Reap & Repent (11 page)

He cut off two huge chunks and slid them onto the plates and then into the microwave.

“Oh,” she said, confused. “You mean…ever? How can that be?”

“The same way you can still be a virgin,” he said, with a sly smile. “The opportunity never presented itself, I guess. There aren’t many opportunities for home-cooked meals in this line of work…or least there haven’t been.”

Ruth relayed the account of her day, laying out all the details, including the barbarous butcher, before working up to Kylen and the imp. He listened intently all the while.

“You did a good job with the salt,” he said, taking the plates from the microwave. “Perfect. I should have mentioned the chimney. It was an easy rookie mistake to make. Tell me again what Kylen said to you…word for word,” he commanded, setting a hot dish before her.

“Nothing really. I think he was just trying to scare me. Which he did… What would he want with me? You said the imp was a demon spy? What about the butcher? And Kylen?”

“How about one question at a time? I’d say that the butcher was probably a boggart. Hard to say which side he’s on, so it was a good thing that you got out of there fast. As for Kylen, he probably wanted to distract you so that his imp could climb under your car and lead him to you later.”

“You said earlier that they spy for demons… Does that mean that Kylen’s a demon?” she asked, her voice a few octaves higher than she’d intended. “What would a demon want with me?”

“Not you. It’s me.” Deacon brought his plate to the table. “We have history.” He sat across from her and sighed in exasperation, giving his lasagna a longing look.

“Kylen wasn’t always a demon. He was a reaper, but now a demon inhabits his body. I don’t know the demon’s name—only Kylen would—and the demon can’t be cast out unless its name is used in an exorcism ritual. It was his choice. I told you that some choose a darker path, and Kylen is one of those who did.”

“Why would he do that? And what does he have against you? Or me?”

“It’s complicated,” he sighed.

Deacon took a big bite of his lasagna and closed his eyes. She hoped it wasn’t in disgust. She hadn’t tasted it yet, but it smelled like heaven. She took a bite herself and moaned in delight.

“You’re going to have to stop doing that.”

“What?” she asked, batting her lashes with mock innocence. “Eating?”

“Moaning,” he said, pressing his lips into a tight line. “Or I’m going to clear this table and take you right here, pasta sauce and all.”

Ruth quivered, toying with the idea of teasing him further with another moan. She didn’t think there would be time for him to carry out his threat before the witch arrived. She sent him her sweetest smile.

Never had she had any sort of power over a man before. She liked it.

“Tell me what Kylen wants,” she said, instantly creating a different sort of tension in him.

“Souls,” Deacon said. “He’s a poacher now. He steals souls when he can. If a reaper is too slow or too busy to get to one soon enough, it leaves an opportunity for him.”

“What does he do with them? The souls he poaches?”

“He takes them straight to his master in Hell. Do not pass Go, do not collect two hundred dollars. Each time he bypasses Purgatory, it taints Kylen’s soul. It’s likely already irreparable. If his soul becomes too damaged, his memories will be eradicated, and he will be lost to the demon who possesses him. Most demons can’t ride a body that long, but since Kylen is a reaper, he’s a much sturdier host. This one’s had Kylen…for a while.”

“How long?”

“Nearly a hundred years,” Deacon said tightly.

Ruth scooted her food around on her plate. She was still hungry but she couldn’t seem to swallow anymore. It made no sense to her why someone would
choose
to do what Kylen had done. He knew the consequences better than most.
He wasn’t some wannabe dark arts practitioner—he was a freakin’ reaper. From what Ruth had seen so far, that was a formidable occupation.

“If he knew the consequences, what could have convinced him to do it?”

“Kylen made a deal for a soul. There was a woman, a valkyrie… Kara. We grew up together, and we were all friends. Kara was exceptional. We knew she was different from the beginning. She was beautiful and fierce and stronger than the both of us. Strong enough to become a valkyrie. Kylen and I had both loved her since we were kids, and we fought over her more than once, but she loved Kylen more. They were together for seventy years, and then she was murdered on a battlefield by a demon poacher. Kylen made a deal for her soul. As soon as he delivered her soul safely to Purgatory, he turned himself over to the demon. Otherwise, the demon would have taken her to Hell, and once your soul has been delivered to the pit, there’s no upward advancement. It’s the demon who rides him now.”

Ruth didn’t know what to say to that, but she was worried. Kylen had sent an imp after her today. She wasn’t keen on meeting a similar fate as the valkyrie, and she was pretty sure she was nowhere near as fierce.

“The demon is a trickster, Ruth. He likes chaos and turmoil and pain. He thrives on it. He has access to all of Kylen’s memories. Every decade or so he shows up to torment me. When he saw the two of us together in Purgatory, he recognized an opportunity to stir things up. He may have even seen a chance to claim a new body. He also knows that the more distracted I am, the more souls he can poach from my territory. That’s why I had to leave you today—I had to work,
and I hoped that I could draw him away from you at the same time. I’m sorry, Ruth…about all of this.”

A chill crept into her chest and squeezed her heart. Being away from Deacon seemed dangerous now, but being with him might be just as bad. She felt as if she had a target painted on her back.

“How did he know where to find me?”

“I don’t know. He and I have a bond, so maybe he was somehow able to trace the energy I shared with you. Or it could be that he’s accumulated enough spies to cover more territory. Don’t worry. After tonight, he won’t be able to get to you again. We’re going to make sure of it. We were very lucky today. I would have given anything to see the look on his face when you salted him.” He chuckled. “I’ll bet he wasn’t counting on that.”

“No, he seemed pretty surprised.”

Deacon smiled and scraped his plate clean. “So you have the CliffsNotes history of my life. What about you, Ruth? What’s your story?”

Ruth pushed her plate away and sighed. She had no desire to revisit her life story. At least not all the painful little details. But if Deacon could paint with broad strokes, so could she.

“You already know the big things. My father died when I was twelve. That was the breaking point for me and my mother. They’d wanted children very much and tried for years. When nothing happened, and they kept growing older, they finally decided to adopt through the Catholic Church in St. Louis. They got me as an infant.”

“Well, that explains the anomaly.”

“What do you mean?”

“A reaper’s gifts are genetic. At least one of your parents would have needed to pass those traits along to you. After reaping both of them, I knew that neither your father nor your mother had the gifts. Have you ever tried to track down your biological parents?”

“Not seriously. I’ve thought about it, but my relationship with my mother has been…well, tense…since my father died. I guess I didn’t want to make things worse. Now that she’s passed and all this is happening? Yeah, I’d love to know. But if they are both reapers, how will I ever find them?”

“That will be a bridge we’ll have to cross later. I think we have enough on our plates for now. It’s definitely worth pursuing, though.”

Ruth’s mind spun with the possibility of tracking down her biological parents.

As Deacon scooped up a second piece of lasagna onto his plate, headlights bounced down the driveway.

Chapter Twelve

The witch was not at all what Ruth had expected. She’d known he was a man, but she’d been picturing some long-haired, trench-coated 1970s character with amulets around his neck. The man on the other side of her front door was dressed in soft worn jeans and a light gray Affliction shirt, and tribal tattoos covered the surface area of both of his ridiculously muscled biceps. Not that she noticed things like that.

His dark, salon-cut hair was parted at an angle, and a nice near-midnight shadow crossed his jaw. She was pretty sure that the backpack slung over one of his shoulders wouldn’t be able to make it across the other without him looking like a turtle with a too-small shell. He was built like a WWE wrestler.

Peering down the driveway, she was relieved to see a Honda parked there instead of a broom with headlights. Sure, that was probably prejudiced, but so far she was learning that all myths had a nugget of truth to them. Back in the day, she was willing to bet that witches had totally rocked the robe and broom scene.

She invited him in.

“Nate, thanks for coming.” Deacon reached out to shake his hand. “This is Ruth.”

“Ruth, nice to meet you.” Nate extended his hand, but she hesitated. He had an aura. Deacon was here, so she felt safe enough, but she still didn’t want to get all touchy-feely with strangers who had auras. Still, she was happy to see that he wasn’t a reaper or any of the other strange creepy crawlies to which she’d been
exposed in the recent past. She didn’t lump Deacon into the creepy crawly category even though he didn’t have a light and couldn’t cross the salt barrier. She decided to grant him special dispensation.

Nate took the hint and backed off.

“Deacon tells me you need the house consecrated. Are you looking to bury some bodies out here, or do you need protection?” Nate asked, getting right to the point.

She glanced at Deacon for help. Hell, she hadn’t even learned the secret handshake yet, and she had no clue how “in the know” Nate was. This was more Deacon’s rodeo than it was hers.

“Protection,” Deacon chimed in. “From evil spirits. It’s possible that this place is haunted.” Ruth threw a sideways glance at Deacon. She was pretty sure he was just making up a cover story to keep the reality of the situation from Nate.

“Smells like sulfur in here all right,” Nate offered. “Something has been here. Today.”

“That’s why I called you.”

“Same ritual as your place, I’m assuming?”

“Yes.”

“Okay, then. It’s eleven-thirty now. I’m going to cleanse and purify the house first, and then we’ll raise the power and cast the circle at midnight.”

* * *

Nate lit a bundle of dried herbs, letting them burn for a few moments before blowing out the flames.

As the bundle smoked, the aroma of sage, lavender and thyme filled the small house. Nate walked through the rooms, systematically wafting the smoke up into the corners, across the walls, and over the doors and windows. He concentrated on the scent and visualized cleansing the place of unwelcome spirits. Something supernatural had been here, and recently.

Nate’s adoptive parents were a powerful Wiccan couple, and they had taught him everything they knew. But before finding his home with them, he’d spent his first five years in and out of various foster homes.

He wasn’t a bad kid, but something strange had happened at each of the dozen families he’d lived with prior to his adoption, frightening his foster parents badly enough to send him back to the system.

He didn’t even remember most of these “instances” but a few were crystal clear. The final straw had come when he’d somehow transported himself to a cemetery one night.

Sent to his room as a punishment for refusing to eat some random and disgusting food on his plate, he’d sat on his bed, wishing himself gone. He didn’t have anywhere specific in mind because he hadn’t been anywhere of note. He just wanted away from the house…and the family.

When he first landed in the cemetery, he’d thought he was in a very vivid dream. He couldn’t believe it and had no idea how it had happened…or where he was. Nothing was familiar, and the night was pitch-black with just a shadow of the new moon peeking out. He sat down on the cold ground. Huddling himself into a pile, he scooted back against a headstone, wrapping his arms around his
bent knees. His thin pajamas were no relief against the cold October night, and his bare feet dug into the ground as he rocked his body from side to side, wishing again with all he had in him to be back at the house. Back in his room to be exact.

And then…he was.

The whole experience had lasted no more than twenty minutes. Still, his foster mother had already discovered him missing and phoned the police. When he appeared back in his empty room twenty minutes later, the police had just arrived at the house. His foster parents were surprised and embarrassed to find him sitting on his bed when they let the officers into his room to investigate.

Nate had been unable to stop the trembling in his limbs as he rambled incoherently about where he’d been. The police took notice of his dirty feet and disheveled appearance and filled out their reports. Suspecting domestic abuse by the foster parents, they removed him from the home that night, taking him straight to a juvenile facility until he could be placed…again.

The police asked him many questions that night, none of which he could remember now. He’d never mentioned that trip to the cemetery again. To anyone.

Why all of this was flooding through his mind as he cleansed the house, he had no idea. Maybe the sage was purging his own bad juju.

That and something was off about Deacon, which made him uneasy. He still hadn’t been able to pin down what it was about the guy that made him squirm and trust him at the same time. He was more than a witch, no doubt about it, but Nate couldn’t figure out exactly what he
was.
They had more of a “don’t ask, don’t tell” sort of relationship.

Deacon had called on him over the years to do all manner of spells, but consecration and circumscription spells were the most common. Nate didn’t know exactly what they were keeping at bay, but he was happy enough to help out when he could. Deacon paid double for not asking questions. Since he hadn’t seen the guy do anything illegal or immoral, he had always been comfortable working with him even though he knew he was only getting information on a need-to-know basis.