Reaper Unhinged

Grayson wasn’t back from the stakeout yet, and the bed looked too large and empty without him. I was bone-weary, and if I was going to face Cassius in the morning, I needed to be on form.

I changed into my sleep shorts and vest and was about to climb into bed when Cyril slid into the room.

“Where the hell did you come from?” I glanced about. “Don’t tell me this place has nooks and crannies too?”

“You’d be sssurprised,” he said.

There was movement behind him and then Delphine joined us. She was smaller than Cyril, but her body shimmered pink and coral with an inner glow that was pure magic. She was beautiful.

“I wanted you to meet Delphine,” Cyril said.

“Nice to meet you officially.” Delphine’s voice was a sibilant purr.

“Likewise.”

“Cyril speakss highly of you.”

Strange to think they chatted about me. “Um, thanks.” I sat on the bed, suddenly curious about this creature that lived on a daemon’s back. “So, Delphine, how does this work? You and Keon? Are you real?”

Delphine flicked out her tongue. “That would depend what your definition of real is. I belong to Keon, and I live because he livesss. We are symbiotic, and we are autonomous.”

Interesting. I guess she was as much his eyes and ears as Cyril was mine. I made a mental note to ask Keon about her. “And how are you liking Necro City.”

“It’sss noisy and the air is always wet,” she said. “But we are adjusting.”

We? Was she talking about Cyril and her, or Keon and her?

“We’ve found a nesting nook,” Cyril said. “The acoustics are optimal. Ssso if you need me, just call. I’ll hear you.”

Nesting? “Um, okay.”

They slid away into the shadows and were gone. Nesting…why did that ring a bell… I was too tired to think right now.

I climbed into bed, ready for sleep to take me.

I was in my Vista, running through the trees. The air was filled with the fragrance of the forest after rainfall, but my paws left no prints in my wake. I flew over logs and wove between tree trunks.

A mournful howl filled the air, and my step faltered.

I knew that tone.

Not Grayson.

Hunter.

I altered my path and headed toward the sound, heart pounding in my chest. This was it. This was a way to communicate with him and let him know it was okay to come back. My way to tell him we needed him back. I broke out of the tree line into the huge clearing where the lake gleamed with a thousand shards of the huge full moon.

Hunter sat on his haunches, his dark silken coat kissed by silver rays of the moon.

I stopped, afraid to get too close, afraid I’d spook him.

You came, he said. I didn’t know if this would work.

Hunter, you need to come back, there are things you don’t—

No time, Fee. Listen, you need to—

Hunter’s body bucked, his golden eyes flaring wide for a second, and then he vanished.

What the hell?

I woke to Grayson’s arms around me and the scent of an impending storm in my nostrils. I turned to face him, snuggling against him as I surfaced from the dream. The pulse in my throat was beating hard, and apprehension was a coil in my belly.

“Fee, what’s wrong?” Grayson held me tighter and smoothed back my hair. “You’re shaking.”

“I think Hunter’s in trouble.”

“So, Hunter just vanished?” Petra asked.

We were gathered in the kitchen as dawn broke. The aroma of freshly brewed coffee was heavy in the air, and someone had pulled out a box of breakfast muffins. Normally I’d have devoured at least two by now, but my stomach felt all squiffy, and my appetite was gone.

Dean, Grayson, Petra, and I sat around the island, speaking in hushed voices so as not to wake Uriel, who was still asleep on the sofa. He’d be fully healed in a few hours, and I wanted to have answers for him by then, but now I had Hunter to worry about too. My mind was engaged in a tug of war, part of me wanting to focus on finding my mate, the other adamant I needed to stick to finding a power source for the Beyond.

Yes, okay, so the Beyond was logically more important, but fuck, it didn’t feel that way right now.

“Hunter was trying to tell me something urgent. He said there was no time. He was going to tell me I needed to do something, but he never got to finish his sentence.”

Petra sucked in her cheeks. “A Tribus Vista is accessible only to the Loup who are a part of it. You have control of when you enter and when you leave. If he vanished abruptly, it means that his connection to you is being both interfered with and disrupted.”

That’s what I was afraid of. “We have to find him.”

“We will,” Grayson said. “I’ll speak to Eldrick and borrow some Loup to track him. We’ll start back at the cabin and take it from there again.”

Impotence writhed in my belly. I wanted to be out there looking for my mate too, but with Mal and Azazel gone, I was the only one who could get into the Beyond to speak to Cassius about Uriel and the potential power source hidden in the Underealm.

“You need to focus on the Beyond’s problem,” Grayson confirmed. “Leave Hunter and the super vamp issue to me.”

Cora and Keon exited the lift together and joined us in the kitchen.

Dean poured my best friend a mug of coffee, and she took it with a smile. “You off to the Beyond?” she asked me.

“Yes.”

Keon didn’t look pleased. “You keep going to places I can’t follow.”

I knew what he was thinking. That he could be in the Underealm helping with the search for Lilith, but instead, he was stuck here with me, making sure I stayed alive.

Something scratched at the back of my mind, a thought I tried to latch on to, but it was gone too quickly.

I wanted to tell him I’d be safe there, but heck if I knew that to be true. “I’ll be fine. I’ll get the information we need and head straight back, then you can come to the Underealm with me.”

He nodded. “I’ll go to the Academy and continue training the cadets.”

“Good call.”

He made a sound of exasperation. “Dammit, I’ll need to wait till the sun sets.”

“No, you won’t.” Petra pulled a pouch of herbs from her pocket. “Not once I’ve made you some of my special tea.”

Keon’s eyes lit up, and he inclined his head. “Thank you.”

My comm beeped, and my heart shot up into my mouth because only Azazel or Mal ever contacted me on the comm.

Forwarded message from Azazel comm

Missing humans in sector 3 Necro City, contact me ASAP Ursula.

Crap, Azazel’s outlier role still needed to be filled while he was gone. I was supposed to contact his deputy, some guy named Dillon, but I hadn’t had the chance, and I didn’t have access to his reaper team via my comm.

“What is it?” Cora asked.

My head ached. “Missing humans flagged by Magiguard. Outlier liaison business. I need to go find Azazel’s deputy, Dillon, and let him know what’s going on.”

Cora shrugged. “I’ll deal with it. Forward me the message and go. I got this.”

“Really?” The weight in my chest eased a little.

“Yes, really. We’re all gonna have to chip in. I’ll contact Dayna and get her to help me track down this Dillon guy.”

“You’re a lifesaver.” Another thought occurred to me. Something I’d promised to do and forgotten. “Cora, there were ghosts at the underground station. Unregistered, lost. Can you please tell Dayna to organize pickup?”

Her expression was serious. “Yes, of course. Now go.”

“I’ll keep an eye on the celestial,” Petra said.

I drained my mug. It was time for a tête-à-tête with a Dominion.

Chapter Five

Celestia greeted me at the Beyond’s reception desk. Her face was empty of expression, as usual, mercury eyes fixed straight ahead. The forest around us flickered and wavered like a picture on an old television with bad reception.

“Welcome, S-Seraphina D-Dawn. How may I-I assist you today?”

Fuck, had she just stuttered? “I need to speak with Dominion Cassius.”

Silence.

“Celestia?”

“How m-may I-I help you, Sera—”

I stared at her frozen form. And then she flickered too. Oh, fuck. This was bad. This had to be a power issue.

“Celestia, can you hear me?”

“Seraphina Dawn.” She said my name in a drawn-out way, her voice warped and deep. The forest flickered and went dark for a moment before coming back online.

“I need to see Cassius. Celestia, send an urgent message. Can you do that? Do it now.”

For a moment, nothing happened, and then her mercury eyes began to flicker, rainbow ripples moving across the surface of the orbs. She was doing something.

And then the forest vanished, and I was standing in absolute darkness. My breath came out in shallow gasps as I waited for my eyes to adjust, to see something, but there was nothing but the blanket of oblivion pressing in on me.

“Celestia?” My voice sounded reedy and warped. “Celestia, let me out of here. Now.”

A blinding white light split the dark, widening a fraction. I rushed toward it, afraid it would close at any moment, and then I was squeezing through the gap and falling into light.

It took a moment for my eyes to adjust to the brightness. I was in a corridor that ended in a set of double doors. A red light blinked above it in warning. This was some kind of access route to the reception and into the Beyond proper. I’d asked Celestia to let me out, but she’d let me in.

There was no going back now. I strode down the corridor and tried the door. It opened without resistance.

Fuck. This place was totally falling apart.

I made to step through, then stopped as Azazel’s voice filled my head. His words from a week ago. He’d said we couldn’t go into the Beyond properly as it would burn us up because we weren’t pure celestial, but…Uriel had lived in the Beyond, and he was definitely not pure celestial. Unless the celestials lied about whether they could be possessed or not.