Unreap My Heart (The Reaper Series) (19 page)

“I’m pretty sure you don’t know anything about him,” Balthazar challenged.

Arianne shifted through what she did know and said, “He’s the Reaper of Georgia. He owns a Mustang. He likes cooking.” Arianne realized she didn’t really know much about the guy she loved. Sure, she’d been observing him over the years. He drank soda at lunch every day, but hardly ate anything. He’d been hanging out with Darla’s crew since he transferred to Blackwood High from Atlanta. What else?

Nothing.

She wracked her brain for more. And nothing.

Little by little doubt spread in Arianne’s chest. All the information in her head seemed superficial at best. Kids’ stuff. Suddenly the ground didn’t feel as solid underneath her feet. Granmare Baba’s warning of forgetting about him added to her mounting confusion. What were they keeping from her?

Balthazar made things worse. “And you say you love him? How do you know it’s really love when you hardly know anything about the guy’s past?”

“I just do.”

She swallowed. Her words sounded hollow to her ears. For the first time Arianne questioned her feelings for Niko. Her heart ached. Then she stopped herself. She did love him. She couldn’t be wrong about her feelings. With everything that had happened, they’d hardly had any time to get to know each other. After she found the Redeemer, she’d have all the time in the world with him.

“Have you ever been in love?” she forced out calmly.

“No.” He said it so quietly that Arianne wouldn’t have heard it if solid rock didn’t surround them on all sides.

“Then you shouldn’t accuse me of not knowing if I’m in love with Niko or not.”

“Ari, Ari, Ari.”
The Nixies called excitedly.

They’d reached the end of the tunnel during her argument with Balthazar. Well, it wasn’t exactly an argument when only one person raised her voice. It surprised her that Balthazar managed to keep his cool most of the time. Weird, since he’d done nothing but snap at her before. They should have been tearing each other’s heads off by now.

Arianne wanted to point out that they were all standing in front of a dead end when the Nixies opened another portal. Nifty trick. A sprawling garden with a massive X-rated fountain and lewd sculpted bushes appeared at the other end. She averted her eyes. Sure she’d seen lots of naked souls, but having the naked bodies displayed in various sexual positions was a whole different peanut. Once Ben had dared her to watch Japanese Anime porn. It involved a lot of tentacles and women in positions that shouldn’t be possible. She’d barely kept her eyes open while watching. From her short glimpse, she recognized a couple of tentacles on some of the shrub sculptures.

“Where are we?” she asked the ground, the only safe place to look.

“The Voyeur’s mansion,” Balthazar answered, disgusted. “Her gardeners are getting really creative with the shrubbery.” He whistled. “I haven’t seen that one before. Or that one. Oh, and that looks uncomfortable.”

Arianne had a feeling Balthazar was trying to get her to look up. She shook her head, letting what he said enter one ear and exit the other. Was this even legal? She was way too young to be exposed to a freaky garden. No amount of therapy would erase some of the things she now wished she could un-see. She had a bad feeling about this.

One of the Nixies walked up to Arianne until it stood directly below where she glued her eyes to the ground. Oh she wasn’t looking up. So not looking up.

“This is as far as we will take you,”
the Nixie said.

“Are you sure this is where we can find the Voyeur?” she asked, her voice shaky.

“Just think of them as nude art.”

“Not helping,” she said to Balthazar, who’d pushed past her. He stepped out of the tunnel into the garden of ill repute—she’d heard the term from her mother once when they’d watched the news about some strip club burning down. Her mother had said other things, but Arianne didn’t want to repeat them.

“Be careful, Ari.”
The Nixie’s words returned Arianne to what she had to face. “
You must not let go of yourself. Remember why you are here.”

Arianne thought about what the Nixie said. Sure she wanted to save Niko, but that didn’t seem enough anymore. Balthazar—as much as she hated him—had planted a seed in her she wished he hadn’t.

She set aside her growing confusion for another time. Doubting someone who didn’t have a chance to defend himself seemed unfair. If she asked Niko about himself, he’d answer. Right? She shook her head. Not now. She had to focus.

Arianne bent down until she rested her hands on her knees. “Thank you so much for helping us.”

“Remember what we said.”

Even if only one Nixie spoke, the fact that they all gathered around Arianne told her it spoke for all of them.

She nodded. “I’ll remember.”

The Nixies jumped around and cheered. She missed them already.

“You comin’?” Balthazar called from the other side of the portal. “We don’t have all day.”

Arianne waved goodbye to the Nixies and breathed in the cloying scent in the air. She’d hate to find out what perverted things the gardeners did to the flowers the fragrance came from. She steeled herself, looking straight ahead, not focusing on any particular thing in the garden when she stepped out of the portal. The second her feet hit the grass, the portal closed. She glanced over her shoulder. For the first time since she and Balthazar had started their search for the Redeemer, Arianne wished she were home asleep under the covers of her bed.

Chapter 21

WEG

T
HE
V
OYEUR’S
M
ANSION
—a massive white three-story building with columns and wraparound porches—loomed over Balthazar and Arianne against the gray sky. Contrasting with the greenery, it stuck out—not really like a sore thumb, but it did make a statement. Lesser demons—ones without wings and with less power—dressed in various kinky maids’ uniforms, ran around carrying sheets, buckets, and various other things. One even carried a whole host of whips and a variety of handcuffs. Balthazar raised an eyebrow. Someone had a fetish. He shrugged. You only came to the Voyeur if you had something that needed satisfying.

“Maybe you should stay out here,” he said without looking at her. “I’ll go in, get the information we need, and meet you back here in an hour.”

“Oh no you don’t,” Arianne said. He winced at the determination in her voice. When she got this way, no argument would convince her otherwise. This was why he hated chicks. “You’re not leaving me in this porn garden.”

“What you’re seeing out here is tame compared to what’s in there.”

“I already know this is a whorehouse, Balthazar. I pretty much get what happens in there. I know about the birds and the bees.”

“If you have to call it the birds and the bees then you don’t know anything.” He faced her, blocking her view of the mansion with his body. He stared into her clear blue eyes. “This is the Underverse, Arianne. I don’t know what’s in that human head of yours but I guarantee it doesn’t measure up to the depravity in there.” He hiked a thumb at the mansion. “Trust me, it’s better that you stay here.”

Arianne stared daggers back at him, her brow crumpling.

“I don’t like that look.” Balthazar shook his head.

“Better get used to it, buddy, because I’m coming with you.”

“If that’s really what you want.” He pulled a leash out from inside his coat and somehow attached one end to the tattoo on her neck. Arianne jerked back, but he tugged on the leash until she returned to her original spot. She grabbed the leash with both hands and glared at him, fireworks in her eyes.

Balthazar scratched his eyebrow. “That pissed off look doesn’t work on me, little girl.”

“I’m not a dog, Balthazar.” She hissed like the leash hurt.

“If you want to survive untouched in there, you better start acting like my slave.” He tugged on the leash again, yanking Arianne forward. He held her chin so she couldn’t look away from him. “This is one of the reasons why Granmare Baba attached us together. Whatever you do, keep your eyes on the floor. Act as meek as you possibly can. And no matter what you hear in there, don’t react.”

“Gosh, so many rules,” she spat back.

“You can be a bitch about it, but the ’tude doesn’t change what goes on in there.” He let go of her chin and sighed. “I told you to stay here, you said you wanted to go in with me. Now that I’m giving you a chance at safe passage, you’re fighting me on it. What do you want, Arianne?”

She dropped her gaze as if his words defeated her, but Balthazar knew better. He’d been with Arianne long enough to know she considered everything he said and was searching for a middle ground she could live with. It didn’t take more than a minute. She looked up at him again, the same hard determination in her eyes.

“Fine,” she said. “But this has nothing to do with being a slave.” She pointed at him. “You’re not gonna make me do slavish things. Are we clear?”

He grinned. “You’re lucky I didn’t cuff your wrists together.”

Her jaw dropped for a second, a hot blush burning across her cheeks. Balthazar inhaled sharply. He liked her when she was feisty, but this blushing thing had its charm too. For a second he imagined licking her plump bottom lip. He shook his head to clear it. Wrong time to indulge childish fantasies. They had work to do.

“Are you clear on what you have to do?” he asked.

“Promise that you won’t make me do anything slavish.”

He stared into her eyes, searching for a chink in her armor. Finding none, he broke eye contact and said, “I promise. But if I ask you to do something to prove you are my slave in public, you don’t question me or I will punish you. We clear?” He looked back at her and saw in her eyes the argument she wanted to push against him, but like any good slave, she held her tongue. “Good girl.”

Balthazar turned around and headed for the back entrance of the mansion. He tugged on the leash when Arianne didn’t move fast enough to keep up with the slack. A good slave walked a step behind her master. Balthazar didn’t tell Arianne that anymore. Schooling her in the art of submission would take more time than they both had. And something told him she wouldn’t appreciate the lesson as much as he would.

He skirted the great fountain called Desire.

It was aptly named since it depicted nymphs being chased around by satyrs and doing all manner of naughty things to each other. Basically, take every position in the Kama Sutra, use mythical creatures instead of humans to act them out, and you got an orgy of a fountain. The splatter of water only enhanced the sculpture. Balthazar had admired this fountain once. Now it only looked cheap. But what could he say? He and Arianne were entering the biggest, baddest brothel in town. If creatures in the Underverse had an itch that needed scratching, they had the Voyeur’s merchandise scratch it for them. He hid a laugh into his free fist when he heard Arianne gasp.

“What happened to not looking up?” he asked over his shoulder.

“That fountain is just gross!” she said indignantly.

“You sound like a virgin. I thought you said you know a thing or two?”

A quick pause followed. He imagined a blush accompanying it. Then Arianne said grudgingly, “What’s wrong with waiting for the right time with the right person?”

Balthazar laughed then, but he checked his volume, not wanting to attract the wrong kind of attention. In any case, when in Voyeur territory, any kind of attention was the wrong kind.

“Not funny,” Arianne grumbled, which fueled Balthazar’s chuckles even more.

When he could finally speak again, right around the time they climbed the veranda steps, he said, “No offense, but I don’t believe there’s ever a right time.”

“You would say that.”

“Okay, we’re going in. Shut up.”

Balthazar stood before the double glass doors of the back entrance with Arianne right behind him. An Oni—a species of Ogre who made Japan their home when a portal into the human world opened by accident—guarded the back entrance. Oni—like many Ogres—came in different shapes and sizes. This one sported green skin and white hair and was the size of a minivan. It grunted at Balthazar.

Balthazar had to think for a second where he’d hidden his token. Not just anyone could partake in the pleasures the Voyeur’s establishment offered. You had to be invited. It had been a while since Balthazar made a visit—being in the Nethers had deprived him of many things. He raised a finger at the waiting Oni then patted his coat, sure he had the token somewhere. He hoped he hadn’t thrown it out in a fit of rage. He’d done that on occasion. The communication crystal, anyone?

“Balthazar,” Arianne murmured behind him.

“Shut up,” he whispered back.

“That thing’s eying us for dinner, in case you haven’t noticed.”

“Shut up, shut up.” He smiled at the Oni. “I have the token. Just a sec.”

The double doors flew wide open. Balthazar looked up just as a woman—at least he’d like to think she belonged to the female sex—in a floor-length velvet gown of deep purple that overflowed with her curves glided forward. The color of her long nails, which currently grasped her thin hips, and the color of her pillowy lips both matched her dress. She’d gathered her mass of black hair with purple streaks to one side of her head so it would fall over her slender shoulder. Balthazar had thought her beautiful once. In a predatory-flower sort of way.