Unreap My Heart (The Reaper Series) (14 page)

The last time she’d left her house on one of her midnight walks after Carrie’s death, her mom had been swallowing pills like candy and her dad had barely been keeping it together. Their whole family had become a mess. Arianne had been so out of it that she didn’t even see the car barreling toward her when she’d stepped out in front of it. If it weren’t for Niko’s stalking tendencies, she’d be roadkill by now. It hadn’t helped that Darla had been the one driving the car.

Arianne pushed away thoughts of her high school bully and focused on finishing her wood pyramid. She’d gone on this mission because of Niko. She couldn’t care less what happened to Death, but if she didn’t help him then he couldn’t bring Niko out of his sleep in that crystal coffin. Her gaze landed on the ring. The pulse seemed weaker than before, even if it still blinked constantly. Granmare Baba said if the ring stopped pulsing they were too late.

She got the feeling Balthazar would have charged through the Ghoul Woods that night if it weren’t for her. Ghouls littered the place—hence the name. They ate anything and everything with a pulse. Their appetite made them dangerous. Once caught, you might as well say your prayers. Arianne rubbed away the goose bumps on her arms. She hadn’t come this far just to be eaten by ghouls. The picture of them in her head wasn’t very clear, so she couldn’t tell what they really looked like. Maybe something went wrong with the information upload. Or could it be another blocked piece of info Granmare Baba wanted her to unlock.

Arianne hated the old witch.

With that thought, she fed the fire then dusted her hands. She stretched to her full height and stared at the lean-to Balthazar had created for her. If she didn’t know better, she’d think he was being sweet. But Balthazar didn’t have a sweet bone in his body. His bargain with Death forced him to build the shelter. Basically, he protected her from the elements too. Arianne shrugged. No matter how much he denied it—and he definitely would if she asked him—the lean-to was still a nice gesture.

She had just decided to clear the space of pebbles when the pines rustled behind her. She froze. Something grunted. To Arianne’s knowledge, Balthazar didn’t grunt. Plus, this sounded more guttural than his smoother, deeper voice. A soft gravelly mewling followed the grunt. Arianne closed her eyes and thought really hard for Balthazar to get back. If he could feel her thoughts then she didn’t need to scream. Who knew what a scream would attract around here? So Arianne bit the inside of her cheek and slowly turned around. She forced herself not to close her eyes. If she needed to run, she needed her eyes to see.

Whatever grunted when it arrived sneezed now. Arianne flinched. What did her dad tell her about dealing with predators? No sudden movements? Play dead?

Let’s see what you’re dealing with first, Ari,
she scolded herself.

Once she completed her one-eighty, Arianne’s eyes popped. The information in her head dinged almost immediately. Ogre. And it hunched at the other side of the camp. Eight feet tall—maybe a bit bigger—it had a bald head except for a tuft of hair at the very top. Big hands, big feet, but what scared Arianne the most were the teeth. Two boar-like tusks the size and length of her forearm jutted out of the Ogre’s lower lip. She shook now; she couldn’t help it. The Ogre’s beady black eyes watched her every move. It grunted again, bringing its beefy hands to its chest.

Arianne reached for the knife on her thigh and pulled it out. She held the hilt with both hands and pointed the blade at the Ogre about to eat her. Okay, it actually just stood there staring at her, but she didn’t doubt that it would eat her.

“Don’t come near me,” she said, but at some point her voice broke, so she cleared her throat and tried again. “I’ll cut you. If you come near me, I swear I will.”

Threatening it didn’t seem like a good idea, but she had to show it who was boss. Her hands shook so the blade shook too. The wood in the fire popped, startling the both of them. The Ogre reached out, and Arianne stumbled back. When she landed on her backside, she screamed. The Ogre screamed too. Then it curled into the biggest trembling ball she’d ever seen. Arianne’s jaw dropped. It covered its face with its massive hands and wept. It sounded like rocks tumbling down the mountainside, but Arianne recognized sobbing.

Hand still shaking, she returned the knife to the belt on her thigh and stood up slowly. “It’s okay,” she crooned. She reached out trembling hands. “It’s okay. See, the knife is gone. If you’re not going to hurt me, I won’t stick the pointy end into you. Okay?”

Arianne knew how ridiculous she sounded comforting an Ogre twice as big as she was. But something about the trembling ball tugged at her heart. She took a step forward and—she didn’t know how it happened—the Ogre managed to create a smaller ball of itself. Its wet garbage smell made Arianne hesitate getting any closer, but the poor thing sniffled and whimpered. So she slowed her pace instead, taking one agonizing step at a time. It occurred to her that the Ogre could be faking and at any second could leap up and swallow her whole. But the poor thing was crying. She cursed herself for being a sucker. She supposed her need to comfort anyone in distress came from all those hours with Carrie at the hospital. Sometimes the sunshine in her sister’s smile didn’t shine quite as bright.

When the Ogre came within touching distance, Arianne reached out until her hand patted its semi-bald head. The tuft of hair felt softer than she expected against her palm. The Ogre froze mid-sniffle. Arianne snatched her hand back, but when she saw one teary, beady eye staring up at her with a loss she recognized, her hand went back to its head.

“It’s okay,” she whispered. “Don’t cry.”

“Parents,” she thought it said. The words were garbled by the tears.

“Your parents?”

The Ogre nodded. At least she thought it nodded.

“Are you lost?” Arianne asked.

It shook its head. Her hand seemed so small compared to it. The Ogre seemed to understand her, so she might as well continue the questioning.

“Why are you crying?”

“Dead,” it grunted.

Arianne’s heart twisted. She’d been right. What she’d seen in the Ogre’s eyes looked like the kind of loss she’d seen when she stared into a mirror after Carrie’s death. She forced herself to keep speaking.

“How did they die?”

The Ogre looked up at her then. Arianne forced a smile on her face, but her lips wobbled. It didn’t seem like the Ogre would eat her any time soon, but fear still tied her stomach in knots.

The Ogre swiped its massive hand across its face, whipping away tears and snot. “Man come. Eat them.”

Arianne understood him better now since he wasn’t crying as hard. “What man?”

“Arianne!” Balthazar barked from the other side of camp. “Step away from the Ogre.”

Chapter 15

DILLIGAS

T
HE
O
GRE
P
USHED
A
RIANNE
behind its massive body as if to protect her and bellowed. The Ogre’s cry shook the ground and rattled the trees. Every dangerous thing for miles around heard that sound. If Balthazar didn’t dispatch the Ogre soon and leave the mountaintop, predators of the night would come after them, and then they’d truly and royally be screwed. At least Arianne was still alive. Balthazar took the consolation prize. But he couldn’t be sure how long that status would remain unchanged.

“Balthazar,” Arianne said, pulling his attention to her.

“Arianne, I need you to shut up right now.”

The Ogre bared its large teeth and growled. Balthazar raised his scythe and pushed off from where he stood. The Ogre was young—not more than a toddler. It would be easy to dispose of. Balthazar didn’t need its life force since the demon he’d drained filled him to bursting. He raised his scythe, the blade ready to chop off the Ogre’s head when Arianne suddenly appeared in front of the massive creature, her arms spread out like a fence.

“Balthazar, no!”

Unable to stop his forward momentum, Balthazar used his feet to kick off the Ogre’s chest high above Arianne’s head and back flip. He landed a few yards away. The Ogre raised its fists at him and grumbled, not happy about being used as a springboard.

“What the hell’s gotten into you?” Balthazar barked at Arianne, which made the Ogre growl at him.

Arianne turned around and patted the Ogre’s stomach—the only place she could reach. She raised her head and made calming noises until the Ogre dipped its head to look at her.

“That’s it,” she said to the Ogre. “He’s not going to hurt you.”

“Who’s not going to hurt him?”

“I’m going to need you to shut up now, Balthazar,” Arianne said over her shoulder. She accompanied the words with a pointed look.

Balthazar planted his scythe on the ground, giving him easy access to it once whatever stupidity Arianne had gotten herself into played out. Didn’t she know never to trust an Ogre? They were brutes who lived for nothing but violence. A group of Ogres in any army made the best infantry. They were strong and easy to command. The best for ramming into an opposing military.

“See?” Arianne said to the Ogre. “He’s not going to hurt you. You just surprised him, that’s all.”

“Surprised my ass,” Balthazar grumbled under his breath. He crossed his arms and waited for the inevitable carnage.

Shockingly—causing Balthazar to raise both his eyebrows—the Ogre grunted and sat on its haunches.

Are those tears in its eyes?
Balthazar snorted in disgust. Babies. Aside from being icky and sticky, the waterworks they produced totally annoyed him. He scratched his head. Only Arianne could make an Ogre heel like a puppy. A humongous puppy with huge teeth that could tear her apart.

Arianne dried its tears, her fingers really close to the giant tusks that could easily impale her. Despite his calm appearance, Balthazar couldn’t deny holding his breath the entire time. If he didn’t have his arms crossed he wouldn’t be able to suppress the urge to snatch her away. At the back of his mind he still formulated a plan to actually do that. If she wasn’t standing so close to the Ogre, he could take her into his arms and run as fast as he could in the opposite direction. He didn’t have to kill the Ogre. Arianne didn’t seem to want that, so as a favor to her, he wouldn’t, but he had to get her out of there. The hair at the back of his neck stood up. He felt the ghouls coming for them. They were still a few miles off, but they had heard the Ogre. Alone he could deal with the ghouls, but he had Arianne to think of now.

“Arianne, we have to go,” he said calmly. He made sure to leave out his annoyance. If he pissed her off she might get stubborn on him and refuse to budge. By the wrinkle on her forehead when she faced him, she came close.

“But we just set up camp.”

“Your little theatrics woke up the ghouls.” He hiked a thumb over his shoulder. “They’re on their way here now. We need to find a new place to camp.”

She frowned at him then turned to the Ogre and asked it, “What’s your name?”

If Balthazar was prone to dropping his jaw, he would have then. What could the crazy girl be thinking? Ogre’s didn’t have names.

“Uluru,” the thing said in garbled speech.

Or they apparently did. Balthazar tilted his head. Sometimes he couldn’t tell the sex of an Ogre, but if he wasn’t mistaken, the two he’d hunted must have been the parents of the toddler Arianne now treated like a puppy.

“Okay, Uluru,” Arianne said in a friendly tone. “You heard Balthazar. The ghouls are coming.”

Uluru bared his teeth and huffed, ruffling Arianne’s hair. She raised her hands and shook her head.

“No, we can’t fight them. They’re too dangerous.”

“Uluru eat ghoul before. Good eats.”

Huh. An Ogre with an appetite for ghoul. That could come in handy.
Balthazar pushed the thought away. What was he thinking? They weren’t using the Ogre to fight the ghouls. In fact, the less bloodshed the better. Balthazar didn’t want to fight unless he absolutely had to.

“We have to go, Arianne,” he repeated.

She ignored him and kept her attention on the Ogre. “We have to go, Uluru. Come with us.”

“Hold on a f—” Balthazar caught himself and decided on a different word. “Freakin’ minute!” He stepped forward and pointed. “That thing’s not coming with us.”

The Ogre growled at him.

“Yeah, that’s right,” Balthazar challenged. “Growl at me again and your head will roll before you even feel me cutting it off.”

“Balthazar!” Arianne gasped. Anger quickly replaced her surprise. Worse, he saw the determination in her eyes. “Uluru just lost his parents. He’s an orphan.”

“And that matters to me because?”

Arianne looked at Uluru with sadness in her eyes Balthazar couldn’t understand. “He has nowhere else to go.” She brushed her hand over the Ogre’s head. When she looked back at Balthazar, it was clear that she’d made up her mind. “He’s coming with us or I’m staying here. And since you already left me once, you owe me to stay and protect us.”

For a second time that night, Balthazar stood shocked. When did he suddenly become the protector of all? Coming up against Arianne, a.k.a the roadblock, and having no more time to argue, Balthazar snuffed out the flames and pulled his scythe off the ground.