Reap & Redeem (2 page)

But Meridian had been ground zero for a demon invasion. The demons had entered through the now-closed release portal at St. Agnes Cathedral, and with each passing day, they grew more difficult to track, collecting soul after innocent soul before taking them straight to Hell. Even Deacon’s new super-reaper abilities as a Powers hadn’t developed enough to lead him to the few they’d already dispatched. Kylen had done that. His previous possession was the one advantage they had in this whole messy situation. He was still tuned in to the demon radio even though his channels were sometimes scrambled, and he was drawn to demons like a moth to flame—kin to kin. He’d tracked down the dozen they’d killed over the past four months of nightly hunts. Still, their progress was too slow. The city was big and Kylen hadn’t fully recovered from his ordeal. Tonight had been the best night of hunting in weeks.

Even though his mission was to cut down every demon he could, Kylen’s soul was black with the stain of his demon’s sins, which he felt as keenly as if they were his own. The darkness sat in his chest like a gangrenous lump. No amount of Reiki reaper energy was going to cure that. Hell, Rashnu, the soul sorter of Purgatory, didn’t even trust him to carry souls anymore. Kylen didn’t blame him. He didn’t trust himself. His proclivities and thoughts ran a little too dark even for Purgatory these days.

What fueled him through each torturous day was vengeance, pure and simple. Deacon might be a Powers, the newest guardian of the realms of Heaven, Hell and Purgatory, but Kylen was Heaven’s self-proclaimed executioner.

He squatted in the darkness by the outdoor spigot on the side of the house, letting the water run over his hand and his blade. Pulling a soft cloth from his back pocket, he dipped it into the stream of water before turning off the spigot. He caressed it across the blade, removing the last traces of blood from his scythe, polishing it until the moonlight glinted off its deadly surface.

Satisfied, he crossed to the detached garage and pulled the whetstone down from the tool pegboard. He dragged a bucket outside the garage, overturned it and sat facing the woods. Reaching out with his senses, past the magical circle of protection that was vigilantly defended by Nate, he watched and listened.

There were things out there in the woods. Things that were drawn to him still; things that awaited his command.

He drew the whetstone across the curved blade of his scythe with a slow, easy pressure, stroking its length. He rocked his body forward and back with each rasp of the steel, enjoying the hypnotic rhythm of the work. Honing the scythe to perfection was a comforting task. Turning the blade, he sharpened the other side, careful to return its lethal edge. It was a supernatural weapon, given to each reaper upon his or her first reaping, so the task was unnecessary. Still, it was a ritual he’d performed for years, and it gave him peace in the darkness. A man needed to respect his weapon.

When he was finished, Kylen slashed it into the waist-high weeds before him, watching as they fell to the ground with a whisper. He stared off into the darkness again, resting the blade across his thighs. The night was soothing to him. At night he wasn’t reminded that he could no longer see in color.…

Ever since the demon had been torn from him, he saw the world in shades of gray, and he could no longer make out people’s auras. He could see the light but only its intensity. The color had been stripped from him, which was handicapping him as a reaper. Every reaper worth his or her salt knew that the color gray represented dark thoughts and unclear intentions. Well, that pretty much summed up his inner world these days.

He hadn’t bothered to mention this disturbing fact to any of his roommates.

He had thought it would be a temporary affliction. But now, months later, his color vision still hadn’t returned. It was one more thing that had been stolen from him.

Damaged was an understatement…and he wanted revenge. If he had to, he would find each and every demon himself, making sure Deacon had ample opportunity to send them to their final deaths. Then he would find his own…death, that is.

He was more than ready for it.

* * *

Nate tossed the bag containing the head down the stairs in front of him so he could maneuver the body through the narrow passage to the root cellar. It landed on the dirt floor with a wet thud before rolling to a stop. A large wood-burning furnace sat on concrete blocks against the east wall. They’d had to reroute the ductwork so that the heat and smoke diverted outside…the sickening smell had almost suffocated them when they burned the first body.

He was thankful they lived in a remote enough area that the smell and smoke could dissipate outside without raising any alarms. Nate had moved into the house after it became clear that hanging out with reapers was potentially detrimental to his neighbors. No one wanted a herd of imps following him home. At least here, with a thousand square miles of National Forest patchworked around them, they were safe.

Getting rid of the hosts’ bodies was a disgusting operation, and it didn’t help that the heat was still a cloying thing in late September. Nate was in the business of saving lives and patching up bodies. In the past few months, this was the twelfth body he’d personally disposed of. It was a messed up deal all around. Nate continued to insist that they should at least try to save the hosts, but Kylen wouldn’t have any of it. In an effort to contribute to the cause, Nate had volunteered for disposal duty. He was useless in tracking the demons. This he could do. Still, he was starting to regret his offer.

He should be the one down here cleaning up his mess.

Nate hadn’t known Kylen before the possession, but he was a dark, scary bastard now.

Dude had seemed halfway tolerable after he and Ruth had healed him. As far as Nate could tell, Kylen had grown physically better, but mentally? Seemed like the guy was getting worse and worse since their return from Hell.

Part of the problem was that Kylen and Deacon kept getting into heated arguments over Kara, Kylen’s long-dead reaper girlfriend.

After the last blowup a few weeks ago, Kylen stopped sleeping in the house with them. He’d used some of the reaper hazard-pay settlement Deacon had negotiated for him to purchase a used twenty-four-foot camping trailer. He’d dragged the eyesore home and parked it by the garage. God only knew where he’d found the thing. When he wasn’t out hunting demons, he spent his time out there. Alone. Nate was pretty sure the guy would hunt 24/7 if Deacon didn’t insist they sleep and eat on a regular basis. The guy was obsessed. The fact that they’d only killed a third of the demons so far weighed on them all, but Kylen seemed the most troubled.

Arranging his collection of kindling in a neat stack inside the furnace box, Nate lit it. He watched the flames lick and consume the smaller tinder, and then added some larger logs, waiting for them to catch. He was thankful the firebox was large enough for a body. He didn’t think he could bear to dismember one, even if having the head off was more helpful than he’d anticipated. He wouldn’t mention that to Kylen, though. The bastard didn’t need any encouragement.

Hefting the body into the flaming box, he tossed the head in last before adding two more logs on top of the heap. This was going to be an all-night proposition. It had taken forever for the other bodies to dry enough to burn to ash, since the temperature didn’t quite hit the sweet spot with wood alone. This arrangement was basically an indoor funeral pyre. They’d had to improvise.

He closed the door and adjusted the damper to keep the fire hot. His stomach growled as he headed upstairs for dinner. He hoped it wasn’t barbecue.

Chapter Three

Deacon, Nate and Ruth sat around the small kitchen table eating dinner. At last. It was after 3:00 a.m., but dinnertime was subjective these days, and she knew the men were famished. They’d learned not to wait for Kylen. He rarely seemed to eat these days, despite Deacon’s insistence that he refuel. If he didn’t show soon, Ruth would do what she always did—she’d leave a dish she’d prepared for him by the door of his trailer.

Deacon was still filled with the souls he’d collected from the demon. He needed to get them to Purgatory fast, but not before he refueled. Six souls was the max for most reapers, but with his promotion, Deacon could now carry an unlimited number of souls and now demons as well. Or so he’d been told by Grim. None of them were eager for him to test his limits.

If there was one vital lesson Ruth could take away from her first several months as a reaper, it was this: food equaled energy. It was true for humans but even more so for reapers. Besides decapitation, a fatal loss of energy was the only other way for a reaper to be felled.

Ignoring that all-important rule had landed her in a reaper coma before she’d officially even begun working as a reaper. Nate had saved her.

“This is great, Ruth.” Deacon winked and shoveled in a heaping spoonful of stew.

“Ditto.” Nate wiped the bottom of his bowl with a piece of bread.

“It would have been better an hour and a half ago.” She smirked.

“You know we’re not exactly on a schedule here.” Deacon hesitated and shoved in another mouthful.

“I would know that better if I were out there with you.”

“Ruth, we’ve talked about this. You’ve been doing a great job running the reaping circuit while we’re out. Between you and Maeve, you’ve managed to keep things going so we can attend to our other problems.”

“Right. I collected a paltry
two
souls today. Maeve collected a
dozen.
I’m pretty sure she left those two for me as a pity prize. She doesn’t even need me,” Ruth fumed.

Maeve was the replacement reaper, sent to attend to the daily collection of Meridian’s most recent dearly departed while Deacon, Kylen and Nate hunted down the demons. She was nice enough, but she was also brusque. She had made it abundantly clear that Ruth was more of a hindrance than a help.

Deacon reached across the table and took her hand. “I need you, Ruth.” He glanced over at Nate. “
We
need you. Here and safe.”

Ruth shifted in her seat, uncomfortable with the attention, but she refused to back down. This was not how this conversation had gone in her head. She was tired of doing the grunt work. She wanted in on the real action.

“I don’t want to be safe. I want to help. Besides. Won’t I be safer with you?”

Deacon pulled his hand away. “You’ll be a distraction.”

“You are not the boss of me, Deacon Walker. I can travel the consecrated subway by myself now, you know. Or have you already forgotten the lengths Nate and I went to to save Kylen? Not to mention your sorry ass?” Her heartbeat thumped in her ears as her anger rose. “If you won’t take me, I’ll go off on my own. Maeve can handle things by herself. Is that what you want?”

Deacon closed his eyes, and she could almost hear his gears grind. “No. That is most assuredly
not
what I want. I want to protect you. I’ve failed before. More than once. Help me make sure that I don’t fail again.”

“You could undo one of your failures.” Kylen stood in the back doorway, his eyes pinched at the corners.

Ruth shuddered. She hated it when they argued, and one thing was for sure—Kylen was raring for an argument.

Nate pushed his chair back from the table and stood, and Deacon raised his eyes to meet Kylen’s.

“We’ve talked about this, Kylen. Time and again. You know I can’t do it… I can’t bring her back.” Deacon folded his napkin and placed it on the table beside his empty bowl with cautious ease.

“It’s not a matter of can’t. It’s a matter of won’t.”

“Yes. Won’t. And you know why.”

Kylen’s body radiated power, and he manifested an aura, something reapers only did under extreme circumstances. Mustard-colored flames, indicating pain and anger, licked at his body as he stalked toward Deacon. Ruth held her breath.

He passed by them both without incident and stopped in the middle of the living room, looking down at the symbols of the demon trap, which were still burned into the wooden floor.

Head down, he drew the scythe from the holder that ran the length of his spine and flicked it open with a snap of his wrist. When his gaze rose to meet Deacon’s, he looked like death incarnate. He shimmered and disappeared into the consecrated subway without another word.

* * *

“Shit.” Nate hissed. “That guy’s got issues.”

“You think?” Ruth moved closer to Deacon.

“He’s not stable. I don’t know how we’d manage to find all of the demons without him, but I don’t think he needs to be around Ruth,” Nate said, giving Ruth an apologetic look.

“Again with the safety thing?” she snapped. “It’s not Kylen I’m worried about. It’s you two. You’ll kill me with your overprotectiveness long before anything else happens to me. Kylen is fine. He just needs…time.” She rose and began stacking the empty plates, smacking them together so hard a chip slivered off and fell to the floor. “He didn’t even eat,” she mumbled, taking the bowl she’d prepared for Kylen and stuffing it into the fridge.

“This isn’t finished. He’ll be back after he’s had time to cool off.” Deacon carried the remaining silverware over to the sink and wrapped his arms around Ruth from behind, nuzzling his face into her hair. “I have to go.”

“I know,” she said, relaxing into his embrace.

“I’ll be back as soon as I deliver the souls to Purgatory.” He pushed her hair aside and kissed the back of her neck. “I don’t want to lose you, too, Ruth. Please don’t do anything dangerous while I’m gone.”

“I’ll try.”

“Try hard.” He leaned his face against the back of her head and pulled her in even closer, his need pressing against her bottom.

He released her and turned to look at Nate. “You know what to do?”

“Right, burn and babysit. I’m on it.”

Deacon’s lips curled into a half-hearted smile as he turned back to Ruth, searing her with his gaze, both a promise and a threat.

Chapter Four

Kylen flashed into Meridian’s downtown cemetery. It was already 4:00 a.m., and he needed sleep. This was his third day without any…at all. Clearly, he was unraveling quicker than usual as a result. He’d barely been able to restrain himself from tearing Deacon limb from limb in the middle of Ruth’s kitchen.