Reaper Mine: A Reaper Novel

by Palmer, Christie

  Helena. This wasn’t a good sign. Her sister never called unless something was truly wrong. “What’s wrong?”

  “Olympus.” No ‘hello’, no ‘hey, sis, how you doing’. Yeah, this was bad.

  Elle sat up straight in her bed a nervous laugh burst from her lips. “You’re kidding right?” After Gods knew how long her sister was using the safe word? What in the name of all that is holy was going on?

  “Get your shit together and get moving,” Helena spat.

  “Yeah, not until you tell me what the hell is going on.” Elle shook her head trying to wake herself up.

  “The Tribunal has lost its god damn mind. That is what is happening. Do you have your bag packed?”

  Elle climbed from her bed grumbling under her breath about being pulled from her warm bed, something Helena didn’t seem to appreciate. “Are you kidding me right now?” Helena shouted. “I used the safe word, for the first time in…” she seemed to have lost her ability to speak for a moment. But Elle knew it wouldn’t last long. “Forever!” she shrieked. “And you’re upset about being woken up? Don’t forget you are the weak link in the chain little sister.”

  Elle felt tears flood up the back of her throat, choking her. She swallowed past them. An apology on the tip of her tongue. It would just piss Helena off though, so she swallowed it. “Where are we meeting?”

  “The Atlanta safe house,” Helena barked. “You have seventy-two hours.”

  Elle quickly calculated it out in her head, realizing they must have decided on the Atlanta house because it was closest to her. Another concession just for her.

  “You’ll make it?” Helena asked.

  “Yes,” Elle agreed. Even if she had to drive without stopping for the next two days.

  “The Tribunal is sending some type of creatures after the higher orders,” Helena explained. Her voice only slightly softer.

  “What does that even mean?” Elle asked not really liking the sound of this conversation. She cradled the phone on her shoulder and threw open her closet and pulled at the duffel bag she kept packed just in case something like this happened.

  “Just try to stay off the main roads; you have a safe path mapped out? Holy ground mapped out right?” Gods on a spit. Elle climbed into her closet letting the familiar clothes fold around her she let her head fall against the back of the small space. What was happening? This was like some movie, not her life. Not her safe little life. Where she hid out in her little mountain home. Safe from the world, and all the evils that could find her.

  “Yes, Helena,” she answered trying to sound confident. When in fact she was so terrified she thought she might actually throw up.

  “Bet you wish you’d remained with the family,” Helena said, her sarcasm not lost on Elle. Helena’s sarcastic little barb didn’t require an answer, besides, no matter how much Elle wished she had remained with her brothers and sisters at the moment, she would never give up the freedom she now had.

  “I’ll see you in a couple of days,” Elle answered instead.

  “Seventy-two hours, Elle,” Helena reminded her.

  “I know, Helena.”

  “Elle.”

  Elle stopped, hoping her sister would offer some shred of hope, or grain of inspiration, she really should have known better.

  “You have the emergency number right?”

  Dread pulled in the pit of Elle’s stomach making her want to throw up. “Yes,” she croaked.

  “If you have to use it, do it. Do you understand me?”

  “Yes.” Elle’s voice cracked, she didn’t wait to see what else Helena had to say on the issue and clicked the end button. She was ready to go in fifteen minutes; the water and power to her small cabin were turned off, the propane tank valve turned off. She closed her front door and jogged to her old truck tossing her duffel bag into the bed..

  Helena wouldn’t have been impressed; she would have wanted Elle on the road immediately. Elle pushed those thoughts out of her head and started the truck. Thinking like this wouldn’t do anything but pull her mood down. She wasn’t sure how much time she would have to spend with her siblings and spending time with them always depressed her. She popped in a Katy Perry CD and turned up the volume and started to sing along.

  After an hour and a half she was half way down her mountain and still deep in the woods. She was singing at the top of her lungs when the lights appeared in her rear view mirror.

  Elle checked the clock and her GPS; she was basically in the middle of nowhere. She sighed, and glared as the lights gained on her. “Well shit, that’s a bad sign”

  Chapter 2

  Elle stumbled and fell to the dirt, stones digging into her knees and the palms of her hands. Crying out in fear she pushed herself to her feet and stumbled forward. She made the mistake of looking behind her. A shadow moved between the trees stalking forward barely discernable in the inky darkness of the night. It was playing with her, fear enveloped her making her stomach turn and bile rose to choke her.

  When Elle finally saw the glow, of hallowed ground she had been looking for, tears she hadn’t realized she had been holding back burst from her eyes. Elle pushed herself harder. “Almost there.” She told herself.

  Unearthly screams howled behind her making her stagger in fear. Elle lost her footing.

  “No, no, no,” she cried as her arms wind-milled around her. She fell hard on her left arm as she went down, the pain zinging up her arm.

  It caught up to her as she tried to regain her footing. She screamed with pain as it sunk its claws into her ankle, it took everything she had to not give into the excoriating pain and let the thing just have her. Clambering in the dirt, her adrenaline kicking into overdrive, her free leg kicked out and connected with bone. Rolling onto her stomach she clawed at the ground dragging herself forward through the dilapidated arched gates.

  The peace of hallowed ground hummed along her skin. The monster behind her screamed as his claws ripped through the sock and shoe of her left foot.

  Elle screamed again and kicked with everything she had left, finally jerking free. She pulled herself the rest of the way into the cemetery. The beast rose and the dark smoke he had used as camouflage rolled off of him like water.

  “You can’t hide in there forever,” The freaky thing growled his voice deep, giving Elle the chills. He snapped his jaws and growled causing Elle’s blood to run cold in her veins. He was huge, and Elle just stared for a moment unsure exactly what she was looking at.

  He was easily six and a half feet tall. And green, like pea soup green. And muscle. All muscle. Pointy yellow/white teeth which currently dripped blood. Her blood, she thought with a shiver. He was a Freak if there ever was one. Gasping for air, Elle scrambled back on her elbows.

  “What the hell are you?” she gasped. Pain radiating up her leg, she looked down at the bite mark, blood poured from the gaping wound. She wouldn’t last long against this huge Freak. Helena would have an aneurism when she didn’t show up at the safe house on time.

  The thing lunged at her but came up against the invisible barrier, and Elle smiled. “Hallowed ground, you piece of freaky shit.”

  He rolled his head on his large neck and then smiled, showing slathering pointed teeth. “But I can outwait you, little god.”

  Elle flipped him off and pulled herself behind one of the crumbling headstones she ripped part of her t-shirt off and tied it around her ankle staunching the bleeding for now. She had left everything including her phone back in her truck, in her clamber to get away. After being run off the road by the Freak ramming into the hallowed barrier behind her. She leaned back and stared up into cloudless night sky, the constellations of her mothers and fathers taunted her from the heavens.

  “You know you can’t hide in there forever.” the thing snapped irritation dripping off of every syllable.

  “You know you’re not actually supposed to exist right?” Elle threw back. “I certainly don’t make it a common practice to have conversations with creatures wh
o shouldn’t exist.”

  It laughed. A humorless sound she never wanted to hear again. However the sound battled with the ringing in her ears, when had her ears started to ring? Elle had to admit her condition actually couldn’t get much worse.

  “Give up Elle and you won’t be hurt anymore.” He laughed as he said it, making her seriously doubt his words.

  “How do you know my name?” she asked as lights started to pop on the edges of her vision. Elle shook her head and took several deep breaths until her vision cleared.

  “I’ve been sent specifically to claim you. My master demanded I know exactly who and what I was retrieving,” The Freak expounded.

  “You answer to the Tribunal?” she asked peeking around the headstone.

  “My master will rule the Tribunal.” It laughed again.

  “Um okay. Your master seems delusional,” she snapped. “Why don’t you go get your master and then I’ll talk to him or her. I don’t think it’s safe for me to leave my current position, until I can verify the sanity of this master.” Sounded like a sane idea to her. Even though the world was starting to spin.

  Her demand met with another guttural laugh. “Why don’t you come out and I will take you to my master?”

  She laid her head down deciding any further conversation would be a bad idea, she had no phone, had been run off the road, and trapped in an ancient graveyard in the middle of the woods in gods where. Helena had no way of finding her. She had lost a significant amount of blood. And had no way out.

  “You have the emergency number right?” Helena’s question haunted her.

  Elle would have laughed if she had the energy but as she had looked down at her ankle she knew she had very few options. Bleeding out looked like the death option for the day. Regardless she didn’t actually want to die.

  She cleared off one of the headstones. Dipping her fingers into the blood pooling at her foot, Elle drew the symbols she had memorized over millennia ago.

  When had Helena started calling them an emergency number? Helena thought it was hysterical. Elle thought it morbid. Elle had no idea what type of creature she would be summoning. In all her existence she had never truly seen a Reaper. Didn’t really want to see one now. But drastic measures and all, she glanced over her shoulder before turning back to the symbols on the stone she had drawn. She drew the last symbol, she merely had to press her palm against the center and wait. Elle leaned over so she could look out at the thing waiting for her. It squatted down drawing something in the dirt. Elle recognized in her heart of hearts whatever happened it spelled disaster for her.

  Bleed out in the cemetery or call a Reaper?

  “The devil you know or the devil you don’t?” She asked and looked again at the thing waiting to take her to the Tribunal or his master? Gods only knew what type of fate awaited her. “Against the devil you don’t know?” Elle pressed her palm into the center of the symbols; truly not in the mood to die tonight. It hurt too damn much.

  She closed her eyes expecting something cataclysmic to take place. A flash of lightning. A clap of thunder.

  Something…

  Anything…

  Nothing happened. Elle peeked one eye open and looked around. Then peeked the other open everything looked the same. She would have laughed if she could but the blackness was starting to swamp her.

  “You’re going to lose,” she muttered over her shoulder. Making the Freak look up from whatever it was he was doing.

  “And why is that?” he asked.

  “Because I’m going to bleed out long before you come up with an answer,” she murmured.

  He said something, but the ringing in her ears drowned him out. She wanted to cry, damn Helena and her emergency number. Elle slapped the stone. “Why aren’t you working?” She felt tears prick her eyes, and slapped it again. She was going to have to try again. But later, because the ringing in her ears was getting worse and her eyes were too heavy.

  ****

  Victor sensed the tug of the summons from deep in his consciousness and rolled from the bed, he could only ignore Dante for so long. Climbing naked from the bed he ignored the three women as he dressed and Flashed to Dante’s Fortress in the Infernos, Dante sat on his throne waiting.

  “You thought to ignore my summons?” He questioned.

  Victor knelt on one knee. “Of course not, father.”

  “I summoned you three times, Victor.” Dante’s voice was deceptively quiet. Enough to make the hair on the back of Victor’s neck stand on end.

  “I apologize, Father.” Victor kept his eyes on the floor knowing he had displeased Dante.

  “The Tribunal is demanding all Others register or stand trial for dissention,” Dante said shocking Victor. Victor’s shocked expression fell onto the marble thankfully as he remained kneeling; head down at his father’s feet. “This of course includes your brothers and I.”

  “My spies are saying they’re building an army and demanding Others on the mortal plane pledge themselves to the Tribunal and everything the Tribunal stands for,” Dante continued to explain, Victor heard his father move from the dais and walk away. Prompting Victor to move to his feet, he turned to find his father staring out the window. “They are making a move.”

  “What would you have me do?” Victor asked.

  “Someone has summoned a Reaper.” Dante changed the subject as he turned to Victor. “You will answer this summons.”

  “What?” Victor asked shocked. “Who would dare to make a demand on a Reaper?”

  “I have no idea. All I know is someone has summoned us. And with the Tribunal acting the way they are, we will not turn our back on possible allies.” Dante turned his back on Victor, dismissing him.

  Victor wanted to argue, but one certainly didn’t argue with Dante. And he had gotten off easy actually. He had been given a punishment as well as a mission. He moved silently out of Dante’s throne room in search of an Abda and the information he needed to find this idiot mortal who had the balls to call a Reaper. It wouldn’t be a mistake they made twice.

  ****

  He followed the summons and appeared on a shabby unkempt road. He looked around, but only saw a truck and an SUV. The truck looked like it had been run off the road by the black SUV, there were no signs of life. Well nothing here that could have summoned him.

  Victor walked over and put his hand on the hood of the truck: cold. Looking around he let his Reaper sense’s expand to encompass the small piece of road around him. There it was; terror and pain. Followed by something horrible and violent.

  Ah this made Victor smile. Violence is what he did. Following the trail of violent energy he walked into the woods, for the first time since Dante had summoned him he experienced a thrill flow up his spine.

  The stronger the energy became the more excited Victor grew. It swept through him like an evil wind. He pulled his scythe from the holster strapped to his back under his shirt rolling his shoulders. He stopped and listened, letting the sounds of the quiet night surround him. Victor listened and inhaled, taking it all in.

  Then he sensed it, shrouded within the eaves of a large tree; breathing heavily. Blood caked the cracked and dead earth leading to whatever was hiding there, and whatever it was, was sick and twisted. Victor squatted down and touched the drops of blood. It gave him just a glimpse. Like a movie, the scene played out for Victor: a woman kicking and screaming a freakish monster attacking her. They were so fast he couldn’t tell if the woman had been killed or not. But the heavy breathing lumberjack several yards in front of him wouldn’t just be hanging out if the woman were dead. He was pretty sure the thing hiding within the shadow of the tree wasn’t what had summoned him. So it was the dying female, and he needed to get past it to get to her.

  Victor let the shadows fold around him making him invisible to anything but another Reaper. And moved silently until he stood in front of a gate, the old iron rusted beyond repair and hanging loose. Victor expanded his senses, and then he heard it. The flutter, barely the
re, just a whisper of a beat. Whoever it was didn’t have long, Victor shook his head. He hoped they hadn’t suffered much. At least he could avenge them, it wasn’t much but it was all he had left.

  Victor stood and shook off the shadows letting them role into mist. He turned toward the violent darkness standing under the cover of a large tree.

  “Come out, you piece of shit,” Victor demanded. “And answer for the violence you have committed. “ The heavy breathing grew stronger and Victor glared into the shadows.

  “I don’t answer to you,” it exhaled.

  Victor twirled the scythe between his fingers letting the blade catch the light of the half moon. “Eventually every creature answers to a Reaper what makes you so different.”

  “Not me.” The shadows parted and a creature unlike anything he had ever seen before moved forward with a speed Victor wouldn’t have believed possible of something so large. He saw olive green colored skin, and red rimmed eyes before it bent down and plowed a huge shoulder into Victor’s stomach. It picked Victor up spinning him around and plowing Victor into the dirt. Victor would have sworn he heard a guttural laugh as he did it.

  A couple of Victor’s ribs cracked and he lost his breath for a moment. Victor drove an elbow into the side of the thing’s neck; it grunted and jumped back to its feet unphased. It grabbed a fallen log the size of Victor’s leg and swung it down. Victor rolled out of the way before it bashed the log into the exact spot Victors head had been, shattering the log into bits.

  Victor hooked the creature around its huge trunk like knee, satisfied when the thing tittered and then crashed to the ground. Making the very earth tremble. Victor rolled to his feet.

  “What the fuck are you?” Victor snarled just staring at the thing in front of him.

  The thing laughed again and launched to his feet. “Ah, a Reaper at a loss for words my master would be so pleased.”

  “You won’t be seeing your master any time soon. Unless your master is currently residing in the Infernos.” Victor snarled and moving with blinding speed, swept his weapon out in an arch. The beast moved, but not fast enough. Victor’s blade sliced through his opponents arm splattering Victor in a dark red blood.