Reap & Redeem (11 page)

Black smoke roiled from the necks of the fallen hosts, and Deacon sent out a burst of light, filling the room with illumination and power. One by one, the demons streamed toward Deacon’s sternum, drawn in by the black hole of his power. Still struggling, Nate slashed and stabbed the BC-41 toward the last host, slicing through little else but air.

Kylen stepped forward and finished the job for Nate, and then watched with satisfaction as the last of the demons entered Deacon.

“Thanks,” Nate gasped.

“You’re gonna need a bigger knife.”

Nate nodded. Maybe he’d take Kylen’s advice more seriously next time.

The glow intensified, drawing their eyes back to Deacon. Dozens of light gray streams poured from the bodies. Souls. There had to be at least thirty of them, and they were flowing into Deacon’s mouth and through his throat chakra. They would meet a very different fate from the demons.

Deacon fell to his knees. It was the most demons—let alone souls—Kylen had ever seen him consume. He’d only ever seen a Valkyrie carry more. Deacon’s body bucked and convulsed before settling to the ground. He dropped his head in exhaustion for a moment, but then pushed to his feet. Nate rushed to his side to help steady him.

“Holy shit,” Nate said. “What was that all about?”

“There were more than thirty souls poached by the demons. Deacon consumed them all.”

“Whoa. You Scooby-Snacked five demons
and
thirty souls? Isn’t that a new record for you?”

“Yes,” came the weak reply.

“Impressive.” Nate held Deacon’s shoulders, blood dripping off his elbows from his own injuries.

“The bodies,” Deacon said. “We need to clean them up.”

“We’ll take care of them,” Kylen said. “Go to Purgatory. We’ll meet you at…Ruth’s.” Even now he was hesitant to call it home.

Nodding, Deacon withdrew from Nate’s hold and pulled himself to his full height. He closed his eyes and flashed to Purgatory, leaving Kylen and Nate alone with the dead hosts.

* * *

The place was a bloodbath. Black ooze spread across the concrete floor like oil, making walking a hazard. Nate sighed and eased off his backpack, removing yet another tarp and tape.

Knives lay scattered around the floor of the basement room. Kylen collected each one of them. If he had a hobby, collecting knives was it. Sharp knives were the weapons preferred by most supernatural entities, since guns generally just managed to piss them off. Beheading was the one way to ensure that a beastie or reaper wouldn’t rise again. Demons were the exception—behead a host and the demon could stream out and find another host, perpetuating itself for eternity if it so desired. But now they had Deacon to take care of that little problem.

He was their ace in the hole, the Dyson of demon cleanup.

Still, he and Nate had a roomful of dead bodies and blood to take care of before they could declare this mission a success. Kylen had a way to take care of that, but he didn’t want to fill Nate in on the imp situation.

“Well, that was…” Nate hesitated.

“Satisfying?” Kylen finished.

“Messed up,” Nate corrected. “I can’t take you back along with all of them.”

“Take one at a time, I’ll stay with the rest.”

“You sure?”

“Yes.”

“All right. It’s going to take a while, but I’ll go ahead and get this one started,” Nate said as he surveyed the carnage. “Christ, it’s going to take days to get rid of this many.”

Nate unfurled the tarp, rolled the first body onto it, and taped up the ends while Kylen sensed the imps were gathering outside through the small, street-level window. There were dozens.

Hoisting the body over his shoulder, Nate gave another frustrated sigh. “No, no, don’t bother helping. I’ve got this.”

“Good,” Kylen answered, not bothering to make any other form of acknowledgment. After all, Nate might not know it, but he was going to save him plenty of work.

“Whatever. Back when I can,” Nate said, and then vanished into the consecrated subway.

As soon as he was gone, Kylen summoned the imps. They burst through the street-level window in a shower of glass, and streamed in—a muddy river of black, oily flesh and teeth. Landing with a wet thud on the concrete floor, they descended on the bodies like piranhas. Kylen was confident there wouldn’t be anything left for Nate to take back on his second trip.

He squatted, leaning back against the cool concrete wall—the one place in the room that was illuminated by the sole streetlight left on the block—and watched for a while as the imps went about their work. Satisfied with their progress, he pulled the wad of paper from his pocket and picked at its folds, careful not to tear it more than necessary as he worked it open.

It was a list.

Several words were no longer legible, but most of it was still decipherable.

She had given up too easily.

He read it in order, taking note of each item that had been scratched through with a ruler-straight line. He scowled, listening to the hosts’ bones crack and crunch, as he considered the final fourteen items, which hadn’t been crossed out. A few were especially troubling.

Like #58.

The words
hell
and
no
came to mind.

* * *

Olivia screamed and bolted upright on the couch in Ruth’s living room when Nate appeared before her with a rolled tarp over his shoulder. She jumped to her feet and backed away from him, her heart all but exploding from her chest.

“Sorry,” Nate said, a lopsided smile forming on his face. He shifted the package and took a step forward. “Do you know where Ruth is?”

“Shower,” Olivia answered, as soon as she’d calmed down enough to speak.

“Okay, I have to take care of this…um…just tell her I’m back. She can find me in the basement.” He smiled again and headed toward the back door.

As he walked away, she noticed that the package seemed to be shaped like a body. What had she fallen into here? Were her last few days on Earth really going to be spent with
unearthly
beings? Or worse…murderers? Didn’t that make her an accessory?

Either way, it was the most interesting thing that had ever happened to her. She was tempted to stay, if they’d have her. The reporter side of her was intrigued. If only she had more time! She’d stumbled upon a career-making story here—one that could catapult her well beyond the “Food & Cuisine” page.

But that was the one thing she didn’t have.

Time.

None of this was on her list. Reapers? Nope. Demons? Nope. Supernatural travel through invisible subways? Nope. In fact, her time was running out for the things that
were
on her list.

Of the fourteen that were left, she could only mark off
#49 volunteering at a homeless shelter, #50 have a pet
and, with any luck,
#51 make the best dessert ever.
She’d baked an apple pie crumble dessert that was even now cooling on the kitchen cabinet. Hopefully it would be good enough for her to knock that item off her mental list. Ruth had shown her all the ingredients Nate had assembled, giving her the Wiki version of the Mabon celebration they’d already been planning. The box of apples had all but begged to become a dessert.

Still, the question of what was rolled in the tarp wouldn’t leave her…

Fatigue settled heavily upon her, though, making her thoughts slow and sluggish. She lay back on the couch and closed her eyes. The energy that had flowed through her all afternoon was long gone, and weariness pinned her to the couch like concrete blocks on her chest.

She was
so
tired.

Her eyes refused to open even when she commanded them to do so. She felt herself slipping into unconsciousness, but was helpless to stop it. A nagging wish played in the back of her mind that Kylen had been the first to return home instead of Nate. Vaguely, she wondered why.

Chapter Thirteen

Deacon had never been as happy to deliver his cargo as he was tonight. When he stepped into the main terminal of Purgatory, Rashnu caught sight of him and stepped down from his platform, motioning the long queue of reapers waiting to unload their quarry toward the other end of the tunnel. There, at another platform, stood…Rashnu. The angel had split himself in twain many millennia ago so he could sort souls at a more expedient rate.

He didn’t trust anyone else to do the job.

The place was rocking tonight. There were thousands of reapers from dozens of species milling around the station. Some were waiting to deliver souls in the now-enormous line, and others had already deposited their cargo and were enjoying some bar-side camaraderie. The same creatures that would eat one another alive top-side drank and bullshitted down here.

Tonight, none of them looked even remotely human.

Which meant that a lot of humans must be dying tonight, keeping the reapers of humans too busy to socialize. But Deacon had too many pressing problems to ponder that one closely.

Purgatory was the no-man’s-land of reapers. It was a forced détente, and no violence or discord was tolerated. Cross the line and Rashnu would smite you to oblivion. Deacon had witnessed it happen more than once.

A thing like that made an impression.

When Deacon caught Rashnu’s eye, the angel nodded to the door at the outermost end of the terminal. This was not Deacon’s first rodeo. He’d been through this door and down this particular hallway several times now—each time he’d consumed a demon.

Grim—yes,
the Grim
—had ascended to Seraph, leaving the opening for Deacon to become a Powers. So far, things had not been going his way. It was infuriating. They knew Camael was responsible for all the recent demon activity on Earth, but so far they hadn’t found a way to shut him down permanently. The power it took to make a release portal large enough to free dozens of demons left a mark and Grim could locate and close those quickly with Deacon’s help, but the smaller exit portals were trickier to find and shut down. One demon sliding through an exit portal was like a piece of sand in the bottom of the sea, a small and insignificant presence.

Deacon didn’t even want to know the politics behind it all, but he would have appreciated a little more help from up top. Grim was still his mentor and would be for the indefinite future, but some days it seemed like he was being left to hang. If the higher-ups weren’t motivated enough to help track down and destroy all the demons that were currently tormenting the citizens of Meridian, Deacon didn’t even want to know how much worse it had to get before their attention was piqued.

Deacon followed Rashnu down the brilliant white stone hallway to Grim’s chamber.

* * *

Grim was not the black-robed character of storybooks.

Never had been, in fact.

Still, he inspired a healthy respect among the Purgatory crowd. And now that he was a Seraph? The guy was even more intimidating. He was standing—or, rather, levitating—on the far side of the chamber when they walked in.

Deacon was grateful the guy had found a way to tone down his overwhelmingly bright glow, but his eyes were still searing when he looked directly at the Seraph. Three sets of wings peeked out from behind Grim, but Deacon could only see the feathered shoulders of the wings that were folded against his back. The first time Deacon had laid eyes on him, the wings were fully extended, stretching a good twelve feet on either side of Grim’s body.

“Good luck,” Rashnu said, pulling the door closed as he left the room to wait in the hallway.

It was hard to get a fix on Grim’s actual appearance, since there was no way to properly study him without going blind. As it was, Deacon would be seeing spots for the next few hours.

Grim’s face morphed between a man’s visage and a child’s, sometimes becoming almost animalistic. He tried not to dwell too much on the animal part. A long white flowing robe covered the rest of the Seraph’s body.

“Deacon,” Grim greeted. “Come, let us dispatch of this unpleasantness.”

Grim had taught Deacon to consume the demons and eat their power, but it was a tricky task when he was also full of souls, particularly this many of them.

He welcomed the help.

Deacon closed his eyes as Grim approached. A warmth enveloped him as the Seraph enclosed him in a sphere of purple light. The light pressed against him, pushing the souls and demons from him. He opened his eyes, watching as the souls streamed from his mouth in a long line, one after another for what felt like an eternity. They passed through the light, circling around Grim’s head with reverence. The demons were expelled from Deacon’s heart chakra in a long black stream, but they couldn’t pass through the field energy.

Grim helped him free the souls but retain the demons. Grim had promised that with time he’d be able to do it himself. Deacon had no doubt that he was right. The power he’d pull from consuming these demons might be enough to push him over the edge.

Doubtlessly understanding their fate, the demons churned like dervishes, beating against their purple cell.

Grim waved his hand above his head, pointing to the chimney in the center of the room. The souls hovered, reluctant to leave his light, but they eventually streamed toward the tunnel, up and away.

That particular chimney, Deacon had learned, was a one-way street to Heaven. Like Hell, there were various levels and circles. This tunnel was a fast track to redemption.

They were the lucky ones.

Deacon didn’t like to think too hard about how many souls the demons had already taken straight to Hell. And he especially didn’t like to think about how many his friend Kylen had been responsible for poaching over the past hundred years. Deacon shuddered. He’d been to Hell. He hated to think of innocent souls being marooned there for eternity.

* * *

Deacon’s body trembled, craving the power just within his reach.

“A bit more business, I see. Energize the sphere, Deacon.”

Desperate for relief, Deacon pushed out a long cleansing breath, and then drew in another. Spreading his arms wide, he sent the force of his light into the sphere. The black streams of smoky haze coalesced into one tremulous mass before being drawn back into his sternum through his heart chakra.