Chapter 10

CHAPTERTEN

They were waiting on the road to Raina’s house. Once they emerged from the woods, Honora didn’t waste time on greetings.

“Your instincts were correct. Fifty-seven other Reapers have been marked,” she said. “That we’ve identified thus far. There may be more.”

Silas stiffened. “How?”

“Differently from you. Most did not engage in a battle with a Soul Collector. They remember lying down to sleep, or a period of blackness, but did not know of the mark until we probed for it. A small handful did engage in battle, but they were notably our more powerful and experienced Reapers, like yourself, whose minds could not have been overtaken in such a way. It has happened to them within the past week. They had reported the incident to their commanders, but until now did not realize it was happening wider than their own Wake.”

“How many of the more experienced ones?”

“About twelve, so far.”

The look the three exchanged told Ramona things were bad. It gave her a thought, an idea she suspected Silas wasn’t going to like, but this was escalating too fast.

“We know the mark isn’t the Collector’s magic,” Ramona interjected. “So it bears the maker’s signature.”

On the battlefield, Honora had barely acknowledged her existence, but now the Reaper leader’s attention shifted to her. Paused that speculative beat. Ramona supposed it was probably strange for all of them, not to see her death.

“Without exception, every marker is too bonded with darkness,” the commander said. “Trying to untangle or separate it ends in an abyss. It also risks the Reaper.” Her gaze met Silas’s. “We lost two. The agony drove them mad. They took their own lives before we could stop them.”

His mouth had tightened. “Who?”

“Samaira and Hrolf.”

Ramona closed her hand on Silas’s rigid arm, offering silent condolences. Lord and Lady.

“What happened to the mark when they succumbed?” Mikhael asked, his voice hard.

Honora’s expression was flat, containing her emotions. “We put them in a protected circle before we made our attempt, to prevent the Dark Soul magic from escaping. But all trace of it self-destructed when the Reaper died, just as you predicted.”

The Wake commander looked at Ramona. “What are you thinking, Chaos witch?”

She was thinking she should have kept her mouth shut. Learning that a serious attempt to do what she was considering had caused two immortals to kill themselves… She couldn’t subject Silas to that risk.

But whoever was trying to control Reapers with Dark Soul magic wasn’t planning to open a Hallmark store. Their intent would likely claim far more lives. And everything she sensed about that mark said when that plan was executed, destroying the Reapers carrying out its will wouldn’t be a problem for it. Obviously. They had two bodies to prove it.

“There’s a pattern, even in an abyss.” Ramona dropped her pointed attention to Silas’s chest. “To figure it out, you use the right tracker, one who knows how to navigate the terrain and the risks. Set the right conditions, and I can follow it into that abyss. Profile the creator of the mark, what’s driving this.”

“Absolutely not,” Silas said. “If it has claimed two lives, under the supervision of Reapers with centuries of experience, I will not risk a mortal human.”

The tender and humorous lover had vanished. She was facing three ancients, all of whom had plenty more experience and power than her—in their field of expertise.

Mikhael’s expression didn’t hold the same resolve as Silas’s, though, because the Dark Guardian knew more about her capabilities. Plus he knew her backup. Honora’s face didn’t reveal her opinion, though she’d likely back Silas’s judgment, because that was who she knew. So Silas was the key.

Ramona faced him squarely. “With respect to those who attempted to unravel the mark,” she nodded to Honora, “a Chaos witch is one of the few magic users born with the tools to interact with Dark Soul magic, keep it contained, and not be pulled into its web. With the right experience and training, that is, and I have those skills.”

“I do not doubt your skills.” Silas’s green eyes were hard. “But you are pitting yourself against something powerful enough to impose its designs on over five dozen Reapers.”

She let her lips tip up. “I’m not going to pit myself against it at all. I’m going to invite it to dance. In a protected circle,” she added.

“If you are in the circle, you are not protected.”

Having to resist a man opposing her solely due to his desire to protect her was a new experience for her. It might warm her, but it also strengthened her resolve. She had a vested interest in doing it right, and that interest was standing in front of her.

“Something is trying to harm you. If the shoe was on the other foot, would you stand down because of the risk?”

His jaw set. “I chose to let our paths intersect, and it has brought you into harm’s way.”

“Living a life worth living brings us into harm’s way. Labor would be a pointless torture for mothers, if all we did was live inside another kind of womb.”

She wondered if it was respect for Silas, or her, or both, that kept Honora and Mikhael silent through the exchange. Regardless, it reinforced that Silas was the only thing standing against her. “Are you worried about me screwing up and getting you killed?”

His gaze narrowed. “Don’t try to manipulate me, witch.”

She crossed her arms. “Don’t deny me the chance to help you when I know I can. You asked for my trust. Is that only a one-way street?”

Their gazes held. Then frustration swept his face, and he muttered an oath. “Tell me your plan for protection.”

“I do it in a closed circle, with Raina and possibly Ruby’s help.”

“Why not automatically include Ruby?”

“Because Ruby nearly lost herself to Dark Soul magic.” She glanced at Mikhael, then back to Silas. “There’s risk to her opening herself to it again. She has a baby now. I can likely do it with just Raina, if she doesn’t want to chance it.”

“If she does, Derek will wish to know, which means he will come if he can. The two of us can offer additional protection.” Mikhael tipped his head toward Honora. “I expect you will be present.”

“For certain.” Her gaze was on Ramona, assessing, but Ramona’s attention didn’t move from Silas. He continued to stare at her, that set expression on his face, the request she’d made for his trust hanging in the air between them. Then Mikhael spoke, drawing Silas’s gaze.

“With Raina involved, my heart is also at risk in that circle, Reaper. Derek will feel the same.” He glanced at Ramona. “Because you know Ruby will help.”

The Dark Guardian directed his next words to Silas and Honora. “Their trinity is a powerful one. Ramona’s point is sound. Whatever is doing this has a bad purpose. We must do what is necessary not only to protect those closest to us, but those we are charged to protect.”

Seeing Silas’s conflicted expression, Ramona took another step closer to him. “You know why I asked if you were worried about me screwing up? Because I’m worried about it. I don’t want to lose you. But everything tells me if we don’t figure out what’s going on, that’s a real possibility anyway. If we’re not…what you thought we were, then it really can’t be a coincidence our paths crossed when you might have need of a Chaos witch. Right?”

He closed his eyes, and she put her hands on his forearm. He was holding his scythe, wearing his robe. He’d conjured them as he came out of the forest. Respect for his commander, who wore and carried the same, an indication the meet was official Reaper business.

His gaze flickered to his scythe. A half dozen bees crawled across the blade, wings flickering copper gold. She grimaced, knowing they’d arrived because all the thoughts she wanted to use to convince him had been buzzing through her mind like…well. She really needed to be less analogous in her head.

He kept staring at them, though. “What?” she asked.

“I like bees,” he said unexpectedly. “It is a…hobby.”

She blinked. “You have hives somewhere? Like with honey?”

At his nod, she smiled. “You’ll have to show me sometime.”

Two of the bees moved to her hair. He watched them, then dipped his gaze to her. “I do trust you,” he said. “But you remember what I said, about being brought to your door. I don’t want to lose you when I have just found you.”

He’d said that, right in front of his boss. She was blushing. “I get that. And I love hearing it. But I think we still have to let me try.”

He gripped the scythe’s handle, thumb worrying a worn spot, evidence it was a habit, a meditative gesture. Finally, he nodded to Honora and Mikhael. “We will do the circle and let the witches determine what they can. I thank you for your willingness to be there and lend them your additional protection.”

Perversely, knowing she’d won his agreement brought apprehension, a doubt of her own temerity. But she did as she always did. She trusted that Chaos would take her where it needed to go.

“Let’s return to the house and get what we need,” she said.

* * *

While Ramona met with Raina and Ruby to discuss the plan, Silas stayed in the gardens, receiving the full, sobering account from Honora of Samaira and Hrolf’s ordeal, as well as the details of the experiences from those who’d been found with the mark.

It brought home like a sledgehammer that he couldn’t forbid Ramona to use her power to help. The overwhelming desire to do so didn’t abate, however.

He thought of what she’d said, that knowing someone was a soulmate could be a lot of pressure, almost a burden. While it might not be a soul mating, what he felt for her seemed like it had been waiting a long time. Waiting for her.

Mikhael had left to inform Derek of the situation. When Honora finished speaking to Silas, and the two of them had shared a prolonged silence, a brief mourning, she, too, left him to attend to other matters. She would return when they were ready to begin. She’d linked with Mikhael’s mind so he could communicate with her.

Silas had always had the feeling of his brethren in his head, his heart. Without the Chaos witch, her way of occupying those parts of him, plus his strong physical desire for her, he realized his loss of that connection might have driven him closer to Samaira and Hrolf’s madness faster than it already seemed to be doing.

He needed to clear his mind, center himself for what was ahead. But as he attempted a meditation, the mark was a disruptive influence, seeming to dislike such activity. He pushed harder, turning it into a fight, which was the wrong tactic. He became more unsettled, his mind full of doubts he recognized as not his own. With an oath, he rose. Fine, he’d go through combat stances, shadow sparring. What his mind couldn’t do, he’d achieve with exertion.

He was in the middle of his third full cycle of offensive and defensive practices with his scythe when he heard feet crunching along one of the gravel paths near him. It was Ruby. She’d circled around from the front, where she’d left her van parked in the drive, a battered but solid-looking older model. She had a diaper bag on one shoulder, and was carrying a gun wrapped up in the straps of its holster and harness. An elderly mastiff trotted along next to her and immediately approached Silas, giving him an olfactory once over before allowing Silas to stroke his giant head.

Soon. Too soon. His loss will hit her hard, but he has loved her well. And she him.

“Diaper changing can be a dangerous business,” she said, noting his glance at the gun.

“I see that. Do you carry such weapons into a cast circle?”

“Sometimes. There’s the risk of it being turned against me, but most magical opponents I’ve faced have little control over mundane weapons, if I put the right charm on them. Sometimes a key shot at the right moment can disrupt them enough to give you an advantage. But that’s not why I have this. It’s Raina’s. She needed it repaired, so I’m bringing it back to her.” She gave the scythe an interested look. “I would have thought it was a cumbersome weapon, but your technique suggests otherwise.”

“Long practice.”

She nodded, hesitated. “I know you have reservations about what we’re going to do, but if it makes you feel better, Ramona is the only one of the three of us who could interact with Dark Soul magic without unacceptable repercussions.”

“So she said, but it’s not been my experience that any magic user is safe tangling with Dark Soul energy. She said you have firsthand knowledge of that.”

Shadows crossed Ruby’s expressive gaze, making it bleak enough he almost regretted bringing it up. But she squared her shoulders. “Which is why I hope hearing those words from me is even more reassuring. It’s hard for any of us to understand how Chaos magic works. Its very nature defies boundaries and description. Even after so many years as her friend, it can still mystify.”

At his dubious expression, she set the diaper bag down and unwrapped the gun so he could see it. With its pearl handle and fancy etchings on the metal, it looked like it belonged in an old western movie. As did much of the first floor of Raina’s bordello.

Fishing a bullet out of the belt, Raina put it in one chamber of the revolver, showing him the others were empty. Then she spun the barrel and snapped it into place with a deft movement of her wrist. With a hand and eye fixed as a surgeon’s, she pointed the weapon at the forest line beyond the garden.

"Imagine a game of Russian roulette," she said. "To the person facing the barrel, it’s chaos. Not knowing when the bullet will fire. Some of that chaos belongs to the person who holds the gun, because they spun the barrel and took away the choice of when it would happen. But the gun knows.”

Her gaze came back to him. “Somewhere, there’s always the gun. Someone who knows there is order behind what others see as chaos. A person who has absolute faith in that, not just from experiencing it all her life, but from knowing it deep inside her soul, because that’s how her soul is made."

She lowered the gun. "A Chaos witch is the only one who understands the mapping of her power. Even for her, it took time, and a hell of a lot of courage, to look into that abyss and find her way. Most of them live pretty lonely lives.”

It was an echo of what she had told him, her struggles and worries. But he thought of her warmth with her customers, the generous love she showed Ruby and Raina. “Why lonely?”

“If you’re with a Chaos witch, most things aren’t going to go as planned when you’re around her.” As Ruby spoke the words, he could feel her measuring his reaction. “Imagine she runs into a friend at a restaurant. He’s there to interview for an important job, worried about making a good impression. Now Ramona will want him to do well, get the job, but that may not be what the Chaos magic decides.”

Ruby took a breath. “It might splatter his nice suit with salad dressing, tangle up his words so he seems like he isn’t qualified for the position. Later, he might find out it was the wrong job for him, or the boss was a slavedriver, and the interview getting messed up helped spare him all that. But who appreciates that kind of meddling? No one.

“Ramona has told us time and again, ‘control’ is the wrong word when it comes to her magic. She doesn’t control it. She rides it. She understands it, embraces it, even when it breaks her heart, stresses her out or drives her batshit. The salad dressing story is a really innocuous example. Chaos magic travels down plenty of darker roads than that, especially if the witch resists learning what it took Ramona years and a very painful childhood to do.”

Ruby unloaded the gun, put the bullet back in the belt and re-wrapped the gun in it. "Dark Soul magic isn’t safe. But then, neither is Chaos magic. It’s why she can ‘tangle’ with the Dark Soul shit and not be tainted by its darkness.”

She gave him an even look. “The kind of man worthy of Ramona will understand what it took for her to become what she is. She deserves a man who’ll love every single thing about her, and consider himself damn lucky if she loves him back. Even if he has to wait a while for her to open that door.”

“I agree.” He was patient. Ruby and Raina loved her. But he also had his limits, and how he felt for Ramona, what they were to one another, exploring that, defining and discovering all its facets, also existed inside a circle that belonged to the two of them, its questions and answers.

However that door was opened, whether by Ramona’s hand or his will, or a combination of both, she would find him on the other side of it. To guard it, to come inside, to do whatever she needed.

He said none of that, but as Ruby held his gaze, she nodded, satisfied. “I’m going to handle Jem’s diaper crisis, then get back to helping Raina and Ramona finish up our prep.”

She tilted her head toward the windows. “You look like you could use a distraction. While you’re waiting, wander in and let the sex demons corner you. They’ve been plotting to get you alone.”

“For what purpose?”

She chuckled. “I didn’t know a Reaper could turn pale. If you were talking to Raina, she’d string you out, torment you a bit, but you’ve had a rocky enough day. They just want to ask you a bunch of questions. Raina told them what you are, so they’d know they don’t have to worry about their sex demon vibes draining you like a juice box. They do some of their own shielding to give Raina a break, and to keep in practice for when they travel or go into town, but it’s always a welcome respite when they’re around someone that doesn’t need that.”

Silas glimpsed a hint of movement at one of the large picture windows. “You think I need a distraction?” he asked.

“Yes. Your fighting skills are terrifyingly impressive, but you’re soaked through.” She added to the frank assessment with a gesture at his shirt, dark with perspiration. “You’re pushing yourself hard, but it’s not working. If I was about to willingly step into the ritual equivalent of open-heart surgery, the kind that’s already taken two of my family, I’d be looking for a way to decompress, too.”

He saw kindness in her hazel eyes. “I’m sorry for that, by the way. From what Ramona has told us of Reapers, they didn’t deserve that kind of end.”

“No, they didn’t.” The anger over it had been one of the more prominent emotions driving his physical exertions. Hrolf and Samaira were newer Reapers. Samaira had come to Silas several times to get his advice on handling her reactions to more difficult Reapings.

He appreciated the sincerity to Ruby’s condolences. Leaning forward, he plucked an item from the thick ponytail that fell over her left breast. She tracked the gesture with wary curiosity, but when he handed her what he’d found, her straight mouth tipped into a bow shape.

“Cheerio,” she said. “It’s a multi-purpose food. Good for projectile games as well as consumption.”

“Projectile games?”

She tossed the Cheerio up. Before its light weight could send it off on the wind, she had it suspended, with a mere flicker of her gaze. She made it do a lazy spiral. “I can put two dozen of these in the air and do the ‘here comes the plane’ thing to get Jem to eat.” She hummed a zooming noise. With a twinkle in her gaze, she let the Cheerio fall and roll away. “I keep hoping it will make him smile like it just made you do. He’s a little too serious.”

During the fashion show, her son had been in the kitchen with Matilda, so he’d not yet had the pleasure of meeting the child. However, the sadness he detected in the mother said her son’s somber nature was not a little thing to her. “Sometimes a soul carries things forward it must work through,” he offered. “But the new life means they are striving for that resolution. You and your mate are formidable allies to have as loving parents. That in itself is a mark in his favor.”

She gazed at him. “Thank you for that. Um…this is going to come out the wrong way, but I’d rather not see you two meet. Or know that you have. When you look at him, I know you can tell… I just can’t bear to see that knowledge in your eyes, crazy as that sounds. Okay?”

She shook her head. “Crap. Sorry, that was rude and entirely disrespectful. My apologies, my lord. I’ll leave you to your thoughts.”

“Ruby.”

When she halted her retreat toward the house, he gave her a bow. “You are not the first mother I’ve met who suffered the loss of a child. I will do my best to respect your wishes. You have given no offense.”

She blinked back the emotional reaction. “Thank you.”

By the time she’d reached the back patio, she’d recovered enough to toss him a humorous look. “When they’re not trying to suck out a person’s life force through their libido, sex demons are kind of like kids. Curious about everything, like a first-grade class on a field trip to an insectarium. Raina threatened to tie Li’s dick in a square knot if he didn’t keep them from pestering you, but if you show them the least encouragement, all bets are off. They’re very good-hearted, though. If they get to be too much, just shoo them away and they’ll mostly listen.”

She moved into the house, her heeled boots crisp and decisive across the patio bricks.

Silas returned to his shadow sparring with the scythe, but she was right. He went through one more rotation just to prove to himself he could, but then he transformed the scythe back into a shepherd’s crook. When he turned to study the reflection of the day’s dying light against the parlor windows, he could feel those multiple sets of curious eyes.

Preparing the mind for an ordeal often required a perspective shift, and a horde of curious sex demons certainly qualified as that. Wanting to choose the room where he’d be most comfortable, he used the library entrance. He took a seat in one of the chairs, putting an ankle over his knee, hands resting on the arms, and waited.

It didn’t take long. His guess at who they’d send as their emissary was correct. His near-smile pulled some of the weight off his heart as Gina peered in, all wide doe eyes and soft pink lips. Her red hair fell in silken waves over her shoulder and arm, the hand resting on the door latch.

“May we keep you company?” She had a surprisingly throaty voice. “Bring you something to eat or drink? Oh, sorry. Raina said you’re going to be doing a ritual circle with them, so they usually fast before that. We can give you a massage or a bath. We have a wonderful bath house.”

“I don’t require anything,” he said. “As for the other, thank you, but I’m…my affections are bound to another.”

“Oh…” A little giggle escaped Gina. Her fingertips, nails painted glossy purple with silver sparkles, went to her lips. “I didn’t mean to imply we meant more than a bath or massage. We know you’re Ramona’s. We’re glad.”

A surprising statement. “Did Ramona say that?”

Gina’s girlishness gave way to sly female wisdom. “It’s obvious. And just in case we missed it—as if—Raina told us, too. Why? Do you not consider yourself hers?”

At his look, she got busy scraping a fleck of paint on the door jamb. “If it’s okay to ask you questions like that. If not, I beg your pardon. Sir.”

He could be deliberately intimidating when asserting his authority as a Reaper. Or topping a very intriguing submissive Chaos witch. Neither was called for right now, but the tension inside him kept surfacing in more or less strong waves. He expected it could be off-putting.

The hell with it. “Your company would be welcome.”

The light that flooded her features told him he might be diving headfirst into a pool of cheerful piranha. In a matter of seconds, a full dozen sex demons had slipped into the room. While they entered with graceful, sensual movements and a deferential posture, their shy smiles didn’t mask the bright curiosity in their oddly intense eyes.

Li gave him a nod. His serious demeanor confirmed Ramona’s comment that he was the pack leader, after Raina, and Ruby’s comment that he was there to keep order. When they sank down on cushions and chairs around Silas, they left Silas a buffer of space. If Li wasn’t present, he wondered if they would have piled in his lap.

Curiosity must fuel the sexual energy. Though it seemed at maximum non-lethal volume, a hapless mortal would have been mindless with violent lust.

Raina’s magic shielding was as strong as the house itself, though. She’d infused it into its sentient structure, so it reached every corner. It told him what a strong witch she was, even without Mikhael’s power, which he felt intertwined with and reinforcing it.

While Silas adjusted his shields so it wouldn’t affect him adversely, he let enough of it through as an aid to distraction. It turned his thoughts to Ramona, holding her against the tree, driving into her. Her arms and legs gripping him, her soft gasps, all the pleasurable things they’d done, all the things he still wanted to do with her and to her.

The gentle waves of erotic energy made him imagine lying on a beach somewhere together, the warm, wet surf lapping at their feet.

They were respectfully waiting for him. Fervently hoping his Chaos witch would rescue him if he was opening a flood gate, he cleared his throat. “So…you have questions for me?”

* * *

Many of the abundant questions had to do with how he became a Reaper, whether it chose him or he chose it. But given the age of his audience, one of the earliest inquiries was no surprise.

“Have you ever reaped anyone famous?”

“Are we talking popular culture famous, like Amy Winehouse, or historically famous, like Ben Franklin?”

Ana, who’d asked the question, beamed at him. “You just answered what Isabella wanted to know. She wondered if you watch TV or movies, or read People magazine.”

Isabella, the curvy brunette Ana had mentioned, was leaning against her. A close friend or bedmate. Possibly no true distinction on that for succubi or incubi, either option possible depending on the day.

“You haven’t let him answer your first question,” Li sent Ana a gentle reproof. He had a thick shock of dark hair up top while shorn close at the neck. The style revealed two Chinese characters on his nape. They meant Strong.

“I have Reaped those who were considered people of note during their lifetimes,” Silas said. “But it didn’t signify. Are any of you trained as healers?”

“A couple of us know the basics, but Ramona comes when we need more,” Li provided.

“When she puts her hands on you, it always helps,” Saul said. Sex demons were not large, but he was the biggest member of their group, his chest and shoulders noticeably wider than the others.

“I’ve found that myself.” He didn’t sense disrespect in the suppressed laughter. All he saw was affection for his witch. Gladness that she was finding pleasure with another.

“Reaping a soul is like that,” he continued. “When Ramona is healing, what she sees is your pain and what you need. That’s the only way a soul’s identity in their mortal form figures into it, how it contributes or takes away from the Reaping.” He paused. “You might also think about it this way. No one enters The Gate wanting to meet famous people who died. They hope to see loved ones who’ve preceded them.”

A quiet pause, then a question, spoken hesitantly from the back. “Are there Reapers for beings like us?”

Gina stood at the doorway, perhaps in case the ornate phone in the main hallway rang, or Raina called down the wide staircase for assistance. But when Silas raised his gaze to hers, he wondered if she’d hung back because she’d been struggling with whether to ask the question or not.

He’d seen her playful and giggling, but what he saw now was reflected in most the faces gathered around him. Were their souls valued like others, or were they thrown away at the end of their physical lives? It reminded him of what Ramona had said, how hard the lives of most sex demons were, how often they were hunted, even by Guardians like Derek or Mikhael. The incubi and succubi’s eventual inability to control the lethal side of their natures as they matured, the increasing hunger to take more and more energy, could transform them from hunters seeking nourishment, into indiscriminate and insatiable killers.

Her expression, the need he felt from her, reminded him of what he was, what he served. It balanced his disquiet better than a million combat exercises. He swept his gaze over all of them, so they could see the truth in his expression. “There are Reapers for all souls,” he said. “At the end of your mortal life, there is always a Reaper there, to remind you that a soul has value. And we will initially appear in the form you most need to see for your transition. This life is a journey your soul chose to take, and there will be others, to teach you many things.”

He shifted his gaze back to her. “You will not be alone at the end of this life. Or at the end of any other.”

A sudden wetness came to Gina’s eyes, but she nodded quickly. “Thank you, sir. I think…Marisa had a question.”

He hadn’t missed how her gaze had strayed to Li, though, and not just hers. Saul bumped the Asian male’s shoulder, a silent communication. Silas recalled there were some concerns about his maturing age, and maybe that added to some of Li’s seriousness, a slight tension the others didn’t have. Perhaps he was already demonstrating behavior suggesting that slide, though it wasn’t evident right now.

Li’s sculpted jaw had tightened, and though his expression remained neutral, Silas thought he was holding back a strong emotional response, similar to Gina’s, at his family’s support.

Souls were all different. They were also all the same.

“So you said a Reaper appears in the form I want to see,” Marisa was asking. “So a movie star could be my Reaper?”

That set off a chorus of choices, shifting the mood back toward the tone of a playful slumber party. He’d had to do a Reaping at one of those. A nine-year-old girl had choked on a bite of hot dog and her best friend, underweight for her age, had wrapped her arms around the taller, heavier girl and found the strength to get her to hurl it forth. When the hero of the moment excused herself to go to the bathroom, the adrenaline-fueled excitement had given her a dizzy spell. She passed out, hitting her head on the edge of the sink in the right spot to kill her instantly.

“It’s how your soul needs the Reaper to appear. Not how you want him to appear,” he corrected. “We are seen the way your heart needs to see us. A mother, a pet, a trusted teacher. Some don’t need that, and see us as we are.”

Gauging the temperament of the room, he willed the transformation to show itself, just a flash of the skeletal visage, his hand on the chair arm gone to bleached bone, draped in the folds of his cloak. The scythe appeared in the other hand, the weapon glittering with its flourish of blue and gold flame.

Several shrieked, scrambling back from where they sat at his feet, but as all of it was gone in a blink, leaving him sitting there in casual clothes and human form, they recovered as quickly, laughing at each other, though he saw their surprise and speculation.

“Scary things aren’t always truly scary,” he said. “Though they can be.”

A reminder of the fears attached to their own species. Those at his feet scooted closer again. “Would you maybe do that again, so I can feel the robe?” Constance asked. When he brought back the robe, she fingered the hem. “Like velvet, burlap and silk, all together,” she told the others.

Silas patiently allowed the others to touch it. He noted every one of them asked permission first, and still looked to Li to be sure it was okay. Like curious children yes, but very polite ones. Likely another tool Raina used to help them reinforce the vitally important impulse control.

“Why are you called Grim Reapers?” Luke asked when they settled again. He sat next to Saul and seemed to look to the other demon like an older brother.

Silas half-smiled, remembering his post-coital discussion with Ramona. “We don’t call ourselves that. Reap simply means to gather. To receive or harvest, like one plucks an apple when it’s ready.”

“Can you change your mind?” That came from Callista, a Mediterranean-looking female with short curly hair and eyes brown as wet stone. “Decide the soul isn’t ready to go?”

He shook his head. “While I may feel sorrow over their ending, it is destined by the Fates, and their wisdom is far greater than mine. To disrupt Fate’s destiny for a soul is a far greater crime against it, even if the soul doesn’t feel that way at the time, or we wish it wasn’t so.”

“And animals have souls, right?” Ana prompted. In her lap, a purring brown tabby cat looked at Silas with slitted eyes that said, Of course we do. It almost made him smile.

“Only someone refusing to see the connections between all life would think otherwise.”

She bent to kiss the top of the cat’s head. He batted at her long hair with unsheathed claws. “Have you ever spent extra time with a soul?” Saul asked. “Like an afternoon playing soccer with Gerd Müller?”

“One soul spent three hours teaching me how to prepare an exceptional soufflé. If the soul needs to linger, take extra time, we can. To a point. Three days is the limit.”

After that, depending on the difficulty of getting the soul to The Gate, other Reapers might join in to help. In rare instances, a death angel was called in, but he’d only seen that happen once or twice, when complicated magics and circumstances were involved that impacted the angelic realm of influence.

“What’s the weirdest death you’ve ever witnessed?”

“That seems a mean question,” Sharone objected before he could answer. “Making light of something that’s serious.”

He thought of the girl at the slumber party. “Ironic comes to mind quicker than ‘weird,’” he said. “I had a soul who was accidentally stabbed with a nail file. But she was wearing a corset and didn’t realize it until it was loosened.”

“Keep nail files away from me next time I’m laced up,” Marisa commanded Ana. “You like to tie me tight.”

“Another of my brethren Reaped the soul of a teenager who caught on fire and died of his injuries after hiding a cigarette in his coat.” That had been one of Honora’s. “He didn’t want his mother to see.”

“The moral of that one,” Li informed them all, “is don’t try to hide anything from Raina.”

Luke snorted. “She’d set you on fire herself if you did. Screw the cigarette.” Luke’s blond hair and blue-green eyes called to mind the colors of sand and water Silas had once enjoyed at Al Mamzar Beach in Dubai.

“Do you have a work schedule? A routine, vacation days? Are you ever ‘after work,’ sharing a beer with other Reapers, exchanging stories about the souls you’ve Reaped that day?”

He recalled a night Brenner had split a truly exceptional Blanton’s Single Barrel bourbon with him. A soul Brenner had Reaped had told him where to find it. He’d intended to share it with a friend he ended up losing during the Vietnam War, so he’d kept it in a memorabilia chest for years.

“The only one I’m leaving behind is my daughter, and she’s an alcoholic. Five years sober, and I don’t want her finding it in my stuff and thinking she needs to toast her dear old dad. If you don’t drink it…could you at least take it away where she won’t find it?”

It was an infraction of the rules, but when Brenner had come to him with it, Silas had felt it was all right. They’d intended to dump it into a river, but instead, he and the Scottish Reaper decided to sit on the bank and give it a taste. The soul had made an impression on Brenner, and he’d wanted to toast him.

“Socially, we rarely get together in groups of more than two or three. The power we hold to tether and guide a soul is a strong energy. Unless we are in a different plane beyond their reach, it draws souls to us before their time, like the Pied Piper. And once we connect to their lifeline, they cannot leave us.”

It was for the benefit of the soul, giving the Reaper time to calm a disoriented one, guide them safely to The Gate when it was time. The thought gave him pause. Almost seventy Reapers affected. If they could be called and commanded by that mark, brought together…

His grip on the chair arm tightened, and he had to make a conscious effort to keep the polished wood under his touch from splintering. Damn it, the information was there, but there were too many missing puzzle pieces.

If you knew what was being kept from you, you would revel in the oblivion that pain provides. Just as I did.

The rasping voice was an echo, buried in that mark. As soon as he heard it, he was chasing it, right into the heart of the damned thing. He knew he was pushing it, going too deep, but it had taunted him, rousing that parasitic feeling, clamping down on his insides, on the carefully constructed wall of calm he’d been maintaining against it. He was close, he could feel the bastard, almost see his face…

The darkness exploded like he’d stepped onto a landmine, filling his head with a disembodied smoke, made up of negative emotions, fear, pain, despair. Hatred.

It matched what Silas had heard in that voice.

As his sight cleared, he saw the curtains rolling against the windows like an angry sea, books falling from the shelves. The detonation had filled the room with that smoke, clawed hands reaching through it to grab, infect. Suck life out of whoever was nearest.

He had his scythe in hand and threw out a containment spell, simultaneously carving a shield between that energy and the young demons, except he was the one causing the danger.

“Go,” he snarled. “Get out of here.”

Li and Gina were already doing that, Li directing half out the garden exit, Gina waving the others through the doors that led into the rest of the house. After Isabella and Ana ran past her, the young female spun to check the room had emptied. The darkness was shooting for the doorway, and Silas saw her make the same calculation he did. She’d have time to run or close the doors, but not both.

Gina grabbed the solid oak doors, brought them together and secured them, a blink before she was slammed against them. As the hungry foulness coiled around her throat and limbs, she screeched, and clawed, trying to fight. But a sex demon only had one magic. It was a lethal one, yet against this, she was helpless.

Since it was coming from him, the quickest way to protect her was obvious. He uttered the words, turned their power against that source in his chest, and let it go.

He was flung against the bookshelves, sending more books raining upon him, bruising his shoulders. The recoil scorched the carpet, the walls, shattered the glass in the garden doors. But the blackness was yanked away from Gina. She fell to the ground.

Dazed, Silas nevertheless noted Li swiftly picking her up, taking her back out into the garden. He sent Silas a questioning look, but Silas managed to shake his head, make a fierce gesture, the meaning unmistakable. Go.

He struggled to one knee, kept muttering, his scythe cutting through the air, sketching the necessary motions to slam a field down around him. He’d throw away the damn key if needed, take away everything the mark used for oxygen, starve them both if necessary.

He wasn’t going to become a harmer of innocents. Never.

Don’t you mean never again? Nothing in this world is pure, Reaper. We know this.

The thought burrowed deeper, trying to dismantle things buried at his core that instincts told him weren’t ever supposed to be unearthed. They were gone, dead and buried.

Something new entered the fray. Rain. Sheets of it, like a summer thunderstorm, the drops coming down hard enough they stung when struck.

Ramona’s energy was in the rain. It gave him the space to plunge the magic of his scythe into the solid ground of his will. Its fiery light illuminated the darkness closing around him, trying to drag him down…somewhere he’d once been. A place he shouldn’t go.

A beast like a harpy reared up in the barren landscape of his mind. Neither male nor female, it possessed vast staring eyes and a tumorous body. The corporeal form of what had embedded itself in him, vibrating with hate, with that hunger.

A cloud of color descended upon it. Butterflies with wings like knives that cut into its energy, dicing it into pieces. It shrieked, taken by surprise.

He reached out, clasping his magic to Ramona’s like joined hands. He was already exposed, so he knew he shouldn’t try to press the advantage and cut out the mark. But he had to make the attempt.

Once again, the reaction to its excising was swift and brutal. Agony erupted in his chest, rendering him vulnerable enough for the mark to seize even more control of him. The harpy screeched, mouth opening impossibly wide. He struck at it with Light energy, ripped the flesh from one side of its hideous countenance, but it kept coming.

Before he could do it again, brace himself for it to overtake even more of his mind, it was yanked back. Ramona had clamped down on a corner of the darkness and was dragging it back.

Hated creature, back in your cage. You have no power away from your mage.

Back in your cage. Back in your cage.

There’s no place here for your rage.

It lost form. The process reversed, the energy becoming billowing dark smoke again. He couldn’t see Ramona, but he could feel what she was doing as if she stood inside him. She was like a laundress, catching a wind-tossed sheet up against her, working it into a smaller and smaller ball of cloth. Then, with a sharp snap like a lid slamming down, it was re-sealed inside the mark.

His heart was pounding painfully against it. That sense of claws digging in was there, trying to drive him to tear at it, start this all over again. He summoned all his discipline to pull back, find his center. The struggle felt endless, his mind and body fighting a fatigue he shouldn’t have, a cavern now seeming to exist inside himself that was far too deep and wide. Somewhere in all that, Ramona was with him, fighting as hard as he was, which helped him find a reserve from an even deeper well. If his witch was fighting his battles, he sure as hell wasn’t going to let her do it on her own.

Just as he thought it wouldn’t be enough, abruptly the Dark Soul energy gave up, the mark doing its monster-back-in-the-closet impression again.

He fell forward, catching himself before he landed on his face. The scythe was next to him, the point sunk through the carpet, into the wood beneath. Someone had hands on him. Familiar, female hands.

“Don’t…”

“Be easy, Reaper. We’re here. We’re all here. We’re not going to let it harm anyone.”

He was hearing his Chaos witch’s firm voice, the voice of the healer. Raina and Ruby were with her, but it was all blurry, as if his senses had been affected.

“Don’t touch the scythe. Not safe.”

She helped him back into the chair, touching his face, his shoulder. “We’re all right. All of us. Pick a focus. A memory with good feelings, lots of details. Focus on those.”

“Raisins. Soft, moist, poured in my hands. Sweet on my tongue. Smelling of the sun, soaked into them. A woman’s laugh. Tired, sad, but true. Right before steel…a blade, cutting my hand, then…clasped in another man’s hand. A blood oath, taken…to connect us…”

Startled, he trailed off, came back to himself. Ramona was gazing at him. Seeing deep into him, searching, her eyes gone a swirling color. Their hands were clasped, her grip sure.

“Gina,” he said.

“Raina’s checking on her now. Did you learn anything new?”

“That memory…the raisins, a woman’s laugh. I think that’s from my childhood. But we have a clean slate.”

“Pardon?” She freed one hand to brush a lock of hair across his brow, though her gaze stayed alert, probing.

He was hearing Lyra in his head, explaining how it worked. He spoke her words. “A family, a childhood. That’s when you build your moral foundation. Determine what’s right and wrong, have painful experiences that give you baggage. Reapers…you keep the foundation, but let go of the baggage. Something wipes all that clean for a reason.”

He blinked, focused on Ramona again. “What created the mark, it wants me to remember. I don’t know why. Maybe it thinks it will help it gain more control over me.”

“It’s made a serious error in judgment, then. Your moral grounding is real and strong. I felt it.” She cocked her head. “Otherwise, you’d rob the dead after you Reap their souls. Go live on your own private island.”

“I did drink some expensive bourbon recently. But the soul offered it freely. I also thought about lying on a beach with you.”

Her tense smile got a tinge of softness. “I like that idea.”

He had regained enough control to grip her hand. “You did well.” It was the second time her abilities had kept that mark from doing harm. Or third? It didn’t sit well with his pride, but he wouldn’t deny her what was due. “I was impressed.”

“You didn’t do so bad yourself. You should have seen that thing’s head snap back when you used Light energy. I liked fighting at your side.”

Ruby was leaning against the wall, backup for Ramona if she needed it. As Raina came into the room, his attention immediately went to her. “How is the girl?”

“She’s all right,” Raina responded. “Dark Soul magic has to expend some energy to compete with the nightmares sex demons already have. It didn’t have time to do that, thanks to you.” She glanced at his hand, which was still absently rubbing at the lingering throb in his chest. Her expression told him of her gratitude, though since the threat had come from him, he felt less than deserving of it. He’d known the mark was dangerous if provoked, and he’d succumbed to an almost primal drive to combat it.

Raina’s gaze had shifted to the rest of the room. She put her hands on her hips. “Do you think you two could have avoided destroying my library?”

“Because that’s what’s important,” Ruby said dryly.

“He said himself there are plenty of Reapers. This rug was one of a kind, created by master artisans.”

Silas shifted his attention back to Ramona. “You were listening to the questions?”

“Raina has an intercom upstairs.” She put her hand over his. She’d learned the lesson better than he had. Her healing energy drifted over the area, leaving the mark untouched but drawing that throbbing pain away, lessening the clawing feeling. “I’d like to hear how to make that soufflé.”

He drew her down to put his forehead against hers. “Before I jumped into The Pit, I had thoughts of coming back and taking you on a picnic to one of my favorite places. As our first date, so to speak.”

“So this isn’t your usual way of showing a girl a good time?” She arched a brow, glancing around the library.

“I apologize,” he told Raina. “I will help put it to rights.”

Raina shook her head. “That’s why I have an army of sex demons.” She glanced at the carpet. “And a Dark Guardian who always needs ideas for my birthday. Despite some people’s doubts of my understanding of priorities,” she tossed Ruby a look, “I think this makes pretty clear that we need to take that closer look at this thing you’re carrying around. Before it does any more property damage.”

“Or worse,” Ruby put in.

Ramona’s fingers slid along his wrist, a gentle stroke. Her gaze met his. “Do you feel ready to do that?”

“Yes,” he said. “I’m ready.”