My Reaper's Daughter (16 page)

His face flamed when told Jaborn would have to carry him.

“I feel like an infant,” Glyn said as the healer helped Kasid wrap him in a sheet to

cover his nakedness. He groaned in pain as his fellow Reaper hefted him into his arms.

“I wish you were as light as one,” Kasid joked as he adjusted his hold on his

teammate. “If I have to carry you back up those stairs, I may just loop a noose around

you and pull you up.”

“And bump my ass on the risers?” Glyn grumbled. “I think not.”

“It would be humbling, no?” Kasid asked with a chuckle.

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The healer had preceded them down the stairs and was waiting in the bathing

room. When Kasid lowered Glyn’s feet to the floor, the other man unwound the sheet

and instructed Jaborn to lift Glyn into the tub.

“What is your name, milord healer?” Glyn asked as he settled down into the water,

getting a small measure of relief from the coolness.

“Braselton,” the man replied. “Jonas Braselton.”

“I am grateful for your help.”

Healer Braselton smiled slightly. “It is my honor to aid you, milord. My wife and

daughter were murdered by rogues many years back. Had it not been for Lord Kiel,

their killers would have gotten away with what they did.”

“Kiel’s a good man,” Glyn stated.

“Indeed he is. When last I was in Charlestown, I supped with him and his good

friend Simmons.”

Glyn looked up. “Simmons?”

“Anthony Simmons,” the healer supplied. “He is the owner of Sagewood, a very

important plantation in these parts. Lord Kiel is often there with Mr. Simmons.”

Glyn and Kasid exchanged looks.

“Now just lie back and relax. Hopefully the water will bring that fever down

quickly,” Braselton said. “I’ll come back to check on you in half an hour.”

“I’ll be a prune by then,” Glyn complained.

“But perhaps not a stewed one, eh?” the healer joked. He poured a cup of water and

handed it to Glyn. “Drink until you think you’ll burst then drink some more.”

Once the Reapers were alone, Kasid sat down on a low stool and braced his chin on

a closed fist. “Do you think this Simmons and Phelan are more than friends?” he asked.

Glyn shrugged. His head was still aching miserably but he didn’t feel as though he

were standing at the entrance of a fiery furnace. “With Kiel you never know.”

“Makes you wonder though, doesn’t it?” Kasid pressed.

“Aye, but he’s what he is,” Glyn said. “No matter what he is. He’s a Reaper and

that’s truly what defines him.”

“You’re right,” Kasid replied.

“Do me a favor, will you, Jaborn?” Glyn asked. “Will you see if they’ve got

something other than water I can drink? By the gods I hate water.”

“Lemonade?” Kasid inquired as he got to his feet.

“Lemonade would be perfect.”

While Kasid was gone, Glyn laid his head on the curved back of the copper tub and

closed his eyes. His body still felt as though he’d served as some bastard’s punching

bag and despite the coolness of the water, he was sweating like a racehorse. His head

throbbed and a low, crackling, buzzing sound filled his ears from time to time. He put a

hand up to scrub at his face and tried to contact the Shadowlords.

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“Your Grace?”
he sent. When there was no reply, he tried again and again but no

one answered. He tried his luck with the goddess but She too seemed to either be

ignoring him or unable to hear his entreaties. He tried calling Kiel with the same lack of

response but when he also tried Jaborn—who couldn’t be very far away—and received

no reply, he began to worry.

“They sent one pitcher and said…” Kasid stopped as he came through the door, the

look on Kullen’s face the cause. “What’s wrong?”

“Did you not hear me, Jaborn?” Glyn asked.

“About the lemonade? Aye, I heard you. What—?”

“When I called you psychically,” Glyn said, cutting him off.

Kasid shook his head. “No, my friend, I did not.”

Putting a hand to the side of his head, Glyn felt the pain increase and knew Kasid

was trying to send words to him. All he heard was the drone of insects and the noise

added to the agony already pulsing in his head. “Don’t,” he asked. “I can’t hear you

and it hurts when you try.”

Kasid’s forehead crinkled with concern. “Do you want me to contact Lord

Kheelan?”

“Something is wrong,” Glyn said as though he hadn’t heard the question. He lifted

his head and stared at Kasid. “Something is really, really wrong.”

* * * * *

Over one hundred and sixty miles away, Reaper Phelan Kiel was thinking the same

thing. He had been trying for days now to reach one of the Shadowlords, a fellow

Reaper, the Triune Goddess, and each time he had failed.

He had also Transitioned out of cycle—coming to himself on a beach in the Flagala

Territory with the carcass of a half-eaten steer lying beside him. How long he’d been

there, he didn’t know, but the stench of the dead animal was overpowering and clung

to him even after he’d plunged into the ocean and scrubbed himself vigorously with

sand.

That hadn’t been the only problem either, he thought. Fashioning clothing for

himself—something as easy to do as wiping his butt after a satisfying dump—had

proved to be a bit of a challenge. It had taken him three tries before he managed to form

a shirt and pair of black jeans. Taking to the air to wing his way home had been just as

difficult. It had taken five tries that time before he could hold the image of an owl and

soar into the heavens. Though he’d managed to get things back to normal as far as

shape-shifting and creating objects out of thin air, he still could not use his psychic

talent to contact anyone. It was almost as though he’d fallen—or been plunged—into

some kind of dead zone.

Getting up from his kitchen table, he walked over to the opened back door and

braced his hands on the header, staring out into the rain. The storm had hit earlier that

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morning, saturating the day with whipping rain and howling wind. Even though he

had a deep porch running the length of his cabin, mist from the rain washed across the

span to pebble his face and chest. It felt good, for ever since his off-cycle Transition, his

body temperature seemed higher than normal.

Sighing heavily, he lowered his hands and left the kitchen, going into the living

area where he’d been forced to light a lantern to dispel the gloom of the day. He

plopped down on the davenport and swung his bare feet onto the cushion, crooking his

knees as he braced his hands behind his head. With the weather as inclement as it

was—and seemingly getting worse—there wasn’t much he could do outside.

“Until my mental powers come back, I couldn’t sense a fucking rogue if he were

standing in the room with me,” Phelan grumbled aloud.

And that was a worry that refused to go away.

* * * * *

In the Oklaks Territory, Prime Reaper Arawn Gehdrin, 2-I-C Bevyn Coure, Cynyr

Cree and Iden Belial shared a different kind of worry. Two had gone through Transition

out of cycle with Cree’s lasting twice its normal duration, pissing the Reaper off more

than normal. Each had a brutal headache and suffered still with a low-grade fever. Each

had experienced difficulty in transmitting psychic thoughts and receiving them, and

each had gone through a few moments of fear when shape-shifting and manipulation of

molecules had proven to be difficult. But now that all their powers had returned and

seemed as good as new, their primary concern was their inability to find the culprits

who were harvesting vital organs and murdering citizens at will.

“Someone is fucking with us,” Bevyn grumbled. “I don’t like to be fucked with.”

“Aye, and when I get my hands on the one doing it…” Cynyr made a twisting

motion with his clenched fists.

“But there’s not a trace of the bastards,” Arawn hissed as he sat down at the

breakfast table with his teammates. “Not a single, solitary clue to who they are or where

they are!”

“They don’t leave behind clues,” Cynyr reminded his leader. “It’s hard to trace a

criminal who doesn’t even have a heat signature.”

“Which begs the question if what we’re chasing isn’t some new kind of cybot,” Iden

suggested. “One we haven’t encountered before.”

“That got here how, Belial?” Bevyn challenged. “Anything coming through the Net

would be detected.”

“They could have been here before the Net closed. It didn’t blanket the whole of

Terra until a few months back,” Iden answered. “The Ceannus could have stored them

somewhere before they left that last time. The ’bots could have been in stasis until

now.”

“And just how could they have activated them?” Bevyn persisted.

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“Time delay,” Arawn put in. When his second-in-command gave him a

disbelieving look, he cocked a shoulder. “It’s possible, Bev.”

“All right,” Bevyn said. “For the sake of argument, let’s say those deranged

scientists left the things behind and at a prearranged time the ’bots woke up. The

questions are why can’t we detect them and just what the hell are they using human

organs for?”

“The ’bots could have been made in some way that makes it impossible for us to

track them,” Arawn ventured. “As to what a ’bot would want with human organs, I’m

at a loss to explain.”

“To make some kind of super human?” Iden asked.

“Oh, now there’s a cheery thought, Belial!” Arawn scoffed.

“Think about it, Ari,” Iden said, leaning forward over the table as they waited for

the waitress to bring their food. “What better way to fight us than to create beings we

can’t distinguish between a regular Terran and one with enhanced abilities like a

balgair
? Beings whose bodies have been improved so they are stronger, smarter, can live

longer and blend in with the populace so effortlessly we would walk right past one and

not even know what he is.”

“Obviously you’ve been thinking about this,” Cynyr said.

“He’s got a hell of an imagination,” Bevyn snapped, “I’ll give you that. Why the hell

would they need organs if they were making a super human? Why not just create a

better organ to begin with?”

“Perhaps they don’t have that ability yet,” Cynyr suggested. “Maybe they need

those organs as a template of some kind or they’ve found a way to utilize it in a more

efficient manner.”

“But a human organ needs blood to sustain it,” Bevyn argued. “Without blood, it

will deteriorate and cease to function.”

“Well, maybe the Ceannus have developed some kind of preserving fluid. Maybe

that fluid acts like oil running through an engine to make it work,” Iden put forth.

“That’s all a bunch of hooey,” Bevyn snapped. It was obvious the Reaper had

awoken in a sour mood that morning.

“As much as I hate to admit it, what he’s saying makes sense though, Bev,” Arawn

told them, his eyes mirroring his worry. “I can’t think of anything more unnerving than

to be standing beside a rogue and not know what he is.”

“This whole situation has been so far beyond the norm that we should be open to

any viable suggestions here,” Cynyr agreed.

“Say he’s on to something,” Bevyn reluctantly admitted. “That still doesn’t give us

any hint on how to find the killers.”

“What do all the victims have in common?” Iden queried.

“They’re missing organs,” Bevyn snapped, “and they’re dead as a doornail.”

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Iden rolled his eyes. “Just think about it a moment, Coure. What common thread

connects them?”

“They’ve all been adult males in the prime of their lives,” Arawn answered.

“All were healthy, fit and vigorous,” Cynyr added. “All men who worked as

laborers of some sort.”

“Strong men,” Bevyn grumbled.

“They weren’t men of social importance within their communities,” Arawn

contributed.

“Men who were for all purposes expendable,” Cynyr put in.

“Aye, and they were ordinary-looking individuals,” Bevyn said grudgingly.

“People you wouldn’t necessarily take note of as you passed them.”

“Precisely and not a single one was over the age of forty,” Iden stated. “The average

age was thirty-five.”

“Just everyday, working men without any particularly outstanding features,”

Cynyr concluded.

“Men at whom you’d never take a second look,” Arawn agreed.

“So how do we track such people?” Bevyn demanded. “If we can’t even detect their

murderers, how the hell are we to track super beings we don’t even know how to find

in the first place?”

The waitress appeared with a tray balanced on her upraised hand so the lawmen

ceased talking. She placed the tray on a stand a waiter opened beside the Reapers’ table

then began to set out the dishes, smiling coyly at Iden, the youngest of the four men.

When she left, Arawn looked over at the huge mound of eggs, grits, hash browns,

bacon, sausage patties, thick slice of ham steak and the side order of flapjacks that had

been placed in front of Bevyn.

“It’s a wonder you don’t have a stroke, Coure,” the Prime Reaper complained. “All

that grease is not good for you. If we ever need to find you, all we have to do is look for