Unreap My Heart (The Reaper Series) (8 page)

The bark in his words didn’t stop her. “But why do we have to see Gran…what?”

He sighed. He wasn’t the sighing type, but she brought it out in him. “Granmare Baba.”

“Granmare Baba, right.” She repeated the witch’s name several more times as if committing it to memory. “Why do we have to see her?”

“There are many things out there—” he pointed at the vast land ahead of them “—that feed on residual energy.” He imitated a snarling dog, bringing his teeth closer and closer to her just to see her flinch again. “You reek of residual energy. I need to do something about that before we go deeper into the Underverse. It would save me a lot of trouble.”

Arianne smelled herself. “I don’t know how long I’ve been here, but I don’t think I need a shower yet.”

“Little girl—”

“Arianne,” she interrupted him.

Again he sighed. “Arianne, you’re a soul. You don’t need a shower. Nor will you need to go to the bathroom or eat. I would have thought Tomas would have briefed you about this.”

“He did, but that doesn’t mean I think it’s all so cool.”

“Sure, jail bait.”

“I resent that.”

“Honey, you’re going to resent a lot of things before this trip is over.”

“I hate you already.”

Balthazar laughed. “Good.”

When they reached the invisible barrier, his arm snapped to the side, stopping Arianne’s progress abruptly. She bumped into his arm.

“What gives?” she complained. “You can touch me, but I can’t touch you?”

“Will you keep your trap shut for one second?” He glared at her until she closed her mouth with a decisive snap of her teeth.

When she’d shut up long enough to satisfy him, he closed his fist and summoned his scythe. Her mouth opened. She stared at his scythe before looking up at him. A part of him wanted to gloat, but another part—the smarter part—kept quiet.

“You’re a Reaper too?” she finally asked after the shock wore off.

He snorted. “Shit, no. I’d rather die than be part of the pansy squad.”

Her face told him she took offense. “Niko’s no pansy.”

“He’s the worst of them,” Balthazar said. No mocking in his voice, only fact. She must have heard it because doubt rose in her blue eyes.

“You know him?” She seemed unsure of herself, like she wanted to ask him something else but didn’t have the courage to. So unlike the girl who bravely made a deal with D and the devil himself.

Balthazar pushed away the emotion he had no name for which surfaced in his chest and used the blade of his scythe to rip open the barrier that protected the Crossroads from the rest of the Underverse. He motioned for her to step through. Arianne looked at her boots, then him, then her boots again, until he was ready to push her through himself. Oh he wanted to, but he kept his free hand to himself.

This is going to be a helluva trip
.

Chapter 8

TMI

L
ORD
H
ELP
M
E
, I wanna kill him.

They trudged along a barren landscape. Nothing but nothing stretched for miles around. There wasn’t even the heat haze usually caused by rising temperatures. Arianne commended herself for her wardrobe choices. The jacket and leather pants protected her from much of the chill in the air, yet didn’t restrict her movements. She scanned for a light source, but couldn’t see the sun. The sky, gray as could be without clouds, stretched on and on.

She had no way of telling time, but it felt like they’d been walking for a while. She walked behind Balthazar, who seemed to know where they were going and was content not to clue her in. She didn’t bother asking, not wanting to give him the satisfaction. He walked a couple of feet away, and her hand hovered inches from the knife at her thigh. It called to her, begging her to draw it and just stick it between his shoulder blades. No one had ever inspired murder in her the way Balthazar did. Not even years of bullying had driven her to the thoughts running around in her head right now. Maybe, deep down, she had violent tendencies.

Arianne stopped and breathed to calm down. No, she wasn’t this person. She had to tell herself that at least three times before the killing urge went away. Balthazar had gotten under her skin, and they’d just begun their search for the Redeemer. She didn’t understand half of what he’d said. All those names. Way too much information all at once. She blamed herself for not pacing the questions. Every time he answered one, even more popped up in her head. She stopped talking to him after he called Niko a pansy. So. Not. True.

Her heart ached when Balthazar summoned his scythe. The thing didn’t look anything like Niko’s, but it reminded her of the Reaper of Georgia anyway. There were seconds when she thought she’d gone absolutely crazy. Worrying about him sleeping in that crystal coffin wouldn’t help her accomplish what she’d set out to do, but she worried anyway.

She must have been trapped in her thoughts for a long time because when she next looked up, the landscape had changed from barren to blinding white. Powdery hills randomly dotted the shining hexagonally cracked ground as far as the eye could see. The flats gave the illusion of a never-ending mirror, reflecting a sky with no sun. Arianne didn’t know where to look. She shielded her eyes, wishing for sunglasses. The hills reminded her of salt, except finer and looser.

“The Sorrow Flats,” Balthazar said, as if he’d anticipated her question.

“You’re a mind reader now?” she asked, not taking her eyes away from the eerie and unreal sight. It was an odd name for a place filled with so much light.

“Just adapting.”

“Okay, since you’re adapting, what am I thinking now?”

He glanced at her from his shoulder and grinned, giving her a glimpse of fang. “For every innocent death, an angel weeps an ocean of tears.” He gestured to the white hills of—not salt, technically. “Those tears collect here.”

Arianne came to his side. “No dice, pretty boy. What I was actually thinking was what are we doing here?”

Pointing toward the distance, he said, “Beyond those hills is Granmare Baba’s hut. She’s the one who can help with your little human problem.”

“I resent that.”

“You’ll have nothing to resent when you’ve been eaten.” He snorted, which seemed to be his favorite thing to do because he’d been doing it a lot around her. That and sighing. “You don’t have a body. What you’re seeing right now is your soul, which is still tethered to your body. You’re pure energy right now, and that’s lunch for everyone and their uncle around here.”

“Well, you’ve suddenly gotten chatty.”

“You bring out the worst in me.”

“Are you saying you want to eat me too?” Arianne dared to ask when the rest of what he’d said registered. The white hills were pretty distracting to look at.

“Hell no!” He stuck out his tongue and wiped his fingers over it. “I live on life force, the kind still inside whoever I’m eating. Residual energy has a bitter taste since it’s no longer inside the being. Even if you’re technically still alive, you’re outside your body, so your energy is residual. Why the Reapers and a majority of creatures in the Underverse like it, I have no idea. No accounting for taste, I guess.”

The way he said it—as if he didn’t refer to what kept her alive—had Arianne backing away from him.

“Hey, where are you going?” Balthazar reached out for her, but she flinched back. Her hand went to the knife, and she pulled it out of the sheath. He grimaced. “I thought I made myself clear when I said no killing the protector?”

Hands shaking, breathing heavily, Arianne kept backing up. “You’re gonna get me eaten. I think that earns me the right to protect myself.”

Stopping his forward motion, Balthazar braced his hands on his hips and breathed through his nose, his nostrils flaring. “We’ve been walking for three hours and here you are still alive. Don’t you think I would have allowed you to be eaten by now?”

“How would I know you’re not just bringing me somewhere secluded?”

“Are you hearing yourself right now?”

Then Balthazar’s eyes widened. He reached out for her without moving from where he stood. In a calmer voice, he said, “Arianne, stop.”

“No.” She kept backing away.

“Dammit, listen to me. You have to stop before you—”

She yelped when she backed right into one of the hills.

“Don’t breathe in!”

But Balthazar’s screamed warning came too late. Arianne coughed. The fine powder smelled like powdered sugar, coating her lungs with each inhalation. Her chest grew tight. The more she flailed against the hill in an attempt to get up the more the powder got into her nose, mouth, eyes, and everywhere else. Balthazar said something, but his voice sounded muffled. Arianne couldn’t see him through the mist the powder created. Then the outline of a figure took shape in front of her.

“Balthazar, help!” She coughed then covered her mouth. A mistake since the stuff coated her palm. She coughed again then spat out as much as she could.

“Balthazar!” Her voice scratched against her throat. The powered seemed to cling to its walls. It got really hard to breathe.

“Ari,” the figure coming closer said.

Arianne froze at the familiar voice. “Niko?”

The figure cleared the mist and stood a foot away from her now. She saw his boots first, then his jeans, then his T-shirt. When she reached his face, she gasped then coughed. He reached out and she took his hand. He pulled her up until she flew into his arms. She buried her face into his shoulder and called his name over and over, uncaring how much she coughed. His embrace tightened around her.

“Niko, how’d you get out of that coffin?” she asked into his neck. She felt his pulse on her cheek. He was alive and he held her close.

“Ari,” he whispered her name again.

Her heart twisted. She didn’t think she’d miss the way he said her name or the sound of his voice, but she did. They hadn’t been apart for that long, but it felt like a lifetime. She missed him so much it hurt. He’d come for her. When she pulled back to get a good look at his face, the white mist disappeared. In the second that she’d crushed herself against Niko, he’d transported them into his Inbetween—a place in his mind he controlled. The scent of pine trees eased the ache caused by inhaling the powder. The breeze cooled her suddenly too hot skin. She looked up into his inky eyes and threaded her fingers through his equally black hair. She pulled him toward her, and he smiled, giving her what she wanted, what she craved.

Their lips only touched for a second when a voice she’d be happy never to hear again called her name. The voice was faint, but was definitely her name being called. Soon the voice got louder and louder. Arianne pulled away from the kiss reluctantly and looked behind her at the lake in the distance. The water rippled in time with the voice calling her name, increasing in volume now. Niko cupped her face with both his hands and turned her toward him again.

“Stay,” he said.

She looked into the dark pools of his eyes, searching for the right answer. “Niko.”

“Stay with me, Ari.”

“Arianne! Dammit, answer me!” the voice said so loudly it drowned out Arianne’s thoughts.

Arianne clung to Niko but suddenly he changed into something else. His handsome face melted away, revealing a grinning skull. She screamed and pushed away from him. The skeleton that replaced Niko wouldn’t let her go.

“Stay with me, Ari,” it said in Niko’s voice.

She punched, kicked, and screamed but it was no use. Its bony fingers held her with bruising force. A siren blared, shocking Arianne into standing still. The skeleton let her go, searching for the source of the sound. Then Niko’s Inbetween with its pine trees, placid lake, and charming dock melted like paint thinner had been splashed on a newly painted canvas. The colors bled into one another, threatening to take Arianne with the melting mess. She gave the skeleton one strong push. When it landed on its backside, Arianne bolted. But before she could get far, the same bony hand closed around her ankle, sending her face-planting onto sand that wasn’t sand anymore. The white powder of the hill she fell into returned, choking her once again. The hand around her ankle yanked her back. She kicked and connected with something hard.

A grunt followed by a grumbled f-bomb resulted. Arianne stopped struggling when she recognized the voice. She rolled onto her back and came face to face with a red in the face Balthazar. He had a black bandana over his nose and mouth like a bandit from a typical cowboys and Indians movie. She would have laughed at how ridiculous he looked if the clouds of powder swirling around them didn’t threaten to get into her lungs.

“Kick me again and I will cut off your leg,” he threatened, his voice muffled by the bandana.

Arianne grinned. She couldn’t help it. “You look stupid wearing that.”

He reached down and pulled her to her feet. Then he did something she didn’t expect. He dusted off her clothes. Shocked, she stood still. With every swipe of Balthazar’s hand over her clothing the fine granules fell away and settled on the ground that reflected the sky. It didn’t cling like she expected it to.