Reap & Reveal (The Reaper Series Book 3)

by Lisa Medley

  “I shoulda come sooner.”

  “No, no, it’s okay. Were you on the bus?”

  The pounding stopped.

  “Don’t stop! It’s okay. Just keep going. We can talk when you get me out!”

  “I was scared.”

  “I know. I am, too, but we have to get out of here. What’s your name?”

  “Carl.”

  “Carl, I’m Ruth. Please don’t stop!”

  Rather than answering, Carl continued to pound against the padlock on the door of the crypt. It never took this long in the movies. Just when she was sure it was never going to happen, she heard the steel hit the concrete ledge outside the door. The door pushed open and the first rays of the sunrise blinded her as Carl stood in silhouette, filling the doorway. He was one big man. And she’d never been so happy to see someone in her life.

  “You okay?” he asked, folding himself in half to inspect her.

  “You gave me your sweatshirt on the bus. I would have never made it this long without it, Carl.”

  “Weren’t nothing. Shoulda come sooner. Kept thinkin’ that bad man was comin’ back anytime. I slipped away, hid in the woods after we got here. Finally gave up and did the right thing.”

  He slid an arm around her shoulders and another under her knees, and scooped her up like she was nothing. Ruth pulled his bald head down to her face and kissed the top of it.

  “Thank you, Carl.”

  “Don’t thank me yet. Let’s get somewhere safe first.”

  As Carl started walking across the valley, toward the highway, Ruth caught a glimpse of the impossible. Just above the tree line on the mountainside opposite them, hidden in the still dark forest was a glowing dome, like half a snow globe.

  It was a circle of protection. And to project an aura like that, it had to be a powerful one. It was not the sort of magic one or even a handful of witches was capable of producing. This sort of magic took a village.

  It had to be Nate’s coven.

  Carl carried her under the Bolton Cemetery sign and out of the cemetery. He stopped at the gravel road and turned right, back the way they’d driven in earlier.

  “No, Carl. We have to go straight ahead, then across the highway and through the forest on the other side. We can’t take the roads this time. He’ll find us.”

  Carl looked out across to the other mountain. “That a long way, Ruth. I can carry ya, but you’re cold. This way they’s a town at least.”

  “No, Carl. Please. I think my people are over there.”

  “And by you people, you don’t mean more of that bad man, right?”

  “No. I mean the good guys.”

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Camael sat on the end of his bed in his lush suite in Hell with his forehead pressed against the cool surface of the hourglass. Elaina’s soul pulsed with gray-blue energy inside. His host body was deteriorating quickly despite having travelled through his personal portal. Bits of flesh were already peeling and falling to the floor from the slightest agitations, which was indicative of his internal frame of mind, as well. His resolve was crumbling along with his body.

  He was sick of it. All of it.

  Sick of changing forms. Sick of the constant battle. Sick of his pain, both physical and emotional. This urn at once held the key to his freedom and his imprisonment.

  Now that he knew Elaina was alive, he also knew why he’d kept her soul hidden for all of these years. Why he’d kept her.

  Hope. It had been with him the whole time after all.

  Maeve’s reappearance plagued him with questions. He’d witnessed her soul detach itself from her body. There was no return from that. Yet she lived and, from all appearances, was back in the battle.

  How was it possible?

  Reapers had been known to persist indefinitely, some even after being buried alive for years and depleted to the point of a reaper coma, but without a soul? No. If he hadn’t seen it with his own eyes, he never would have believed it possible.

  Elaina’s body had persisted, and her soul remained firmly within his grasp. Was it possible to reanimate her as Maeve had been reanimated? Could she be reinsouled? Even in his misery, Camael knew the chance was miniscule. It was foolish to even entertain the thought.

  He’d held Elaina’s famished and ruined shell in his very arms. She was too far gone. Not only that, but it was much too late for him to try. Lucifer wouldn’t tolerate any delays or setbacks. Not when they were this close.

  Camael opened the padded case next to him, seated the urn back into the indentations and sealed the latches. Conflict still warred inside him.

  He rose and paced to the full mirror hanging on the wall beside his bed, examining his reflection. How he longed to take his own form and be rid of this ridiculous shell. To be whole again, if only for a moment.

  Sensing his master’s presence before he even fully manifested, Camael turned to find Lucifer on his balcony, wearing soft denim jeans and a long-sleeved, black dress shirt, starched to perfection. His long, blond hair flowed past his shoulders and the glow from the Sea of the Dead back lit his head, forming a red halo around him. Camael suppressed a sarcastic chuckle. It wouldn’t pay to laugh in the Devil’s face.

  “Tidying up?” Lucifer cast a judicious look around Camael’s suite.

  “Tying up some loose ends is all.” Camael’s heart pounded in his chest as he silently willed the fallen angel to leave.

  “A few more hours and all our hard work will come to fruition. You’ve been with me for how long now, Camael? Twenty years?”

  “Twenty-seven,” Camael corrected, cringing inwardly.

  “Time does fly. It seems like only yesterday when you were broken and worthless, flailing about and blind for vengeance. I took you in. Offered you not only a place, but a position of worth. Here you have had the opportunity to achieve everything you wanted as well as the means to do it. You must be just as excited as I am to finally see our project nearing completion.” Lucifer made his way around the room, picking up accoutrements and studying them.

  “Yes. Thank you.”

  “Yet…” Lucifer settled onto the end of Camael’s bed beside the case and rested his hand upon it, drumming his fingers on the wood as he shook his head from side to side. “And yet, I feel a change in you, Camael. A hesitancy perhaps? I can’t quite put my finger on it.” Lucifer tapped the case for emphasis. “Where is the fire inside you that burned so brightly just hours ago? What has happened…now, so close to the end of our mission, that has you sulking in Hell instead of shredding open the portal you have prepared for me? Promised me?”

  Camael felt sweat break out along his host’s back and trickle down his spine. “Nothing, my lord. It isn’t hesitancy you sense. It’s anticipation. I’m only making sure there are no loose ends to trip us up in this final hour.”

  “You have chosen a location for the portal?”

  “I have.”

  “I can expect it to be opened within the hour then?” Lucifer studied Camael with a scrutiny that burned through him, trying to ferret out his lies.

  “Soon.”

  Lucifer’s eyes wrinkled at the corners. “When you were broken, I offered you respite. When you despaired, I offered you retribution. Have I not given you everything that was within my power to offer you?”

  “Yes, my lord.”

  Lucifer jumped up abruptly and clapped his hands together. “I know you will not fail me, Camael. Soon we will both have everything we have ever wanted.”

  “Yes, my lord.”

  “I look forward to seeing you topside, very, very soon.”

  “Yes, my lord.”

  As quickly as he’d appeared, Lucifer vanished. Camael sucked in a long breath and then let it out slowly. He knew what needed to be done.

  He took one last look around his suite and added a long fur coat to his refreshed wardrobe. It didn’t help the appearance of his host body any, but it helped against the chill that had penetrated his body. If he failed, he wouldn’t be r
eturning to this room…at least not in any recognizable or usable form. If he failed, he’d become oil for the machine he’d help build. If he failed…

  He wouldn’t fail. Couldn’t.

  Camael picked up the case and tucked it inside the coat.

  The case was the one remaining possession in his long and miserable existence that had any meaning to him at all. He flashed out of Hell. There was one stop he needed to make before returning to the coven. He couldn’t get through the circle of protection alone, but he had another idea.

  There was still time.

  He’d make it.

  ***

  “Stop here, Carl.”

  Ruth studied the circle of protection. It was much brighter up close, a physical shield that pulsed with power far above their heads like an aurora borealis. The shield emitted more power than she’d ever witnessed.

  She knew she couldn’t cross it without being invited inside. Carl, however, could walk right on in. Sure, there was probably a repelling spell attached to the circle, but if he made it through the worst of it, he’d be perfectly fine. She would have to wait outside the boundary until he brought back someone to let her in.

  Assuming they would let her in.

  Her child’s survival depended wholly on the kindness of strangers now. The thought of hanging out here alone in the snow seemed a little worse after being trapped in the crypt for several hours. It had taken much longer than she’d expected for Carl to carry her through the blowing cold to reach the coven. The stormy skies dampened the brightness of the earlier sunrise, and they came to a rest at the metaphysical coven gates under the gloomy grayness that had developed. Carl was exhausted, but so was she. And bone cold. She was a reaper for crying out loud.

  Suck it up, buttercup.

  Sometimes being supernatural sucked.

  She had drained much of her Reiki light in her efforts to keep herself warm, and she needed a boost.

  “Put me down, please.” Carl lowered her feet to the ground. “Thank you. Carl, you’re going to have to follow the road into the town and find someone to come out and get me. I can’t go inside by myself.”

  “Why not? You don’t need to be staying out here. You don’t even got shoes on.”

  “I know. You won’t be gone long. It may take some convincing for them to lower the barrier so I can come inside, but you have to try. We’ll be safe inside. When you get inside, ask for the Blackburns. Tell them…tell them Nate’s sister is outside.”

  “I don’t like it. It feels evil out here.” Carl cast an anxious look toward the woods on either side of the gravel road leading into the coven.

  “It’s not evil. It’s magic. It’s a spell to make you turn away, to try to keep you out, but it won’t hurt you. I promise.”

  “I’m scared.”

  Ruth took hold of his pylon-sized bicep. “You’re brave. And strong. Look how far you carried me. Look how you saved me. Please, Carl. You need to hurry.”

  “Okay. What’s the name again?”

  “Blackburn. Nate Blackburn. I’m his sister.”

  ***

  Ruth held her breath as Carl gathered his courage and turned toward the town. Taking one hesitant step after another, he disappeared out of sight, leaving her alone with the wind and quickly accumulating snow. She shivered and prayed he would indeed hurry. She’d stripped the shirt Camael’s lackey had given in half while in the crypt, wrapping her feet as best she could, but her feet were soaked through all the same and beginning to freeze.

  Her best hope was that the coven would stir into action on her behalf when they heard that she was Nate’s sister. It was the only card she had to play. If not for Carl, she would have perished out here already. He was a blessing.

  Ruth blew lukewarm air into her cupped hands and tried to keep her toes and feet moving to circulate her cooling blood. She was cold to the core and feeling lightheaded. The last thing she wanted to do was sit on the even colder ground. If the rest of her clothes got wet, she was a goner. The snow, which was coming down so thick and fast she couldn’t even see the road, had soaked her hair. The wind picked up and howled through the trees, bursting straight through her thin clothes. A chill ran down her spine, but she realized she’d stopped shivering again.

  Hurry, Carl!

  Hunkering down, she tried to balance on the balls of her feet, but her dizzy head and the driving wind were having none of it. She tumbled onto her side, but when she struggled to right herself, her eyes lost focus and her eyelids slammed shut. No amount of fear or self-preservation could hold them open any longer. She couldn’t help but succumb. She’d lost too much energy trying to keep warm.

  Camael was the least of her worries as she slid into darkness.

  ***

  Camael flashed into Bolton Cemetery. First he’d gather the sacrifice, and then he’d head to the coven. With Ruth in hand, he could kill two birds with one stone. Not only would he be able to use her to hold the portal open, but she would be the bait that would lure the reaper/witch and Maeve to the coven.

  He didn’t know how or why Maeve had been successfully reinsouled, but he was confident he could force them to do the same for Elaina so long as he had the right leverage.

  But when he reached the crypt, the lock was broken. Ruth was gone.

  Well, of course she was.

  Only the human minions had known where she was. One of them must have doubled back for her and set his sacrificial lamb free. Without her, not only would he fail to keep the portal open, but he had no leverage with the reaper/witch.

  Filled with righteous rage, he flashed to the coven.

  Taking care not to be spotted, he stayed just inside the wooded edge. No need to play his hand until he had to. After his last visit, he doubted the witches would send a welcoming committee to greet him if he walked up to knock on the metaphysical door. A lynch mob was more likely. He needed to be subtle. A near impossibility considering his history and current frame of mind, but he couldn’t take a chance of losing Elaina’s soul in any kind of struggle.

  The package under his arm gave him some comfort. He liked having her near, but the thought that she could be easily compromised filled him with dread. He couldn’t stand to lose her all over again.

  Before he opened the portal, unleashing Hell on Earth, he would make one last attempt to save her. If it worked…well, then he could decide what to do next.

  He wove his way toward the witch compound through the driving wind, and just before he reached the edge of the circle of protection, his foot kicked into a brushy stump in the snow. Raising his foot to climb over it, he heard a soft moan beneath him. When the pile shifted ever so slightly, he lasered his attention in on the quickly developing shape beneath the dusting of snow.

  Camael squatted beside the pile and brushed away the snow.

  He was unable to believe his great luck.

  Ruth.

  He looked around the clearing, but couldn’t see more than a few feet ahead of him in the blowing storm. What were the chances? Briefly he worried it might be a trap of some sort, but when she didn’t respond to his prodding, he knew she was alone. Someone had released her from the crypt. She hadn’t escaped alone. So where was her rescuer now?

  Refusing to examine his good fortune any further, he knelt beside her and brushed the remaining snow from her body. Placing his case over her stomach, he scooped them both up into his arms and carried her right up to the front gate.

  Screw subtlety. He had collateral.

  Chapter Forty

  “The coven’s in trouble, Deacon. I need your help.” Nate reached out his hand and helped Maeve to her feet as Deacon and Samkiel paced the room.

  Come to think of it, if not for the ball of dread eating its way through his own stomach, he had to admit he felt pretty good. Rashnu’s shot of angel mojo was a supersized dose of Reiki light, and while he was mostly the conduit for Maeve, its effects on him were lasting. Physically, Maeve didn’t look any different, but Rashnu was certain her tra
nsformation to valkyrie had been a success. Nate was just happy that she was alive and awake.

  The home sigil across his shoulder blade blazed along his skin. The coven was still in serious trouble. And Ruth? At this point there were so many fires to put out he didn’t know which one to aim at first. The remaining members of the Authority were shoulder-deep in the chaos that was downtown. The daylight had not deterred the demons from their mission. If anything, they seemed emboldened.

  It was Christmas Eve and Nate had no doubt that Camael intended to open the portal before midnight. He didn’t know how Ruth played into his plan, but he was certain it wouldn’t end well. Camael would likely have put their family history together by now, as well. What that meant for him and Ruth, he wasn’t sure. He just knew that he wasn’t looking forward to the family reunion.

  “Before you go, Nate, we have another piece of business to address. Maeve isn’t the only one who has experienced a transformation,” Rashnu said, reaching behind the bar.

  Nate gave Deacon a questioning look, not sure what was coming next. “What now?”

  Rashnu brought forth a soft leather scabbard in his hands and presented it to Nate. “You have proven yourself a reaper, Nate. While you are indeed nephilim, your heritage has allowed you to evolve into a reaper capable of very special talents. Beyond nature, yes, but you are still a child of God. The power of reinsoulment is a near God-like ability and one you must guard judiciously. With the acceptance of this scythe, you officially join the Authority as a reaper with full recognition and benefits. You’ve already proven your allegiance to protecting the ones you love. Now, go forth and protect the realms, as well.”

  Nate reached forward for the weapon and took it from Rashnu’s hands. He pulled the blade from the sheath and turned it in the light, examining its sleek design, the handle beginning to glow under his touch. Nate looked on in awe as the steel became imbued with the same sigils that marked his own body.

  “It is your weapon alone, Nate. No other can empower its magic. You are a breed apart. Use your power wisely,” Rashnu said.

  Samkiel stepped up beside him to examine the weapon and clapped a hand on his shoulder. “Nice blade.”