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“Bullets are expensive,” he said, casual as fuck as he looked down at my broken body. He was muttering, not talking to me so much as he was talking to himself. “And goddamn does it take a lot of them to even make you fuckers flinch. The amulet worked better than I expected...but there’s too much risk…”
“Fuck you,” I growled. “Fuck you and your fucking monologuing.”
Perhaps I was lucky he ignored me. “But you know what’s better than bullets and tiny charms? A Reaper.”
He may as well have kicked me in the gut; I felt as stunned as if he had. Jeremiah shouldn’t have even known what a Reaper was. They were Hell’s executioners — massive, intelligent monstrosities with whom demons had formed a tentative pact. If a demon ever became so unruly that the Council decided to destroy them, a Reaper would be called in to do the job.
I laughed, but the sound was choked up with pain. “You’re...fucking psychotic...if you think...you’re going to get a Reaper involved.”
“You think I can’t?” His foot ground down on my chest. “Who do you think Iam, demon?”
“You’re just some pathetic —” Pain or not, I wasn’t going to shut up. But what followed next wasn’t pain. Not exactly. It felt as if something cracked open my head and wriggled inside the crevices, wrapped itself around my brain and began tosqueeze.
Unbidden visions of a long dark tunnel flashed through my head. Visions of blood — of viscera — the sound of a thousand voices screaming in unison, in agony. At the end of the tunnel, a face...a figure...draped in light and color, covered in a thousand blinking eyes, constantly morphing, ever changing...tightening Its hold…
I forced It back, but he’d made his point clear: it wasn’tJeremiahwho knew anything about Reapers.
It was the God.
His fingers poked and prodded my wounds, smearing the blood over my chest. “Demonic blood calls a Reaper to do its duty. I’m sure it won’t mind if the blood doesn’t belong to its intended victim. It can have you too, as a treat, once Leon is dealt with.”
I was merely the offering. Leon stood between Jeremiah and Raelynn, but not for long. Leon couldn’t win against a Reaper.
Jeremiah was going to execute him. He was going to kill Leon, and he was using me to do it. My nails dug uselessly into the grass, clawing at the dirt. I would have rather died. I would sooner let myself be destroyed than be the catalyst to Leon’s death.
But there was nothing I could do.Nothing.
The haze clouding my vision became darkness. I was too weak now to even manage to send myself back to Hell. I didn’t have the strength to open a gateway and escape this. Energy was gathering around me, Jeremiah’s muttered words calling into the aether, beyond Earth, into the deepest depths of Hell.
He shouldn’t have known the words to do it. No human being could.
Suddenly, even through the dark and the pain, I heard her. I could sense her near. I could smell her.
Juniper.
“What the fuck did you do to him?What did you do?”
I should have known better than to think she’d run. My little wolf didn’t run. But fuck, she needed to. She couldn’t possibly understand what was about to happen.
“Careful, Juniper.” Jeremiah chuckled. “I’ve made your demon useful.”
My nose filled with smoke, harsh and thick. It felt like a hand had reached between my ribs and was squeezing my insides, wrenching them around and tying them into knots. Flashes of light and feral growls emanated from the darkness thickening around me, and I managed to turn my head. Juniper stood there, wide-eyed and blood-stained, her shotgun aimed.
Fuck, it hurt to even try to speak. “Go, Juniper.” My voice grated out of my throat, my tongue swollen. “It’s a Reaper...he’s summoning a Reaper...go…”
Then the darkness obscured her, and something massive moved through the smoke above me.
It was almost funny. All these years I’d been so determined not to do anything to piss the Council off, yet there I was, under the claws of a Reaper anyway.
Fucking hell.
There was a sound of cawing crows in the darkness, and the temperature dropped until my breath formed clouds in the smoky air. Worms and beetles crawled out of the ground beside me, frantically scurrying away as frost formed over the grass. The outline of a huge, bat-like wing moved over me.
Five blinking eyes, emitting a strange silvery light from behind the dark shroud that covered its face, looked down at me. Its voice was cold and deep, vibrating in my bones as it rumbled, “Hello, little demon. Do you submit to death?”
I sighed heavily. “No, unfortunately, I don’t. Actually, I’d like to lodge a complaint. Killing me is...uh...severely uncalled for.”
The Reaper chuckled, the sound unpleasant enough to make me shudder. Hundreds of sharp teeth hung from its neck, like jewels: trophies from its victims. They rattled together as it laughed, its armor of stone and black metal groaning as it moved. “Is that so? And yet, an Ancient Lord has called me with your flesh and blood.”
