Dayna tapped a few more buttons and then nodded. “Yes. Lara Dawn. Two streets over.” She smiled. “She runs the children’s home. There are a lot of child specters ready to ascend. Some choose to relinquish their earthly child forms, while others hold on to them. Evergreen House is a place for those spirits, and Lara Dawn is the woman who takes care of them.”
My heart squeezed painfully in my chest. Of course she did. “Please, take me there.”
* * *
Evergreen House was a sweet three-story townhouse bordered by a picket fence. Two lights lit up the porch, but all the windows, aside from a downstairs one, were dark. Lara probably had the kid ghosts tucked in bed. She’d always been big on routine and structure when I’d been growing up, and yes, I’d found security in it.
Right now, these children probably needed that too.
“I’ll meet you back at Operations,” Dayna said.
She was giving me privacy. “Thank you.”
She offered me half a smile. “You know, I think you’ll be good for this place.”
“You do?”
She nodded slowly. “Deadside could do with a feminine touch.”
She walked away, and I pushed open the gate and walked up to the front door. There was no doorbell, just a knocker. I knocked and waited with a thousand moths in my chest. I’d been both waiting for and dreading this moment. To see her, to hold her, to tell her how fucking sorry I was.
Oh, fuck, what if she didn’t forgive me? What if she hated me? Cora said this was what I needed to do. That I needed to face it. To rip off the Band-Aid.
The door opened, and light spilled across me. Aunt Lara stood in the doorway, glasses perched at half-mast on her nose, and unruly dark hair pushed back with an Alice band.
Oh, God. It was really her.
She was here.
Solid and alive-looking. My eyes filled with tears.
“Fee?” Her face crumpled. “No, baby girl, not you too.”
What? Oh shit, she thought I was dead. “No. I’m not dead. I’m … Fuck!”
“Seraphina Dawn!”
Shit. “Sorry. I’m so sorry.” This wasn’t about the swearing. This was more, so much more. “I’m sorry I killed you. I’m so fucking sorry.”
But her arms were around me, and she was squishing me to her bosom in a familiar hug that released the sobs trapped in my chest.
I’d been driving that afternoon. The sun was bright. The sky was blue, a reflection of our mood. Joy to know Aunt Lara was finally in remission from cancer. The two years of pain and the debilitating treatment had paid off. I couldn’t stop grinning as I took the back streets, the scenic route back to Necro. Our song was playing, a nineties track that Aunt Lara loved. We started to sing along, and then something shot into the road. An animal. I couldn’t remember what, but I swerved instinctively. There was a bang. And then the world flipped. When I woke in the hospital days later, Aunt Lara was gone. They said my tire burst, the car flipped. They said she would have died quickly. They said it wasn’t my fault.
They said. They said. But I knew it was my fault. She’d been handed a new lease on life, and I’d taken it away.
I’d killed her.
“Stop it.” Aunt Lara placed a cup of tea in front of me. “I raised you better than this.”
“It’s my fault you’re here.”
She shook her head. “No, Fee. Everyone has a time to die. That was mine. It wasn’t your fault.”
Weeks of darkness. Weeks of being locked in my room, not eating, not sleeping. Weeks of talking to myself. Talking it through and dreaming and then Cora had knocked at the door. She’d pulled me out of the hole I’d been buried in.
“If I’d braked instead. There’d been time to brake. If I’d slowed down before swerving?”
Aunt Lara frowned. “Enough. I’m happy, Fee. This place makes me happy, and when my time comes, I’ll ascend. Things are good here. I’ve even met someone.” She gave me a coy look.
“What?”
She shrugged. “She’s a wonderful woman, sweet and kind. She’s great with the kids. I’d love for you to meet her.”
“You met someone …” I sat forward. “Fussy Aunt Lara finally met a woman who ticks all the boxes?”
She smiled into her teacup. “And I only had to die to do it.”
“You never blamed me.”
“No, sweetheart. I didn’t.” She covered my hand with hers. “I’m okay. I really am.”
She was okay. She didn’t hate me. She was happy. The weight that had settled on my chest after the accident that Cora has succeeded in alleviating a little melted away.
There was a knock at the door, but before either of us could get up, Mal strode into the kitchen.
God, he was such an ass. What did he think he was doing just sauntering into her home like this? I opened my mouth to give him a piece of my mind, but Aunt Lara’s beaming smile cut me off.
“Malachi, sweet boy. Fee, have you met Malachi?” She gave me the look—the setup look—and horror trickled through me.
“Hell no, Aunt.”
She balked. “Fee, don’t be so rude.”
“Yes, Fee, don’t be so rude,” Mal parroted.
I gave him a narrow-eyed stare. “What do you want, Mal?”
“You said an hour. It’s been an hour.”
Aunt Fee clapped her hands together. “Oh, of course, you two work together now, don’t you?”
She did this. How could I forget how often she did this? It began when Lucas started dating and then intensified when he left town. There was no reasoning with her when she put her matchmaker hat on. The only option was retreat or surrender, and there was no way I was doing the latter.
I pushed back my seat. “Yes, we should go.”
“Oh, we can spare a few minutes for Aunt Lara.” Mal graced Aunt Lara with a charming smile.
She simpered. Like, what the fuck? Was she actually falling for this bullshit? So many questions filtered through my mind, like how did these two know each other, and why was Mal even spending time in Deadside?
A soft beeping interrupted my thoughts. Mal looked at his watch. Wait, it was kind of clunky to be a watch, and I’d seen Conah wearing one too. Some kind of comm, maybe?
He blinked at the comm, and then his mouth turned down.
Panic bloomed in my chest. His panic. “What? What is it?”
“I need to go. Now.” He strode past me and out the door.
I looked from Aunt Lara to the door.
“Go,” she urged.
I ran after Mal, catching up to him at the gate. “Mal, what the fuck is going on?”
“It seems like we have an answer to why Evelyn attacked Conah. She wanted information.”
She was a memory reader like him… Oh, fuck, of course. “Mal, what has she done?”
“The Academy is under attack. I’ll have to go. You’ll be safe here.”
Wait, what? “Like fuck.” I bridged the distance between us and wrapped my arms around his neck. “I’m coming with you.”
He looked down at me with an annoyed frown. “You’re not fully trained.”
“I took out four vamps. I have my dagger, let me help.”
Indecision skated over his chiseled face. “You don’t know how to use it.”
“I’ll fucking stab the bad guys. For fucksake, Mal, those kids are in danger. We need to go. Now.”
He grabbed my hips and hauled me up so I could wrap my legs around his waist. Our mouths were inches apart, and a stab of heat shot through me, unexpected and primal, and then we were shooting up into the night sky.
Chapter Twenty-Two
There were young children at the Academy, children aged seven upwards. Defenseless. What time was it? It didn’t matter because Conah said many of the children were residents of the Academy. It was, after all, a boarding school.
They were in danger.
Dread, like Evelyn, soul-sucking monsters were attacking them.
Oh, God.
T
he children.
I squeezed Mal’s hips with my thighs. “Can’t you go faster?”
“Do I look like a fucking horse?” Mal snapped.
Shit, he never snapped. He was cool and sarcastic and drawly.
“We need to ride a different river,” he said a moment later.
I tucked my head into the crook of his shoulder as we accelerated upward, his wings flapping hard, pushing air to take us higher, and then we were gliding. It was going to be okay. The Academy had sounded an alarm, and other demons would have gone to assist. Reapers in the nearby vicinity. It was going to be okay.
But I needed to be there. I needed to make sure it was okay. The conviction was a burning in my veins that was almost painful.
“Hold on,” Mal warned, and then we were surrounded by color.
We were in the river.
My breath was tight in my lungs as we exited into the night sky.
“Fucking hell!” Mal’s wings beat the air as we hovered above the world. I looked down at the massive Academy building surrounded by fire. Smoke billowed up into the night air and gathered in a gray cloud. Tinny screams drifted up to greet us, and bodies were visible, running to and fro below. Tiny, frightened bodies.
My vision zoomed in on a child running from a loping pursuer. Vampire. My blood bubbled in my veins as rage exploded in my chest.
“Get us down there. Now.”
Mal didn’t argue. He tipped forward, and then we were shooting toward the ground. I remained locked on the child being chased by the vamp. The boy was fast, but the vampires were faster. I’d seen them in action, so why was he moving so slowly. My gaze flicked away from the boy to follow his trajectory toward a squat building he was headed for. An outbuilding of some description? No, the halls of residence accessed only by resident biometrics. I caught movement in the shadows beyond the shrubbery bordering the building. More vampires? Dread? It was a trap. They wanted the boy to open the doors. They probably didn’t know how to get in and didn’t want to risk fucking shit up if they hurt the boy.
Oh, fuck.
My gums ached from how hard I grit my teeth, and then Mal was pulling up, slowing down to land. But we were too far from the boy.
We hit the ground, and I was off, sprinting full pelt toward the outbuilding. I needed to get there first, to stop the boy from letting in the monsters.
Was Mal with me? I didn’t know, and it didn’t matter. My objective was clear. I needed to save the children. Fredrin, Palin, and Clayna. I had to save them.
My boots pounded earth, my thighs screamed at me to slow the fuck down, but my heart carried me forward, pushing adrenaline around my body for that extra rush of invincibility.
I cut across the grass and skidded to a halt on the gravel a few meters in front of the door.
The boy running toward me screamed and faltered.
I knew that face. Those gray eyes. “Run, Fredrin. Run!”
I held out my arms for him.
Relief flooded his features, and he ran toward me. Shadows stirred to my left. Shit.
My dagger.
I grabbed and slashed at the vampire, the blade caught and dragged, and his scream was a symphony to my ears. But there were more. Two more.
“Fee, watch out,” Fredrin cried.
He was looking out for me while being chased by a vampire who was speeding up.
Shit!
I ran toward the boy, almost there.
But the vampire was closer, faster. I wasn’t going to make it. A huge shadow swept in from the right and knocked the vampire off his feet.
Mal. Oh, thank God.
Fredrin ran into my arms. “The monsters are real.”
Yeah, they were real, and they were right behind me. I needed more than a dagger. Come on, scythe. Come on.
My arm lit up with heat, and then the staff of the scythe settled in my hand. The blade glowed, and the vampires behind me hissed. Their bootfalls came to a halt.
“Give us the boy, reaper, and we’ll make sure we kill you quickly.”
I took a deep breath and turned to face the vampires. “So, you do speak.”
There were two of them, bodybuilder sizes with all the muscles and the fangs.
I nudged Fredrin to stand behind me. “I won’t let you hurt the children.”
“Those demon brats are our reward. Our feast. Young demon blood is a fucking aphrodisiac, and we’re getting paid.”
“The Dread?”
“They get theirs, and we get ours. So, give us the demon boy, and we’ll kill you quick; fight us, and it’ll be pain all the way.”
No. Not happening. Drawing on every ounce of bravado in my reserves, I fell into a defensive stance like Conah had taught me. “I’ll take door number three and kick your asses.”
The vampires shrugged and bared their fangs, horror movie style. It would have been funny if it wasn’t a real-life, I’m-about-to-die situation.
Something fell from the sky and landed on the ground between us. It rolled. And then stopped, face up. A head. A vampire head, face contorted in a snarl that exposed fangs.
“Ned?” one of the vampires said.
“Ned’s not home right now,” Mal said. He landed smoothly beside me. His wings vanished, and he crossed his arms. “So, we can do this the hard way, or the harder way.”
The vampires charged.
“Fredrin, get to the building.” I shoved him out of the way as the vampires reached us.
The next few seconds were a blur of block and stab. There was no time to check if Fredrin made it. He had to have made it.
My scythe cut through the air, leaving a trail of light in its wake, and took off one of the vamp’s faces.
I caught sight of Mal’s shocked expression, but there was no time to dwell on it. Dagger in one hand, scythe in the other, I finished off my attacker with a head swipe. He dusted almost immediately. I turned to help Mal with his, but the other vamp was crumpled on the ground, already turning to dust.
Mal raised his head and locked gazes with me. “You can use it as a weapon? An actual fucking weapon?”
“What?”
“It usually only works on Dread for us,” he said before his attention shot over my shoulder. “More incoming.”
Fuck my life. How many this time? Four, five? Shit, no time to count. Got to fight.
My body took over, using moves I didn’t realize I had. Power coursed through my right arm and into every blow my scythe made. We were winning. Only two more bastards to go.
“Help! Help me!”
I lost concentration for a moment, but it was long enough for the vamp to get the drop on me. My back hit the ground, and white light stole my vision. Pain followed, filling my head with a scream.
Something wet hit my cheek.
My vision cleared to find fangs coming at me. Not again. I brought my left hand up and stabbed the vamp in the head. Its body slumped over mine, pinning me. Fuck, he was heavy. How was he so heavy?
“No!”
I turned my head toward the sound, scrambling to try and push the vamp off. Clayna was dangling in the air, held against a vampire’s chest. He bared his fangs, ready to feed.
“No!” I shoved off the vamp pinning me with all my might and staggered to my feet. “Stop.”
But even as I broke into a run, I knew I wouldn’t make it in time. “Let her go!” My cry was swallowed by the rush of blood in my ears, and then a small figure attacked the vampire from the right.
Fredrin. He had something in his hand, something that glinted. A knife. He buried it in the vamp’s thigh. The vampire bellowed and dropped Clayna, who made a run for it. But Fredrin faltered. Why was he faltering?
“Fredrin, run!” I was almost there. Just a second more. I brought my scythe up. The next second was a series of freeze frames that taunted me to intervene.
Fredrin made to run. The vampire snagged the back of his shirt. Fredrin locked gazes with me, his tiny face a mask of fear. The vamp grasped the boy’s head.
&nbs
p; No. No. No. I’m here. I’m here.
The crack was small but loud. Fredrin crumpled to the ground just as my scythe found a home in the vampire’s face.
Tears blurred my vision and stung my throat. “Bastard! You fucking bastard!” I stabbed him, again and again, alternating between the dagger and the scythe.
Pain cut between my shoulder blades, and then my head was yanked back, and needles tore into my throat. My scythe winked out from the shock of the pain, but I brought my dagger up, intent on stabbing my attacker. He grabbed my wrist and twisted hard enough to draw a scream, hard enough to force me to release my weapon. A distant part of my brain realized I’d fucked up. I’d lost it. Turned my back on the fight, but my rage was too big, too powerful for fear to have any place in my mind, and a new power, fresh and eager, surged up inside me. Stars filled my vision as my Voralex lent me strength.
“Fuck you!” I twisted, trying to pull free, ignoring the pain in my throat, ignoring the fact I was tearing my own artery by fighting.
And then the bands around me were gone. I fell forward, bracing myself on my palms, and looked up at my savior. The ridges across his nose and the crimson eyes gave him away. Not a vampire. This one was a Dread.
The vampire he’d knocked off me, as if it were nothing but a gnat, hissed at him.
The Dread snarled. “Fuck off, fangs. This one is a Dominus. This one is mine.”
Oh, shit. The vampire’s bite couldn’t kill me, but this Dread could. Kill me or turn me. My neck tingled. Was it healing? I had to fight. I needed my scythe. I needed to reconnect with the Voralex power inside me. But Fredrin’s death played in my head on a loop, and grief tore at my chest with its freshly minted claws.
Fight. I had to fight.
My dagger … I swept my hand across the ground. Where was it?
The Dread laughed and grabbed at me so fast he was a blur, and then I was hauled up, my mouth inches from his. Fuck, no.
My insides twisted and tore as if he was pulling them out, my eyes bugged with the pressure from within as my essence, my soul, was drawn toward the monster’s maw. There was light. So much light. Too bright. Too wonderful.
Just relax. You want this. You want me.
Reaper Unexpected: Deadside Reapers book 1 Page 17