Reaper Unhinged (Deadside Reapers Book 6) Read online

  Wait a fucking second. “You’re leaving? You’re running away?”

  Lianel transferred his pale, wishy-washy gaze to me. “You have not been given leave to speak, demon.”

  “Dominus.” I glared at him. “I’m a Dominus, and I can’t believe you’re giving up.”

  “Cassius, why does it continue to speak?” Lianel sounded genuinely confused.

  “Seraphina Dawn is a descendant of Samael,” Cassius said.

  Lianel’s brows twitched upwards. “Is she now? It explains her insubordination.”

  “Last I checked, I worked for Lilith. You, we work with. And giving up is the coward’s way out.”

  Lianel sighed. “There is no other way, child.”

  “That’s not what you thought centuries ago when you sent a troop of Powers to the Underealm.”

  His lips pinched, and he turned an icy gaze onto Cassius.

  Cassius didn’t flinch. “If there is a power source out there, however dangerously placed, we need to know. We have to try.”

  “Celestials died,” Lianel said. “Have you any idea how difficult it is to snuff out a celestial?”

  “And more will die when you abandon them here and fly off in your flagship.” I stepped forward, sweeping my gaze over the gathered Righteous. “Whatever you were after is still out there. I can get it for you. All you need to do is tell me where it is. Give me a chance to save this world and mine.”

  “Lianel, what do you have to lose?” Cassius asked.

  “Time,” Lianel said. “We are short on time.” He sighed and studied me for a long beat, and then he closed his eyes. The other Righteous did the same, and their foreheads began to glow.

  I leaned in toward Cassius. “What’s happening?”

  “They’re conferring.”

  Long seconds passed, and then Lianel opened his eyes. “It is agreed that considering our predicament and your offer of aid, you will be privy to classified information. You are already aware that the divine abdicated his role here a long time ago. But he left writings, ramblings that held secrets, and in them was mentioned a power to rival his own hidden in the Underealm. You have seventy-two hours to retrieve that power source. Once the time elapses, we will drain what is left of the power in the Beyond to propel our departure from this plane of existence.”

  It was real. There was hope. “Where is it?”

  Lianel’s expression was grave, almost as if he was imparting a death sentence. “A place they call Limbo.”

  Limbo? The no-man’s land filled with ancient spirits that the Beyond had decided to forfeit.

  “I know it. We can leave now.” I looked up at Cassius, who nodded curtly.

  “You misunderstand,” Lianel said. “The Beyond has its plan, which we will execute in seventy-two hours. The potential of a power source is too slim for us to expend any resources on it.”

  Wait, was he saying what I thought he was saying? “You expect me to do this alone?”

  “We do not expect you to do anything. You wished to have an opportunity to save your world, and this is it.”

  My world. Not theirs. Mentally, they’d already left.

  “Lianel,” Cassius said. “If we send a team then—”

  “Silence!” Lianel’s voice was a boom. “You will follow your orders, Cassius. You will prepare the Flagship.”

  Cassius inclined his head stiffly. “Lianel.”

  “Seventy-two hours’ grace,” Lianel said to me. “That is all we are willing to give you.”

  Cassius’s jaw ticked, and then he grabbed my arm and tugged me from the room. The door closed behind us, and he towered over me, eyes blazing.

  “Are you sure you wish to do this?” he asked.

  My stomach trembled, but I raised my chin. “I have to.”

  He clenched his teeth. “For the first time in eons, the desire to ignore orders is a burn in my veins. This feels wrong.”

  It wasn’t the only thing that was wrong. I needed to tell him about the Edge, and I needed answers about Uriel. “Cassius, I wasn’t able to save the core souls. I didn’t have access to retrieve them from the librarian.”

  He frowned. “Was I wrong to assume that you have Uriel?”

  “He didn’t make it into the Edge.”

  “You were allowed admittance to the Edge alone?” He looked confused. “The system must be glitching. Only pure celestials can command the librarian.”

  Which was why he’d told me to take Uriel with me. Made sense now. Shit, I hadn’t even considered that when I’d leaped into the shimmer.

  “Uriel would have been able to access the core souls,” Cassius said. “Why did you not take him into the Edge?”

  “We were attacked by malignant, and he stayed to fend them off, and when I was ejected from the Edge, Uriel was possessed.” I studied his expression, noting the confusion clouding his eyes.

  “That’s impossible. A pure celestial can’t be tainted by malignant.”

  “I know, but he was, which means…”

  “No. That can’t be right. Our celestials are pure, born of divine light.”

  “Right, okay, maybe, but there’s something different about Uriel. There has to be, or a malignant wouldn’t have been able to take control of him. He deserves answers.”

  Cassius placed his large hand on my shoulder. “Succeed in your mission, and I’ll get you the information you want.” His eyes narrowed. “I promise you.”

  I believed him. “Thank you.”

  He nodded curtly. “In the meantime, I’ll do what I can to stall Lianel and give you a few extra hours. I can’t ignore orders, but I can take my time executing them.” He smiled, and it transformed his somber face. “Good luck, Seraphina Dawn.”

  I was going to Limbo.

  And I’d be doing it alone.

  Chapter Nine

  Cora

  The Magiguard offices are in Central Necro masquerading as a generic office building. The streets are buzzing with people as I cross the road and head for the main doors.

  Dayna warned me I may not get past the reception desk. The masquerade is real, and Magiguard security is top-notch, but I promised Fee I’d take care of this, and I don’t intend to let her down.

  I pass a young couple on the way to the entrance. They stand with their heads together, poring over a piece of paper.

  “They’re paying for blood donations,” the woman says.

  “There’s no address,” the guy says.

  “There’s a phone number.”

  The door to the building is the thick glass kind with a metallic vertical bar to be used as a handle. I push it open and stride into the foyer. My heels clip on the tiled floor as I make my way to reception with a huge smile on my face.

  The man behind the counter glances up at me and does a double-take. Yeah, I have a million-dollar smile when I decide to use it.

  He puts down his pen and blinks at me. “And how may I help you today?”

  “I’m here to see Ursula Mann.”

  His expression smooths out, and he rakes me over. “I think you have the wrong building. We don’t have anyone by that name here.”

  Dayna warned me about this. The Magiguard run a front business with real human employees, but this guy is Magiguard, and he knows every other Magiguard by sight.

  I’m not one of them, and I’m not an entity known to them, which makes my knowing Ursula’s name a red flag.

  “Look, my name is Cora Dawn. I’m a friend of Seraphina Dawn, who’s a Dominus. Tell Ursula we got her message to Azazel. Can you do that? Please?”

  He shrugs, impassive. “Like I said, we have no one by that name here.”

  Oh, bloody hell. “Fine, then you can chase up on your missing humans issue yourself because all the Dominus are tied up on other matters.”

  He stares at me levelly, unmoved.

  I throw up my hands. “I tried.”

  I turn and head for the door. There’s nothing else to be done here. At least I managed to get a message to Keon at
the Academy. Not a total failure then. The crisp midday air slaps me in the face, and the smell of coffee and bacon fills my nostrils. My stomach rumbles. I need food, and there, like a beacon beaming at me from across the street, is a greasy spoon café.

  “Cora?”

  I pause at the curb and look over my shoulder to see a slender woman standing behind me.

  She smiles thinly. “I believe you wanted to see me?”

  I polish off my bacon sarnie while Ursula watches. The greasy spoon café does excellent bacon sarnies, and the coffee is pretty good too.

  I wipe my hands on a napkin. “You sure you don’t want one? They’re delicious.”

  She smiles thinly. “I’m not hungry, but thanks. You said all the Dominus are busy.” She gives me a skeptical look.

  At least she’s waited till I finish eating. Polite of her, which means having to lie to her will probably make me feel a little bad.

  Okay, no, it won’t. “Yep, all busy doing very boring Dominus type things.”

  The Dominion have been clear about us keeping the whole world-ending thing under wraps. There is nothing anyone could do to stop it. Only a power source can do that, and Fee is already on the case.

  The Underealm issues are nothing to do with the Magiguard. My job is to deal with business as usual and make sure Fee doesn’t come back to a shit load of jobs in need of completion, because with Azazel in the Underealm looking for Lilith, all the Dominus shit falls on her.

  “And Azazel asked you to take over his role?” The skeptical look hasn’t left Ursula’s face.

  I sigh. “Look, if you don’t want the assist, then that’s fine. I have other things to be getting on with. You can explain to Az why you didn’t let me help when he gets back.”

  Her brow pinches slightly. “No. That’s fine. I know you’re Fee’s best friend and honestly, we need the help. Magiguard aren’t exactly inconspicuous in the outlier community. They see us and they clam up. It’s why we only show up when the crime has been committed and nab the perpetrator. Investigations are handled by Azazel and his team.” She frowns. “Where did you say his team was?”

  Ha, trying to catch me out, huh? “I didn’t. They’re working on Underealm business right now, hence the reason I’m here.” She looks as if she wants to ask more questions, so I forge on quickly. “Tell me about these missing humans?”

  The drop in her shoulders tells me she’s conceded that it’s me or nothing. “The Magiguard keep tabs on human crimes and assess to make sure the crimes aren’t supernatural in nature. We intervene where need be. There are wards set up all over Necro to alert us to outlier crimes against humans. Over the last few days, those alarms have been tripped several times, but every time we arrive on the scene, there’s no evidence of any crime.”

  “Okay…maybe your wards are glitching?”

  “That’s what we thought, but then we ran a check through the human police case files and came across a spate of missing persons reports that roughly coincide with our wards being tripped.”

  “You think the missing people are victims of an outlier kidnapping?”

  “We suspect as much. So far, human law enforcement has no leads. These people just upped and vanished. The only time that ever happens is if Mouths are involved, but we keep track of Mouth activity separately, and right now, the creatures seem to have gone underground.” She sips her tea again. “Strange.”

  Not really, considering their masters, the Dread, have either fled to the Beyond or been slaughtered trying. But that’s another thing I can’t tell Ursula, not without bringing the Beyond into it and inviting a shit load of questions I won’t be able to answer.

  “I’ll look into it, but I’ll need the locations of the suspected kidnappings and the names and addresses of the missing people.”

  “Do you have a comm?”

  I hold up my wrist.

  “I’ll get you added to our system as Azazel’s representative and get the data sent to you.”

  I drain my tea. “Great. I’ll keep you updated.”

  She leaves the coffee shop, and I tap a message to Fee. It’s been almost five hours since she left for the Beyond and my gut is all squirrelly. I need to know she’s okay.

  My comm beeps before I can type.

  Back at the house. Meet me there, stat – Fee

  I look around. The place is empty, and the owner has her back to me. Fuck it. I make the jump to Fee.

  Chapter Ten

  Fee

  We gathered in the lounge with the Christmas tree lights winking at us. I really needed to take that thing down, but I didn’t have the time. None of us did.

  Grayson and Dean perched on sofa arms, and Cora sat on the single-seater. Uriel had gone to the Academy with Keon, and they weren’t back yet, but I didn’t have time to waste.

  Seventy-two hours. That was all I had. I needed to leave for the Underealm ASAP, but I needed the people I cared about to know where I was going just in case…Just in case I didn’t make it back.

  “Fee, what happened?” Dean asked. “I smell blood.”

  Fuck, I’d showered off the Dread blood and changed out of my battle-stained clothes, but there was nothing to rival a Loup nose.

  Grayson was out of his seat, nose buried in my neck as he inhaled. He jerked away. “Dread blood?”

  “I may have helped clean up the Beyond.”

  “You had to fight?” Grayson’s mouth turned down. “What the fuck happened?”

  I filled them in as quickly as possible. “So, I have the location of the power source, and I’m leaving for the Underealm within the hour. I just… I wanted to see you before I left.”

  Grayson paled, but he nodded. “The last team they sent in didn’t make it back. Be careful, stick with the Dominions, and if shit gets hairy, you get out of there.”

  Ah, crap. He didn’t know I was going solo. This was the part where I bit my tongue and smiled and let him believe I’d have backup, but my poker face was always shit.

  “Fee?” Grayson looked wary. “What is it?”

  “Oh fuck,” Cora said. “You’re going alone, aren’t you.”

  I winced.

  Grayson looked from Cora to me. “What? No. Why would they ask you to do that?”

  I puffed out my cheeks, ignoring the squirming in my belly. “Because they’ve already given up. They have an escape plan. A flagship. And in seventy-two hours they’re going to drain what’s left of the power in the Beyond and propel their getaway vehicle into the ether to pastures new, leaving us to burn.”

  Silence filled the room.

  “We can’t get into the Underealm, can we?” Dean asked, even though he knew the answer.

  “No.” I gave him a small smile. “Trust me, I’m shitting myself, but I have to do this. There is no other way. If I don’t, then we all die.”

  “I’ll go with you,” Cora said. “I can get into the Underealm just fine; it’s getting out that’s usually an issue, but you can fly me back.”

  “Not if I’m carrying a power source. Besides, you need to look into the missing humans.”

  I still couldn’t believe Azazel’s deputy was a Mammon supporter. Cora had alerted Keon about the possibility of spies. Was that why he wasn’t back yet? Had they found spies?

  Cora made a sound of exasperation. “Missing humans won’t matter if the world ends. You can’t do this alone, Fee. You shouldn’t have to.”

  “She won’t.” Keon entered the room with Uriel in tow. “Because we’re going with you.”

  I absorbed the information Keon recounted. Mammon, the sneaky bastard, had sleeper agents in all the academies, and Master Luena had been one of them. Bloody hell.

  I glanced over at the daemon and the celestial standing by the Christmas tree as if they were getting ready for a festive snapshot to be taken, except they weren’t exactly dressed for festive.

  Keon had managed to snag a new outfit, more Dominus and less…naked. Black cargo pants that allowed his tail to be free and a black long-sle
eved V-neck top that hugged his lithe, muscular torso like a second skin. He’d braided his hair, but navy tendrils had come free to kiss his high cheekbones. The markings on his face seemed to stand out darker against his blue skin today. Uriel had been kitted out in a similar fashion, but he was bulkier than Keon, and the shirt stretched tighter across his shoulders. His dark hair was tousled by the elements, and his ember eyes looked like jewels framed by thick, dark lashes. They both looked dangerous and kick-ass, and they were coming with me.

  Relief was a live thing sucking the panic out of my chest. I wouldn’t be going alone, and that meant I could finally breathe.

  “Sleeper agents aren’t just at the Academy,” Cora said to Keon. “Azazel’s deputy is one too, and he was pretty cocky about it.”

  Keon hissed.

  My temple throbbed with the threat of a headache. “We need to let Azazel and Mal know.”

  “Already done,” Keon said. “I sent out phoenixes. We’ll meet them at the Hog and Boar on the far side of the Enmity River. We can spend a few hours and rest after our flight. We’ll hand over the coordinates to the cadet drop-off and fill them in on what Mammon is doing. Master Luena is meeting us there with a few chosen senior cadets.”

  “She’s going to go through the motions, isn’t she?” Cora asked.

  “Yes, and Azazel and Mal will be there with their men to capture the demons who come to collect the cadets.”

  “Smart,” Grayson said. “What about the sleeper agents at the other academies.”

  Keon’s mouth turned down. “Two academies have already lost contact with cadets who left on a field trip. The other two have identified and arrested the spies in their midst. It turns out that the drop-off was meant to occur in two batches. Our Academy was in the second batch.”

  So Mammon already had some of our cadets. Fuck. Still, we were lucky we’d cottoned on to Mammon’s plot when we did.

  “You won’t be alone,” Uriel said. “I promise I will protect you with my life.”