Rise (Reaper's Redemption Book 3)

by Thea Atkinson

  "I'll be okay," is what I said and his jaw clenched.

  "You didn't answer me, Ayla," he said. "What is it that you're going to do?"

  "Nothing much," I admitted. "Just pretend to weave a spell that will bring a dead nun back to life." I pulled from my messenger bag the knife that I had used to euthanize Warren. "And then I'm going to make that bastard pay."

  I could see him squirming in his seat. No doubt he hadn't had a chance to get used to all of the cold and calculated things that I would have to do as a Nathelium. Heck. I wasn't used to it. But I was willing to bet that if Rory had been siphoning fairies for generations that he wasn't exactly on anyone's books as being officially a registered living human being. No doubt it was why he had disappeared from hospital so quickly when I had accidentally run him down.

  The journey was much faster in the car, and in no time we were parked alongside the Cathedral. I stared at it through my window, noting that it still looked scorched and derelict.

  My scooter had been abandoned on its side at the very perimeter of the parking lot where it turned to grass. So she had ridden as far as she could and pretty much jumped off. I worried we were too late already.

  "Are you ready?" Callum said, touching me lightly on the arm. For a second, his finger trailed along down my forearm in an almost sensual way, but then he snatched it away as though he realized how inappropriate it was. He jammed his hand in his jeans pocket, where it worked itself into a ball.

  "I don't think I'll ever be ready for all of these things," I said, noticing that his gaze was pinned to the pulse in my throat. I felt both sorry for him in that instant and sorry for myself. I knew he was struggling with his attraction to me and I knew that it was a nothing more than compulsion.

  I grabbed for my messenger bag and slung it over my shoulder.

  I pulled in a bracing breath and flung my door open. I concentrated very hard as I stepped outside to think of Sarah and how she would look. I imagined her voice in my head and the soft way she looked at Nicki when the baby was sleeping. Callum came around the back of the car and did a double take.

  "That's very good," he said. "You fooled me."

  I looked down at myself, spreading my hands out as though they would look any different than my own. "Do I look like her?"

  "Right down to the blonde roots."

  He sounded relieved, actually.

  I shook my hands out at my sides, working all of the conflicting emotions through my muscles as I let go the glamour. I didn't know how long I could hold it in so I didn't want to waste it and lose focus at the most critical moment. Better I wait and try to pull it to myself again when the time was right. It was important that I got everything exactly correct.

  "I can do this," I muttered.

  "We both can," he said.

  The trip down the passageway gave me a strong sense of déjà vu. How many times had we travelled this passage to meet with evil on the other end? Both of our cell phones played flashlight apps against the walls as we moved, our hands running along the stones. Where I couldn't see, I felt, making sure to know what sort of curves or twists were coming so my feet could meet the challenge. I knew when we were getting closer to the burial crevices. The walls in that area were smoother, with less moss and detritus clinging to the walls.

  I imagined at some point someone had cleaned them up much like people did cemetery plots. Or maybe the sanctity of the area kept things from growing.

  As before, every single burial plot was empty and I knew they were so because we hadn't tucked any of the skeletons back into their places after we'd faced down Sarah's skeleton army. The only one that had been left undisturbed was the one that held her ancestor, the necromancer. But now, the nun's crypt she had taken a bone from seemed to be empty.

  "Almost there," I whispered to Callum. We were travelling as fast as we could while trying to maintain the element of surprise, and I didn't dare speak out loud. The brush of his shoulder against mine as we moved was a bolstering one.

  "Something up ahead," he said.

  In the moment he said it, I realized it was true. Something wavered in the shadows ahead. The movements they made in the darkness caught our light off and on shone back at us with a sort of surreal wavering glow. When my light panned across a face with gaping eye holes, I startled and dropped my cell phone as I grabbed for Callum's arm. He tried to pull me close, protective and instinctive, but the embrace was more romantic than protective. I let go his sleeve and pushed away. He hung his head and sighed heavily.

  "It's alright," I said. "I'm alright," I said lying through my teeth.

  I fumbled for the messenger bag against my hip to ground myself. I knew what those things were the moment I had seen the gaping sockets. Skulls. Sarah had set up her skeleton soldiers again, getting them ready for the attack, protecting herself from her flank. Almost military, and yet I knew she was far too angry to be so calculated.

  "They won't hurt us," I said, telling myself I believed it. "They belong to Sarah."

  I heard his breath let go in a hiss. So he had been as nervous as I was. That made me feel better, and I felt pretty doggone relieved for at least for the few moments it took me to realize that Sarah was standing there in the midst of them, swaying side to side with her hands hanging next to her. Blackish liquid dripped from her fingertips, pitter-patting like music on the passage floor.

  Blood, my mind whispered, and in the second it took for the word to travel my synapses to my muscles, I watched her collapse.

  CHAPTER 13

  Both Callum and I reached her at the same moment, but as we skidded to a stop, we realized she hadn't actually struck the floor at all. One of her skeletons had caught her and was holding her aloft, cradling her. As relieved as I was to see she hadn't fallen, the thing's grip was less comforting and more supportive. Bony hands gripped her beneath her armpits, keeping her standing but it didn't instill any sort of relief; rather, it felt somehow creepier knowing she was counting on the undead to support her.

  The skeletons all about, surrounding her did nothing to accost us, almost as though they understood we were there to help her. It bolstered me, and as we drew close, they closed in around us to form a protective shield. From several layers of standing skeletons I could see the door to the crypt was slightly ajar. Light flickered from the other side, casting shadows on the skeletons closest to the opening. I could hear murmuring coming from within.

  I looked at Callum, trying to tell him with my eyes that we needed to be quiet. He nodded. Sarah peered up at me. Her eyelids were drooping and those blue eyes of hers looked angry but dim.

  "Sarah," I rasped. "What were you thinking?" I didn't need an answer. I knew exactly what she was thinking. Saving Nicki was all she was concerned about, even to her own safety. But something had kept her from charging into the chamber beyond, and that alone made the hair stand on my arms. It didn't help that she looked pale and limp. Whatever she had attempted, it had taken the stuffing out of her.

  Thank God for Callum in that moment. He went into full medical alert. He ran his hands down along her arms, testing for injury, thumbed her eyelids upward and peered inside her eyes. Tested her pulse.

  "She's physically fine," he said. "Self-inflicted cuts notwithstanding." He pressed his palm against the worst of them to apply pressure. She'd found a way to power her soldiers with her own blood, and no doubt couldn't manage much more without losing full consciousness. I knew her magic took a somewhat special ritual, and without all of her ingredients, she no doubt had to use something a little more powerful even if it was much darker in nature. I didn't want to know what.

  "What's going on?" I whispered as I lay my mouth against her cheek. "What did you do?"

  "It took too much," she said lifting those blue eyes to mine. I slipped my arm around her waist, pulling her from her skeletal handler and easing her onto the floor. Her hair tickled my skin as I pulled my arm out from beneath her head. The skeletons moved away enough to give us room and their movements
were so silent it felt as though they were whispering to themselves.

  Empowering her weapons no doubt took too much from her. If we didn't act fast, I didn't know what would happen.

  She clutched my sleeve. "She's inside," she rasped out. "I didn't have enough. This was all I could do."

  I knew she meant Nicki was in the chamber. She had tried what she knew to rescue the toddler. I remembered the way she had sat surrounded by the cockroaches in our house. She had spelled everything she could to weaponize them, and she had done it again within hours to raise her skeleton soldiers in an attempt at rescue. It wasn't just the amount of blood she had lost, it was the amount of essence. Of energy. The stress of losing Nicki, the fear of facing what she had been running from all these years, her anger. A body could only take so much.

  "Let me take over," I said. "Let me pretend to be you and fool him into thinking you're going to do the spell."

  I ran my palm across her forehead to see if the glistening there was cold perspiration or just the flicker of light against her skin. It was perspiration. I swallowed down my nerves as I realized that.

  "He's not keeping her," I said. "He's not going to hurt her. Not if I can do anything to avoid it. Besides," I said. "He can't do anything without Warren."

  She gave me a feeble smile.

  "All we have to do is get her away from him," I said. "And we have Callum for that."

  "Damn straight," Callum said, interjecting for the first time. I noted that his voice sounded tight. He was worried. Whatever he had told me, I wasn't sure he was being truthful. There was a finality to the way he agreed with me.

  "I'll distract him, let him think you plan to do his spell, let him think he has won." I didn't bother to add that once Callum had got hold of Nicki, that I was going to ram Rory's sneering grin back down his throat.

  "Doesn't matter," she said. "We won't get her without a fight."

  "No one said we won't be fighting," I said.

  I unsnapped the front of my messenger bag and dug carefully around the side where the handles were until my fingers felt the heavy wooden weight of the archaic blade. I pulled it free and lifted it in front of her face.

  Callum let go a sharp intake of breath. I wasn't sure whether that was a breath of surprise or frank appraisal. Didn't matter. Rory wasn't getting out of there.

  "You'll need the incantation," she said and I felt her hand cup the back of my neck she pulled me closer.

  "At least enough of it to make it look authentic until Callum can storm the room," I said.

  I was nervous but at the same time, I kept telling myself he was just a man after all, who had no power of his own. We had faced worse than the couple of fairies before. We had faced an Egyptian goddess and an empowered doppelgänger. Heck, I had faced a maniac intent on killing me.

  So why didn't I feel better?

  "I'm going and I'm going to pretend that everything is exactly how he wants it," I said. "Callum is going to grab Nicki. We need a distraction. Can you do that?"

  She nodded. "Easy peasy," she said and lifted a hand toward her soldiers.

  I stared into her eyes wishing they weren't quite so dim. "They don't have to do much, Sarah," I said. "Just make a hell of a racket. Do you understand? Just enough to confuse him. Don't do any more than that."

  I waited for her to nod.

  "Why don't you make the run for Nicki?" Callum said, being infuriatingly reasonable. "Let me take out the big threat."

  I glared at him. This was no time to be arguing.

  "It can't go down like that," I said. "It's the element of surprise that works in our favour," I said. "Any hesitation puts her in danger. You get a bead on Nicki and you run for her and you get her out of there and when you come to this door, you pull Sarah along with you. That's the best plan. It just takes microseconds for the plan to go wrong."

  "No," he said. "I can't let you do that."

  "Don't worry," I said, the lie formulating even as I spoke. "I'll be right behind you. This isn't a suicide mission. It's an extraction. That's all. We'll worry about the rest later."

  He nodded, finally, seemingly satisfied that all we would have to do was run in and round out.

  I sucked in a bracing breath and pushed myself to my feet. I nodded at Callum, indicating that he and Sarah should take their place at the edge of the door so that they could peek in. They moved so silently, the skeletons shifting out of place to create room, that I was immediately impressed. I shook up my hands. Stared long and hard at Sarah, taking in every detail of her appearance. I needed every bit of help I could.

  When I heard her gasp, I knew it had worked. I ran the incantation through my mind again with the secret smile. If everything went right, I would only need a few words of it.

  "Remember," I whispered. "He can't hurt her anymore. He doesn't have Warren, so he has no way to get that tooth he needs. We've already won."

  I waited until the skeletons had eddied back into place, effectively cutting both Sarah and Callum off from view from anyone inside the crypt. Then I yanked the door open all the way with a flourish. I stood there, waiting for Rory to catch sight of me.

  The room was filled with lit candles. They emitted fragrant air that reminded me of smoke and incense and I almost laughed out loud as I imagined they were scented candles from the local grocery store. Such a vain, foolish, little man. Then I realized there was a censor just behind him that sent tendrils of burning incense toward the ceiling.

  Rory stood right where the altar would be above us inside of the Cathedral. He swung his gaze to mine, almost in surprise but then a look of smugness came over his expression. I tried not to show that look in my own face. I wanted him to think I was Sarah. That I was afraid of him. That I was afraid I wasn't going to get my loved one back. That I was ready to do anything he wanted.

  "I'm here," I said. "Now where is she?"

  "Where is my tooth fairy?" he countered.

  "Not my problem," I countered. "I've come as asked. Now where is she?"

  He cocked his head at that as though he was thinking it over. "You'll get her when you're done," he finally said. "But if I don't have my fairy, I guess I'll have to have one of my minions slice off one of the poor little tot's fingers. Bone is bone, after all."

  Monster. That's what he was. Pure and simple. I must have paled because he put a finger to his lips and brightened visibly as thought the idea of my discomfort pleased him.

  "Actually, maybe that would be easier." He knit his brow in thought. "However, it might be too much of a shock for her little body. Souls that have cheated death are pretty hard to come by. I'd hate to negate the spell by risking her bleeding to death right in front of me."

  I thought my stomach was going to rebel with each word. Evil. That's the only word that kept rattling through my mind as he stood there. He'd thought this nefarious thing through for weeks, no doubt, and I imagined each cold possibility being run through and struck out one by one.

  I was painfully aware of the eyes behind me through the doors, watching my every movement, waiting to catch sight of Nicki. It was taking all of my energy to hold the glamour, to not let the tension show on my shoulders. I didn't worry about the revulsion I knew was twisting my face. He'd expect to see that and I had no problem showing him my hate.

  "Well?" I demanded. "I'm not doing anything until you show her to me."

  A short smile tugged at the corner of his mouth but he snapped his fingers. From out of the smoke of the censor a very tall and lithe young man stepped out and took his place beside Rory. He clutched the hand of a toddler and was glittering and beautiful, almost as magnificent as Azrael was, but I knew he wasn't an angel. Fairy. One of Rory's controlled minions. This fairy didn't look happy. In fact, he looked pained and resentful. I could use that. I hoped Callum recognized it as well.

  Nicki, on the other hand, caught sight of me and clapped her hands. The fairy's arm shook at each delighted slap of her hand against the other. She thought this was all a game, apparen
tly. And I was glad for that. It meant she wasn't traumatized. Yet.

  "I'm glad to see you're sensible," he said. "It's about time you decided to do your duty."

  "Some duty," I said, feeling argumentative. "Just my life''s blood."

  He shrugged. "It's about family loyalty, Sarah. It's not like we can't bring you back again under the right circumstances."

  "Right," I said. "Like I can trust you."

  I clutched my messenger bag, feeling for the knife handle through the material. Didn't matter what Sarah's family planned to do with her or whether or not they would resurrect her after she initiated the spell. I was going to end it right here and right now.

  "Let's get this started," he said. "I see you have what you need."

  I nodded, trying to keep myself from smiling because we had this. We totally had this.

  I no sooner started the incantation, when Nicki let out a little squeal. My gaze flew to hers and for a second, I met her eyes before that thick, filmy membrane slipped over her body and flames leapt up from the bottom of her tiny, bare feet. They licked up over her face, and I only had time to think, not again, when they engulfed her and the fairy next to her.

  In the next instant, the heat of the flame blasted me and I fell backward from its power.

  CHAPTER 14

  It might have been the distraction I needed to rush Rory, except the ball of fire that swept over Nicki wasn't just a small coil of flame contained to a crib. It was much bigger, more befitting the size that she was now, that of a toddler and not an infant. Even the Fae who had been gripping her by the elbow, trying to keep her in one place had been repelled by that membrane just before the fire licked up from her heels. He had ended up either being consumed or had disappeared, electing instead to pop into some other dimension.

  I gaped at Nicki. It was seeing her through new eyes that made me realize that sudden fear didn't make you scream right away. It left you confused and struggling to make sense of what was happening.