Reapers (12 page)

“
Yes, my lord. The reapers
control them. Reapers…reapers are magnificent
creatures—”

The rest of the imp’s words died under
Beelzebub’s threatening glare. The creature had said too much. It
cowered low and flattened its long, gangly fingers on the
ground.

“
Thank you, Kyton,” said
Betaazu, and he kicked the imp in the stomach with his
boot.

Kyton went sprawling to the ground and
howled in pain. He shifted back into a low bow, almost in prayer
and flattened himself as low as he could.

“
I must apologize for my
overzealous nature, my lord, we imps are too—”

Betaazu kicked him again.

“
Shut up, Kyton. Lord
Beelzebub doesn’t want to hear your useless ramblings,
imp.”

Kyton coughed and said to the ground,
“I only live to serve his lordship.”

The archfiend grasped the edges of his
chair to keep his temper in check.

“
And what of the
key?”

Kyton cleared his throat. “The key, my
lord? Oh, yes, yes, of course. The key. How foolish of me. Right.
We’ve isolated the key to a specific location. It’s only a matter
of time until the key is found and secured, your
lordship.”

The archfiend narrowed his
eyes. “I hope, for
your
sake, that this time you are correct, and not
sending the imps on another one of your fool’s errands.”

“
No—I mean—yes—I mean—”
Kyton paused. His voice shook. “It’s not a fool’s errand. I mean,
yes. I
am
a fool,
but not this time. I’m sure about this location, your
lordship.”

The imp shifted his gaze to his
master.

Lord Beelzebub looked at the imp
creature for a moment longer.

“
We’ll see. We’ve been
waiting millenniums for a chance like this. Prophecies mean
nothing. Prophecies can be changed and broken. This is
inevitability, and it will come to pass.
She
will be strong enough to kill
every last angel in the legion. The darkness in her will break the
walls between life and death in the mortal world.”

Betaazu smiled evilly. “This is our
opportunity. We have a chance to succeed where everyone else has
failed. We’ve seen where demons like Valkmeer, Moluk, and Asmodeus
have gone wrong. They were too hasty, and now we have learned from
their mistakes.”

“
We will rise again,”
bellowed Beelzebub. “The Dark Gods will rise again.”

He rose from his throne, and his great
black leathery wings spread wide above his back. He was a
magnificent and terrifying god of darkness.

“
And what about the
non-believers, my lord?” inquired Betaazu.

Beelzebub crushed the globe in his
hands in an explosion of dust.

“
The demons will be dealt
with,” said the archfiend. “If they don’t wish to join us, then we
will destroy them.”

Chapter 8

Crimson
Massacre

W
hen Kara regained consciousness, she was relieved that the
vega had not killed her. She had not disintegrated, and her mind
was still intact. She looked around. She had expected to find Vegas
alive with tourists, skyscrapers, fluorescent lights, taxis, buses,
and the clinking of slot machines.

She hadn’t expected to
find herself in a
dead
city.

Instead of a city bursting
with bright lights and people—it was dark, quiet, and ominous. It
looked as though the entire city had suffered from a major power
outage. But where were all the people? Papers and dust blew through
the streets, and fires burned in the dumpsters and buildings.
Billowing black smoke clouded the skies.
The only source of light came from the setting sun, which
spilled rays of orange light from behind the mountains that
surrounded the city. The hot dry air smelled of smoke and decay. A
green street sign read,
Las Vegas
Boulevard.

Las Vegas was a ghost town.

Kara looked down at herself. She, too,
was a ghost, just like this town. Things had not changed or
improved. She had hoped the M-5 mortal suit would have provided her
with a real, solid, mortal body. But it hadn’t. She was still a
specter.

Kara had also hoped the use of vega
might have recharged her memories. But she still couldn’t remember
the moments before she had died. And the more she dwelled on it,
the more it bothered her. How did she die? Why couldn’t she
remember?

A sudden pain seared her back between
her shoulder blades, like the sting of a large wasp. But when she
reached over, expecting to grab a giant bug, there was nothing
there. Her fingers were empty, and the pain vanished.

“
Kara? Are you all right?”
David had re-integrated right next to her.

“
Yes, I’m fine,” she
answered, and thought nothing more of it. “Just an itch. It’s gone
now.”

“
No, I mean,” said David,
and he lowered his voice, “with the
other
thing.”

Kara didn’t like the look of pity she
saw in David’s face. If she still had her elemental abilities, he
wouldn’t be treating her like a weak little girl. It angered her.
She wasn’t weak, and she would prove it.

“
I’m fine,” she
lied.

She rolled her weapon in her hand. “As
you can see, I’m still a ghost; nothing’s changed. But you can stop
staring at me like you think I’m going to break down, ’cause I’m
not. I’m fine.”

David studied her. “I thought maybe
with an M-5, that maybe it would have worked—”

“
Yeah. Well, it
didn’t.”

Kara shook her head impatiently. She
was angry at the world all of a sudden. It was an anger that she
couldn’t control.

“
Just stop mothering me,
okay. I’m fine.”

David glanced at her sideways, but
said nothing. She could see he was confused by her behavior, but
she didn’t care. She didn’t want Jenny or Peter to start treating
her differently either, like she was the weakest link.

“
What happened here?”
asked Peter, breaking the awkward silence.

He moved down the street carefully,
taking it all in.

“
It looks like a bomb went
off, or a giant riot of some kind. Where are all the
people—?”

As if in answer, the city
shook violently as a nearby explosion tore more stone and steel
apart. The buildings shuddered as the city trembled from another
impact. Then it was calm again.

Jenny lifted her bow from her back and
carefully nocked an arrow. “I don’t know what happened here, but my
gut feeling is demons or something else supernatural.”

“
I’ve never heard of
demons burning entire cities on their own,” Peter shrugged. “I
don’t know, but it’s not their style. I could be wrong, but I don’t
think demons did this.”

Jenny aimed her bow at the empty
street. “Well, style or no style, something bad happened here. And
it smells worse.”

“
It did indeed,” said
Peter.

“
I guess Sin City ran out
of sinners, eh?” David pulled out a silver soul blade from the
folds of his jacket. “Too bad. And I was feeling especially lucky
this evening. I thought I might have taken a break from work, once
we’d neutralized the situation, and tried my luck at one of the
casinos. I’m an awesome poker player.”

“
You are?” said
Kara.

“
That’s right,” David
smiled. “What can I say? I’m a natural at poker, and some women
like that.”

Kara looked at him, irritated. “What
women? Women with very low expectations.”

“
More like dead,” muttered
Jenny. She and Kara smiled.

Peter walked away from the group. He
halted and held up a globe in the palm of his hand. The globe shone
bright yellow, like a little sun.

“
I’m getting really strong
energy readings. Something really big, big enough to cause a huge
gap in the electromagnetic field.”

He looked up from his contraption.
“It’s off the charts. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

Kara looked behind her. She had a
sudden sense that something was missing. “Guys? Where are Ashley
and her team? I thought they were coming with us?”

“
They’re in Chicago,”
answered Jenny, scanning the street. “There was another threat
there as well, so Ariel sent them there to check it out. What? Did
you want her to tag along with us?” she added with a
laugh.

“
I’d rather swallow my own
tongue,” said Kara sarcastically, thankful not to have to deal with
sour looks and spiteful remarks from Ashley.

But something else now was bothering
her. She felt uneasy, restless. A darkness was engulfing the city.
It was as if all the life were being snuffed out in a wave that
spread out and just kept on spreading.

She measured the lifeless
street one last time and said, “Will someone tell me what this
new
threat
is,
before I explode? I could tell Ariel was unnerved by it. She said
it was something the legion never hoped to confront… What did I
miss here?”

Jenny lowered her bow, her green eyes
darkened in the fading sunlight. “Reapers.”

Kara narrowed her eyes.
“Reapers? You mean like
The
Grim Reaper
? The angel
of death? That mythical creature that wears a black hooded cloak?
The one that uses a scythe and—”

She broke off. She had the strangest
feeling she’d seen one. Was it in a forest? But that was
impossible. She’d only just got back. What was wrong with her? Was
she was beginning to feel the repercussions of being a wraith
herself? Her mind was failing.

“
Yup, that’s the one,”
said David, watching Kara carefully. “They exist. Yes,
they
, we know of seven,
maybe more. And they’re no angels. Reapers are death demons from
the lower planes of the Netherworld. They use the
Scythe of Death to sever the ties between the
soul and the body. They kill the mortals and take their
souls
.”

“
Take?” repeated
Kara.

“
Exactly, they steal them.
And it’s always been a bit of a mystery what really happens to the
souls.”

“
Why’s that?”

“
We
think
the souls are dead,” added
Jenny. “But it’s not proven, so we can’t be sure. But we do know
that the reapers take the mortals’ souls just before they die and
leave their bodies behind.”

The hairs on the back of Kara’s neck
stood up. A soul’s true death was the worst thing that could
happen. It could never be born again. It was a horrible prospect.
She gripped her weapon firmly.

“
Why do they do
this?”

David shook his head. “We don’t know.
Maybe they feed on the souls, like other demons, but there’s really
not much the legion knows about reapers. They’re like super rare. I
think that’s why the legion’s making so much noise about them.
They’re not sure how to handle them.”

“
Have you ever seen one?”
asked Kara. “A reaper?”

“
No,” Peter answered.
“None of us have. In fact, I doubt any guardian at the legion has
either. Reapers are demons from the first age, before the creation
of man. They’re mysterious creatures. The legion really doesn’t
know much about them—”

“
Except that they’re
killers,” interrupted David, “
soul
-sucking killers, like giant
bloodsucking leeches.”

Kara quivered at the image. “And you
think reapers did this?”

She inspected the deserted city and
wondered why soul-suckers would take the time to destroy the city
and set fire to buildings. If it was the souls they wanted, why the
mayhem?

“
If reapers are only
interested in the souls…then where are the bodies?”

“
I was just wondering the
same thing,” said David. “Should we be seeing piles of dead bodies
by now?”

“
Let’s get moving,” said
Jenny. She raised her bow. “I don’t have a good feeling about this
place.”

Their footsteps echoed as they passed
the burning casinos, hotels, and restaurants. The smoke obscured
the last of the sunlight, making it really hard to see more than a
few hundred feet ahead. Ashes and debris fell from the sky like
heavy rain. Kara could feel panic and uncertainty wash over her
friends like a heavy paint. It was not like them to be so
nervous.

To make matters worse, Kara had the
eerie feeling that something or someone was watching
them.

From the corner of her eye, she could
see that David was watching her as often as he was scouting the
streets. He was worried about her, like he expected her to collapse
at any moment. While it frustrated her that David seemed unduly
concerned about her, she still couldn’t shake off the feeling that
they were being watched. It was there, like a bad
headache.