Reaper's Justice

by Sarah McCarty

  He sighted down the rifle barrel, drawing a bead on the inch of flesh between the leader’s eyebrows as the man yanked her up against him. With anyone else he might have taken the shot, risked it, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. Not with this angle. The unfamiliar hesitation was about as welcome as all of the feelings she brought out in him.

  One step to the side, asshole. Just take one step to the side.

  A bullet screamed off the rock to his left. He cut a glance at the source. Billings stood, rifle at his shoulder, drawing a bead of his own. Isaiah slid into the next shadow. Billings was the wild card in this mix. As skilled as Isaiah, he only had one weakness. He had a tendency to bring his conscience to the job. A conscience that had cost him plenty, but it didn’t make him any less deadly. Propping his rifle along a log, Isaiah took aim at the other Reaper. It would make sense to take Billings out now, increase his odds. Billings was easily worth five of the other outlaws when it came to a fight. As if sensing his eyes on him, Billings smiled. Son of a bitch, the rumors were true. The Reaper had a death wish.

  Isaiah tightened his finger on the trigger. The leader shouted, “Take her.” A man with a large handlebar mustache raced forward. Choice time. Billings or the leader? The answer was obvious. Just before Isaiah took the shot, Billings stuck his foot out. The mustachioed man went face first into the rocks. Isaiah eased his finger off the trigger. Well . . . that was a first. Apparently, Billings was on his side. They’d never worked the same side of a war before. It could be interesting.

  The leader took a step back, taking Adelaide with him, keeping her as his shield. Isaiah’s lip curled with disgust as the man yanked her against his chest, leaving his head open and clear. He toyed again with the idea of taking him out but another shot would give away his position and there wasn’t enough cover here to protect him from a return volley.

  Billings’s protection aside, Adelaide needed him alive. It was a calm, logical decision. His training had become second nature and almost overwhelmed the logic. Training demanded he take the shot no matter the threat to himself or others. Training demanded he complete the kill. He brought Adelaide into the gun sight. Training didn’t take into account the human factor. He was more than his training. He moved the sight back to the leader.

  Sweating, Isaiah fought the compulsion and forced himself to take his finger off the trigger. This time his snarl was for the woman. She’d been doing this to him for months, disturbing the calm he’d worked so hard to resurrect, dragging forth his demons, his nightmares. She made him feel and that was unacceptable. As unacceptable as the terror he could see on her face as José shouted to his men and threw her into the middle of the chaos.

  Isaiah moved down the hill to the next position, keeping his eye on the camp.

  Panic reigned around the fire. Men shouted and fired wildly into the darkness. Any control the leader had was gone. There was nothing left of his command but chaos. Isaiah smiled. He could work with that.

  Run.

  Isaiah sent the thought toward the woman. As if she heard, she broke free, spun around, and took two steps before José grabbed her by the hair again. She rounded on him, all spit and fire, the hold she had on her temper released in a scream that was absolute rage and frustration, striking Isaiah with the force of her fist to José’s gut, except it wasn’t José who gasped, who had the air knocked from his lungs. It was Isaiah. All because of that scream. It skated down his spine, joining the memories of other screams, other times. Faces of men, faces of women, faces of children, all grotesquely contorted, all dead, blurred within the circle of light thrown by the campfire. Spinning slowly when everything else was racing, giving him time to recognize the words tumbling from their lips in a senseless buzz. He stilled, counted slowly as he blew out a soundless breath. He blinked and the scene righted.

  Adelaide was on the ground, holding her face. José stood over her, hands on hips, searching the dark nervously, his human eyes too weak to penetrate the darkness, but Isaiah’s weren’t. He could see easily. The shock on Adelaide’s face. The blood forming on her lip. The outlaw was right to worry. There would be revenge for that blow. Not the impersonal impact of a bullet. No. His hand dropped to his knife. This revenge would be personal. Isaiah might have failed to protect the woman from that strike, but his moments of insanity were mostly short lived and controllable. The stretches between were what the leader should fear. Reapers had been created for one purpose. To exact the revenge their handlers deemed necessary, though they no longer had handlers. But they were still damn good at revenge.

  Thank you.

  But not so good at protection. His gut wrenched. Adelaide had thanked him for one thing and he’d turned around and failed her on another. He’d never been worth a damn when it came to constancy. And sure as shit she wouldn’t be thanking him if she knew his history. About the only thing he’d ever managed to be good at was killing. Once someone made his list, they never got off. His grip tightened on his knife, his fingers tingling. And he was very good at killing, as the leader would find out before this was over.

  Isaiah narrowed his eyes and focused on the other man’s lips, reading the words he shaped enough to know what he was saying was filth. The knife slipped free of its sheath. There were all kinds of ways to kill a man, some clean, some not so clean, and some flat-out hellish. Isaiah knew them all. It was his only skill. His only dependable talent and one with which José would soon become acquainted. Normally, kills were a dispassionate necessity, but he was going to enjoy killing the leader. The rage simmered and built. He was going to enjoy making him pay for her fear, her pain, her humiliation.

  He swept the area with an all-encompassing gaze. The men who huddled nervously by the fire watched the darkness with more fear than their leader, followers who scented death approaching, doubting the strength of their leader, reconsidering their loyalty.

  With a small smile Isaiah let loose a howl, feeling the beast rise as he glided effortlessly along the edge of light, using the trees and rocks as a barrier to the volley of shots that converged where he’d once been, heading toward his targets.

  “What do we do, José?”

  “Shoot el bastardo loco!”

  The leader’s name was José. Isaiah tucked the information away.

  José called for his sentries. Billings rose to his feet, his discarded smoke glowing faintly at his feet as he smiled grimly into the darkness when José shouted again.

  There wasn’t going to be a response. Isaiah stepped over the body of one of the sentries. There would never be one. The price for invading his territory was high. He’d exacted it with ruthless efficiency. He’d even enjoyed it. They should not have touched her.

  Adelaide scrambled to her feet, brushing at her skirt with awkward movements of her hands. Good, she was getting the feeling back. He’d worried that the bonds might have numbed her arms to the point of uselessness. Billings grabbed her arm and pulled her against his side. Around the camp, men faced the darkness, guns drawn. The firelight gave him a clear shot at anyone he wanted to take out. Isaiah growled. They always made it so easy to pick and choose. Except Billings. He was the only one standing away from the light, back against the tree. He’d taken the woman with him.

  Isaiah would have done the same. Reapers were highly trained in only two things: survival and killing. Of the two skills, only the latter mattered to those who had created them from hell. The lesson had been drilled into the Reapers’ heads until they contained nothing else, and then they’d been recruited to tip the scales in civil wars within countries that had no winners. But that hadn’t concerned their creators. Their focus had been much more individual. Until the day the creators found they hadn’t been able to call back what they’d unleashed. That the monsters they’d created couldn’t be controlled. That day hell had come to earth.

  After another unanswered call, José stepped back to the fire. Isaiah shook his head. Men always went to the light when in search of salvation. He drew his knife and crept up
behind the bandit at the edge of the ring with his back to the rock. Redemption wasn’t coming tonight.

  He dispatched the man with a single slice of the knife, disappearing back into the shadows as the bandit’s death gurgle alerted the men around him that a Reaper was in their midst.

  Manuel jumped back from the spray of blood, crossing himself. “Madre de Dios!”

  “Holy shit!”

  The curses floated on the cold air, sharp pinpoints of terror. Satisfaction filled Isaiah as they scrambled about. No one caught the man as he fell, as if touching him would seal their fate. As if that fate hadn’t already been determined the moment they’d taken her.

  Isaiah took stock of the situation. Nine men left and eight hours until daylight. He pulled his throwing knife, took aim across the camp, and let fly, ducking behind a tree as men spun and fired and then thought to cover their own asses. Too little, too late. They were scared, scattered in loyalties, every man focused on his own survival. Easy pickings.

  He glanced to where he’d last seen her. The area was empty. Even the glow from the discarded smoke was gone. Only a Reaper could do that. Billings had taken her. Isaiah palmed another throwing knife and glided back along the edge of the camp, moving soundlessly through the gloom toward where Billings and Adelaide had stood, knowing there’d be sign. Maybe not enough for human eyes, but enough for his. Dragging the woman would make a seamless escape into the environment impossible. Isaiah got to the spot where Billings had slipped through the brush with Adelaide. A broken branch at eye level screamed a message. Follow me.

  He glanced back over his shoulder. The men were regrouping. Leaving them now meant losing the advantage. Leaving them alive went against everything inside that screamed for retribution, but she wasn’t there anymore. She was with someone as deadly as he, someone as unstable as he, her fate left to an unreliable force that could be either threat or salvation, depending on his mood. And moods in Reapers were notoriously unstable things.

  The moon crested the trees. A howl echoed across the valley. A challenge and a dare.

  With a lift of his lip and a flex of muscle, Isaiah tilted his head back and answered.

  THE howl came out of the darkness, sending shivers down Adelaide’s spine. Dark and compelling, it connected with something primitive inside her. She turned back toward the sound. Goose bumps raced down her arms.

  “Come on.” Billings tugged her forward. She stumbled. “Move.”

  She tripped over a branch as he dragged her forward, her feet tangling in her skirt. “I would if you’d let me get my feet before hauling me around.”

  There was a grunt, another yank. “I don’t have time for hysterics.”

  “Who’s being hysterical?” She yanked at her skirt with her free hand. A bridle jangled. A horse snorted. They were near the horses? “I’m just pointing out the illogic of expecting me to see in pitch blackness.”

  “I’ll do the seeing.”

  The “trust me” was implied. She wasn’t trusting anyone. “As if you can see any better.”

  “I can.” From the way he hauled her the next ten feet, maneuvering them around obstacles, maybe he could.

  “How is that possible?”

  “I’m special.”

  He was something, but she wasn’t sure “special” was it. She ran into his back, bumping her nose, as he came to a dead stop.

  “Ow.”

  “Quiet.”

  Rubbing her nose, she glared at his back. “Then stop hauling me around.” Billings put his arm around her waist. She pushed at his arm. “Hey! Let me go.”

  “In a minute.”

  “But—” She reached out and bumped something warm, alive. The horse. Bracing herself against his side, she pushed backward.

  Billings didn’t even acknowledge her protest with a grunt. “No buts. He’ll catch up to us later.”

  He would?

  With a simple shift, Billings foiled her defiance. She would have fallen if he hadn’t been holding her so tightly. Darn it. Falling would have at least broken his hold. While she was fussing, he lifted her. She let her legs dangle. They bumped against the horse. He couldn’t make her sit.

  “Who are you?” she asked over her shoulder.

  “The only friend you’ve got right now, and if you want to live long enough for him to catch up, you’ll stop being a fool and put your leg over that horse’s back.”

  “Why would I want that?”

  “Because your kidnappers will regroup quickly. And because he’s the best protection you’ll ever have.”

  That was something to consider. She let him seat her in the saddle. She grabbed the saddle horn as the horse stomped his foot. Her skirt was uncomfortably twisted. She yanked at it. “Better than you?”

  “Yeah.”

  The lump under her butt came free. “How so?”

  “Because I don’t give a shit.”

  The man certainly believed in blunt speaking. The horse shifted sideways as Billings took the reins. The howl came again. Just as dark, just as compelling. Just as irresistible. There was a sadness to it that made her want to reach out and touch, a determination that gave her confidence, and a feral edge that sent goose bumps chasing over her skin. Billings swung up behind her. His arms came around her. A shiver slid over her skin, and not the good kind. He didn’t give a hoot, which only left one question. “So why are you helping me now?”

  “Because I owe him.”

  Him. The one who howled rather than shouted. She didn’t know whether to kick the horse in the direction of that howl or to turn around and run. Billings took the decision out of her hands. Kneeing the horse forward, he rode into the veil of darkness before them. She clutched the saddle horn, praying that if the horse couldn’t see, it would at least follow Billings’s directions and they wouldn’t end up sprawled at the bottom of a ravine with their necks broken. She prayed for that with every breath. And with every prayer, she fought the need to turn back toward that mournful howl. She pushed the hair off her face and grimaced as her finger snagged in a snarl. She hated snarls. Hated untidiness. She started finger combing the snarl out, blowing out a breath as she accepted that her hair was the least of her problems. Her neat and orderly life was a rat’s nest of chaos, from the kidnappers on her trail to the strange men who’d rescued her. And there wasn’t a thing she could do about either.

  Could her life get any crazier?

  HOURS later she had her answer. Maybe it couldn’t get crazier, but it could get worse. She sat on that horse with nothing to do but feel her thighs rub raw against the leather of the saddle, and let her mind race over all the possibilities of what could happen. Hours in which her mental and physical misery multiplied until she wanted to jump out of her skin. And then, as a final insult, the clouds opened up. Cold rain poured over her, plastering her hair to her head, chilling her to the bone. The man behind her on the horse didn’t seem affected at all by the elements. Didn’t seem affected at all by her shivers. Didn’t seem affected by anything. He just kept the horse pointed the way he wanted to go and rode in miserable, irritating silence.

  She groaned as a cramp seized the muscle in her calf. Taking her foot from the stirrup, she tried to ease the ache. It didn’t help. The cramp grew right along with her misery. Another shiver went down her spine. She clenched her teeth against the chill. When was this going to end? Another chill shook her from head to toe, leaving her exhausted. Oh God, she didn’t even care anymore how this ended. She was just so miserable she only needed to know when.

  Gray light pierced the horizon and a few birds chirped. Morning was coming. Did that mean the nightmare was going to end? A glance over her shoulder revealed the truth. Not if she left it to her rescuer. His gaze was set straight ahead and the expression on his lean face said he was prepared to go for hours. She rubbed her thumb over her worry stone in her pocket, searching for courage. She found it in the next hope-killing shiver.

  “We need to stop.”

  “No.”

 
; At least he was predictable. She grabbed the reins and hauled back. “Yes.”

  The horse snorted and sidestepped. “Son of a bitch.” With a soft whisper, Billings quieted the animal. “Don’t do that again.”

  She ignored her instinctive flinch of fear. Misery loved company and he was too complacent for her peace of mind. “Then listen to me.”

  “You don’t want to stop now.”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “It’s too soon.”

  “For what?”

  “Reapers are unstable after a battle.”

  So they were Reapers. Those legendary shadowy figures that haunted the hills surrounding the town. She didn’t know whether to be comforted or panicked. All she knew of Reapers were the whispers that floated out of the saloons. Some said they were demons sent to earth. Other’s said they were God’s avenging angels. No one said they were safe. And she was riding with one. Dear heavens, her luck was nothing but bad. “Rumor is, Reapers aren’t that stable before a battle, either. Or any time in between.”

  That twitch of his mouth might be a smile. “That’s true.”

  “But what does that matter to me?”

  “Beyond the fact that you’re riding with one?”

  “Yes.” Beyond his physical stoicism, she didn’t see much difference between him and anyone else. He looked neither demon nor angel. He was certainly less expressive than her cousin. Cole wasn’t one for holding back when he thought someone was playing the fool.

  “He’ll make his move when we stop.”

  That sounded ominous. “He will?”

  “He’ll take it as a sign.”

  That sounded worse. She kicked the horse. Maybe she should heed the saying “Stick with the devil you know.” She knew Billings. “Let’s go then.”

  Billings looked over his shoulder and stiffened. “Too late.”