The Rift (12 page)

He shrugged. “At the time, that was the
truth. Then Varius stomped in and shat all over my dream, so I’ve
developed a new dream. I need you for that.” Houston had been
working with Bruce’s reaped sister, Rose, to take over Briarton and
run the town. When I brought Varius in for help, signing a
three-year contract with them in exchange, they’d manipulated the
situation. They’d forced Rose to share control of Briarton with
them, but I was pretty sure Varius made all of the rules and kept a
tight leash on the reapers in Briarton. I could understand why
someone of Houston’s age and power wouldn’t want to stay in
Briarton and answer to Varius.

“So, you followed me here?”

“No. I was here, already, helping Bruce make
the transition. The pack here is isolated and small. There wouldn’t
be many people to convince and, once the pack accepted him,
everyone in town would, too.”

“But how…Jed said wolves can’t be
reaped.”

He shook his head. “I’m not going to give
away all my secrets, hunter.”

“Hunter?”

Wraith smiled, showing his teeth in wolfy
grin. “You track and annihilate my people. We call you hunter.”

I sat back down on the rock before I fell
over, and he placed his hand over mine like he wanted to comfort
me. I pushed him off and he stepped back, willing to give me my
space. I should have been panicking, but I felt oddly calm. My
worst nightmare was standing next to me, things could hardly get
scarier, and somehow I felt ready for it, like I’d been waiting for
that moment, anticipating it. I was relieved that it had finally
arrived, so I could deal with it and die, or move on.

“But how…how did you know Angelica would be
here? Why do
you
want to be here? Why bother to help Bruce?
What about the war?” I thought Houston was a prime leader of the
war that was happening all over the country. The war the reapers
had started in an effort to gain control and to break away from the
rule of the corporations. The most powerful reapers were reaping
the most politically and financially powerful people in the country
so they could allow less powerful reapers to reap whomever they
chose, whenever they chose.

He shrugged. “Bruce would have been
slaughtered without me. I helped him, because I felt somewhat
responsible for his unfortunate demise. I was touched by his story
of true love and, when he heard I was planning to reap a wolf, he
asked to join me. Once he was in the wolf body, we planned to find
Angelica and bring her back here.”

“Uh-huh,” I said. “You must be a real
romantic. I’m sure you helping Bruce has nothing to do with a
certain power well in Briarton or his connection to Varius.” Rose
and Houston had chosen to take over Briarton, because Bruce’s
family had been under a two-hundred-year long curse, and long
curses create so-called wells of power. If Rose and Houston had
been able to complete the ceremony to end the curse properly, they
would have had access to that power, enough power to make them too
strong for me or the corporations to take on. Varius and I had
interrupted their ceremony and prevented the power-well from being
accessed.

He smiled and looked at his hands. “I am a
romantic, Kelsey. After death there is very little besides love
that matters.”

“How sweet. Power and games mean nothing to
you, I suppose.”

“Oh, they mean a great deal, but love still
trumps them.”

I didn’t believe him for a second, but he
wasn’t going to give me an honest answer, so I moved on. “And Bruce
just went along with that? He destroyed the life of this Jeremiah
to get Angelica back?” I didn’t like Bruce, but he wasn’t a bad
person. I didn’t believe he’d purposefully hurt anyone.

Wraith’s eyes moved off me for the first time
and he smiled. “Enough talk for one day. Let’s make friendly.”

I turned in the direction he was looking and
saw Jed walking toward us between two men, both of whom were as big
and bulky as Jed. “Who are they?” I asked, my fear returning and
redoubling.

“They’re my pack.”

“You can stop hassling him,” Wraith said to
the two men, once they’d reached us. Jed looked angry, but he
wouldn’t meet my gaze. “He’s a friend.”

One of the men, who had a bushy beard and a
missing tooth, actually growled.

“He was following you,” the other wolf
said.

“As is customary on a friendly hike,” Wraith
said. “What are you doing here?”

“Slade’s been arrested again. You want us to
bail her out, or let her simmer.”

Wraith smiled, but it wasn’t a nice smile,
his teeth were bared and there was a bit of a growl in his voice.
“Leave her. She needs to learn restraint. If she can’t deal with
the new rules, she can find a new pack.”

The two men frowned, but they didn’t argue.
Of course, Houston would reap an alpha wolf.

“You may leave us now,” Wraith said. “Thank
you for letting me know about Slade.”

The other two wolves left and Angelica and
Jeremiah joined us. They were both smiling, their faces flushed.
Henry followed them up and frowned at the two wolves as they passed
him on their way down the mountain. He looked at me, a question in
his eyes and I shook my head and gave him my most reassuring smile.
He didn’t buy it, but he kept his mouth shut.

“Anyone need a snack or a rest?” Wraith
asked. “We’re about a third of the way to the top.”

Everyone shook their heads, and we continued
up the trail.

Wraith and I got enough distance from the
others to speak again pretty quickly. “So how’d you convince Bruce
to take someone’s life?” I asked.

“Death and reaping aren’t good hiking
conversation,” Wraith said, but he was still smiling.

“You started it.”

“I suppose I did,” he said. “I’ll offer you a
deal. I’ll answer your question and then no more talk about why I’m
here or reapers or the war.”

“Just for today?” I asked. I was willing to
make the trade. I wanted an answer.

“Tomorrow I’ll answer one more question
honestly, no matter what it is.”

I considered for only a moment. “It’s a
deal.”

“Jeremiah was not a good man, Kelsey. He was
vicious and violent and cruel. He ran drugs and didn’t hesitate to
kill anyone who got in his way.”

“I’m surprised you consider killing to be a
bad thing.”

“You don’t know me, Kelsey, so don’t judge
me. Before Bruce reaped him, Jeremiah killed an entire family in
the next town over. Their eldest son had been working for him and
stolen from him. He went there to punish the boy and lost control.
He killed the boy’s parents and two little sisters.”

I forced myself to keep walking and not
imagine the horror of those murders. If I let my mind go there, I
wouldn’t be able to focus on anything else Wraith was telling me.
“And that killing instinct, that anger, is it infecting Bruce now?”
I asked. A body sometimes retained the mental illnesses or the
supernatural abilities it had before a reaping, in its first life,
so it made since that the body might retain anger or a violent
disposition.

“Jeremiah was a damaged man. The damage left
with his spirit.”

“How can you be so sure?” I asked.

He hesitated for the barest moment, but it
was enough. “I’m sure.” He clapped his hands. “Now let’s talk about
something else.”

“Was the wolf whose body you took seriously
named Wraith?”

He laughed. “No, his real name is Ronald
Estes, but he named himself Wraith. Had it legally changed a few
years back. It was almost like he wanted to be reaped. I mean this
is seriously the best name I’ve ever had to carry.”

“How old are you?”

He glanced at me. “I’m two hundred and sixty
five years old. I was born in 1748, in Virginia.”

“So you’re old enough to be my great, great,
great, great, great—”

“I may be old enough to be your ancestor, but
I am living in the body of a man young enough to be your
partner.”

“Is that what you want?” I asked.

“Yes,” he said. “That’s why I’m being so
honest with you, now. You are my future, and I’m willing to wait as
long as it takes for you to see it.”

I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. It
wasn’t the first time I’d heard such romantic promises and the last
time they’d been the words of a crazy man. “Because I’m so
irresistible.”

“Because you are powerful.”

“How romantic.”

“Do you want me to be romantic?” he asked,
that obnoxious smile still on his face. “I didn’t say I want you
for my lover, I said I want you to be my partner. Your allegiance
is still undecided. You work for Varius, but you aren’t loyal to
them. I want you by my side.”

“Doing what?” I asked. “Are you fighting the
war from here?”

“No questions about the war.”

“Right. So tell me about yourself. Why should
I consider you as a partner?”

“I’m bored with this conversation,” he said.
“Ask me something else.”

“Fine. Tell me a story. You’ve been alive so
long you must have met some amazing people and had some amazing
adventures. Tell me about them.”

The sun was rising higher, and the day was
getting warmer. I stopped and took a long drink from my camelback.
Wraith had stripped down to a t-shirt that was tight enough to
reveal that he was covered in lean muscle, and I had to remind
myself that no matter how good he looked, he was still the bad guy.
Wraith waited for me, his eyes on me the entire time.

When we started walking again, he started
talking again. “I fell in love when I was eight years old. She was
of a higher class and could not be bothered to speak to me, even
though she attended the same school as I did and lived in my town.
I watched her and loved her from afar for years without even a word
from her.”

“She sounds like a snob,” I said. “What did
you love about her? Her pretty face? Her fine body? Seems kind of
shallow.”

He snorted. “I was eight when I fell in love,
I wasn’t exactly profound.”

“But you continued to love her after you were
eight, so there must have been some reason for it other than her
looks.”

“She was everything I wished to be. She
wasn’t even particularly beautiful, but she had beautiful clothes,
and books, and jewelry. She walked into a room and everyone looked
at her, because even standing still she was graceful and classy.
She also had a smile that lit up a room and, although she wouldn’t
speak to me, she sometimes laughed at the silly things I did. Her
laugh was a delicate tinkle that I was sure held magic.”

“Good god, she’s annoying. She sounds like a
Disney princess.”

He nodded. “Exactly. I made it my goal in
life to win her love. I studied what her people had that made them
believe they were better than us. Her father was a banker, but he
hadn’t always been wealthy. He’d worked his way up. I studied hard
at school and worked whenever and wherever I could. I educated
myself, and I got a job in his bank. He liked my work ethic, and he
promoted me quickly. I’d just earned his daughter’s attention, when
the war started.”

“The revolutionary war,” I said under my
breath. It was so strange to be talking to a man who’d fought in
the revolutionary war.

“The day I died in battle was the day she’d
finally agreed to marry me. I won everything I’d ever wanted, and I
lost it all in the same day.”

“So you decided not to cross over?” I asked.
It surprised me that he hadn’t. Jed had told me once that the
reapers who stayed did so because they feared judgment in the
hereafter. They believed that if there was a God and a heaven and a
hell, they’d go to hell.

“When I lay dying on that battlefield I
cursed God for not letting me have what I’d worked so hard to
achieve. If a man should be sent to hell, surely it would be
me.”

“Oh, right,” I said. “I see where this is
going. You’re telling me this story to convince me you aren’t some
sort of monster, you’re just misunderstood, right? You deserved to
have another shot at life, because you caught a bad break the first
time.”

Wraith touched my arm to make me stop and
look at him. His eyes were hard. “I promised you I would never lie
to you and I won’t, Kelsey. My spirit, my essence, has lived for a
very, very long time and I have done enough bad for you to easily
classify me as a monster. I will never pretend to be innocent. I
will tell you whatever you want to know about me, and I will leave
it for you to decide whether you will join me or not. You are not
worth having unless you come willingly and with your eyes wide
open.”

He started walking, and I fell into step next
to him. I should have been afraid of him, but I found myself more
curious than anything else.

“So, tell me Kelsey,” Wraith said. “Tell me
about your first love.”

I sighed and shook my head. “I’d rather
not.”

“I won’t judge you,” he said. “I just want to
know you.”

I didn’t think it was a good idea for him to
know me, to understand me enough to better manipulate me. “I’m
tired of talking,” I said, unable to decide how much I should
share. “Let’s just walk for a while.”

Wraith nodded, and we walked on in
silence.

The view from the top of the mountain took my
breath away. I could see for miles and miles, a landscape below us
of green and hills and mountains. We were so high that I could no
longer make out houses, or streets below us. I stepped to the very
edge of a rock that stuck out about a foot from the side of the
mountain, Wraith right next to me, and looked out. It was almost
like I was flying. I had the eagle’s eye view.

“Give me your hands,” Wraith said. “I know a
way to make you really feel like you’re flying.” I gave him my
hands, the winds buffeting us both, without a thought for the risk
I was taking. He hadn’t gone to all the trouble of getting me alone
to throw me off the side of a mountain, and I really wanted to feel
like a bird. The fear I’d felt before had left me and didn’t dare
return, as though the emotion existed only on an all or nothing
basis. I feared everything or I feared nothing. I preferred the
latter.