Shadow Reaper

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  No part of this work may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission of the publisher.

  Published by Kindle Press, Seattle, 2016

  A Kindle Scout selection

  Amazon, the Amazon logo, Kindle Scout, and Kindle Press are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.

  Dedicated to all the wonderful readers who took the time to nominate Shadow Reaper on Kindle Scout. We wouldn’t be here without you! Much love and hugs.

  Contents

  ASH

  CLAY

  ASH

  CLAY

  ASH

  CLAY

  ASH

  CLAY

  ASH

  ASH

  CLAY

  ASH

  CLAY

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  CLAY

  ASH

  ABOUT THE AUTHORS

  ASH

  It was a day like all the others, dark as pitch and cold as ice, most definitely not a day to die. So when I came face to face with the Knightmare, I froze, all my training taking a flying leap out the proverbial window. You didn’t get Knightmares on this side of the Horizon. In fact, it’d been over a year since anyone had seen one at all.

  The Knightmare stared at me with its slanted, glowing eyes, steam pluming from its perpetually flared nostrils, its equine body poised to attack and then it opened its mouth and screamed.

  I remembered how to run.

  I ran on instinct, moving through the underground tunnels from memory alone. I could hear it behind me, its hooves thundering against the cracked concrete, its rumbling breath pressing against my ears.

  It shouldn’t be here, couldn’t be here, and yet it was.

  I realised that if I ran back to Shelter, then I’d be leading it straight home, so I took a left instead of a right at the next intersection. I ran, losing myself in the burning of my lungs and the screaming of my muscles. It was only a matter of time before it got me, only a matter of minutes, because I was losing momentum. I couldn’t keep up this pace much longer.

  My eyes stung, my throat grew tight. Man, I was pissed! Nineteen years I’d survived this hellhole, nineteen, and I was going to get taken out by a Knightmare? No way was I going out like that! Besides, if I croaked, then that thing would be left roaming the tunnels. My people would be in danger. I had no idea how it’d managed to get across the Horizon without being spotted by the Eye. I’d have to report this to Blake, get him to look into the security. The small bitey critters that scuttled across were one thing, those were inevitable. Those we could handle, but this was bad, real bad.

  Up ahead, the fallen and rusted body of a huge contraption from the time before came into view. I gave a final burst of speed and leapt up onto its metallic body. The Knightmare reared back. One thing about Knightmares, they’re not big on climbing. I blew tendrils of hair out of my eyes, yanked out my scrunchie and then scraped my hair back up into a tight ponytail.

  It paced, back and forth, its eyes glistening in the dark. I crouched, tips of my fingers grazing cool metal, and watched it—waiting.

  That’s it, just get bored and piss off, you ugly—

  “Mansfield?” A shrill whistle. “Where are you, boy?”

  What the hell? There was someone down here.

  The sound of slow, leisurely footsteps echoed through the darkness.

  The Knightmare turned his head to look back up the tunnel.

  Shit! Who could be so stupid as to be out here alone?

  You are, you twat!

  Point.

  “Oi! Don’t come any closer,” I yelled. “There’s a Knightmare here. Run!”

  The footsteps faltered.

  He was probably from the slums, maybe using the tunnels to scavenge like I was. Fuck, I remembered those days, but it was dangerous, too dangerous for someone untrained. I waited, straining to hear the sounds of retreat, yet there was nothing but silence.

  Had I imagined the voice?

  The Knightmare turned away from me.

  No, definitely not my imagination. Those things could smell a human a mile off. Stupid bloody man, boy, whoever it was.

  “Bloody run, you idiot! There’s no point hiding! It can bleedin’ smell ya!”

  A low chuckle filtered through the air, accompanied by the sound of footsteps.

  They were growing closer.

  Well, there was no helping some people.

  A shape became visible. A man, tall, broad, and slim, wreathed in darkness. My eyes, accustomed to the gloom of the tunnels, could make out only the whites of his eyes surrounding cerulean blue.

  “Well, there you are, Mansfield.” The Knightmare whinnied and trotted over to the man, offering his huge head to be petted.

  What the crap?

  The man tilted his head to look up at me. “Dangerous being out here all alone, little human.” He said the last word as if it were a dirty one.

  Mansfield emitted a pleading rumble.

  “Mansfield’s hungry.” The man cocked his head and stared at me for a very long time, so long, in fact, that I began to wonder if he’d turned to stone or fallen asleep on his feet with his eyes open. “I don’t think she’ll make a very palatable meal, boy. All skin and bones, that one. Come, we’ll find you something more . . . substantial.”

  A chill crawled up my spine. Only one of them could control a Knightmare. A Shadowlander.

  He flashed me his even white teeth. “You’re safe for now, human. Crawl off to your hideout and forget this ever happened.”

  And just like that, they were gone.

  I exhaled sharply and stared at the spot where they had just stood. Something had stood. Something.

  What the hell was I doing on top of this rusty contraption?

  Climbing down gingerly, I wiped my dirty palms on my trousers and headed home.

  ***

  I crawled through the hidden passageway that led back into Shelter. I reached the grate that opened up into Corridor 4 and waited, listening. There wasn’t usually anyone about at this time, but you never knew. After long minutes of absolute silence, I knocked aside the grate and slid into the corridor, landing lightly on my feet.

  I moved the grate back into place, then pushed in the rusty screws to make them look like they were snug in their holes.

  Straightening my shirt and brushing off my trousers, I made my way back to my quarters.

  If I thought I’d gotten off scot-free for my little escapade, then I was sadly mistaken.

  Clay sat on my bed, his face dark with anger.

  Shit.

  “What the hell, Ash? What. The. Hell?”

  Crap! Time to do some damage control.

  I plastered a contrite expression on my face, ready to do the pleading thing, but he held up his hand.

  “Don’t even go there. You’re not sorry. I know it, you know it, and the whole fucking
world knows it. What I want to know is why. You got what you wanted. You’re a Reaper, so why take these unnecessary risks?”

  I felt the first spark of anger. “Why? Because someone has to! The bimonthly reaps aren’t cutting it. Everyone knows it. Someone has to take the risk. Remember the penicillin, the iodine, the—”

  “Yes! I remember. You found some important stuff, but—”

  “And I didn’t go over the Horizon to do it. I’m not bleedin’ suicidal. I was careful. Nothing saw me and I didn’t see any of . . . them.” Some memory skittered under the surface of my mind but was gone too quick to catch.

  Clay rubbed his face with his hand, his shoulders rising and falling in a heartfelt sigh, and I felt the guilt heavy on my chest. I was his burden. His little sister, the one he’d sworn to protect. I didn’t make it easy.

  Older than me by five minutes, Clay had seamlessly stepped into our parents’ shoes after they died five years ago. We’d been barely fourteen at the time. Clay had taken their deaths as an inevitability. He’d said good-bye, buried them, and then turned his attention to taking care of me. Sod that! I’d been pissed off and incensed by the unfairness of it because, as far as I was concerned, they’d chosen to die. Food and shelter had been less than a mile away; all they’d had to do was claim it. All they’d had to do was volunteer for the academy, become Reapers, and we would have been clothed and fed and sheltered. But they’d been afraid, weak, and they’d died. Yes, I’d been angry. So angry that I’d done the one thing that they’d never wanted either Clay or me to do. I’d signed up to be a Reaper.

  Reaper status meant food. It meant lodging. It meant safety. It had come too late for my parents, but I was determined not to lose Clay to their skewed convictions. Clay couldn’t bring himself to break the vow we’d made to them, though; thank goodness Shelter needed able-bodied men to train in the tech side of things. Clay always had an affinity for building shit, so here we were five years later—Clay a head Technician and me a seasoned Reaper. The tech we had here was primitive, but he managed to keep the lights on and the heat running, and that’s all we could ask for.

  “Ashling?”

  “Huh?”

  “Go to bed.” He stood and moved toward the door.

  He was disappointed in me. I hated it. I couldn’t leave things like this between us. As he brushed past, I turned into him, wrapping my arms around his waist. He tensed and then relaxed. His arms wrapped around me and he squeezed me tight.

  “Please, Ash, just follow protocol, ’kay?”

  I nodded against his chest, and yes, I really meant to keep my promise. I always do . . . until next time.

  He released me and ruffled my hair.

  “Say ’night to Blake.” I smiled up at him coquettishly.

  He blushed. “Will do.”

  It was sweet the way those two were still so gaga over each other. They’d been dating for just over a year now, and they acted like a married couple. Clay had even moved into Blake’s quarters, and yet he still blushed when I mentioned Blake’s name.

  Sweet.

  He pecked me on the forehead and then left me to it.

  A yawn ripped through me, and I stretched and threw myself onto my rumpled bed. My quarters were small and boxy, but they were mine. Pictures from old magazines I’d found on my scavenging trips decorated the walls: cars and paradise settings, gardens and sunsets, and lovers holding hands. These were memories that I’d never have. They lulled me to sleep, and sometimes I’d find myself on a beach somewhere, waves lapping at my toes, or maybe in a beautiful garden, the scent of roses sweet and strong in my nose. I didn’t know if what I dreamt held any similarity to how it used to be. How could I? I’ve never smelled a rose or walked on the beach, but the dreams kept my spirits alive, and sometimes he joined me—the man who didn’t speak.

  The first time it happened, I was frightened. I mean, some strange bloke walks into my dream and just hangs out? It was creepy, but I soon started to feel okay with it. In fact, he’d become a kind of friend now . . . I think.

  My eyelids were starting to get heavy, so I closed them, exhaling long and deep, and let sleep take me.

  CLAY

  Clay crawled into bed carefully. He didn’t want to wake Blake. The guy had just pulled a double shift in the Eye, and there was no slacking off when you were in charge there. Blake was two years his senior and the love of his life. Yeah, he berated Ash for her decision to become a Reaper, but if she hadn’t made that decision, then Clay would never have met Blake. He was happy, as happy as anyone could be in this fucked up world.

  Once upon a time, there’d been sunshine and clouds and green and blue and swings and ice cream. Now they lived off what they could scavenge from the altered world topside and what they could grow under UV lamps. The human population was a fifth of what it had once been. Cut off from one another, they lived day to day in organised pockets of civilisation, underground like vermin while the invaders ruled topside. Radio contact had been established ten years ago, but there had been no contact for the past five years. No one wanted to say it, but everyone thought it: the other pockets were gone. Yeah, his world was messed up.

  He hated it and yet he loved it, because he had Blake to share it with.

  “How is she?” Blake asked.

  Clay smiled into the dark. Since he’d moved in two months ago, not a night had gone by that Blake hadn’t waited up for him. Maintenance meant that, all in all, Clay had pretty regular hours. Blake’s role wasn’t so kind. The Eye was their last line of defence, and the first line of offense. It allowed them to watch over the Reapers when they went over the Horizon. Everything had to be perfect, and that responsibility rested fully on Blake’s shoulders. The Eye was Blake’s father’s creation, and since he had succumbed to a degenerative disease a year ago, it had become Blake’s.

  The bed shifted as Blake rolled to face him. “You okay, babe?”

  Clay rolled onto his side to face Blake. Their noses were so close, he could have leaned in and brushed them together. Blake’s dark hair fell across his forehead, and Clay reached out to smooth it back. Unlike Blake, Clay liked to keep his golden locks shorn short so it created soft fuzz on his head. Blake said it brought out Clay’s jade eyes.

  “Clay?”

  Clay smiled. “I’m okay and Ash is fine. Stubborn, but fine.”

  Blake chuckled. “Takes after her big brother, then.”

  “Hey! I’m not stubborn.”

  Blake brushed noses with him. “Yes you are, but I love you for it.” He reached up and caressed Clay’s jaw. “I saw the sun today.”

  “You did?”

  “Yeah. The clouds shifted and it lanced through . . . just for a moment, but it was . . . beautiful.”

  “I wish I’d seen it.”

  “Me too.” He yawned and Clay felt terrible for making him wait up.

  “Get some sleep, babe.” Clay pulled the covers up over them both.

  “Sleep? Really?”

  He could hear the wicked grin in Blake’s voice. It sent a pulse of arousal through him and, like usual, his throat was suddenly dry.

  Blake leaned in and captured his lips in a soft kiss.

  There wouldn’t be any sleeping for a long time.

  ASH

  I was hurtling down the winding corridors toward the Eye when I was knocked into the wall by a whirlwind coming down an intersecting corridor to my left.

  “Dammit, Ryder!”

  Ryder smirked and hauled me to my feet. “You’ll live, tough cookie like you.”

  “Shut up.” But I couldn’t help smiling because he was so damn cute when he flashed those dimples of his.

  He winked and my heart did that weird squeeze thing. Man, I’d had a crush on this bloke ever since I’d moved into Shelter, but to Ryder, I was just the girl who could scrap like a man. I guess I didn’t do myself any favours with my uniform of vests and trousers, and long hair perpetually scraped back in a ponytail, but that’s me. I liked to be comfortable. Besides,
I wanted someone to fancy me for me, although I couldn’t help but fantasise about Ryder looking at me one day and being like, “Wow, you are seriously gorgeous!”

  Ryder was already stalking off toward the Eye, so I had to jog to catch up. “So, what do you think we’ll find today?”

  He shrugged. “More useless crap that’ll be recycled into more useless crap.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Seriously, Ryder, we need to hit the chemists and supermarkets.”

  “There’s nothing left, you know that. Those fucking Shadowlanders cleaned them out. Not sure what they want with the medicines, probably just hoarding it until we all die.” There was real bitterness in his tone. Like most of us, he’d lost someone special. His brother died of a basic infection, which could have been cured with antibiotics. We’d run out, so that was that. Here, in the slums, if you got sick, you most likely died. Simple.

  We made the rest of the journey in silence. Shelter is an underground bunker, built for an apocalypse, and it’s served us well, but resources are limited and only those with skills, able to contribute to the survival of the human race get entry. As far as we knew it, the human population in our pocket of reality, since the invasion almost twenty years ago, was around two thousand, five hundred of whom lived in Shelter. The rest lived outside in the slums, or there were those desperate enough to have crossed the Horizon into the Shadowlands. I’d no idea what happened to those poor souls, and I didn’t want to know. We stuck to the cusp of the Shadowlands, never venturing too far in. They had our houses, our hospitals, our rivers, and our bridges; they had it all. We existed in a pocket of our reality, untouched and surrounded by the Horizon. I wished there was some way of reestablishing contact with the other pockets, of knowing that there were still others out there and that one day we would somehow unite and take back our world.

  I liked to dream.

  We were almost at the Eye when I heard the chanting.

  “Fuck!” Ryder clenched and pressed himself back against the wall.

  I did the same.

  The chanting grew louder, and then they appeared around the bend. Twelve hooded figures, their robes of the deepest crimson, threadbare in places but thick enough to withstand a few hundred washes.