Keeper vs. Reaper (Graveyard Guardians Book 1) (3 page)

She held the white rose firmly over the grave. “I wish you peaceful passage.” She released the rose and it drifted down into the depths of the hole. “I love you, Daddy.”

Ethan mimicked her actions, familiar with the meaning of the ceremony from the many deaths of Keepers past. Her siblings had moved into a line directly behind her and Ethan, tossing their roses in as well.

The other mourners milled about, giving Lucy and the family some time before they headed over to her house for the wake. She caught sight of Gloria and Ellen chatting beside the giant wreath of flowers with her father’s picture inside. She wandered over to say hello. “Gloria, Ellen, it’s been so long since I’ve seen you.”

Gloria smiled, as did Ellen. “Yes dear,” Gloria greeted her. “It has been some time. I’m sorry we couldn’t make it sooner.”

“Or under better circumstances
,” Ellen added.

Lucy nodded. “Well, I’m just glad that you could make it here now. I’m sure my father would be happy that you are here now.”

Gloria and Ellen nodded, they made a bit more small talk and then Ethan appeared beside her. “I think we had better get over to the house now,” he whispered just loudly enough for the older ladies to hear.

“Oh,” Lucy checked her watch deliberately. “
You are absolutely right. I’m sorry ladies, I need to get some things ready over at the house.”

Gloria smiled again, a loving gentle smile of someone she had known her entire life. “You go on dear, we will see you over there.”

With a quick ‘see you later,’ Lucy backed away and then turned to join hands with Ethan again. “Thanks for saving me. I didn’t really want to talk to them, but I had to make sure to say hello to them.”

“You doing all right?” Ethan asked, rubbing the back of her hand with his thumb.

Lucy nodded. “I’m fine.” She turned her head to try and see his eyes through the dark tint of his glasses. “How ‘bout you. Are you all right?”

He twisted his lip up a little
, and she knew he was giving a slight eye roll. “I’ll survive. I just miss him and all this,” he gestured to the crowd, “actually makes it harder.”

She nodded again. “I know what you mean. I feel the same way.” Her gaze strayed from the grave and focused on her house. Their home sat on the edge of the cemetery, separated from the dead by a white picket fence and about thirty yards of grass. The yellow farmhouse had been in their family for several generations, and now it was hers, as was the family business.

“Let’s head over.”

She nodded. Of course they had to get to the house. But, it wouldn’t be for relaxing. There was food to get out and serve. People would come up to her and tell her how sorry they were for her loss, or how much her father meant to them, or some awesome memory they had of him. It was going to be a very long afternoon
.

Almost over
, she told herself again.
Almost over.

Jack pulled open the single glass door of Brandy’s café. The bells attached to the handle jingled merrily, announcing his arrival to everyone inside. He let the door swing shut behind him as he stepped inside and took a look around the tiny restaurant.

The place was almost full and immediately Jack regretted choosing the place over the larger café. Sadly, the choice establishments to get a good breakfast in Summer Hollow were rather limited. There were only two restaurants in town, a pizza place and a deli slash grocery store. It was a sad situation. This tiny ass town didn’t even have a decent hotel, which was why he was living in a house
. At least in a hotel of his class he could order room service … well, not in this town.

Reaching up, he removed his sunglasses so he could see the interior better. There were six booths lined up back to back by the windows. They were made of vinyl and were a
god-awful brown color that was almost, but not quite, a burgundy. All of the booths were taken and the tables situated in the center of the place were also full. Looked like he was going to have to sit at the bar instead of a table.

Shit.

He would have preferred not to have to socialize with anyone. A table would have allowed him more privacy.

All the patrons sat eating their breakfasts, drinking their coffee
, and staring at him with curiosity as he strode over to the bar and pulled out the only open stool. He ignored the stares, but did notice that his stool was in between an older man with graying hair and a younger woman with blonde hair and an extremely sexy pair of legs. His gaze slid from the woman’s high heeled foot, up her calf, to the thigh where it met with a business type skirt. Yanking his eyes up even further he realized she was also wearing a blazer.

“Mind if I sit here?”
he asked, shifting his eyes back and forth between her and the old man.

The old man looked up from his biscuits and gravy. “It’s all yours, Son.”

“Go ahead,” the woman mumbled without looking up from her newspaper that was spread out in front of her.

Jack turned the stool a bit and then plopped his as
s down onto it. He had no sooner turned the chair back around to face forward when the waitress appeared, holding a pot of thick looking coffee in one hand. “Hey there!” She tilted the corners of her mouth into a smile. “Are you going to have breakfast this morning, or just coffee?”

He grinned back at her, lowering his gaze from her bright blue eyes down to the breast of her tan button up blouse, where her name tag was snuggled above the pocket. The white plastic tag told him her name was Lisa. “I think I’m going to have both
,” he told her and flipped over the coffee cup sitting on a napkin in front of him.

Damn, he thought. For such a small town, Summer Hollow sure was full of hot chicks.

“Great.” She poured the coffee and then handed him a single sheet of laminated paper. “Here’s your menu. Let me know when you decide what you want.” She winked at him and took off down the bar, checking to see if anyone needed refills or anything.

Before he paid any real attention to the menu he took a giant swig of the steaming black coffee. It was hot going down, so hot that it burned his tongue and throat, but he didn’t care. He savored the bitterness of the liquid and hoped it
would help kick back the lingering headache that still plagued him.

He held up the laminated menu and checked out the selection. Breakfast was available all day
, and there was far more breakfast choices than there were lunch or dinner items. This was not surprising for a little café.

“Have you decided yet?” Lisa appeared in front of him, holding an order pad in her hand.

“Yeah,” I think I’ll have the Summer Hollow Special.”

“You want sausage or bacon?”

“Can I have both?”

“For an extra buck fifty you can.”

He nodded. “Done.”

“How do you want your eggs?”

“Fried.”

“White, wheat, French, sourdough or multigrain.”

“Sourdough.”

“Anything to drink besides coffee?”

“You have beer this early?”

She looked up from her order pad and raised her eyebrows with disapproval. “We don’t serve beer at all, but if we did the answer would be no.”

He met her eyes and rewarded her with a little grin. “Well, I’ll just have an orange juice then.” He held the menu out to her.

She took it and shoved it under the counter. “All right, coming right up.” She ripped the order sheet off the pad and headed down the bar again. He watched her ass as she rounded the corner into the kitchen and let out a breath. Judging from how those hips swung back and forth, she was probably fucking awesome in bed.

He leaned back in his chair and took another swig off his coffee. The blonde with the sexy legs closed her newspaper and he spotted the large photo of an elderly man taking up an eighth of the page. He leaned forward a little bit so that he could get a better look. The head line above the photo read. “Gregory Estmond Funeral on Saturday.”

Jack did a small calculation of the days in his head and realized that it was indeed, Saturday. Shit. The entire brood of Estmond Keepers were going to be hanging around the graveyard, plus all the Keepers that had traveled over to attend the funeral. The last thing he wanted was to fuck with the entire lot of them
. Trying to kill the new Keeper would be more of a suicide mission than the job it was intended to be.

Looked like he was going to have to wait a few days for the Keepers to thin out and go home before he could continue with his assignment. He let out a deep sigh as he envisioned his mother’s face and the
condescending tone of her voice when she found out. She was going to be pissed. Really pissed. When she wanted something, she wanted it done right then, no fucking around.

Lisa arrived with his breakfast in one hand and a tall glass of orange juice in the other. “Here you are
,” she announced as she set them down in front of him. “You want any ketchup or anything?”

“You have any tabasco?”

She reached under the counter and withdrew the spicy sauce, setting it in front of him as an answer.

“Thanks. This looks awesome.”

Lisa topped off his coffee without his having to ask. “It is awesome,” she told him with a tiny smile. “Enjoy your breakfast.”

While Lisa was gliding away
, the old man next to him got up and threw some money on the counter. “Lisa, I’m leaving. Money is on the counter.” He eyeballed Jack as if to let Jack know that he was letting her know the money was there so that Jack didn’t steal it.

Jack merely smiled in response and dum
ped a bunch of tabasco on his food.

Lisa appeared around the corner from the kitchen again. “Are you heading over to the Estmonds?”

The old man grunted as he pushed in his stool. “Yeah. I think everyone in town is gonna be there or at the wake.”

Lisa nodded. “I’m going to try to get to the wake. I don’t get done here until two.”

“Maybe I’ll see you later then.” He lifted his hand in a weak wave and headed for the door.

Lisa came back down near him. “Jess, are you going over
to Mr. Estmond’s funeral?”

The blond
e with sexy legs next to him lifted her head. “I’m leaving in just a minute to go over there.”

Lisa frowned. “I feel like everyone is going but me. It’s going to be so dead in here with everyone over there.”

Jess nodded. “Yeah, I don’t know why Dave didn’t just close the place down for a couple of hours. I mean, he’s going, so his employees should be able to go too.” She shrugged. “Just my opinion though.”

Lisa laughed a little. “Well, it’s my opinion too.”

Jack watched the conversation between the two women with interest, scraping food into his mouth without really looking at it.

Jess ran her shiny French tips over the photo of Gregory Estmond. “I’m going to miss him.”

Lisa nodded. “You and everyone else. He was certainly one of a kind.”

Good lord. Fucking Keepers. Gregory Estmond wasn’t the only Keeper to have a reputation like that. You would never catch anyone talking about him, or any other Reaper for that matter, with such adoration. Most Reapers were assholes. In his case, at least he was a good looking asshole
. It worked more in his favor with the ladies.

Jess folded her newspaper and left after she and Lisa had a few more minutes of discussion about how wonderful that old Keeper was. She offered Jack a tiny smile and headed out with her newspaper tucked into her handbag.

He finished up and paid for his breakfast, throwing Lisa a nice tip in addition to the cost of the food and then left the café, not sure of what he was going to do with the rest of the day since he couldn’t exactly proceed with his assignment anymore.

Half an hour later, Jack pulled his truck into the parking area alongside the road outside the cemetery. “Fucking finally
,” he muttered to himself as he parallel parked his truck into a spot between a beat up old station wagon and a brand new Prius. It had taken him forever to find a spot to park.

He had been driving along the back roads aimlessly, exploring and getting to know the town when he’d decided, what the hell, why not go over and check out the funeral. None of the Keepers were ballsy enough to do anything to him while surrounded by a crap ton of people anyway.

After finally getting his truck wedged into the spot, he sat there and looked out over the headstones, through the trees at the crowd gathered around the plot. He recognized the pastor because he held a bible in his hands. Beside the pastor he saw several heads of dark red hair and knew those must be the Estmond Keepers.

Beyond the Estmonds, the crowd stood silently in the midday sunlight. Even farther, out in the cover of the trees, the souls were gathering to watch the procession. Jack felt his body tingle and his heart beat picked up a
few notches.

He wanted to devour those souls.

It had been a long time since he’d had an entire soul. The little bits he took from the women were just enough to sustain him. The souls of the dead were far better to consume. Their energy lasted longer, kept him healthy longer, and all in all, just made him feel better.

The mist of the dead glittered and swirled among the shadows of the trees. It was all he could do not to get out of the truck and proceed to massacre those beautiful auras. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, his fingers tightening on the steering wheel, trying desperately to maintain control.

Dammit. He was a fucking soul addict.

But he couldn’t help it, right?
This
was what he was. A Reaper. A
soul
Reaper. Reapers had to consume souls to live.

Right, like that kind of thinking made this shit any better. He was still a junkie.

“Son of a bitch,” he muttered out loud and then slammed his fist into the steering wheel. Without giving himself much more time to even consider getting out of the truck, he rammed the vehicle into drive and shoved his foot down onto the gas pedal.

He peeled out of the parking spot, spraying up gravel and sped off down the crowded back road. The entire funeral procession probably turned to see what the commotion was, but he didn’t give a rat’s ass what anyone thought. At the moment, he just needed to get away from that fucking funeral.

As he drove, he took long, deep breaths and gripped the wheel so tight his knuckles turned white. He kept his eyes on the road, trying not to think of how amazing that blue, misty energy would feel absorbing into his body.

He didn’t want to go back to the house
. He was far too worked up to go back there and just sit around doing nothing. He passed the city limits, but kept on driving. As long as he kept going, he would get control of himself.

He slowed the truck considerably as the highway began to slope upward and the turns got tighter. The little creek that ran alongside Summer Hollow could not be seen from the high altitude, but the oaks and pines grew even thicker.

He followed the twisty pavement for miles and miles until the trees began to thin and vineyards took over the view. As he drove, he felt his body begin to relax and the hunger slowly dissipate. When he reached the crest of the mountain, he pulled over onto one of scenic viewpoints to take it all in. He gazed out at the land before him, awed by its silent power. He wasn’t anywhere very special, but there was still something extremely calming about being so high up, staring down at acres and acres of grapes.