Reaper (19 page)

Ethan closed the door set Romeo down; the second his little feet hit the floor, he took off, excited to be somewhere new. “Aren’t mirages usually things you
want
to see?”

I raised an eyebrow in a don’t-test-me sort of way. He grinned, set he smudge stick in the sink, and removed his clothes.

“He won’t do this forever,” Ethan assured me. “Whoever—or whatever—that thing, Thomas, is will give up if you don’t give him a reaction.”

We got into the shower. “I thought about that too,” I said. “But there still is a person, a
real
person involved,” I reminded Ethan.

“That’s what I’m worried about. The images you’re seeing haven’t hurt you, but this person obviously can.”

“I want to know who they are,” I sighed and stepped into the water.

“We’ll find out,” Ethan promised. “They will reveal themselves somehow. They won’t hide behind a delivery service for much longer.” He put his hands on my waist.
 
“It will get worse before it gets better.”

I nodded and put my hands on his shoulders. I was so glad to have Ethan; I loved him so much. No matter how horrible things became, nothing seemed impossible with him.

~*~

Thomas hung around for the rest of the day. Ignoring him became easier as the hours passed. Wherever Thomas appeared, Hunter would go, forcing the boy to find another place to stand and annoy me. And annoy was all he did. With Hunter never leaving my side, I knew I would be anchored to reality. As confusing as it was to see something that wasn’t there, Thomas wasn’t able to unnerve me anymore. Around seven that evening, he finally gave up. I assumed he would try harder next time…which made me only a
little
nervous.

Ethan and I spent the rest of the evening cleaning the house; it was big and dusting the entire thing took forever. When the house was finally spotless, we retired to bed, falling asleep while watching a movie.

Hunter whined, his head pressed against mine. I reached out to pet him, hoping he’d go back to sleep so I could. I heard him trot to the window and back to me. He whined again and pawed at the edge of the bed. His thoughts flashed in my brain and I startled awake. I swung my legs over the bed and darted to the window.

                Hunter grabbed the hem of my pajama shirt and pulled me away. He didn’t want what was out there to see me. I crouched low and peered out. Several dark figures loomed in the front yard. I blinked. They were still there. I looked at Hunter. “Can you see them?” I asked.

                He looked from me to the front yard and then at me again. Yes, he could see them. My eyes better adjusted now, I squinted to make out exactly what was out there. I jerked back.

                Reapers.

                A shit ton of reapers.

Chapter
 
8 - Don’t Fear the Reaper

“Ethan!” I whispered, and scrambled towards the bed. Hunter was faster and jumped up on Ethan, waking him by licking his face.

                “Mmhh…” he moaned, “Get off.”

                “Ethan,” I was still whispering, though I didn’t know why; I doubted they could hear me. “Ethan!” I said louder. “Get up, now.”

                “What?” he asked sleepily.

                “Reapers.” He sat up “Look, they’re all over the yard.”

                He shook his head but obliged, slowly moving to the window. “What the f—”

I pulled him down before he could finish talking. “Shh! And you see them, right? Hunter sees them.”

“Oh yeah, I see them,” he noted. “What the hell are they doing?” He carefully peered out of the window. “There are dozens!” I watched Ethan’s face as he calculated the chance of a fair fight. “We can’t take them all,” he said grimly.

                “Why are they just standing there?” I asked as nervous adrenaline flowed through my veins. “Does that mean one of us is about to die and they’re waiting to suck our energy?”

                “No,” Ethan said with certainty and looked out the window once more. “I’ve never seen so many at once.”

                I swallowed. “What do we do?”

                Ethan shook his head. “There are only two of us.” Hunter nudged him. “Sorry, three. I can count twenty-three of them, but there might be more.”

“Do reaper demons get revenge?” I prayed the answer was a no.

“I don’t think so, well, not unless you killed the master reaper.”

“Oh, shoot, what if I did?” I put my hand on Ethan’s leg. “Will they beat down the doors and kill us?”

 
He looked outside again. “They haven’t moved. If they were going to attack, I think they would have already,” he informed me, his voice flat with shock and fear. He stared out the window, not taking his eyes off the demons. “Can you get me my pants?” he whispered. I made a move to crawl but Ethan took hold of my arm, still not looking away from the window. “Get them without moving, I mean.”

                “Oh, yeah. I forgot.” I held out my hand and telekinetically pulled them across the floor. Ethan silently put them on. I pulled his shirt over next. “Can we shoot them?” I asked.

                “I think that’s all we can do.” He looked at me for a quick second. “I don’t want you going down there—”

                “Neither are you,” I interrupted, knowing his intentions.

                “Someone has to.”

                I grabbed his arm. “Ethan, there are a ton of them!”

                “Ok, we can go on the turret.”

Without a sound he retrieved two rifles from the closet and loaded them with lightning speed. He clicked the safety on and handed me the smaller one. Ethan led the way up the turret stairs. The late spring night air was still cold, and I wished I grabbed a jacket. The aura of the night felt odd…I couldn’t describe it any other way. Something hummed in my head, making it hard for me to concentrate. Right as he reached the top step, Ethan crouched down and crawled to the front of the turret, setting up the rifle to shoot. Hunter crawled too, sneaking his way to Ethan’s side.

                Less gracefully, I made my way to Ethan’s other side. The humming grew louder. Visions flashed through my mind like scenes from a movie. A reaper bent over a young boy, shot in a drive-by shooting. Another reaper waited in the dark as a sick, elderly man took his medication. A nursing home, with two reapers waiting hungrily for a heart monitor to stop beeping. My head was so full of emotions and thoughts.  Someone screamed. Something laughed. I closed my eyes.

                “Annie?” Ethan whispered. “You ok?”

                I opened my eyes and took in a sharp breath. A beautiful golden glow surrounded Ethan. It burned as bright as the sun and should have hurt my eyes but it didn’t…at all. He reached out for my hand, and when his flesh touched mine, the gold exploded into a rainbow of colors, dancing all around him like liquid fireworks.

                It didn’t matter how quiet we were. They could see us. I never wanted to take my eyes off of Ethan’s colors; they were so beautiful. Looking at them filled my heart with peace, satisfaction, and hunger. The colors couldn’t go away. I needed them. I wanted them.

There was a shift in the energy and a jolt ran through me. Feeling as if my brain was ripped in two, I was only vaguely aware of the idea that popped into my head. I set the rifle down. “I have an idea,” I spoke at normal volume.

                “Annie, no!”

                Ignoring his protests, I stood. The reapers looked in awe. I tentatively walked to the end of the turret, resting my hands on the railing.  In a blur, the reapers made a mad dash forward, stopping within a few feet of the house. A weird sense of content was exchanged amongst them. I got a flash of me, standing before hundreds of reapers. Ethan stood behind me, holding his gun at his side. Hunter whimpered; able to see inside my head, he did not like this situation one bit.

                One by one, the reapers bowed.

                I stood transfixed, not knowing what to do.

                The reaper in the center of the crowd looked up, unmistakably meeting my eyes. Like a disk shoved inside a computer, his thoughts merged with mine. The image of a car accident unfolded, and the reaper cleverly waited behind the ambulance while the EMTs worked on saving the victims. The reaper cocked his head, still holding my gaze. He was seeking my approval.

I nodded curtly and he held up his hand. A wisp of rainbow smoke escaped from his grasp. It shimmered in the moonlight as it floated up to me. I didn’t know I reached out for it until the raw energy touched my fingers. I felt a small electric shock as the aura was absorbed.

It was like an instant caffeine high. My body tingled, sensing everything around me: crickets chirping in the fields, the smell of the dew, the quiet hoof beats of the cows in the pasture across the street.

 
Ethan put his hand on my shoulder, causing him to glow the same medley of the most amazing colors. It was so overwhelmingly beautiful it made me want to cry. I tore my eyes away from the reapers to look at Hunter; he too was glowing, but instead of gold, he had a brilliant shade of midnight blue swirling around him.

                The reapers looked at Ethan with watering mouths. It shook me back into reality.
 
No
! I thought sharply, and they backed off.
 
Go away!
 
I forced my mental shields up. I couldn’t see the glow around Ethan or Hunter anymore. In a matter of seconds, the reapers disappeared into the darkness.

                “Get inside,” Ethan instructed. The three of us raced into the safety of our room. “What the hell was that?”

I shook my head. “I’m not sure.” I felt so…so disconnected, kind of like I had too much to drink. The room spun. Ethan set his rifle down on the bed and took mine from me.

“Anora,” he said, sounding way more serious and frightened than I ever wanted him to sound. “They just pledged their loyalty to you.”

                “Huh?!” I asked, one eyebrow subconsciously going higher than the other. My pulse raced.

                “I’m not an expert on reapers,” he sighed and rubbed his eyes. “But they
 
bowed
 
to you.”

                I nodded. “And I think I saw into their minds.”

                “What?” Now it was Ethan’s turn to be stunned.

                “I saw past killings. And then I saw you glowing.”

                Ethan sat down on the edge of the bed. “What do you mean?”

                “There was this golden light all around you. It was so beautiful. But when you touched me, it exploded into the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen. There were so many colors. Like a sunset over the ocean, a perfect green pasture filled with wildflowers, and the midnight sky and the stars, all combined into a swirling mist of colors.”

Ethan didn’t move. He stared intently at the floor and didn’t look up at me.

                “And when the reapers saw it, they got like really…hungry I guess you could call it,” I finished.

                “Why…” he started but stopped and shook his head. “How do you know that?”

                ‘”I felt it.” I leaned against the wall. “They wanted to take your light.” Ethan looked at me; his unspoken question apparent in his expression. “I told them ‘no’.”

                “You told them
 
‘no’
?” he asked incredulously. “And they listened?!”

               “Yeah,” I said weakly. Ethan’s dark eyes drilled into mine, showing off a mixture of horror, fear, and utter shock. Feeling a desperate need for something to change, I blurted, “I’m hungry,” and started for the kitchen. Ethan grabbed the demonic encyclopedia that Aunt Estelle had passed down to me and followed suit.

                After downing half a glass of apple juice, I told Ethan, “The night that Sam came here and the reapers followed…the one I killed…it-it licked my blood and then made this weird scream.”

                “Damn it, Anora!” Ethan slammed the book on the counter. “And you’re just now telling me this?”

                Obviously that meant something to him. “I killed it. I thought everything was over.”