Reap & Reveal (The Reaper Series Book 3) (22 page)

***

Nate’s hold on reality was tenuous at best. Ironically, it was Maeve who grounded him and unhinged him all at once. “You’re Nate’s sister, Ruth.”

“That’s not possible.”

“Nate’s mother’s name is Elaina Carter. Your mother’s name is Elaina Carter. She’s a reaper. Nate had a twin.”

Now it was Ruth’s turn to look stricken. Temperance moved forward, unsure of the threat, but sensing that her charge was overwhelmed.

“No. It can’t be.” Ruth’s face turned pale and her hands trembled in her lap as she twisted them.

Nate sat down next to her, sinking heavily in the leather couch. “Ruth, she’s right. Look at the evidence. We should have put this together sooner. We were both adopted, and we have the same birthday for God’s sake! We both had strange abilities we didn’t understand as children? And now…you’re looking for a woman named Elaina Carter whom I just met in the flesh. My mother—Rosemary—said there were two infants. Twins. They separated us on purpose to try to protect us and themselves from Elaina’s pursuers.”

Ruth shook her head, trying to dislodge what she must already know to be true.

“And our father?”

“An angel. I think our father is Camael.”

“No. That’s not possible. There are other angels. Our father could have been any of them.”

“Only one has fallen since our birth, Ruth. Are you really going to write that off as a coincidence?”

“I can’t even think about that possibility right now. It’s just too much. Take me to her, Nate. I have to see her.”

“You can’t travel through the consecrated subway, Ruth. You know that.”

“No. But you can drive me.” Ruth gave Temperance a hard look. “Don’t even think about keeping me from my mother, Temperance. Come along if you must, but I
will
see her. You’d better help me if you don’t want me to do something drastic.”

“Ruth, we can go there, but I need to find Deacon first,” Nate said. “Elaina is safe for now, but her soul is missing. If we can find it, maybe she can still be saved. Like Maeve.”

“You think you can reinsoul her?” Ruth gaped at him in awe.

“It may be too late. But we have to try if it’s possible. Right?”

“Yes. But I’m not waiting any longer to see her. I’m going. Alone if I have to.”

“Ruth, she won’t even know you’re there. Not yet. Besides, you don’t know where to begin looking for her. The coven is hidden.” Even as he said the words, he knew the same excuses wouldn’t have stopped him from looking for his mother.

“I know where to start! Bolton cemetery.”

Maeve shook her head in disgust. “No. She can’t go off on her own. You take her, Nate. Once you’re inside the coven’s circle of protection, you’ll be safe. It will take longer by car, but with Temperance, you can make it. I’ll find Deacon and bring him to you. I’d take Ruth instead, but—”

“She can’t drive,” Ruth said. “You really need to work on that.”

“Ruth, it’s too dangerous right now.” Nate knew he was losing. The women had made a decision. Right or wrong, they were stuck with it.

“I’m not waiting, Nate. I’ve waited twenty-seven years.”

“No!” He was losing his ever-loving mind. This was the worst plan ever.

Temperance’s wings began to unfold as an orange glow enveloped her. “You will remain here. I command it.”

A spear appeared in her hand and her red hair radiated tendrils of flame, licking the air around her head like a blazing sun.

“You are not the boss of me, Temperance!”

“Dammit, Ruth! Temperance! Both of you stop. No one is leaving this compound except for me. You too, Maeve. You’re going to stay here to protect Ruth and yourself. Got it? Or have you already forgotten what happened to you at the hospital, Ruth?”

Ruth jerked back from him as if she’d been slapped. He’d never spoken to her so roughly, but she was about to engage in a suicide mission. Deacon would have his head if he allowed her to do this. Sister or no. She was not leaving this compound.

Maeve moved to his side and held out her hand to him, pulling the bracelet taut. “You’re going to have to remove this if you want me to stay here with Ruth.”

Nate took her hand in his and searched her eyes. With the binding spell, she would have to remain by his side or in the trailer where he could protect her. Without it, she was just as vulnerable as the rest of them.…

Kneeling before her, he focused on the knots, chose one and began to unravel it. If he didn’t trust her now, she’d never trust him in the future. She wasn’t a pet, and she’d never be happy being caged no matter how much it terrified him to release her back into the world.

Love sucked.

His sigils tightened across his biceps at the thought and magic coiled around the symbols. He pulled the rope strands apart and it was done.

Maeve was free.

God help them both.

“Thank you.” Maeve bent down and pulled him into a kiss, his arms wrapping around her waist.

Ruth laughed. “I
knew
it!”

“Your weapons are in my trailer, Maeve. Go get them and do not let this one—” He pointed to Ruth. “—leave under any circumstances.”

“I know what I’m doing. This isn’t my first rodeo. Besides,
Firestarter
over there will blow a fuse if she tries anything.”

“If I lose you…”

“You won’t.”

***

Nate retrieved his phone from his trailer while Maeve saw to her weapons. He tried to call Deacon. When he didn’t answer, Nate employed the GPS tracker.

Activating the tracking program, he pinpointed the location of the Authority reapers, as well as the two replacement reapers responsible for maintaining the normal flow of souls to Purgatory. The Authority members were spread across the city, some clearly not even working in teams anymore. Effective, but dangerous.

The other two reapers, whose names he couldn’t even remember, were near Oakland Hospital on the edge of the city while Deacon was moving briskly along Richmond Street in the downtown area. He would flash to Deacon’s location first so that he could tell him about Maeve’s memories and what he’d learned about his relationship to Ruth. Then he would return to Rashnu to demand information about where Elaina’s soul had been sent.

He checked the phone display again, making sure of Deacon’s location, when he saw the two replacement reapers walking along Starnes Street disappear off the mapped grid. There were plenty of reasons that could happen. Their phones could have been damaged, their signals interrupted, but for it to happen to both of them? In the middle of the street? Nowhere near consecrated ground? They were vanilla reapers. They couldn’t flash from anywhere like the members of the Authority. The dread that flooded through his chest in a surge of adrenaline told him the problem was something else.

They were in trouble.

The chance that any of the members of the Authority had noticed them vanish was slim. They were concentrating on the demons, not other reapers.

He turned to Maeve and grabbed her arm. “Maeve. Change in plans. There’s trouble. I’m going to the replacement reapers first. You go to Deacon. Tell him to check my tracking and find us. Something bad is going down, and Deacon needs to know about Camael.”

“Ruth?”

“Temperance won’t let anything bad happen to her.” He slid their spare phone into her front pocket and pulled her to him, planting a quick kiss onto the top of her head. “I don’t have time to recast the circle. Ruth can release you as soon as you’re ready. Hurry.”

The pull of the consecrated subway drew him away from Maeve and toward Starnes Street.

He knew in his gut it was already too late.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Camael was dismayed.

Not at the two decapitated reapers before him, lying on the cemetery grounds, but at the blood and overflow of bodily fluids currently defiling his clothes and body. Smiting was so much cleaner. What he wouldn’t give for his angel firepower. Sure, his bare hands—or, rather, his host’s bare hands—along with his residual strength had given him more than enough potency to rip their heads from their shoulders, but smiting…now
that
was enjoyable.

Arranging the bodies in front of the crypt in Maple Park Cemetery, he went for something artful and abstract. The moonlight glistened off the blood still pooling on the concrete base beside corpse number one. Satisfied, he stepped back to admire his display. Yes, this would send the appropriate message.

He
could
just wait for the members of the Authority to come for him, but where was the sport in that? These two would be found before the night was through. He was sure of it. The reapers swept the city each night, including all the cemeteries. Leaving the bodies in town risked the police finding them first, and they wouldn’t appreciate the irony the way the Authority would. Still, it was worth it.

His new plan for securing the sacrifice should have occurred to him before, but he’d been—intoxicated—by Maeve’s reaper mojo. It was the only explanation. Something about the bitch was defective and the longer he was out of her shell, the clearer he felt. His new human ride wouldn’t last as long as he’d hoped under the strain of his revamped vigor, but there were a thousand more to take his place. As a matter of fact, there was an entire prison full of them. Literally.

He’d instructed his demons to go to the State Penitentiary to collect the best potential hosts, those who were most similar to his current model. That place was like a demon candy store. One way in, one way out, and once the ball started rolling, it would be all downhill. Camael could make up his losses tonight in one fell swoop.

As soon as his post-Maeve fog began to lift, it had all seemed so obvious.

While the Authority reapers might pose a bit more of a challenge than these two, he was tired of toying with them. Three steps forward, two steps back wasn’t getting the job done.

He was ready to bring to bear the full force of his diminished legion. Prancing around the city in Maeve’s body had been foolish in retrospect. His hubris and subsequent sulking had cost him half of his new recruits. He was a freaking Duke of Hell, for Lucifer’s sake. It was time he started acting like one.

Nothing upped the stakes like a few heads on pikes. Or in this case, laps.

It was time to get this party started.

Reinvigorated on the heels of such a stellar success with the two vanilla reapers, he flashed to find some more.

Success.

And reapers.

***

Ruth was not taking ‘No’ or for an answer. This was bullshit. She felt fine. She’d experienced no cramping or bleeding in the four months since her return from the hospital, not so much as a hangnail. And not even a squirrel had touched the circle of protection since Nate’s work reinforcing it. Now that she knew her mother was alive, the knowledge was consuming her. There was no way was she sitting here and waiting it out.

Determined to catch Nate before he left, Ruth kicked off the fleece blanket covering her legs and slid off the communal couch, heading for the doorway. Temperance, of course, flashed in front of her exit before she’d taken three steps.

No matter. If the angel wanted her to stay, she’d have to bodily detain her and so far she hadn’t touched her with anything more than a hard glare. That whole spread-her-wings-and-glow-fire thing was a little intimidating, yes, but Ruth doubted Temperance had the clearance or the balls to turn her angel mojo against her.

Temperance was, after all, supposed to be protecting her. Toasting Ruth like a reaper marshmallow would surely be frowned upon. A slight twinge of guilt gave her pause, but it was quickly replaced by righteous resolve. Her mother was out there and she was going to find her. If Nate’s magic could protect her here in the compound, she was certain that the magic of the entire coven could keep her even safer while she visited her mother. She just had to get there.

“I command you to move your ass, Temperance!”

Temperance crossed her arms across her chest and snarled like a pissed off punk rocker.

“I demand you allow me to pass!”

Nada. Nothing. All red-haired defiance.

“By my free will, I disavow your help and refuse your aid. Temperance, I reject you!”

Temperance’s body began to shimmer, cutting in and out like a stormy satellite signal. The air sizzled with electricity as the angel’s barely contained power leaked out in an orange glow. A light bulb popped behind her and Ruth flinched, turning in time to watch the glass fall to the floor. Another bulb shattered, then a third as the air hummed with power.

Ruth’s fear built in intensity along with the power until every bulb shattered, leaving the radioactive glow of Temperance’s energy the only light in the room.

The hair along Ruth’s arms stood at attention and ice cold dread climbed up the back of her neck. What had she done?

The angel tried to hold her ground, her hands curled into fists, blood dripping from them as her nails bit through her palms. The muscles of her thin neck corded and strained with her effort to undo Ruth’s words, but it was too late. Temperance’s body blinked again, and she vanished into the consecrated subway, leaving a void of dark silence behind her.