Shadow Reaper

by Debbie Cassidy

  ASH

  After my shift, I left Viola to put the final touches on the Oath Renewal meal. I was making my way back down the corridor toward the blue door when I heard the voices.

  “—the human shown any signs?”

  “Nothing so far.”

  I stopped and pressed myself to the wall, holding my breath.

  I recognised those voices—Avery and Cal. They were in the medical room, and the door must have been ajar because I could hear them clearly.

  “Keep her out of sight, Cal. We have no idea what she is, or what the others may pick up. Once the full moon is over and Daemon is sated, we’ll figure it out.”

  “Do you honestly think she could be the answer?” Cal said.

  “I don’t know, she’s an anomaly and she may be worthless to us, in which case she can go on her fool’s quest and get herself killed for all I care. But until I’m certain of that, she stays here and you will keep an eye on her.”

  “As you wish.”

  I sensed movement and glanced wildly about for a hiding spot. I leapt at the door opposite and tried the handle.

  Locked.

  Obviously!

  Stupid, stupid, of course there was no hiding spot. It was a narrow corridor with locked doors. There was only one option.

  I squared my shoulders and continued down the corridor just as Avery emerged from the medical room.

  He blinked down in surprise at me, his eyes narrowing.

  “Hi!” I said brightly. “Kitchen duty.” I jerked my thumb in the direction of the kitchen door.

  “So I gather.” His gaze strayed to the blue door then back to me. “It’s busy out there. You can take the back stairs.”

  He moved past, brushing up against me, his scent heavy in my nostrils as he reached for the locked door I’d just tried. It opened for him and he stepped aside, waiting for me to enter.

  I can’t say I wasn’t a little wary, but I’d heard what he’d said to Cal, and I was pretty certain he was talking about me. I didn’t think he’d hurt me . . . not yet anyway, so I stepped through the door into a dim stairwell.

  “Take the stairs to the second floor and remain there. I believe your shift is over.”

  I met his eyes and inclined my head. Speech was difficult in such close proximity. He was so perfect. His skin was flawless, his features a blend of soft curves and harsh lines and that hair, I imagined, was as golden as they said the sun once was.

  A bubble expanded in my chest, a tugging sensation in the pit of my belly. My hand lifted as if of its own volition, and I reached for a lock of that hair, caressing it before letting it slip through my fingers.

  His sapphire eyes lit up in a slow burn, raking over my face and settling on my lips. Was he attracted to me? Could I use that to my advantage? A wave of empowerment washed over me at the possibility and then those luscious lips curled in amusement.

  “Get going, little human. If I decide to play, you’ll be the first to know.” He stepped back and closed the door, leaving me in the dark stairway with a thundering heart.

  ***

  I couldn’t believe I’d contemplated seducing one of them. Crazy stupid bitch! They didn’t play by the same rules. There was nothing human about them except the way some of them looked. Buried beneath those azure eyes was nothing but darkness. They didn’t care about humans. They fed us and clothed us because we provided a service. In my case, they were intrigued. I’m not entirely sure why, but it worked in my favour. It gave me an edge for now. But if the conversation I’d heard between Cal and Avery was anything to go by, my time would end in two days. They would come to some decision and then . . . I didn’t want to think what would happen if I turned out to be a dud. I just wished I knew what they thought they could get from me. Could it be something to do with the Shadows and how I’d made them release Bernie? I wish I had more answers. Everything was so uncertain. The only thing I had to hold on to was my new plan to get to Daemon and then to Bernadette.

  I didn’t stop to think what would happen if Daemon told me to piss off, because if I did that I’d be taking away the only focus I had that was keeping me grounded.

  Bernadette could be dead.

  She could be alive.

  You could get killed.

  I may not.

  Fine, I’ll shut up.

  Yeah, you do that. I hated that inner voice. It was Clay’s voice—always his voice of reason ringing inside my head.

  I locked myself in my room while I paced, trying to figure out how I was going to execute the first stage of my plan. I took the shaker out of my pocket where I’d stashed it, and turned it over in my hands. I needed to get one of Daemon’s girls to consume it, but staff meals were taken in the lounge, and it was stocked up for everyone to cook their own food. Freya had brought me that broth from Viola the first day, but I was pretty sure that was a one off.

  How was I going to get this spice into one of the girls’ meals? What if they tasted what was in there? I had no idea how to disguise it.

  Fuck!

  I threw myself onto my bed and stared at the ceiling in annoyance.

  So close, yet so far.

  A tap at the door had me quickly stashing the shaker under my pillow. I sat up and called out, “Come in.”

  The door opened and Freya slipped in, closed the door behind her and leaned against it, sliding down until she was sitting on the floor.

  I was up and ready to cross the room when she waved me back, shaking her head. “I’m fine, sit.”

  “Really? Then what’re you doing on the floor?”

  “It’s called drama, hun. I like to throw some in now and then.”

  I chuckled and sat back down. “Busy day on the door?”

  “You could say that, but you’d be wrong. It’s been dead, no visitors at all. Well, except the bleedin’ Shadows. They’ve been circling over the ward like hungry vultures all day, swooping down and battering against it. Each time they do it, even though I know I’m safe, I duck.” She laughed dryly. “My nerves are shot. Look!” She held out her hand. “See? Check out the tremble.”

  I leaned in, squinting to get a better look. Sure enough, her hands were trembling slightly.

  “Do they do that often? I mean, it’s not normal, right?”

  “Nothing about this place is normal, Ash, but yeah, you’re right. They don’t usually bother us. They know they can’t get in, but the kind of power the Ambassadors bring is too alluring for the Shadows. They’re desperate to get close, to feed.”

  “On the Ambassadors?”

  “On the power the Ambassadors carry, yeah.”

  “In that case, I’m surprised the Ambassadors managed to get here without being attacked.”

  “They have their own wards when travelling—powerful magic of some kind or other. Not sure how it works, but I saw one come in last night, beautiful woman, a Succubus I think. At first, I thought she was a Shadow, but she passed right through the wards, and I almost shat myself. Then she dropped the black smoke and stepped out all smuglike and gorgeous.”

  Succubus . . . Caroline? I’d seen her at the bar yesterday. Was she an Ambassador? Was that why Avery had been so eager to please her?

  Freya picked herself up off the floor and joined me on the bed. Drama was over, I guess. Her blue hair had escaped from its ponytail and she tucked it behind her ears and looked down at me with her winking piercings.

  “Did they hurt?” I asked. “You got them done here, didn’t you?”

  “A little, and yes. Can you imagine trying to pierce back home? I’d be dead of infection in a week.”

  I smiled. “So who did them for you?” Was that a slight blush creeping up her neck?

  “Um, Cal. He knows what he’s doing.”

  I grinned. “Oh, really.”

  Her eyes widened. “No! Nothing like that! I just . . . I asked and he said yes.”

  “’Cos he’s got nothing better to do then to pierce humans, right?”

  That flush again. There was de
finitely something going on there, but I knew better than to push it, but seriously, I’d like to know how that would work, man of stone and all that.

  “Anyway, what about you?” Freya asked. “I heard you had kitchen duty. What do you think of Viola? A peach, isn’t she?”

  I nodded, my mind straying to the shaker under my pillow. Could I trust Freya? Shit, she could help, I knew she could.

  Fuck it.

  I reached under the pillow and pulled out the shaker.

  Freya stared at it in confusion. “What’s that?”

  I turned it over in my hands. “This, my dear Freya, could be my ticket to Bernadette. But I’m going to need your help.”

  Freya met my eyes, her own narrowing a fraction. “You’re going to try something crazy, aren’t you?”

  “How’d you guess?”

  “You have a crazy glint in your eyes. I knew you were a kindred spirit when I saw you sprinting your arse off toward the wards the other night.”

  “So you’ll help me?”

  “What do you need me to do?”

  ***

  Pacing is exhausting, but I couldn’t stop. As I waited for Freya to return, I wore a little groove into the pile of the carpet in my room.

  Oh, Mother, what if she’d been caught?

  I was just about to go searching for her when she slipped into my room with wild eyes and flushed cheeks.

  I stared at her and she nodded.

  “Yes!” I did a little booty dance around my room and didn’t stop even when she burst into giggles.

  “You’re evil, you know that?” she said.

  I stopped dancing and fell back onto my bed. “She’ll be fine. It’s just the bum runs after all.”

  Freya sat down next to me. “Actually, it’s a little more than that. I wanted to get one of the newer girls, but I couldn’t. I had to dose Gina. She’s been doing this the longest.”

  I propped myself up on my elbows. “So?”

  “Well, they say the longer you’re one of Daemon’s girls, the more addicted you get. So Gina . . . she may suffer some withdrawal symptoms if she misses her session with him.”

  Oh . . . shit. I can’t say I didn’t feel a little bad for her, but if it came down to a choice between some chick I’d never met and one of my closest friends, then there was no contest.

  Freya was watching me carefully, and I met her gaze with a level one of my own. “I’m sorry for her, I really am, but it won’t kill her, will it? Bernadette could die if I don’t save her.”

  Freya opened and closed her mouth a couple of times. I knew what she was thinking, and I knew she was unsure how to say it, so I said it for her.

  “I know Bernadette could already be dead, or I could die trying to save her, or I could get there and fail, or never get there, who knows, but I have to try. I have to hope, Freya. Hope is what makes us who we are . . . human.”

  Freya dropped her gaze and smiled. “I’m glad I met you, Ash. No matter what happens in the next day or so, I’m glad we met.”

  “Me too.”

  ***

  Gina was down. Freya delivered the news to me before her shift the next day. Dehydrated and weak, she’d been confined to her quarters under quarantine. Shadowlanders didn’t get sick and human weakness such as this made them uncomfortable. Plus, they were super aware of the possibility of the spread of infection. Cal was trained in both human medicine and Shadowlander apothecary.

  “Remus will go mad when he finds out,” Freya said

  “Where’s he gone?” I asked

  Freya shrugged. “He comes and goes as he pleases. He’s a Lepre, and Lepres are loners, very paranoid, and extremely suspicious. He doesn’t give anything away, not even a thank you. I heard that he won’t accept help from anyone, for anything, because once he does, it’s like a weight on his shoulders that he won’t shift until he returns the favour.”

  “Which realm is he from?”

  “Enchansa. He and Cal are Avery’s men, or that’s what they say.”

  “You seem to know an awful lot about all this.”

  She blushed again and the word ‘pillow talk’ popped in to my head. Her and Cal?

  She cleared her throat. “I have to go, but I’ll see you later . . . or not, if you manage to pull this off. Good luck!”

  She left me to figure out the next stage of my plan. In my haste to get the spot as one of Daemon’s girls, I’d neglected to consider the possibility that, number one, there were several other girls here who would probably love to claim the spot and, number two, they were probably more qualified; big tits and all that. And, number three, I had another shift in the kitchens, which meant I’d be locked away with no chance of spotting Remus, the guy I needed to convince.

  Fuck!

  Now, the way I saw it, I had two choices: I could skulk about, hovering at the bar before my shift in the hope of catching Remus, or I could go find him and demand he put me in Gina’s spot. But why would he give me the spot over the others? Damn it! I had no leverage, nothing to offer.

  Or did I?

  ***

  Turned out I had to do some hovering after all. Apocalypse was huge, and almost every door in the place was locked. It seemed that only the doors I needed to go in ever opened. I couldn’t help but think there was magic involved.

  So I hovered at the bar.

  It was quiet tonight, almost dead. Freya hadn’t been joking when she’d mentioned how few customers were coming in. Were the Ambassadors gone yet? I knew Freya was at the door. Maybe I’d go chat with her to kill time. I had half an hour left before my shift started, so, yeah, I’d go chat to her. I headed for the door and had my hand on the doorknob when a weight fell on my shoulder.

  I jumped, whirled, and yelped at the stony expression on Cal’s face.

  “Going somewhere, little human?”

  “Um, yeah, I was going to talk to Freya?” Now why did that come out as a question?

  “No you’re not.”

  Heat flared in my chest. “Why not?”

  “Because you have orders not to leave,”

  I felt my eyes get hot. “Orders? Who the fuck gives you rights to give me orders? If I want to walk out that door and leave, then I will. You can’t stop me.”

  He looked off to the side for a long moment, looking for all intents and purposes like a statue dressed in whatever material his clothes were made of.

  My anger died down a little, and I was hit by a wave of shame. He was only following his orders after all. If what Freya said was true, then he was an employee just like me, albeit not as reluctantly as me, and then I reminded myself I really needed to be here, at least for a little while longer, at least until I got to Daemon.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I wasn’t running off. I really did just want to speak to Freya.”

  He turned his head to fix his eyes on me. “You can wait at the bar until your shift.”

  With one last longing look at the door, I headed back to the bar. The next fifteen minutes passed while I sulked as Henry continued to avoid me. I had no idea why he was being so weird toward me. I was just about to grab the bull by the horns and ask him when Julie appeared.

  “Hey, Ash.” She leaned in and hugged me. It felt so nice. I squeezed her back.

  “You on the bar today?” I asked.

  “Yep. Henry is so much fun!” My lips turned down and she cocked her head. “Really? You don’t like him?”

  “No, I think it’s the other way round, actually.”

  “No, Henry gets on with everyone.”

  “Yeah, and he was getting on great with me too until I messed up and almost let a Succubus touch me. Thank goodness Avery came along in time and stopped her.”

  Julie’s expression morphed into one that said she knew something.

  “What?”

  “Avery saved you?”

  “Well, um . . . he told her, Caroline, not to touch me and something about how he valued his staff.”

  “Yep, I can see why Henry might be up
set, but it’s not you, it’s Avery. You see, about six months ago, a girl called Vanessa worked here at the bar. Henry and Vanessa grew close, but there’s no fraternising between human staff. They don’t want any little humans wandering about, you see. Anyway, Vanessa was at the bar one night and came across an Incubus, that’s a male version of a Succubus.”

  “So what happened?”

  “The Incubus took a liking to Vanessa and Avery let him have her. Apparently he was a favoured customer. Politics, that kind of thing.”

  I stared at her in shock. “What do you mean he let him have her?”

  Julie sighed. “You know how Incubi feed, right?”

  Sex. Oh, shit!

  “But that’s . . . that’s horrible.”

  Julie shrugged. “She’d enjoy it, Incubi feed off the pleasure their partners experience from sex, so yeah, he’d make sure she enjoyed it.”

  “But it wouldn’t be real, it wasn’t her choice!”

  “Exactly, and Henry . . . Henry took it hard, so don’t be too mad at him. To see Avery step in and save you when he threw Vanessa to the dogs, it can’t be easy.”

  “Did the Incubus take her with him?”

  “No. By the time he was done, there was nothing to take. Vanessa was gone.”

  He must have drained her completely. My heart ached for Henry. “Do they do this often? The Shadowlanders? Do they give humans away?”

  “It happens if it suits them. This place is good, better than we could ever hope for out there, but you have to remember, we’re nothing but cattle to them, pets to be used as they please.” She narrowed her eyes. “Which makes me wonder what it is they want from you?”

  “I wish I knew.”

  A door slammed, and I glanced over my shoulder to see Remus come barrelling in, his tiny, wrinkled face an unhealthy red, which, set off against his orange hair, was not a pleasant sight.

  I was off my stool and striding toward him before I’d formulated what I was going to say. I stepped right into his path and he came to an abrupt halt and stared up at me, hands on hips.

  His bushy brows rose. “What?”

  I licked my lips and dove in. “I want to take Gina’s place.”