Dire (Reaper's Redemption Book 2)

by Thea Atkinson

  I pinned him with my gaze. "You sent it, didn't you?"

  "Me?" he laughed. "It was your mother who let it in. She invited him. He's been waiting for her for decades because she forgot to release him. Poor thing has been coming every night since she left. Imagine how excited he was to find her again."

  That wasn't true. It couldn't be.

  "We would have known," I said. "It would have shown itself before now." I chewed at the inside of my cheek, scrambling for an explanation that made sense. My mother's bedroom. I'd never stayed in it till the night the incubus came.

  Azrael shifted in his jacket. The smell of leather drifted over me. I leaned back on my haunches, studying him.

  "Check her mirror if you don't believe me," he said.

  "You're lying, why would my mother do that?"

  He shrugged. "Your mother was a witch, Ayla, why do witches do anything?"

  A witch. I shouldn't have been surprised, but I was. Enough to goad him.

  "What do you know about my mother?"

  That seemed to throw him. He shoved his hands into his suit pocket.

  His eyes swirled with color again. "I knew her," he said. "But I don't know her anymore. No one does. Whatever she was, she's finished now. Ozriel reaped her."

  I felt like he'd kicked my feet out from beneath me. That maniac in the cathedral. That fallen angel turned supernatural reaper had collected my mother. He was responsible for me ending up in all those foster homes. For all of this.

  "Oh my god," I said. "She knew about you." I got up, reaching out for the arm of the chair to steady myself. "The incubus's presence had nothing to do with my grandfather's wardings or failures at protecting his home. My mother wanted it to fall in love with her. She wanted its protection. From you."

  "You think a mere sex demon can save a witch from the Angel of Death? Please," he said. ""The real question is why did you kill it?"

  That was easy, so easy I couldn't believe he needed to ask.

  "It was a threat."

  He smiled. "No. You wanted his aspect. She invited it here and you knew that. And you used that knowledge. He was weak. How else could you over-powered him so easily unless he had been pining for her all these years?"

  "Not true," I said. "I don't even know what an aspect is."

  "Don't you? How do you explain the glamour you wore to save your necromancer from the doppelgänger? Your sudden irresistible allure to the nephilim?"

  "You're lying."

  He shook his head. "Angels don't lie. You know that. You were a Virtue. Think, Ayla. Why would you ignore me telling you it wasn't time to reap the incubus? I was clear about it and yet you reaped it anyway."

  "I wouldn't," I said, feeling sick because I knew finally, why I'd felt so guilty over killing it.

  "How do you know, Ayla? You opted to come back with no memory. I'll tell you why. You didn't want to know. You wanted to be ruthless. Cosmic consequences. Fate. Whatever drew you to kill it, you completed the task, and we're here now because of it."

  I felt even dirtier knowing I'd used that incubus for some ends I didn't understand.

  Azrael took advantage of my silence by using it to cup his palm around the nape of my neck.

  "Let me have the infant. Let me save you," he said.

  I pushed away from him. I wasn't about to let him bully me. Besides, I had already made my decision.

  I wanted to ram this divine idea of cosmic fate right up his rear end.

  I had known we unleashed Nehkbet. I wanted to use her. If time was really fluid as Azrael said, then I had to trust it. Trust that I knew what I was doing in the future enough to make the right choice now.

  "Ayla?" Azrael said, wary. No doubt he couldn't read my mind anymore, but he sensed something was shifting. I sensed it too. The grey was changing. I was starting to see through it. I thought I could see Callum's eyes, Sarah's face. Hear their voices.

  "Ayla, what are you doing?" He was alarmed. That was clear. He didn't think I was going to make a choice contrary to his will.

  Screw him. There were always choices. When would he realize that?

  "Tell me what you're doing."

  "Choosing," I said.

  The dullness began to shift into the grey of stone and here and there, I could see lights winking in the distance. I could feel Nehkbet's weight on top of me again. Something was pushing its way down my throat, withdrawing, pushing back down again. I could hear voices. Strange chanting in a language I didn't understand. Callum hollering my name.

  I felt Azrael next to me. His hand was on my forehead. I tried to blink up at him. His lips brushed mine. He tasted of fine chocolate and sweet port, both dark and intoxicating.

  "Sorry," he said. "I tried."

  Then he pressed his forehead against mine, and a bright and sizzling jolt went through me. He looked into my eyes, and I could see myself reflected back in the wetness that filmed his. One of them filled with water and overran its boundaries and spilled down his cheek. I felt the tear drop onto my lip.

  "Goodbye, Ayla," he said and then his cane tapped once against the floor.

  In the next instant, I felt rough hands on my arms. Someone was desperate to pull me free of the weight on my chest. Everything tunnelled down to one pinprick and then exploded in a wave of light.

  In one motion, I felt yanked free.

  I stared up. I was still on my back, trying to focus everything in my vision into one image that made sense. There she was. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see the goddess right there beside me, but something was different.

  A face loomed above mine. Callum's.

  "You're alive," he said, his voice breaking.

  I felt like I had the first time I had seen him. Disoriented, weak. But most definitely alive. The relief of it washed over me. Alive. I was ragged and spent, but alive.

  An angry shriek cut through the air around me. Sarah's voice rose with it, insistent. Whatever spell she was weaving, she was struggling to keep it powered. It was holding, but just barely, and the goddess was not happy. Nehkbet, fully bird like, was still in the Shen ring. She was still there, held by Sarah's protective magic. I felt a moment of elation as I realized we had managed what Azrael said we couldn't.

  Azrael. I imagined I saw him standing on the other side of the ring.

  I smelled candy floss and chocolate and something darker, maybe the underbelly of churned soil.

  I scanned the circle just to be sure. I counted out the containers. All four were there. I clutched Callum's arm as I realized something was wrong. The bundle of terrycloth was conspicuously missing from the ring.

  "The baby," I croaked out. "Where is she?"

  I imagined his look of horror mirrored my own in that instant. No doubt my struggle with the goddess had pushed the baby from the circle. Azrael had already realized she was free of the protective ring, and he was coming to claim her.

  I twisted around in Callum's grip and floundered around on the floor, feeling with my hands until my vision cooperated. My fingers met the terrycloth. Whatever relief I felt for having found her, was matched by the panic of knowing she was outside the circle. Vulnerable.

  Soon it would be too late to do anything.

  Azrael's voice rang in my mind. I couldn't neutralize Nehkbet and still keep the child safe. He thought they were two separate things, but what if they were the same? I had to take the chance. I had to. I didn't have time to formulate a better plan. For whatever it was worth, I had to do this now.

  I made a choice and I made it quickly.

  Azrael paused, no more than a shadow so grey against the walls, he could have been just a play of light, but I knew he was waiting to see if I would reap the child. He wanted to give me one more chance. I almost laughed out loud in victory. One moment of hesitation was all I needed.

  "Sarah," I yelled. "Raise her."

  I lifted the infant and held it aloft so she could see it even as Nehkbet shifted into that beautiful woman again. Naked, long legged and curvaceous of brea
st. She was reaching out, trying to grab for me. She wanted to live and she was very nearly there. She needed one of us. She needed me.

  I faced her. I knew her nature. It was in all the searches we had done. It was in Azrael's words, it was in the stamp I had left on the bottom of the last jar. I knew what would happen. I had made the choice already, sometime in the future.

  "Take her," I said. "She needs you. Take her. Live in her and protect her."

  On his side of the circle, Azrael's hands clenched over the top of his cane.

  Nehkbet cocked her head. Those black eyes of hers turned tawny and glazed over for a second as though it was the viscous lid of an eagle flipping over the Iris. She looked confused. It wasn't a baby. Not Really. It was a mummified corpse. The mother of mother's did not feel the urgency of protecting something that was already gone.

  I hollered over my shoulder. "Sarah, raise her. Now."

  As if by some miracle, Sarah seemed to understand what I meant. She began to chant again, but this time different. I thought I heard words I had learned in school. Thoth. Isis. Osiris. Nehkbet cocked her head again the other way. She recognized them too. It was obviously a spell she understood. I held the baby out. It started to twitch in my hands. I thought I could feel the baby moving.

  "Take her," I said again. "There isn't much time. Take her and live in her. Keep her safe."

  The baby started to move, this time squirming more. She was coming to life. Whatever Sarah was doing, she was doing it right.

  I shoved the baby toward Nehkbet. At the last second, she opened her arms like a mother might and she enfolded the child into her chest. She crooned to it.

  Together, they melded into one and as I watched, everything in the room seemed to waver as though I were slipping in and out of reality. When everything stopped moving, there was a squirming bundle in the middle of the Shen ring.

  Nehkbet was gone.

  For a long moment there was silence and then the sound of squalling. Coming from the towel.

  Callum looked at it. "Oh my god, Ayla. What have you done?"

  CHAPTER 20

  Whatever it was I'd done, I knew it was something I couldn't take back. I stared down at the bundle of moving terrycloth and chewed my lip. How could I answer except to say if the infant was alive, I couldn't reap her, and that meant Azrael couldn't collect her. What it meant for future me and that last fare that could decide my eternity, was too much for me to imagine. I'd done the right thing; that's what I told myself. Whatever the results of pleading with Nehkbet to take the baby, whatever consequences I might have to endure, it would be worth it. It had to be.

  A child was innocent, no matter what it was. The last time we looked at the tiny thing, she had stubby wings on the back and was so small, it looked like she might have been underdeveloped. How could that tiny thing have done anything to deserve what awaited her?

  Whether the living, breathing and moving thing that had somehow merged with the Egyptian goddess was now even human, I couldn't have said. I just knew that she was now out of Azrael's reach and that was enough for me.

  Even so, I couldn't bear to look at the tiny thing as it lay on the cement floor. It was squirming in the blankets and mewling like a kitten. Without thinking, I stepped several feet backward. Now that I had managed to keep her from Azrael, I wasn't sure what to do. Sarah edged closer and stared down at the moving bundle, but I noted that she didn't pick it up either.

  The sound coming from the blanket grew louder. Stronger. The infant was insistent she be picked up. I watched Callum's fists clench and unclench next to his legs. He knew we are all thinking the same thing. What if the result of the melding wasn't human. What if it was some sort of half bird half baby sort of thing. I thought of all the hieroglyphs and pictures I'd seen of Egyptian art over the years and squeezed my eyes closed against the image of seeing that baby with a hooked beak and talons for fingers. It put me in mind of Dr. Moreau and I stepped backwards again.

  It was Callum who gave in first. He approached cautiously, kneeling down on one knee and slipping his hands beneath the blanket, one obviously next to the head and the other around the bottom. He pulled her close against his chest and stood, spinning to face me as he did so.

  "Moment of truth," he said, meeting my gaze. I nodded.

  When he peeled back the blanket to expose the little face, he gasped. That couldn't be good. I felt my nails digging into my palms. Then he looked up at me again and smiled.

  "She's beautiful," he said.

  As relieved as I might have been, I still didn't want to go near it. Not yet. I had a hard time believing things would be alright. I couldn't be that lucky.

  "Check everything," I said, anxiety making my throat tight. "The toes. The fingers."

  "All there, perfect." He lifted the flaps of the blanket and then wrapping them back up again. "She's perfect."

  He almost looked like a new father and my heart squeezed watching him.

  Sarah took a deep breath along with me then reached for the baby. She held it against her bosom and peeled open the blanket enough she could burrow her nose into its neck. She was crooning to it before I had even made it to the door.

  "Where are you going?" Callum asked. I looked back at him over my shoulder.

  "Home," I said. I couldn't face anymore. I was weary to the bone. Every part of me felt squeezed out like a lemon and I knew that if I stayed one moment more, I would start to question what I had done, and I didn't want to do that. I wanted to keep that feeling of having done the right thing.

  "You can't leave without us," Sarah said. "We need to figure out what to do with her."

  For some reason, I needed air. Everything felt too closed in.

  "Do whatever you want," I said.

  Sarah advanced on me. "Oh no you don't. We're all in this together." She ran her fingers across the baby's cheek. "Every last one of us."

  "I can't," I said, stumbling away.

  I found the door somehow with tears blurring my vision. My hands worked over the handle, trying to find the latch. When I did, I managed to push it open and stumble into the tunnel. I shoved the door closed, and leaned against it. My breath was coming in heavy gasps. It didn't make any sense why I was so upset, but I had to get out of there. I was relieved she was normal-looking, and I was relieved she was alright, but I still couldn't bring myself to look at her. My core ached with a chill, and I felt as though Azrael was whispering behind my back, saying goodbye over and over again.

  I was halfway down the tunnel, stumbling along blindly with my hands along the walls as I headed for the exit. I could see the outside door yawning open. Good. A few more steps and I could be out of there. I could stumble into the light and pretend all of this was nothing but a regular day.

  It was then that I realized there was a different car in the parking lot. I thought I could make out a blond head examining Callum's GTI. There was something familiar about that mop of hair. Something that made me feel tremendously guilty and nervous all at once.

  I was clinging to the side of the exit, trying to decide whether I should slip out or run back when he looked up. I ducked to the side. He'd seen me, I was sure of it. If he followed me in here, he would see the mess we'd made in the crypt. He'd see all of the things Sarah had done to initiate the spell.

  I spun on my heel and tore down the tunnel, calling to Sarah as I went. When I pushed open the door to the crypt, they were already clearing up. Nearly half of the area had been cleared away and all that was left that gave any indication of the things we had been doing was the wide open cooler with the plastic bags bags sticking out of the top. And the baby. She was crying now. Long wailing sounds that made something in my stomach clench.

  "Can't you quiet her?" I said.

  Sarah put her hand on her hip and faced me. "You have any ideas?"

  "She's hungry," Callum said and lifted the baby from Sarah's arms. "That that's wrong with her." He looked down at the little thing with a compassionate eye.

  "
But we don't have time for that," I said. "Someone's coming."

  That set a bee in their bonnets. They flew around the inside of the crypt, gathering up discarded items. Sarah bent over to scoop up a small fluffy yellow thing and put it into the cooler. A baby chick, I thought. While my stomach had been clenching before, it out right gurgled then. I didn't want to think about the things she had to do to initiate her spell.

  All for the greater good, I told myself. Whatever it was, it had to be for the greater good.

  As luck would have it, Callum had the cooler in his hand and the room looked fairly undisturbed when the guy from outside strode through the door, pushing it open with a squeal of rusted hinges.

  He swung his head this way and that, taking in the entire room.

  "What the heck is going on here?" he said.

  He stepped fully inside and ran his hand down along the wall as though he were checking for dust. When he looked at his fingers and rubbed them together, I had the urge to laugh at him.

  Sarah was the one who spoke up, thank heaven. I couldn't have put together an excuse as fast as she did. No doubt she had practice lying on the spot after years of being on the run.

  "We were having a picnic," she said. She looked at Callum who raised the cooler up to chest height as though it were proof of her statement.

  "Strange place for a picnic," the blond said.

  At first, his eyes were on the cooler, but then he swivelled his gaze to me.

  "I know you," he said.

  He did. Sort of. I certainly recognized him. He looked much better than he had the last time I'd seen him. There was no blood on his face, and I was relieved to see he didn't limp from being struck by my scooter. He was handsome enough for man in his late 20s.

  I shuffled sideways, preferring not to let him get a good look at me when I had just faced down the Angel of Death. I imagined I looked about as good as I felt. And I felt pretty ragged. If the guy was coming to collect Sarah and perform some awful rite of necromancy, I didn't think I'd have it in me to do much more than whimper.