Reap & Redeem (25 page)

Maeve hesitated. She’d only ever shared her energy one time…and it had ended in disaster. It was the real reason why she hadn’t tried to juice Ruth. Her energy was poison. Her brother’s face still haunted her. He had died during their training. There had been a freak accident, and she should have been able to heal him—quick and easy—instead, her light had somehow consumed his, draining him to the point of no return. It was the first, and last, time she’d tried to share her energy.

“Maeve!” Deacon demanded, pulling her back to the here and now. “You have to help me with him. He’s too far gone for me to heal him myself.”

“But he’s human.”

“He’s more than human. He can take it. He needs it, Maeve.”

She weighed her options. Deny her boss and possibly kill Nate or tell the truth and expose her weakness. It shouldn’t be such a difficult decision. She knew the right choice…so why wasn’t she making it?

“My light is poisoned,” she finally said.

“What?”

“My energy might kill him. It’s killed before. Tell me what you want me to do.”

Deacon scrutinized her with an intensity that burned through her, yet she couldn’t look away. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction. This was on him. She’d admitted to her fault, and he alone would be responsible for the consequences of his decision.

Nate’s body grew rigid and began to seize. Deacon lowered him to the floor and the palms of his hands began to glow and radiate green healing energy, which he pushed through Nate’s sternum. Nate’s seizure grew more violent instead of less, and he thrashed and heaved up from the floor. His body rejected Deacon’s light, hurling it into the ether. All that was left was a white aura.

Without warning, Maeve’s body responded to the vacuum of energy, humming and itching along her receptors as it searched for an exit. She felt like her body would fly apart into a million little pieces.

Against her will, energy leaked from her fingertips and streaked toward Nate’s lifeless body. Upon impact his chest rose, lifting his torso off the ground. Maeve held him there with her tether of energy for several long moments, her power flooding into him without her consent. She was helpless to stop what was happening, helpless to detach from him.

Tears sprang to her eyes. She didn’t want to kill him, but she couldn’t make it stop.

Once he gathered himself, Deacon sprang to his feet and tackled Maeve to the ground, breaking the link. Maeve lay exhausted and powerless on the floor.

Nate hadn’t completely drained her energy, but the inevitable result for him filled her with an unfathomable sadness she couldn’t bear. She’d killed before. She was good at it. But only once had she killed an innocent…and so
intimately.

“Are you okay?” Deacon asked, dislodging himself from her.

“Yes.” Maeve sat up, her mouth dropping open with awe as she studied Nate.

His aura had returned to the calm yellow he usually emitted. Even when she came across him in that demon nest, his aura had been that same content yellow. It was a trait she admired in him, even though he was oblivious to it.

Nate’s chest was rising and falling in a regular rhythm again, and his body had relaxed into a more sedate position. He looked downright peaceful. His eyelashes fluttered as he came to.

Relief flooded Maeve.

She’d learned long ago to never show weakness—
no matter what
—so she stuffed her emotions into the black hole in her psyche where they belonged and stood.

The look Nate gave her when his eyes locked onto hers just about broke her. Something elemental had changed between them. She had no idea what, but when he smiled up at her, her knees shook, threatening to buckle beneath her.

“Well, I guess you weren’t poison after all, Maeve,” Deacon said, pulling a seemingly drunk Nate to his unsteady feet.

The goofy grin on the guy’s face was so off-putting; Maeve could barely look at him, but she couldn’t look away, either. Her heart did a little stutter, and she coughed to try to make it stop.

It didn’t.

What. The. Hell?

His smile faded, his forehead crinkling with concern, as he came back to himself and clutched Deacon’s steadying arm. “Ruth is still in danger…”

Before he could even explain, Deacon began to dissolve out of the chapel. Now that his friend was apparently on the mend, his mind must have turned inevitably back to Ruth.

“Deacon, no!” Maeve dove toward him, desperate to break his concentration.

He reassembled in front of her, angry and confused, looking like he wanted to tear her limb from limb.

“She’s here!”

“What?”

“Ruth is here in the hospital! Come, I’ll show you but… Olivia has been taken.”

Chapter Thirty-Three

Maeve watched through the glass doors as the others conversed with Ruth’s doctor in the E.R. suite. She paced across the hallway, unnerved by her inability to hear what was going on and her itch to find Olivia.

Deacon’s obvious agitation and Ruth’s continued unconsciousness didn’t bode well for a happy ending to the Catastrophe du Jour. Where was Kylen? She hadn’t had a chance to ask them in the confusion. It seemed as though wires were crossed everywhere. For the supposed saviors of mankind, they surely had the worst communication system ever.

Maeve felt Nate’s gaze and looked up, meeting his eyes. She could almost feel the strange bond that now stretched between them. Something big had happened. Why or how she knew, she had no idea, but there was almost a tangible connection between them now, like she could reach out and pluck it. She turned away, breaking the link. Nate responded immediately, leaving the room to join her.

“How is she?” Maeve asked.

“Bad. The burns, of course, aren’t healing yet. The baby is still viable, but she’s going to be here for a good long while. Deacon wants her stabilized on both accounts before we take her home. He’ll juice her as soon as they leave the room. That should help, but he says he can only give her small doses of energy because of the pregnancy.”

Nate took a tentative step toward Maeve, but she backed away.

“What’s going on with you?” she asked. “What happened?”

Nate shook his head. “I don’t know. It was like I was feeling everything Ruth had experienced, but I couldn’t do anything to help her. When she was near the end of her rope, I went down, too. You and Deacon pulled me back from the abyss. You may have saved Ruth in the process.”

Maeve shifted from foot to foot, her eyes focused on the floor as if it were a treasure map, and mumbled, “Don’t bet on it.”

“What are you so afraid of, Maeve? Is it me?”

Maeve looked stricken. “Why would I be afraid of you?”

“I’m just trying to piece together what’s changed and why.” Nate reached out to comfort her, but she backed away again, reaching for her blade on instinct.

“Not here!” Nate snapped. He raised his hands in submission and backed away from her.

Embarrassed, she blushed and pushed the blade back into its sheath. “I’m sorry. It’s been a long day, and I don’t want to talk about this anymore. We need to find Olivia. Where is Kylen? Why didn’t he come to the hospital with you?”

“He went to the house to make sure Ruth and Olivia were okay.”

“Great.” Fresh dread coursed through Maeve. “The house was on fire, and we ran from it when Ruth was injured. The imps breached the circle as soon as Ruth got hurt, and they chased us all the way to the cemetery. I thought they were after us all, but now I’m sure that they were gunning for Olivia. We were trapped at the cemetery. I was about to flash when something showed up and snatched Olivia. I had no choice but to get Ruth out of there.”

“Camael?”

“I can only assume. He flashed into and out of the consecrated grounds of the cemetery, and he wasn’t a reaper. Know anyone else who could do that?”

“Ah, hell. Let me go tell Deacon. Camael is the only one who is actively playing both sides. His angel essence must allow him to still travel the consecrated subway. Kylen could still travel through consecration even while he was possessed. Camael must be able to do the same. We should see if we can find Kylen before things get worse.” He returned to Ruth’s room, and she watched through the door as he spoke to Deacon.

Maeve tugged her jacket smooth and tight over her scabbard and pulled her sleeves back down to her wrists, completely covering her sheathed blades. What had she been thinking? She’d practically wielded one of her weapons against Nate in the hospital hallway. And for what, invading her personal bubble? She was losing her mind.

The moment passed, her tension shifted yet again.

She tried to pull herself together as Nate kissed Ruth’s forehead, and then snatched up his backpack from the corner of the room before heading her way.

“Let’s go get Bo. I left him in the chapel.” He nodded toward her and held her stare a little longer than was comfortable. “We’ll leave from there and go straight to the house. Deacon needs to stay here with Ruth.”

Nate led the way through the sterile maze of hallways to the chapel. The room was dark and empty save for a row of candles that softly illuminated the area around the altar at the front of the small sanctuary. They walked into the room and the doors closed behind them. Bo emerged from behind the altar, his persistent tail wagging like a propeller and swiping the brass accoutrements from the altar. He approached Nate and flopped over for a belly rub.

Maeve’s eyebrows inched upward. “That’s the hellhound?”

“Yeah. You ready?” Nate gave the dog a pat and Bo rolled over and sat at his side. He gripped the scruff of the dog’s neck with one hand and offered his other hand to Maeve.

“I got it.”

“It’s not for you. It’s for me. I can use the help. No telling where I’ll end up on my own.”

Maeve smirked and clasped his hand.

“Rookie.”

They landed in a pile of smoking rubble.

* * *

Maeve immediately flashed them back a hundred or so feet to the edge of the circle, putting them out of harm’s way. Nate was in awe. The destruction was total.

Gone was the house, the trailer, the garage…everything. All that remained was the burned out husk of his Honda and the stone walls of the house and the basement. He tried to make sense of it, but it was impossible. What if Ruth or Olivia or…Maeve had perished in the flames?

He shuddered. Bo sniffed at something wet and gelatinous in the smoldering wreckage to his left. Curious, he walked over to investigate. It was a head.

“Imp.” Maeve toed at the glob with her boot.

Adrenaline rushed through his veins and his blood thrummed in his ears as he realized that he could now see the imp for what it really was. For the first time he was seeing with the eyes of a reaper.

What does that mean?

Another realization took shape in his mind, gelling into a terrible truth. “Holy hell, Kylen must think Ruth and Olivia are dead.”

Maeve turned to him abruptly, her eyes wide. “How do you know?”

Nate pointed to the ruined creature. Not burned, which meant it hadn’t been killed by the fire. “Kylen did this.”

“Shit.” Maeve walked around to the edge of the circle, toeing at various burned flotsam and jetsam. “Where would he have gone?”

“That’s the million-dollar question. Considering he’s a man who thinks he has nothing left to lose? I’d say he’s on a suicide mission and looking for Camael. Alone.” Nate kicked at the remains of the trailer and toed out the pile of blades left in the debris. He bent to retrieve the most wicked-looking blade, its steel still hot to the touch.

“We’ll have to split up.” Maeve drew her scythe from the scabbard on her back. “Purgatory to talk to Rashnu or downtown to roll some demons for intel on Camael? If he’s there, he’ll be on a tear. Wanna flip a coin?”

He didn’t. Both choices were equally bad. He wasn’t even sure if he could go to Purgatory by himself since he wasn’t a real reaper. Maeve had much more experience fighting demons, but he wasn’t willing to admit to his weakness. Still, he didn’t relish the thought of going to the other realm alone.

“Meridian.”

“Works for me.” Maeve took one long last look around the grounds. “We’ll meet back at the hospital chapel in two hours. With any luck, one of us will have Kylen.”

Nate waited for Maeve to vanish into the consecrated subway. When she disappeared, he and Bo flashed as well.

Chapter Thirty-Four

Nate successfully landed in downtown Meridian. At this rate, he should be earning frequent-flier miles for all his supernatural travel. His best chance of stopping Kylen from self-destructing was to find him or Olivia, stat.

The St. Mary’s Catholic Church portal they’d used to rescue Deacon had been sealed as soon as they returned from Hell. If Kylen was going after Camael, there was a good chance he was already well on his way to finding an exit portal. Nate had no doubt a motivated Kylen could devise a satisfactory method of finding a way to Hell, even a well-hidden one.

The next problem was how to get Kylen back against his will. The guy was volatile on a good day, and if he was under the impression that Ruth and Olivia were dead? Nate didn’t think Kylen would even be capable of
hearing
reason. Besides, the guy wouldn’t leave a fight this big without a resolution.

A man with nothing to lose was hard to beat.

This was without a doubt a job Deacon should be doing, but the big guy was fighting for the lives of his lover and unborn child. No man—reaper or otherwise—would be able to worry about anything else under those circumstances.

Tamping down his own feelings about Ruth’s current situation, he marveled at the fact that a few short months ago he hadn’t even known most of these people. But now his life was intimately entwined with theirs. He and Ruth had so much in common, right down to being adopted. She felt like family.

Nate took stock of where he was, and set about making a more focused search for the portal. He walked quickly down one alley then another trying to cover a grid pattern like they had earlier. It wasn’t the first time he’d wished he had the reaper sensory projection Kylen could sometimes use to sense their quarry. But what he did have was a hellhound. Bo sniffed the ground beside a cardboard recycling bin, scaring a rat out from behind it.