Reap & Reveal (The Reaper Series Book 3) (11 page)

“Well, Nate is a witch, so if it’s magic, then.…”

Rage filled her anew like white-hot flames. A freakin’ witch? Really?

Angels and demons and witches?

This day just kept getting better and better.

If she couldn’t physically walk out of the trailer, maybe she could bypass this stupid security system by flashing. She could sense the consecration. Closing her eyes, she summoned what little energy she had left and tried. Nothing major. She knew she wouldn’t have the energy to go very far. Hell, getting outside of this tin can would be a start.

Olivia’s eyes opened wide in surprise.

Maeve was getting nowhere fast, but she was manifesting a nice mustard-color aura, which quickly developed into a skull-crunching headache. Nausea followed, and then white stars began to burst behind her eyes.

Falling to her knees, she clutched the sides of her head. Olivia’s lips were moving, but nothing was processing. Maeve’s eyes closed and she checked out.

Chapter Fourteen

Nate landed in the reaper rendezvous lounge in Purgatory. The angel Rashnu had arranged for the Authority to have twenty-four hour access to this opulent chamber to reconnoiter if things got too dicey up top or they needed to rejuvenate in complete safety.

It was the first time Nate had come here of his own free will. He was less than impressed with the help, or more the lack of help, that Team Light had contributed thus far. Ten reapers against thousands of demons was less than a fair fight. It seemed like much more should and could be done to help them even the odds. Deacon and the other reapers didn’t seem to be bothered by it, but sometimes Nate wondered if they were all just pawns being moved around a board for entertainment.

The tattooed sigils around Nate’s arm burned, alerting him to the fact that Maeve was trying to leave the trailer. He should have warned her. The old Maeve wouldn’t take kindly to being restrained, even if it was for her own good. But there was no way to know how she might react now, after the possession, let alone the reinsouling. Jesus, this was all new territory. The last thing he wanted was for her to flash somewhere and end up in even more danger.

A familiar flutter moved through him like a whisper as he reconsidered his options. He wanted to chock it up to guilt over what he’d done, but the flutter was something more than that, an echo of something lost. Of Maeve’s presence inside him.

No. He’d made the right decision for her. Until he unbound the knots or escorted her, she would have to stay put. She was in no shape to go wandering off on her own yet. Even at full strength, he worried about the possible repercussions of the reinsouling. Would she recover her personality completely? Her memories? He’d seen a spark of her old self, or what he knew of her anyway. The question remained: Would that spark be enough to reignite her passion to live?

There might be hell to pay when he got back. He secretly hoped so. Seeing her angry was so much better than seeing her helpless and afraid. Whatever the price, it was worth it for his peace of mind.

Nate wasn’t even sure how to find Rashnu or Grim. He’d never been outside of this room. Deacon and the other reapers had described the reaper way station to him in extravagant detail, so he had a well-formed picture in his head, but he still had no idea how to get there from here. Luckily, he didn’t have to go exploring.

Light spilled in from the hallway as the tremendous wooden door swung open and Rashnu stepped inside.

“I wondered how long it would be before you showed up here.” Rashnu all but floated across the room toward the bar.

The dude gave Nate the creeps. His long, wavy black hair and green eyes framed his too perfect face. Rasnhu was like the Barbie version of Angel Ken.

Nate had last been here just before Maeve’s possession, for the reactivation of the Authority. The angel hadn’t offered Nate any help other than the hellhound Bo and some less than stellar directions to “track” the demons. Why Nate thought this time would be any different, he didn’t know, but the angel seemed to be the last resort, hail Mary pass for all of them. Deacon, Ruth and Kylen had each sought his counsel if not solutions to their impossible dilemmas.

Faith was a fragile thing.

Nate wasn’t sure how much faith he needed to be worthy of one of Rashnu’s favors, but he was ready to lay it all on the table and find out.

“I hear you’ve finally done something interesting. Reinsouled Maeve?” Rashnu poured himself a drink, brought it to his lips and tilted it back.

“How was I able to do that?”

“One of the many wonders of the world, my friend.”

“No. It’s more than that, and I think you know that. What am I?”

“Reinsouling has—in the past—been a gift associated with various nephilim. Are you familiar with the nephilim?”

“Biblical cautionary tales of angels having intercourse with human women? Nephilim were their supposed offspring. Mythical sons of renown and power.”

“Yes, but sons
and
daughters, and it happened long before the Bible was written.” He took another long pull on his drink. “And long after.”

“You mean, there are still nephilim?”

“As surely as angels still fall, there are still nephilim among us. Closer than you’d think.”

“What does any of that have to do with Maeve? Or me? And more importantly, is this a blessing or a curse? If reinsouling her only leaves her broken, then why have the ability at all?”

Rashnu poured liquid into two more tumblers, one with a glittering blue substance, the other a pulsating red. He pushed them toward Nate. “Whether it is a blessing or a curse depends on you, Nate. Your free will decides the outcome. You have light and dark in you, as do we all. But yours is particularly turbulent. Now that you’ve actuated, you’ll have to choose a path. With a power like yours, riding the middle will render you impotent to help your friends. But remember, by choosing one side, you’ll forfeit the other. While that choice may seem easy on its face, when you dig deeper it might be much more difficult than you ever imagined.”

He pushed the red drink toward Nate. “These drinks will show you two possible paths to guide you in your choice. To know the full picture, you’ll need to sample them both. Then when you have chosen, drink the remaining contents from your glass of choice. After you drink, the wheels will be set into motion. If you wait too long to choose, you will lose it all.”

“Drinking these will give me the answers I’ve asked for?”

“They will give you answers. What you choose to do with that information will determine your future. As always, it comes down to free will. Ain’t that a bitch?” Rashnu drained the remaining liquid in his own glass and slammed it down on the bar. “Be well. And good luck.”

Then he disappeared, leaving Nate alone to face his future. His mind roiled. What if he chose wrong? Maybe knowing the future or possible future was a wrong choice in itself. Self-doubt consumed him, but he was ultimately too tempted by the answers that were literally waiting at his fingertips.

He lifted the glass of blue liquid to his nose and sniffed it. It smelled salty and clean, like the ocean and sunshine. Pressing the glass to his lips, he said a silent prayer for strength and poured some of the contents into his mouth. Setting the glass back down on the bar, he held the liquid in his mouth for a second, and then let it slid down his throat.

The room exploded into a kaleidoscope of images and he fell to his knees. Leaning forward, he pressed his face to the cool stone floor, desperate to ground himself. Faces and images pulsed forward before dissipating back into the carousel that raced past him.

The graveyard he landed in the first time he flashed at age five.

The gravestone he leaned against. A name was carved into it, but he was too disoriented to make it out.

A woman with dark hair curling around her face and sad eyes standing with a large group of people around a bonfire.

Camael.

Ruth.

A sacrifice.

The world—his world—in chaos.

Death and destruction.

Grasping for the golden bar foot rail, he tried to steady himself as the new images mingled with his memories and spun farther and farther from his sight. His head bobbed on his shoulders with exhaustion and he wondered how he’d ever survive a look-see behind door number two.

Hoisting himself to his feet, he staggered to lean against the bar, pressing his forearms firmly against the marble ledge. He couldn’t stop his damn head from spinning and his stomach was working up a protest, as well. The thought of drinking one more drop of anything made bile rise up into his throat and burn.

If you wait too long to choose, you will lose it all.

Damned angels and their mind games. Why couldn’t they just tell you straight out what you needed to know? What you were supposed to do? How could you possibly understand what all the consequences were?

Nate wrapped his hand around the second glass and dragged it across the bar. His knees were weak and unsteady beneath him. Black and white spots formed and popped behind his eyes like soap bubbles.

Bloody hell.

He grasped the second glass until his knuckles turned white and took a pull.

Second verse, same as the first.

Only this time, the images he saw made even less sense.

A great chasm ripping the city in two.

The world on fire.

Maeve’s head rolling to his feet.

A battalion of angels descending upon the demon hoard.

Camael leading an army of the undead, human and otherwise.

He placed both palms flat against the bar while he tried to talk his stomach out of the free fall it was intent on completing.

Those were his choices? Bad and worse?

Well one thing was for damn sure, he wasn’t going to opt for a future in which Maeve’s head ended up detached. So if a choice had to be made, he’d make it. He grabbed the glass of blue liquid and downed it, throwing the empty glass against the stone wall behind the bar, where it shattered into sand.

He had gotten no answers here. Only more bullshit. Just as he’d expected, really.

Toying with the idea of going rock star and destroying the place, his hands clenched in and out of fists at his side as anger built inside him. He wouldn’t ask for help again. At least not from this asshole.

There was one place he could count on, one family who would help him unconditionally and without any bullshit: the coven. He’d take Maeve there and let the rest of the Authority sort this nonsense out.

He flashed out of Purgatory.

***

And into the Hell that was his trailer. Maeve came at him, weapon drawn.

Before he could so much as process what was happening, she drew a blade across his raised forearm. The woman was like a banshee, her coal black hair flying, her green eyes aflame.

Looked like he didn’t need to worry about her spark returning. What he did need to worry about was her stabbing him in the liver with that pig sticker.

Olivia screamed from the doorway for Maeve to stop, but it was Bo who brought things under control. The dog crashed through the screen door and pressed his great body against the back of her knees. Maeve buckled to the floor and the blade went skittering under the couch. Bo stretched out over her and despite her efforts to roll out from under him, he pressed her to the floor, helpless and spread out, arms and legs akimbo.

Eventually the lack of air, pressed out of her body from the beast’s great weight, took the fight out of her. Her eyes rolled back in her head and she stopped struggling.

“Enough, Bo. Heel.”

Bo huffed and rose to his feet, then lumbered to Nate’s side.

Maeve sucked in a deep gulp of air and snapped back to attention, her eyes scanning for the weapons. She wasn’t done fighting.

Nate kicked the closest knife well out of her reach. “Olivia, I think Maeve and I need some time alone.”

“Are you sure? She’s a little…um…scary.”

“Any idea what set her off?”

“Oh, yeah. It was the bracelet. She can’t leave the trailer.”

Nate pinched the bridge of his nose, wary of Maeve’s ongoing appraisal of any possible weapons.

“Leave us, please.”

“Okay. I’ll send out Temperance. Just in case.”

“No need.”

Olivia hesitated in the doorway. She’d try to send the angel anyway, he could tell. Whether or not she would come would be another thing. Temperance didn’t take orders from reapers or their girlfriends. Right now another damn angel was the last thing Nate needed.

The outer door shut with a snick and Nate eased onto the couch. He held his empty hands forward, indicating surrender.

“I’m sorry about the spell. I should have warned you.”

Maeve held out her wrist. “Remove it.”

“No. It’s a binding spell. I bound you to myself and this trailer to protect you. It’s for your own good. Clearly you have some…issues to resolve.”

She watched him like a predator, her eyes taking in his every miniscule twitch. She retained the jerky movements of the possessed, still not comfortable back in her own skin.