Reaper Unhinged

“Why hasn’t Mal done something about them? Surely, he would have seen them.”

“Mal carries the malignant. If he’d reaped these souls, they would have been torn to shreds by the horrors he carries.”

“No. I don’t buy it. He could have picked them up after a drop-off.”

Uri sighed. “I don’t know, Fee.”

I couldn’t believe my Mal would be so callous. I’d need to speak to Dayna about this. I’d need to speak to Mal’s team.

The train whooshed through the tunnel and came to a shuddering stop in front of us. The doors opened slowly, as if fighting some inner battle, and we slipped on board.

The last time I’d been on a train it had been with Conah. It seemed like a lifetime ago. Uriel didn’t bother taking a seat; he remained close to the doors and grabbed hold of a rail.

“We won’t be on for long,” he explained.

I joined him as the door closed. “When was the last time you were here?”

“A few years ago,” he said. “I was in the neighborhood and Mal convinced me it would be fun.”

“And was it?”

He snorted and raised a brow.

“Yeah, he hates it.”

“I know that now,” Uri said.

Mal and his twisted sense of humor. God, I missed him.

“It will be okay,” Uri said. “We will figure this out.”

“We need to. We don’t have a choice.”

The train came to a halt and people brushed past us. The doors closed and we were off again.

“Next stop,” Uri said.

The train wobbled slightly from side to side and I planted my feet wider to keep my balance, gripping the pole, my hand beneath Uri’s.

He smelled of Grayson’s body wash and nostalgia washed over me. What if we failed? What if everything we knew came to an end? No, I couldn’t think like that. I needed to stay positive. We all did.

The train came to a halt and the doors slid open.

“You ready?” Uri asked. “We’re here.”

There was nothing but a derelict-looking platform beyond the doors. “Here?”

He held out his hand and I took it, wincing as a small electric shock passed between us.

Together we stepped through the doors. The gray platform melted away, and crimson heat took its place. We landed on black, rocky terrain. The air stung my lungs and bit at my eyes.

Purgatory.

Uriel coughed. “It takes a minute to adjust to the atmosphere if your body isn’t accustomed to it.”

I blinked back tears. Yeah, he had that right. It felt like my lungs were being roasted. Gah, like I was a forty-cigarettes-a-day kinda gal.

But increment by increment the burn subsided, and I could see clearly again.

The vista was distant crimson and obsidian mountains and a landscape of twisted, black tree trunks with spindly branches reaching for a swirling, fiery sky. This was what I’d pictured when people had talked about hell.

Mal came here all the time.

This was his place.

God, I felt sorry for him.

A wail drifted on the hot breeze. “What was that?”

Uriel squeezed my hand, and I realized he had never let go. “Let’s not wait to find out.”

He tugged me across the rocky ground.

“I thought malignant couldn’t hurt you?”

“I never said they couldn’t hurt us. I said I couldn’t be corrupted and taken over, my body used to do ill, and while you wield the scythe, neither can you. Malachi is a regular, he reeks of this place and so they let him pass unharmed, but you and I, we’re fresh meat to be played with. They will prod and probe and take a bite if given half the chance, and we can’t even distract them with a gift of fresh malignant souls to play with.”

Shit. We picked up the pace. “It would help if we knew where the Edge was.”

“We’ll find it. Just keep your eyes open and reach out with your senses.”

The wails were growing louder, eerier, closer. Crap.

We jogged into the twisted tree grove where the air was even thicker, moving like molasses in and out of my lungs. God I was going to be sick.

“No stopping.” Uriel pulled me along, scanning the terrain for any sign of this magical place called the Edge—this prison for the remnants of the purest souls.

I caught a shimmer at the corner of my eye, but when I turned my head it was gone. “This way!” I tugged Uriel in the direction where the shimmer had been. A flicker to the left.

“Over here.” Uriel had us alter trajectory.

The wails were almost on us and then the fiery sky went black.

What the hell. I looked up. But it wasn’t the sky that was black, but a mammoth shadow.

“Uri, what the hell?”

“Malignant. Run!”

Chapter Two

The ground seemed to swallow the pounding of our boots as we ran. The only sound was the wail of the malignant. Louder. Closer.

Where was the Edge?

Darkness descended on us, tearing at us. My scythe flared to life. I swung it in an arc, forcing the malignant back with the celestial light.

The malignant separated into singular entities, crimson laced with obsidian, barely holding a humanoid form as they circled us.

You can’t keep us all at bay.

The voice was a scratch at the back of my mind. It surrounded us, coming from all around us. They moved closer, tightening the perimeter.

“Like hell I can’t.” I swung again to ward them off, earning a screech for my efforts.

Our place, our rules.

Uriel’s hands lit up with silver light and then two silver swords shot out from them. He twisted his wrists so the blades cut through the air menacingly. “Leave now or I will hurt you.”

Our hunger is stronger. We are legion.

Legion, my ass. They couldn’t possess us. We could fight them off.

We wish to see, to feel. We wish to taste.

An idea formed in my head. “Do you want to go back into the fucking scythe?” I held up my glowing blade. “Because I will happily vacuum you all up.”

Please don’t test me. If I did that then I wouldn’t be able to free the pure souls. I’d be saddled with these fuckers.

You cannot hold us. You are not him. You are not one with our world.

Dammit. Malachi would have come in useful right now. I swung my scythe again as they moved in.

I caught movement beyond the horde, a shimmer in the air. “Three o’clock.”

“I see it,” Uri said. “You need to go. I’ve got this.”

“Like hell am I leaving you.”

“It’s been a long time since I had a proper battle.” I could hear the smile in his voice, and when I glanced his way, I caught the grin on his face. Anticipation of bloodshed. Anticipation of battle. “I could do with a little exercise. I’ll be fine. Go before the doorway closes.”

He was a celestial. He was a warrior. If he said he could handle it, then I trusted him. The shimmer was shrinking, ready to move, and if it vanished, we might not find it again.

It was now or never.

“Go!” Uriel ordered.

He rushed forward, swords blazing as he cleared a path for me through the malignant. The spirits screamed in anger and rage, but parted to avoid the sting of celestial light, and then I was through.

“Run!” Uriel bellowed.

I sprinted toward the shimmer, focusing solely on it, afraid that it would melt away at any moment. The spot was a disc in the air, three feet off the ground, and it was shrinking.

Shit.

Uriel’s exultant whoop rose up behind me. Damn, he was having fun. Who knew the celestial had a wicked streak.

The disc was less than a meter away now. Time to jump.

The malignant’s pained screams followed me into the Edge.

I landed on cream tiles in a corridor lined with white doors. The corridor tunneled into the distance until it was nothing but a dot. The doors were unmarked and all looked the same.

This was the Edge?

What was behind the doors?

I took a step and a beam of light shot down out of the ceiling, blocking my way. “Identification required.”

The voice was grating and mechanical, as if it hadn’t been used in a long while.

Um…shit. “Dominus Reaper Seraphina Dawn.”

“I’m sorry. You do not have access to the archives. Press the blue button to leave.”

The wall beside me pulsed, and then a blue button appeared. It flickered, going translucent and then solidifying again.

“Goodbye.” The beam of light vanished but the button remained.

I took a step forward and once again the beam of light shot down to cut me off.

“Identification required.”

Think, Fee. Think. The Righteous had created this place, so maybe they’d have access. Cassius was one of them, so…

“Identification required,” the voice said again.

“Cassius, Dominion, Righteous, Upper circle.”

There was silence.

Shit, maybe I should have put on a male voice?

“Access granted. Welcome to the archive, the home of the remnants who gave their light to save us all.”

The beam of light pulsed.

Was it going to scan me? Shit, if it scanned me it would know I wasn’t Cassius.

But instead of rushing toward me the beam shot away, down the corridor. The doors blazed in its wake and gold plaques appeared on each of them. The plaques had writing etched into them. Names and dates.

The ones at this end were from a century ago. This must be when the Beyond first started to use the purest souls for boosts. It looked like this system had been in place way before the humans started seeing ghosts and learned about the reapers. But it also told me that the Beyond had managed without burning pure souls for a long time, which meant that regular human souls were getting less effective as batteries.

I scanned the doors as I walked down the corridor. Yep, they were arranged in date order. Each room contained a core. The Beyond had created this place. A resting place for the pure souls they’d burned through. But how the hell was I going to harvest them all? Busting through each door was going to take forever.