away before he could push me away. I was on my feet, facing the posters on the wall until my eyelids stopped feeling as though sand was scraping across them every time I blinked.

  "We better get back," I said and swiped at my cheeks. There was fluid there, I realized, and I was glad I had thought to wipe it away before I turned around.

  "I'm not so nice, you know," he said from behind me. He was close, I realized. Snuck up behind me somehow while I was sniffling against the wall.

  I peeked sideways at him, wary of why he might be so close I could feel his breath on my shoulder. He caught me looking and those green eyes held mine for a long moment before he spoke again.

  "That shame of mine your grandfather speaks of," he started and then trailed off, his fingers reaching for mine again. That electric buzz jolted up to my elbow but it felt good. I wanted to feel how it lingered beneath my collarbone, sneaking its way to my throat.

  "Yes?" I had to be careful. I didn't want to look too interested. I couldn't risk him knowing how badly I wanted to know everything about him.

  "Back in high school," he said. "I came looking for pot. I figured he was holding. When he turned me away right on his doorstep in front of all of my friends, I didn't take it so well."

  I turned fully around, arms crossed, trying not to snicker at his childhood humiliation.

  "That's it," I said. "You wanted a little bit of smoke?" I waved my hand in front of my face as though I couldn't stop laughing. "Please."

  "That's not the worst part," he said. "I trashed his garden."

  "Blasphemy," I said. This time I meant it. I thought my grandfather could certainly forgive him for thinking he might be some old hippie peddler, but his garden was everything to him.

  "He called my parents." He hung his head. "I was too angry for a couple of weeks to even bother apologizing like they demanded, but eventually I wrote him a letter and slipped it under his door."

  "Horrible," I said. "You're an incorrigible human being."

  He gave me a half grin that indicated he realized I was teasing. I couldn't admit how relieved I was to know he got it.

  "Teen angst gets us all, Ayla," he said. "It's what growing up is all about."

  That again. I had imagined we were finally passed the issue of my age. It bothered me so much, I struggled out of his grasp.

  "I'm not a kid," I protested.

  Something in his demeanour changed and I wasn't sure what to make of the way his gaze dropped to the pulse in my throat.

  "I know you think that," he said.

  It looked like he was having a hard time pulling his gaze back to my face. I imagined he didn't want me to see the patronizing gleam in his eyes. I thought I would save him the trouble and pushed him sideways so that I could head for the bed.

  "This should be enough pillows," I said, collecting an armful and making a beeline for the door. He snagged my elbow on the way by and spun me to face him. His eyes bore into mine in a way that pinned me to my spot.

  "You want me, Ayla," he said.

  The raspiness in his voice sounded like smoke and char and something sweeter than that. Honey, I thought. I almost protested, but he pulled me closer, tight enough, I could feel his thighs against mine.

  "You want me, but you aren't sure what that means, and that's what makes you a kid still, no matter how old or how beautiful you look."

  His fingers brushed the crest of my cheek. "But it's alright," he whispered. "I understand. That's the way it should be." His smile wavered as though he was both sad and resolute. He released me, his fingers trailing across my forearms.

  He tapped the door frame twice before he turned to lope down the hall. I heard him thundering down the stairs.

  I stood there stunned. Beautiful. He'd called me beautiful. None of the other things mattered: not the fact that he still thought I was a kid, not the fact that he seemed to think me naïve. All that registered was that one word, and I hugged it to me like I did the pillow in my hands, running my mind over it the way my fingers did the silk. My ears were buzzing with the shock of it.

  I was still in a daze when I turned around to check and see if I needed anything more. He had left without a blanket or pillow, and I thought I could carry one more thing.

  That was when I realized that my ears were buzzing from the shock of it all.

  There, standing with its head cocked as it looked at me was the incubus again.

  CHAPTER 12:

  It chose its androgynous form, and for some reason that infuriated me. At least, for one whole heartbeat. Then the fury drained from me, leaking out as though I was a tap that had been left
on too long. Water flooded my mouth; I kept licking my lips.

  Longing, I thought. That's what this was. Everything went flushed and warm and I felt myself taking steps toward it in a halting, almost drugged way. In some small part of my mind, I tried to remember what its real face looked like. I tried to remember what it felt like. There was something about feathers and leather, but I couldn't seize on the actual images.

  The pain in my rib where the Ozriel's death had branded me, burned as though a hot poker had stuck itself straight into the middle, yet it felt good, a ripple of deep pleasure that made me shiver in relief rather than pain.

  "You're back," I murmured to it and even as I heard my own voice, I remembered there was something else about this creature. Something I should be afraid of, something terrifying and painful. My scalp itched, no doubt my mind trying to work out what kind of reaction I was supposed to be feeling instead of this hazy desire. Didn't matter. All I wanted was to get closer to the creature, feed the craving.

  The incubus's black, pupil-less gaze pinned itself to my mouth as though it knew I wanted to feel its fingers on my lips. I was alone with it; nothing else existed in the room except it and me. My fingers lifted to the air in front of me, arching forward, reaching for it.

  "Rowan," it murmured with a voice that had all the rasp of dry leaves on stone and a lilt that seemed both pleading and bereft, as though it had been wanting to speak the word for decades and couldn't remember the way to form the syllables.

  I felt a clenching, almost incapacitating grief beneath the longing of its voice. I needed to help it. Hold it. Let it have me as a means to fill that loss.

  "My Rowan," the incubus said again in its rasping voice. It was a foot away from me, if anything. Close enough to reach out and grab me.