My Reaper's Daughter (38 page)

the more powerful demon is!”

Once more thunder rattled the plantation house, hail hit the windows and a

succession of lightning bolts struck in the forest beyond. John Dirk backed away from

the man behind the desk. “You should be very careful what you say,” he warned.

“Oh, get the hell out of my house, Dirk!” Simmons snapped, fingering the vial of

aphrodisiac Leilani had given him earlier. “Bring Mystery to me or don’t bother coming

back. Do you hear?”

John Dirk saw something dark moving behind Simmons. It was just a shadow but it

was growing, the inky blob gathering, crawling up the wall as an ebony stain. He drew

in a harsh breath and shook his head, took several more steps back with a hasty prayer

of protection trembling on his lips. Whatever was ominously building in the shadows

behind the planter was nothing with which he wanted to truck. He could
feel
the evil of

it,
smell
the corruption of the grave coalescing into a choking mist that burned his lungs.

“Did you hear me, you stupid bastard?” Simmons bellowed. “Get the fuck out of

my house!”

Eyes wide as the gloominess behind Simmons towered up the wall until it was bent

along the ceiling as well, the foreman dared not turn his back on the ungodly apparition

for fear it might attack him. He backed out of the room, his face as white as a new sheet.

“And close the fucking door behind you!”

John Dirk was all too happy to put a barrier between him and whatever was

beginning to descend upon the planter from the ceiling. He fumbled with the door

handles—his gaze still on the dusky thing looming over Simmons—and pulled the

portals shut. As soon as the door edges met, the piercing, skin-crawling bleat of a man

who has just been introduced to a beast from hell shattered the stillness.

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“Raphian, have mercy!” John Dirk whispered, and felt a trickle of urine run down

his quivering leg.

Another unearthly scream of agony erupted from the room beyond and the

foreman turned and ran as fast as he could, needing to put distance between him and

the pitiless monster that had come for Anthony Simmons.

Leilani and the other servants heard the screams and the gurgling sounds coming

from Simmons’ office and knew something vile had entered their world. Each of them

made a hasty retreat from the house, tearing into the rain, striving to get as far away

from the source of the malevolence that was making the air around them thick and

brittle. The cook had Simmons’ daughter by the hand, the little girl screaming with fear.

The smell of brimstone was intense.

“Come with me!” John Dirk shouted at Leilani as the young woman ran past him.

He shot out a hand and grabbed her arm. “Unless you want it to come after you too!”

Terrified by the shrill shrieks coming from the house, Leilani didn’t question the tall

man’s words. She stumbled along in his wake, her head turned toward the house as bolt

after bolt of lightning struck the magnificent plantation house.

“Oh my God!” she breathed, skidding to a stop as the mansion begin to come apart

at the seams, flames lapping up from the foundation with greedy fingers.

“God ain’t got nothing to do with that, wench,” John Dirk snapped, and tugged

brutally on her hand.

One last undulating scream came from the house then Sagewood imploded, folding

in on itself in a fiery rush that not even the heavy downpour could quench for all who

watched the destruction knew the flames had been hell-spawned.

* * * * *

One after another, the zombies came plodding out of the forest—dozens of them

stumbling forward with their stiff-legged gait, arms out, fingers hooked into claws. The

stench of the grave was overpowering and each time the laser whips struck the head

from a body, the fumes made the Reapers’ eyes burn. The decomposing bodies dropped

all around the lawmen even as the decapitations rolled and the rest of the body put out

clawing hands in search of their heads.

“Oh shit, that ain’t right!” Phelan growled as one of the creatures picked up its head

and stuck it back on its shoulders. He cursed when the zombie wobbled to its feet and

started forward again.

The Reapers were surrounded by the living dead. Both men were wielding whips

with arms that were slowly losing their strength. By Kasid’s count, he had taken the

heads of twenty zombies and he knew Phelan had sliced off even more. Yet the

monstrous things were getting up and coming at them again.

“Lord Naois?” Kasid bellowed. “We need the drones! We need to burn these things

to a crisp!”

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“They are on their way!”

A zombie lurched against Phelan from behind and the Reaper stumbled, going to

one knee in the slippery mud. He put up an arm to ward off his graveyard attacker and

felt the sting of teeth burying themselves into his forearm.

“Get it off me!” he shouted. “Jaborn, get it off!”

Kasid spun around, shocked to see his partner being bitten. He was too close to

Phelan to use his whip and there were too many of the creatures lumbering toward

them for him to try to pull the one off Phelan. All he could do was yell at Phelan to hold

on.

“Hold on?” Phelan shrieked, trying to jerk his arm free of the creature. “Fuck

holding on, Jaborn. Get this fucker off my gods-be-damned arm!” He fell to his back in

the oozing mud and kicked out at the zombie, hitting it as hard as he could, battering

the creature’s legs and groin to no effect.

Kasid swung his whip wildly at three oncoming horrors—taking one head-on with

the forward pass and curling the laser lash around two on the drawback. Then he did

something their Prime had told them he’d tried once. Flicking out the lash, Jaborn

mentally bent it into a hook and slipped the fiery noose over the zombie’s head and

jerked, cleanly slicing the head from the body. Phelan’s attacker dropped to its knees

but the thing’s teeth were still clamped in Phelan’s arm.

Dropping his whip, Phelan grabbed the jaws of the headless monstrosity and

wedged them open, gagging at the feel of the mushy flesh on the decaying cheeks.

Though he couldn’t smell the decomposition due to the cotton stuffed into his nostrils,

he could feel the corruption of it in his eyes for they were tearing brutally.

Swinging his own whip left and right, forward and back, Kasid was rapidly tiring

and more of the plodding creatures were pouring out of the woods. He cast one

bewildered, discouraged look to the stand of trees, and when he did, he saw the tall

man dressed in black who stood watching.

“The bokor’s here!” he told Phelan, pointing to the forest.

Having rid himself of the slimy head, Phelan briefly glanced that way, saw the

magic-sayer, took in the dozens of corpses coming toward him and snatched up his

whip. He pushed from the ground and put his back to his partner. “Where the fuck is

that drone?” he spat.

No sooner had the words left his mouth than the air became charged and zombies

began to incinerate around them—bodies popping open then flaming to ash. Too quick

for even a Reaper eye to see, the laser pulses zapping down from the heavens struck in

rapid succession and the threats stumbling toward the lawmen diminished swiftly.

“Like fish in a barrel,” Phelan chuckled. He took three heads with expert flicks of

his weapon even as Kasid took out two more. Only four creatures were now close

enough to them for them to worry about. The others flamed into nothingness and the

line of fire was moving toward the forest from where more of the plodding dead came.

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The bokor was no longer hovering at the perimeter. He had vanished into the thick

foliage.

“Can the drone take him out, Lord Naois?” Kasid called out.

“There is no other living being near you, Lord Kasid.”

“We saw him!” Phelan snapped.

“Then what you saw was most likely his astral projection.”

“Shit,” Phelan snarled at hearing that.

“We know he’s at Burnt Pine,” Kasid said, taking the head of the last zombie.

“We’ll go there.”

“Find him, Lord Kasid. Lord Glyn won’t be safe until you do,”
Lord Naois warned.

* * * * *

Mystery had urged her husband back to bed. His flesh still felt more feverish than

she thought safe and there was a line of sweat on his upper lip. She slipped off her

shoes, lay down beside him and stroked his forehead, crooning to him as she did Valda

when the child was ill. Their bare toes played against one another.

“Are you sure you’re going to like living up north?” Glyn asked her. His fingers ran

up and down her arm.

“I’ll be content anywhere you want to live,” she answered.

He continued to stroke her arm. “But it gets really cold and snows there in the

winter.”

“Valda would like snow,” she said.

“We’ll go take a look when…” He released a long breath. “When things are normal

again.”

“There is going to be a problem for you because we Joined, isn’t there?” she asked.

“I’ll handle it,” he said firmly, and in a way she knew he didn’t wish to discuss

what might happen once they got to the Citadel. He turned so he was facing her. “I

want to make love to you, Myst.” His eyes held an emotion she didn’t quite understand.

“I need to make love to you.”

She slid her hand from his forehead to his chest and caressed him. “I am here, my

love.”

His kiss was soft at first—almost hesitant—but it deepened until it was a searing

press of his mouth to hers. His tongue was hot as it penetrated her lips, slipping past

her teeth to plunder. His body was hard as he slid over hers and nudged her legs apart,

his fingers dragging the hem of her gown upward so he could touch her very core. The

slickness of his leather-clad knee pressed her bared thigh farther apart as the tips of his

fingers slid beneath the leg band of her panties.

Mystery sucked in a deep breath through her nose as he eased a digit inside her.

His tongue was dueling with hers—sliding in and out—and mimicked the action of his

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finger. Her womb clenched and her vaginal lips tightened around his tender invasion.

She heard him chuckle low in his throat and then there was a change in the air around

her and she knew without having to look down that he had used his powers to rid

himself of his pants.

And then he replaced his questing finger with the stiff, hard probe of his erection—

going deep and filling her so fully she felt stretched to the point of pain. He pushed as

far as his thick cock would go then held it there.

“Umm?” he growled as he continued to kiss her.

“Aye, you know I like it,” she spoke around the pleasure of his lips.

He pushed harder then wiggled his hips and when she laughed, he slid out just a

little before going deeper again.

Mystery’s arms were around him already so she dug her nails into his back to spur

him on. She wanted him pumping into her with that hot, slick shaft he wielded so well.

Her body was itching for him to thrust hard and quick, to claim her. She brought her

legs up—frowning a little as she heard her gown rip.

“Don’t worry about it. I’ll buy you dozens more,” he said against her mouth then

the gown peeled from her body as though it had never clothed it.

“I don’t think I’ll ever get used to that,” she told him.

“Then stop insisting on wearing clothes when you’re around me, wench,” he

teased.

She giggled and clenched him tighter to her, her legs hooked around his hips to

draw him into her even deeper, her hips arched in invitation. She thrust her tongue into

his mouth and it was like prodding a bear for his growl came from deep down inside

his broad chest.

Glyn slid his fingers beneath her rump and lifted her toward him, beginning a

rhythmic stroke that made the bed creak under them.

“That’s more like it, Reaper,” she stated.

Her words spurred him on and his thrusts increased in speed until he was slapping

his body savagely against hers and she was raking him with her nails in an attempt to

pull him into her as far as he would go. She strained at him as though she could absorb

his flesh into hers, his body into hers. Sweat trickled down their sides, from under the

creases of her breasts, in the center of his chest. His arms were tight around her and he

used his brawny shoulders to press her thighs higher and tighter to her chest as he

pumped vigorously into her wet slit, opening her for his lusty probing.

She came hard and cried out loudly as her sheath quivered around his stony length.

The minute vibrations, the tiny tugs that flowed over him seemed as though they were

trying to draw him up inside her, to pack him away within her pulsing channel. Her

fingernails were clenched into his back, her thighs so tight around him he could barely

draw breath, and when at last he ceased to pump furiously and released his seed into

her, he howled like a demon.

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He shook his head like a wet spaniel—sweat flinging from the damp tendrils of his

black hair and his entire body shuddered upon hers. Once. Twice. Three times his cock