Reaper (Dragon Prophecies Book 1)

by Hickory Mack

  “You will take me to her,” he said, and Frida purred, slinking her way over to him and giving her tail feathers a little shake. “When we get in there, stay out of my way. I won’t take the time to decide who’s on my side and who isn’t. She’s the only thing in there that’s important to me.”

  “I’m sure Lord Makkai would see it as a great favor if you helped Lady Chiori—”

  “That’s what he has you for,” Pascal growled. “Once we’re through that gate, we go our separate ways.”

  “Fine,” Moscow sighed.

  The cat opened the gate, and Pascal got a look at it for the first time. The thing was fucking huge. The stench of bleach and chemicals wafted through, but nobody moved. There was a barrier standing between them and the next dimension.

  “Fuck this,” Pascal said, stalking forward and calling his girls at the same time. He’d blast his way through, not caring how much attention it brought to the gate. If he caused a distraction here, it would take some of the attention off his mate. Gathering earth and ethereal magic, he slammed it into the gate and pushed hard, grunting with the effort.

  The barrier shattered, and a feral smile spread across his lips, revealing sharp teeth. He could feel her. The hunters had better get the fuck out of his way.

  Chapter 46

  She’d been unable to sleep. True to his word, Cornick had allowed her to keep her magic, and Elsie had taken full advantage. Hours after she’d been deposited in her room, she’d portaled to the screening room on the fox’s level, looking for Saint, Cross, and Frost, but they weren’t on any of the cameras. She’d have to go to Rand’s office to find them.

  She’d been about to do just that when she saw the heat outline of a monstrous cat appear in one of the dark rooms for a split second before the screen went back to normal. There was nothing but the outline of a small woman in an uncomfortable standing position with her arms above her head. When the screen blipped, the cat was gone, then the girl leaned over and the heat signature splattered all over the floor.

  “Holy shit,” Elsie muttered. She was seeing the results of someone stopping time even though they were clearly not very good at it. The girl was suffering the backlash of time catching up. Her heart skipped a beat when she realized who it was—the fox’s witch. The girl fell to the floor, and without thinking, Elsie stopped time in the room.

  She watched the girl drag herself across the room where she curled up in a ball. The fall from the table they’d strapped her to must have hurt her. For several minutes, Elsie contemplated going to her and helping her heal, but then the girl made her way back to the table. She looked to be undoing the straps, and Elsie understood. She was making it look like she’d escaped without magic.

  When the witch turned, Elsie restarted time, congratulating herself that the girl didn’t seem to notice anything unusual. She just went back to her place along the wall, curling up again. With Elsie’s intervention, the hunters would never know how the girl had escaped her confines.

  Elsie continued watching for a long while, confused when the witch appeared to have gone to sleep. If the girl had magic to escape her restraints, why wasn’t she escaping her room? She thought of the cat and started piecing it together. Clearly, the witch was able to leave if she wanted. If the cat could come and go, so could she, and she’d decided to stay. They must have a plan, and Elsie was willing to bet every gold coin in her pocket dimension that it would happen tomorrow when she was brought back to see the fox.

  “Alright, kiddo,” Elsie muttered. “You do what you need to do, and I’ll distract them. Let that demon of yours go, and we’ll all get out of here alive.”

  She portaled back to her room and paced around for the next hour before deciding to shower. They’d come for her soon. Taking everything out of her wardrobe, she selected an outfit and put the rest into her pocket dimension. The little thing was seriously overstuffed. She’d have to think about expanding it sometime in the near future.

  After showering, brushing her teeth, and drying off, she dressed in jean shorts and a sky blue t-shirt, which she covered with her reaper’s robes. Completely different than what she’d worn the day before, this wasn’t about her own confidence. This was about intimidation. She would remind them of what she was and who they were fucking with.

  Pulling the hood over her head and tying the raven mask at her waist, she waited on the couch. It wasn’t long before a knock came at the door. Elsie stood and crossed the room, opening it. There were four guards this time, and one of them was holding a plate with two eggs on it. Her breakfast.

  “No thanks,” she said, shaking her head with distaste. She’d rather go hungry than eat the product of some bird’s ovulation. The heels of her boots clicked against the floor, the only sound other than the air system keeping clean air flowing throughout the facility.

  There was an edge to that silence as though the compound itself knew something was different about today. Today, everything would change, and a lot of people were going to die. She could feel the rifle muzzles trained on her from behind. The soldiers could sense the tension in the air as well. Good. She wanted them to feel that fear. She wondered if their souls would be among those she’d be sending to hell today. She just hoped she’d have her hand in a few of those deaths. There were a handful of men she really wanted to watch as the light left their eyes.

  ‘I’m coming for you,’ she said to her mates, knowing they couldn’t hear her. ‘Just a little longer. I’ll be there.’

  The only thing she had to work out was who she would free first. Cross was the least likely to be targeted by Cornick, so she figured he was safest of the three. Her heart demanded Saint, but her brain demanded Frost. Her sweet, darling wolfhound could very well be traumatized, brought back to the months he’d been tortured by the hunters in his past. He’d barely been functional when she’d first met him, and it broke her heart to think of what she’d find when she took him back.

  He needed her the most, but Frost would be the best option to have at her side. The wolf would tear through this place. With the exception of the fox, nothing could stop him, and that was an encounter she would try her best to avoid.

  They rode down the final elevator and approached the gate. A whole crew of people were already there, waiting. The security Cornick had demanded were in formation. Someone handed Elsie her staff, and she wasted no time opening the gate.

  Frost or Saint. She needed to make up her mind right now. She’d yet to see any sign of Frida, and it scared the shit out of her. As sassy as she could be, Elsie loved that damned cat. The guards, including two of her own, went through the gate to Earthbase B, leaving her with just the two men watching over her.

  Elsie turned the staff into a charm, clipping it to her bracelet. The idiots would have no idea where it went, but they’d think she didn’t have it, so they couldn’t try taking it from her. Not that she’d let them. She stuffed her hands into her pockets to hide how badly she was shaking. Every second that passed by was an eternity of torture. The anticipation was killing her.

  The sound of boots and wheels reached her ears, and she perked up. This time, they had the girl in a wheelchair, and the idiots had strapped a muzzle over her face. Her bright blue eyes looked unfocused, but Elsie could see the concentration in them. She’d been right; the little witch had a plan.

  She waited until the entire group had squeezed themselves into the elevator, the indicator showing it had stopped at the next floor, before acting. Whipping her hand to one side, the staff materialized as Grief in her palm. Her guards were lax, looking away from her, giving her a convenient opening, and she easily stabbed them both, one after the other. Fatal wounds.

  Before they could succumb, she held the sword sideways, letting it flow into the scythe. Their eyes widened, and one fell to his knees, pleading in his eyes. Elsie let the ethereal magic flow through her and opened a doorway into a hell dimension. The magic told her everything she needed to know.

  “Greg Borowitz and Kelsey Joh
nson, I have tried the substance of your hearts and judged you worthy of hell. I sentence you to three hundred years in the dimension of my choosing, at which point your soul will be released for Karma to do with you as she wills.” She yanked their souls out of their bodies and slashed the scythe through them, marking the date of their release into their very core.

  She closed the connection point after they were sucked into hell, changing the scythe back into the katana and slipping it into its sheath. Now, for a distraction to help the witch. Elsie opened a portal to the next level where two dozen guards stood in formation. Pulling her sword, she closed her portal and opened a new one on the other side.

  Running through, she hamstrung two of the soldiers, stabbed another, and slit the throat of a fourth. It took a second for them to react, but four more followed her through the portal, which she slammed shut behind them. They were in the training room upstairs, and several people stopped what they were doing to watch.

  She’d been a frequent visitor in this room, working with her staff every day as ordered by Wren, so it took them way too long to figure out that this wasn’t practice. By the time anyone moved to intervene, Elsie had a new cut on her hand and four men were dead at her feet. Opening another portal, she leapt through, landing on Rand’s desk and closing it behind her.

  The security chief leaned back in his chair, a surprised expression on his face, and Grant sitting across from him. The latter jumped to his feet, and Elsie grinned. Good. Two of the men on her list were conveniently in one place.

  “Chantraine, what the hell are you doing here?” Rand demanded, his eyes darting to the blood dripping from her bare steel.

  “I’ve decided I’m tired of playing your games. Show me where my wolf and my mates are,” she snarled, holding her sword to his throat. Grant held up a pistol, and she threw ethereal magic at him, forcing him to his hands and knees. “Wait your fucking turn.”

  “What do you really think you’re going to accomplish here?” Rand asked.

  “I’m going to take back my mates and help that fox tear this place apart. Did you guys really think all the evil you’ve done in this world wouldn’t come back to bite you in the ass? You had me for a while. The curse and the elixir did force me to give in, but did you really think it would continue when you took my mates away from me? Did you really think you were safe?” she demanded. “Why don’t you tell me where to find Eustone, too. I’d like to be the one to take him out of this world.”

  Elsie felt the gate on the top level get torn open, then someone burst through the barrier with enough force to make the recoil of magic reverberate through her head. Her bond with Mouro took on a new vibrancy, and she couldn’t help but reach out to him. Her demon mate was in the compound.

  Rand noticed her distraction and took the opportunity to slam a fist into her thigh. Surprised, she pulled the katana across his throat and frowned, realizing she hadn’t gotten any information from him. Seeing no other use for him now, Elsie ripped open the connection to her favorite hell dimension.

  The staff no longer needed the form of a scythe to do as she needed. Wren and her mother had been right. The more she connected with it, the more aware and alive it became, adapting to her magic and her needs.

  Her brow furrowed as the pain hit. She’d thought he’d just punched her in a pathetic fit of uselessness, but she saw blood when she looked down. The fucker had stabbed her with a penknife. Elsie sighed and yanked it out, wincing when the blood came faster. This one might take a couple days to fully heal.

  She didn’t bother telling him his sentence, which was considered taboo among reaper kind. Sending a soul to hell with no knowledge of when they would be able to leave was a whole other level of torture. Elsie pulled the soul from his body as he bled out, his blood soaking her robes. With a shove of magic, he stumbled back, his soul joining all the others she’d sent there.

  Leaving it open, her eyes turned to Grant. This motherfucker was special. Lowering herself from Rand’s desk, she stood with her weight on her right foot and gave him a savage smile. Alarms started going off, but she ignored them, giving all of her attention to the man in front of her.

  “You know, I’ve been wanting to do this since the moment we met,” she told him. “The number of lives you have actively helped destroy is unbelievable. There’s a mark that reapers put on the souls of the darkest, most vile people we encounter. Do you know what it does?”

  He shook his head, and she patted his cheek with a harsh series of slaps. “The first thing it does is tell everyone in hell that you deserve the worst they have to offer. There are creatures in those dimensions who love nothing more than to feed off the suffering of the damned, and that mark ensures that you will remain in that hell dimension for all of eternity.”

  “Please don’t,” he begged.

  “That’s not the worst part. At least, not at first. The second thing this mark does is remove your memory from this Earth. Not one person in your life will remember you ever existed. Not your lover, your best friend, or even your worst enemy will care that you’re gone. So, while you’re suffering in the deepest bowels of hell, no one you left behind will even think of you,” Elsie told him.

  “Of course, the pain will break you eventually, then you won’t remember that anyone ever loved you in the first place.” She shrugged, and the staff became an iron rod, with a brand at the end. There was a single symbol glowing red hot, meaning eternity in the ancient language. Elsie burned it into his forehead, right over the third eye, ensuring it would forever be marked upon his soul. Grant screamed until his voice was raw and blood vessels burst in his eyes.

  “It has a third purpose,” she said when he finished screaming. “Although everyone you’ve ever met will forget you, you will never forget your victims or what you did to them. Even in the most depraved moments of insanity, the ghosts of their faces and pain will haunt you for the rest of time.”

  The only wound on his body was the burn, and that’s where she pulled his soul from. There was nothing more painful than tearing a soul from a healthy body. She took vindictive satisfaction, watching his body twitch and his face contort in pain, while his spirit looked on from above.

  Elsie pushed him through to the hell dimension, looking into its purple landscape and listening to the screams of anguish before pulling it closed. It wasn’t until they were both gone that she clapped a hand over the hole in her thigh and groaned. Shoving Rand’s body out of his seat, she sat down and surveyed the screens.

  The girl and the fox were fighting their way through the soldiers, and Elsie consoled herself with the reminder that she’d taken eight of them out of the equation. A swarm of demons were several floors above her, but she forced herself to ignore those screens even though she wanted to look for Mouro. Her eyes moved from one screen to the next, searching for her men. Finally, she found them, and each and every one of them looked like shit. She was going to torture Cornick on Earth before giving him the same mark as Grant.

  Memorizing their locations, she forced herself to stand, and then a flash of light nearly blinded her. She blinked hard as her eyes watered, and Frida yowled at her in a harsh, scolding tone.

  “Frida!” Elsie cried out in relief, but before the cat could leap into her arms, she was pulled against the hard chest of her mate. “Mouro…”

  “I told you not to be late,” he growled, but his embrace was tender, softening his tone. “Why the fuck are you bleeding?”

  Elsie pointed at Rand’s slumped over body. “Don’t worry, I took care of it. We need to go get the others, and then we need to get out of here,” she said, though she pressed her cheek against his shoulder instead of moving. She needed a second to process that this was really happening. She wasn’t alone anymore. “You’re really here. I missed you.”

  “I missed you too, but you’re right. We need to get the fuck out of here. You didn’t tell me you’d gotten yourself mixed up with the devil’s black fox,” he accused, and she ducked her head.

&
nbsp; “How did you find that out?”

  “His people are here. As it turns out, I know the witches you’re looking for. Kind of. The asshole fox doesn’t let people get close to her, but I’ve met her a few times. What do you need from me?”

  “I need to release Saint, Frost, and Cross, and I need to kill Angus Cornick.”

  “Point the way, love,” he said, removing the veil that hid his power, letting her feel it flowing in the air around them. “I am at your service.”

  “Saint first,” she said, looking at her demon hound on the screen then opening a portal to the room he was in. Elsie made it a few steps before he lifted her into his arms, carrying her through the portal. The hound was laid flat on the ground, and there were two IVs in his veins. They had him chained to the floor.

  “No,” Else whispered. “No, how could they do this to him? He’s so kind and gentle. I need to get him out of here!”

  Mouro set her down and yanked the chains free, his magic twisting them until they broke. Elsie limped forward and collapsed at his side, then carefully removed the needles. Blood was caked on his muzzle, and there was a deep, unhealing wound on his ribs. It was hard to see the extent of his injuries through his dark fur. Tears stung her eyes, and she didn’t even try to hold them back.

  “Saint, I’m so sorry. Wake up! You have to be okay,” she cried, kissing his furry forehead after noticing some of the blood on his muzzle was still fresh. She pulled back his lips and let out a sob. There were gaping holes where his fangs were supposed to be. Her stomach lurched, and her heart leapt into her throat. She felt like she was going to be sick.

  “Oh gods. Why would they do this?” Her voice cut off as the tears came harder, and soon she couldn’t do anything but cry in great, heaving gasps.

  “Fuck,” Mouro muttered. “I should have come as soon as I noticed you’d taken too long. I shouldn’t have let those assholes keep me from you a second longer.” He wrapped her in a hug, holding her tight as she cried, his heart breaking for her.