Rise (Reaper's Redemption Book 3)

by Thea Atkinson

  I was sweating already, and with a dead sort of calm, I watched Rory lay fingers against her throat. He made a murmuring sound, lips clamped together. My brain went cold. Devoid of any useless thought. All that kept streaking through was it had to work. It just had to.

  Rory brushed her silky black hair away from her face and then twisted her arms away from her sides to show me how much blood had spilled from three cuts along the inside of her forearm.

  "Martyred herself, poor thing," he murmured.

  I kept pumping but I wanted to smack him. How dare he.

  "Get away from her," I said through clenched teeth. "Back the hell off."

  He looked hurt. "She's not out of reach, you know. Not out of reach at all for the right people. The right price."

  As if to punctuate the statement, I felt a tingling run across my skin. My calf ached. The mark beneath my armpit ached. Even my ears buzzed. She was fading. Her essence was hovering, ready to dissipate, waiting to see if I would reap it.

  Rory seemed to sense a shift. He scooched closer. His breath on my face held a tang of copper, as though he had been sucking on pennies.

  "You can get her out." He leaned in to peer into my eyes even as he lay his hands down on the backs of my hands. "If you really want to."

  He pulled my hands from Sarah's chest and held them against his. I could feel the beat of his heart instantly, magnifying the difference from the deadness of Sarah's flesh. His heart sped up as I touched him and he sighed with something like longing.

  "I want to help you, Ayla," he said. "It's just that I can't. I don't have the power. But you know someone who does."

  It didn't escape my notice in those moments that he didn't tell me the most important thing. That he had two parts of the spell complete. But even that didn't matter. I could have cared less about the spell. I swayed back and forth in front of him, watching with disinterest as his face moved one way and then the other.

  "You killed her," I said.

  "No," he murmured. "She did that all by herself with a little help from you. But you can fix it." He reached out and touched my cheek at the back of his fingers. Again, he shuddered as though the touch meant something to him. When I didn't say anything, he sighed heavily.

  "I told you how you can fix this," he said. "And maybe if you succeed at that, you'll save the other two as well."

  He lifted his silver brows meaningfully. I understood he was threatening me, threatening the lives of Callum and Nicki. He waited several long moments, watching me, probably waiting for me to say something. If he was, he wasn't going to get it from me. I knew by the smell of candy floss and caramel that started to envelop meant that the ordeal was far from over.

  "I'll give you a few moments," he said. "You can either say good bye, or you can find a way to save her." He rubbed his palms down along his pant legs. "I'll just slip out so you can make your choice."

  Rory pushed himself to his feet and strode through the door of the crypt. I knew he wouldn't be gone for long.

  He had left the bait, and I knew it for what it was. Even so, when Azrael showed himself finally, I had only one thing to say to him.

  "You can't have her," I said. I was vaguely aware that it was reminiscent of the things I had said to him of Nicki. But I was painfully aware that this time there was no Egyptian goddess longing to be free and alive again to take over a body. Sarah was well and truly gone. And Azrael would want to send her to oblivion.

  I expected him to gloat and I looked up at him sideways. "You can't have her."

  This time he chose to come to me as the same old man I had met in the Cathedral. He looked weary and fatigued wearing that façade. The old Birkenstock sandals and red wool socks reminded me that Gramp was still out of town, and that I would have no one to comfort me. I should have texted him back. I should have told him what was going on. Now there was no one to understand what had happened or to help me fight for Sarah or Callum or Nikki. We would be back to just the two of us again.

  Azrael knelt down next to me, boring into my eyes with his own. They were changing colours again. Swirling around with prismatic intensity. They reminded me of Kaleidoscope's. He was thinking. Considering. Or something was bothering him. I had learned that much about him at least. Not that it helped.

  Azrael seemed confused at first, and he reached out with a long finger to touch the crest of my cheek. I was surprised to realize there was liquid there. Even more surprised when, in the moment his skin touched mine, my face crumpled. He swiped the liquid into my hairline and cupped my face between his palms. It was too much for me to bear, that compassion. That one, silent and gentle bit of compassion was so bewildering and so unexpected that I didn't care how I looked, how hard my face screwed up into a strangled mask of emotion. It didn't matter. Nothing mattered. Certainly not a bit of vanity. I couldn't help sobbing. All I kept saying was no, no. You can't have her.

  No movement from him, no change of expression, just a spinning of those colours in his eyes as though they were out of control. When I was spent of the tears, I couldn't help pounding him in the chest, throwing one jab and then two. Each time my knuckles struck his chest, I thought of Sarah and the boxing lessons she had given me in the halfway house. And then I cried all the more.

  "It's all your fault," I said. "You could've helped me. Now she's gone."

  Gone. The word was so final. This was Sarah. My foster sister. The girl who had taught me to fight in those foster homes, who had stood up for me when I needed it. The girl who laughed with her whole body, the one who crammed her face with chocolate every chance she got. I couldn't imagine myself not sitting around with her anymore. I had just found her again after all these years. And now she was gone. It was insufferably unfair. And all because of him, actually. If I had never met that maniac in the Cathedral, if Azrael hadn't set him on me, none of this would be happening. I would have found Sarah in the Cathedral, and I would have brought her home. And everything would be fine.

  I pushed myself to my feet, every intent to run working through my muscles. I had to get out of there. I just couldn't face any more. Not anymore. The adrenaline was racing through my tissues, urging me to flee. Fight or flight had come for me and all I could think of was running headlong down the passageway out into the open air. I didn't want any of this to follow me. I couldn't stand facing it.

  Everything turned to a wash of water. My nose was stuffy. I could barely breathe for the tears that were clogging my throat. I fell in a crumpled heap long before I reached the doorway. It was over. Rory had Callum and Nicki. Sarah was well and truly gone and now here I was facing down the Angel of Death again, and he didn't care one bit about the people I loved.

  Whatever hope I had been clinging to was gone.

  I was vaguely aware of the scuffing sound of his sandals as he approached. I could smell the candy floss and caramel swathe me. I knew he was crouching in front of me. I knew he wanted me to look up. Didn't matter. Even if I did, I wouldn't be able to see him through the tears.

  "Ayla," he said, nudging me.

  "Please don't cry," he said. There was a strange tightness in his voice.

  "Please," he said again.

  That made me look up at him. I hadn't yet heard the Angel of Death beg for anything, and certainly not for anything from me. He always ordered. Commanded.

  One quick peek at him, seeing the strange look on his face, the prismatic eyes swirling. And I couldn't bear to look anymore. I squeezed my eyes closed. I preferred the darkness behind my eyelids to the strange look on his face.

  That was when his finger went beneath my chin. He tilted my face up to his.

  "At least you don't have to reap her for me," he said. "That's something."

  It was such an ungodly and callous thing to say that I fully intended to scream at him. But what came out was nothing but a wail. My head fell to my hands and I worked at my face with greasy palms.

  "But it's true," he said. "You won't have to worry about that anymore." His voice sounded
tight. "I would think you would be happy about that."

  I swiped my forearm across my nose, collecting up snot and tears. I peered up at him. "I would rather have that problem than for her to be gone."

  "But she's not gone," he said very matter of factly. "She's just in hell."

  CHAPTER 16

  Just in hell. As though that was preferable. How could he even say that as though it was a positive thing?

  "Don't you feel anything at all?" I choked out. I wanted to point at Sarah, draw his attention to the fact that a young woman was crumpled on her side, a casualty of using her magic to avoid evil, but I couldn't. I couldn't bear to even look her way.

  He blinked at me and with the movement, subtle as it was, the façade slipped and he was no longer the grandfather figure wearing Birkenstock sandals. He was the adult man wearing an Armani suit. Far too handsome for eyes to look at without taking a heart captive. Even so, that attractive facade didn't move me.

  In fact, it infuriated me.

  "If you haven't come to reap her, then leave," I said. "Or help me get her out of here. I can't just leave her lying there." My voice caught and I barely held back a sob.

  Azrael's mouth twitched as though he wanted to say something but couldn't for the life of him imagine what it was.

  "I need her, Azrael." I said. "I can't do this nathelium thing without my family. She's my family. Don't you understand? Don't you get it? They don't hold me back. They help me. They keep me grounded."

  "I'm sorry for you," Azrael said. "Truly I am."

  I looked into his eyes and saw sincerity there. There were some swirling behind his gaze, but it was a slow and mesmerizing movement. Something truly different than I had ever seen before. There was even a slouch to his shoulders. An earnestness in his face.

  I waved my arms over my head as though to indicate the heavens somewhere. "Then help me. Give me the tools I need. Sarah is a tool."

  Contrary to what I had hoped, his face darkened. "You have me," he said. "That should be enough."

  I knew he wasn't going to help. In that moment, I understood the angel of death thought about nothing but himself. Nothing but collecting up the fares that he needed to send to oblivion or into nothingness. All of the angelic souls he had collected into the cane of his. That was what he measured his time by. That was how he measured value.

  I felt so bereft in that moment, that I couldn't look at him anymore. I hugged my knees to my chest, resting my chin on my knees. It was too much. There was no way I could go home. It wasn't a home anymore without Nicki or Sarah. No one but Gramp. Thank God, he was out of town and spared.

  In the next moment, Azrael's arms went around me so completely, that at first, I was surprised. And then he tugged me forward, folding me into his arms so that I could feel the beating of the heart in his chest. That was when I finally fully let go. I sobbed in his arms as though he was the only one that could comfort me. I didn't care who it was that was there. I didn't care that it was him. All I knew was that I needed some support because I wasn't going to be able to leave this crypt without it. I didn't want to leave. I didn't want to face anything.

  After a long moment, I felt his finger beneath my chin again, lifting my gaze to meet his. He brushed a tear from my cheek. Smeared it into my hairline.

  "It will be tough," he whispered. And there was such a compassion and pain in his voice that I couldn't process it. "It might be the most difficult thing you've ever done. Hell will try to swallow you whole. It will want you."

  He was offering to help. I was sure of it. I swallowed down all the questions I wanted to ask because they all seemed inconsequential in the moment. All I needed to know was that he was going to help me.

  "It's dangerous you have to understand. If Lucifer understood that there was an angel in his domain, he would never let me go."

  Hell. He meant to take me to Hell to reclaim Sarah's soul. So that's what Rory had meant. I didn't care. Whatever it took.

  "Just get me there," I said.

  Azrael looked at me for a long moment, almost as though he wasn't breathing. Then he twisted the grieving angel handle from off the top of his cane and held it in front of me.

  "The handle of my cane is only for the fallen. She won't be able to ride in there for long because the divine magic will try to purge her. We must be quick. And every moment you are there, it will take away that much more of your consciousness. Your memory. You have to resist that."

  I stared at Sarah's form, thinking I should move it, maybe put her somewhere more comfortable. She looked so terrible lying there alone.

  "We can't move her," he said, following my gaze. "She needs to find her way back to it." He hefted his cane in my line of sight.

  I stole a glance at Sarah as she lay on her side. That beautiful hair dyed to a matte black because she'd been on the run from her family and her natural silver blonde hair was too noticeable. I thought of her bravery when she'd faced the doppelganger she had empowered out of desperation, the way she nurtured Nicki, the way she fit in with Gramp and me. She was too critical to my life now to let her go without a fight.

  I swallowed down my fear.

  "I'm ready." I knew my chin was trembling and that I was shivering all over. But this was Sarah. She would face it all for me. I knew it.

  The pad of his thumb ran along the bottom of my lip. He held my eyes with his and his lips compressed into a thin line. He sighed. "Always the virtue," he said. "Always thinking you can intercede for good."

  "What would be the point of living if I couldn't?" I said.

  He sat back on his haunches, staring at me for a long moment. It was so uncharacteristic a posture for him that I felt an unusual sense of kinship. I was glad he was there with me, glad I wasn't alone. I was acutely aware of Sarah's body lying on the other side of the crypt. So recently warm and alive. Now suffering somewhere in Hell because she had sacrificed herself for me.

  I watched as a variety of expressions crossed his face. The normally blue eyes started to swirl again. A kaleidoscope of colours moved through his irises. He bit down on his bottom lip.

  In a movement so sudden, it made me gasp, he had wrapped me in his arms again. His embrace was suffused with the smell of caramel and it swirled around me as though I was suspended in warm taffy. An electric buzz went down along my spine.

  "You need to cling to me," he said and that usually cool voice, full of confidence and arrogance, was ragged and harsh.

  I nodded quickly, still frozen in place by the sudden embrace. It rocked me to my core, his actions, and I could barely move for shock. All I could do was waggle my chin up and down.

  I felt small against him, as he suddenly felt so much bigger. Broader. I could feel beneath his suit the unyielding hardness of muscle. I had been in Callum's embrace just a few times, but I understood what regular human muscle felt like. This was different. As sinewy as Callum's body seemed, it was nothing to the way Azrael felt.

  "You're sure?" he said. The palm of his hand cupped the nape of my neck as he leaned away to stare down into my eyes. His other hand slipped down to the small of my back. I had the feeling he was cradling me backwards, but I couldn't tell. For all I knew we were hovering in the air together. I seemed weightless.

  My throat was so constricted I couldn't form a verbal response. I nodded. Again like a fool.

  "Say it, Ayla," he urged. "Say it out loud."

  "Yes," I breathed.

  He let go a lengthy breath that sounded somewhere between relief and longing.

  "It's going to be intimate," he said. "In order to bring you there, it needs to be more intimate than a man and woman together could ever be." His eyes fell to my mouth. "Are you ready for that?"

  I swallowed down a lump that had built at the base of my throat. So many conflicting emotions battered my tissues over Azrael, so many awful feelings of shame and grief over Sarah. If being that intimate with him meant he would know all that, be keenly aware of everything I tried to hide from myself, then I wasn't
ready. Not by a long shot.

  "Yes," I heard myself say. "I'm ready."

  When he spoke again, his voice sounded clogged. As though at the base of his throat, something hung there, trying to block his voice.

  "You'll have to touch that dreaded cane handle," he said with a smirk, but there was an almost earnest humour in his voice. He very nearly sounded like a shy boy. "Do you think you can manage that?"

  I nodded.

  He blew out a long breath, and the air from his lungs moved my hair back away from my face. It too smelled of candy floss and caramel. Perhaps a hint of licorice. All of my favourite things. I found myself wondering if Sarah had been in my place, would he have smelled like chocolate. I wondered if the human souls he took had found him alluring.

  "Say it one more time," he said. "I need three verbal agreements."

  "Yes," I said.

  No sooner was the syllable out of my mouth when his hand was burrowing up beneath my shirt. I felt his fingers whisper up along my belly and for an anxious moment I thought he was going to cup my breast, the way Callum had. I almost panicked. Did I want that? How would I respond? And then his palm scooted up passed them chastely and landed just between them, right over my solar plexus. The flat of his palm pressed along my skin, warming it as his fingers splayed over my chest.

  "Touch me," he said in a hoarse voice.

  I swallowed down nervously at the look on his face. He had been right. Already it felt far more intimate than anything I had ever experienced. Even so, this was for Sarah. I could do this. I slipped my hand up beneath his shirt, was surprised to find his belly smooth of hair and hot to the touch. Each ripple of muscle beneath my palm quivered as I moved along his skin.

  I was vaguely aware that I was being eased down onto my back and I wasn't sure exactly what was happening until my head lay cradled in his palm. With surprising gentleness, he eased me onto the cold floor. The coldness of stone tried to creep into my skin, but as he murmured encouragement, I felt my whole body flush with new warmth. With each tentative inch my fingers gained of his chest as it sought his solar plexus, I felt a new wash of heat.