I stood on the balcony for several moments, listening to the roaring of the surf and the whistling of the wind, letting it take my thoughts to dark places. Midnight was drawing near, and all I could think about was the difficult journey I had set out in front of me.
Not the reaping I would be doing with Aspyn tonight, but the choices I had to make about my future. It wasn’t only about me. The decisions I make would affect everyone. There was so much to accomplish in such a short time. I still had to talk to TJ and Zane, and the sheer silence of the island was getting to me.
If there was nothing happening here, maybe there was activity on the mainland. It was risky leaving Hallow Island, but if I was going to figure a way to restore the seal, I needed to know what we were up against.
Who the heck knew…maybe we were all wrong and the barrier wasn’t gone. Maybe we were all stressing for nothing.
The fleeting thought might have come too soon, as the newscasters voice flowed through the TV, urgent and grave.
Tonight, roughly ten accounts of ghost sightings have been reported in and around the New Orleans area. But the numbers are multiplying as details of the encounters are reported: tales of ghastly figures attacking the public, causing harm, destruction, and even death. The city has is in chaos. People are locking themselves up in their homes. Descriptions of the sightings are disturbing: muted skin, soulless eyes, even floating in the air. The reporter’s voice showed some stress. The flood of emergency calls to local stations are overwhelming law enforcement.
Most alarming are the bodies that are piling up along the French Quarter. Just what is going on in the city? Some have suggested this is the result of chemical or water pollution .One thing is certain, New Orleans has never witnessed such horror and at this moment seems to have no ability to stop it.
My balance wavered as the room started to spin. I reached for the edge of the dresser, steadying myself, absorbing the shock of what had been reported. Dammit, the world was already starting to crack. The end was not far behind.
“We’re going to be busy tonight.”
Startled, I jumped at the sound of Aspyn’s voice. “Did you see this?” I asked, pointing to the images flashing across the screen.
She nodded. “We’ve got work to do, girl. Ready to rock?” Aspyn was dressed in head-to-toe black leather. Her pants were sucking the life out of her thighs. At her hip, a silver blade sparkled in the moonlight. She looked like she was about to go postal on some vampires.
I wrinkled my nose. “As long as you don’t expect me to dress like that.”
She puckered her lips. “You could totally pull it off, you know, but your jeans and t-shirt will do,” she huffed, as if my fashion offended her Catwoman persona.
Whoo-hoo. “Fantastic, because there’s no way I’m showing that much cleavage.”
She put her hands on her hips, smiling. “You don’t know what you’re missing out on. It’s liberating. I mean, what’s the point in having them, if you can’t flaunt them?”
“I guess that’s one way of looking at it.”
She gave a slight nod. “Come on. We need to get started. Where’s the entourage?”
My eyes drifted to the corner of the room, where just beside the TV sat a German shepherd with soft, fluffy fur. “Uh, we both needed a little space, so he went into stealth mode.”
A wily smile quirked on her lips. “Ahh, isn’t he just a cute little pooch,” she cooed, strutting across the room.
Declan growled, baring his sharp canines.
Aspyn’s grin only widened as she patted the top of his head. “Down boy.”
He snapped at her hand.
Note to self: don’t pet the dog. “So how do we do this?” I intervened before blood was shed. My bedroom floors had seen enough.
Aspyn shot Declan a smug glare before she spun around to address my question. “I’ll show you. Ever been to New Orleans?”
I secured my hair into a tight ponytail, preparing for business. “Nope.”
She grabbed a hold of my hand, her ruby red lips curving. “This is going to be fun. I hope you like things spicy.”
I glanced up, meeting her eyes as a tingle of power radiated down my forearm, and I took a deep breath. Maybe I should have been nervous, but I was excited.
Nothing prepared me for moving through time and space as a reaper. It was like what I imagined having an out-of-body experience would feel like. Each cell in my body seemed to come apart, minuscule molecules that floated in the air. And when I was put back together, Aspyn, Declan, and I were no longer in my room. Declan was no longer a German shepherd. Aspyn was still beautiful. And I was sick off my ass.
Doubling over, I turned around, giving Aspyn and Declan my back as I littered the ground with the cheeseburger, fries, and chocolate shake I’d had for dinner. Disgusting. After I finished hurling my guts all over Bourbon Street, I wiped the back of my hand over my mouth and stood up. I hated puking. It always burned the back of my throat and left a rotten taste in my mouth.
“You okay?” Declan asked. He lightly rested a hand on my shoulder.
I nodded, feeling my pale-green skin start to tinge pink in mortification. “What was that?” I asked.
Her pretty painted mouth thinned in a straight line. “Don’t worry. It is perfectly normal to feel out of sorts after a jump.”
“You should have warned her,” Declan scolded.
If they kept bickering all night, I was going to get a migraine along with the upset stomach, but at the moment, I was more concerned with my body. My hands raced over my arms and chest, verifying I was fully intact, that I wasn’t missing a finger, or toe, or tit. I exhaled, positive I was in one piece and my gut was going to stay where it was. “Anyone have gum?”
Aspyn chuckled. “Here you go.” She pulled a slim pack of Trident from her back pocket.
I withdrew a piece and popped it into my mouth. My first reap wasn’t going so hot. Can’t wait to see what happens next. I had so many questions, but only one that mattered at the moment. “How did you do that?”
“All reapers are capable of jumping, the ability to move from one place to another no matter space or distance.”
“You still haven’t explained how you did it,” I pointed out.
“Well…” she drawled out. “It’s not exactly easy to put into words. We’re naturally pulled toward death. The simplest jump is when a human has been marked. All it takes is their name, your body and energy do the rest.”
“If you say so.” There was no need for me to pretend I understood. She made it sound simple, but there was nothing simple about the way I felt afterwards.
I took in my surroundings. Street lamps hung from poles lining both sides of the road, lighting up the heart of the French Quarter. Tourism usually made the streets full of life, but tonight it was comatose. Not a sight of life was detected, but in the dark alleys and concealed crevices hid more than thugs and the homeless. Ghostly predators. The air smelled of death…and my regurgitated dinner, not pleasant scents.
The three of us weren’t worried about the few lingering humans who were oblivious to the danger they were in. They couldn’t see us, except for maybe the frail white-haired old man whose scruffy and unkempt silver beard gleamed under the moonlight. “Don’t hurt me. I’m not ready to die,” he rambled as we walked by.
“We need to move,” Declan instructed, coming to my side. There was a calm lethality to his watchful eyes.
I rubbed my hands up and down my arms, but nothing I did would chase the chill that had settled in my blood. “I can feel them.”
Aspyn nodded. “They’re ready to move on, find peace. Their souls call to you.”
The first body we stumbled upon was a woman in her twenties. She was dressed in a killer little black dress with stellar heels on feet angled oddly. Her legs were bent in almost the shape of a W. I cringed, knowing her death hadn’t been painless or easy. The contours of her face were twisted in a cry of agony.
Declan placed his hand to her heart, and the red veins trailing down his hand trickled into the body, releasing her soul.
His glamour hummed in the air, and I felt the first real emotion from Declan. Remorse. He was exceptionably good at being stoic. At times, I had wondered if he was capable of anything other than stoic expressions. It was nice to know he wasn’t a machine.
“Glad to see you still got the touch, and bodyguarding hasn’t made you a complete tool,” Aspyn chimed in a flat voice.
Declan extended his legs, giving Aspyn a look of half annoyance. “You do your job, I’ll do mine.”
Here we go again. It was like a ride along with Princess Leia and Hans Solo. The tension was electric. They needed to kiss and just get it over with, but I wasn’t going to be the one making the suggestion.
Aspyn stepped over the woman’s body. “Whatever you say, boss.”
We ventured deeper into the French Quarter, moving steadily toward our goal—the souls of the dead. But as we rounded a corner, I got a weird prickly sensation. My eyes scanned the area around me, but there was nothing.
Aspyn came to a dead stop, her arm extending out in front of me. “No sudden movements,” she whispered. “We’re not alone.” She had that right. At the mouth of the narrow alley, a dark shadow slowly came into focus.
Declan stiffened just as I did. His bulky form was suddenly in front of me. I stood on my toes, glancing over his shoulder, trying to get a glimpse at what was coming at us. Logic said it was probably a hallow…or fifty. But, there was something familiar about the tingles radiating inside me. They escalated, as whatever was in the shadows grew closer.
I should have been afraid or nervous, but oddly I was neither, and that only meant one thing.
Zane.
My whole body sighed.
He stepped out from the shadows, the street lamp casting a beam of light over his dark cheekbones. His eyes bypassed over me and landed straight on Declan and Aspyn. The expression on his face wasn’t outright hostile, but that didn’t say much. Zane could be a ticking time bomb. You never knew when he might go off.
I decided to defuse the torpedo before we all went boom. “Goddammit, you scared the crap out of me.” My fingers gripped the front of his shirt and tightened.
Zane ignored me. “What the hell is she doing here?” he hissed over my head at Declan.
I almost felt sorry for my bodyguard. “Keep your boxers on, Zaney,” I replied in Declan’s defense. “He is only doing his job...plus, I didn’t give him a choice.”
Serious anger clung to his features as his eyes shifted downward. “And you thought this was a good idea?”
“I—”
“Actually, it was my idea,” Aspyn said, stepping forward.
“Oh, I’ll deal with you later.” A chill passed through the air, but he kept his artic gaze on me. He rubbed his palms roughly over his face. “Do you have any idea what is happening?”
“Of course I do,” I said, unclutching my hand from his shirt. “And nothing you can say or do is going to make me leave.”
“Then I don’t think I need to tell you how stupid it was to step foot off the island tonight of all nights.”
“Here’s the deal. When I decided to go, I didn’t know there was going to be a massacre tonight. Regardless, what are you doing here? Spying on me?”
He snorted. “I don’t need to spy on you to know you’re always getting yourself in trouble. And no. The city is swarming with hallows. Death summoned all crows to defend the city while the others release the souls already gone.”
“These deaths weren’t supposed to happen.” The balance of the world was already being tipped to the wrong side—the dead. “Were they?”
Zane shook his head. “No. This is only the beginning. More people will die if we don’t stop them. And for the safety of mankind, you shouldn’t be here. If something happens to you, there will be no way to restore the balance. Don’t you see how important you are?” His hands were on either side of my arms.
“I can’t hide away forever. This is my fight too.” Not to mention, what about him? It was okay for Zane to put himself in danger? He wasn’t the only one who worried.
We stood staring at each other with the wind howling in the distance. His eyes showed how much he wanted to argue with me, but that was because he was thinking with his emotions. It was second nature for Zane to protect me, given the oath he’d taken and how he felt about me, but in that moment, he realized it was my duty to be here. I needed to show the sectors that I cared, that I was invested, and I meant business.
Aspyn cleared her throat. “Guys, we can stand here and argue about Piper breaking out of jail, or we can release the souls and destroy as many of these dead assholes as we can find.”
Finally, something we could all agree on.
Zane relented, but he let us all know he wasn’t happy about it. “If anything happens, it is on you,” he snarled at Aspyn.
She gave a humor-less giggle and angled her head. “I thought one of you was bad. Now we get the douchetastic duo. Which one of you—”
A crash sounded not too far in the distance, and Zane went rigid in front of me, eyes darkened to midnight glass. Black veins spidered over the sharp angles of his face, trailing down his neck and over his shoulders. That was as far as I could see, but I knew his entire body was pumping with crow blood.
Shit was about to go sideways.
Eyes shining in the darkness, Zane, in one fluid motion eased me behind him. “Princess, stay close.”
That’s the goal.
I was going to be stuck to him like crazy glue. My heart rate jacked up as I pulled forth my core power as a precautionary. If whatever was coming at us wasn’t alive, I would be ready. Fear was a natural instinct at the onset of danger, but I refused to let my fear rule me.
My body went into an automatic protective mode, clearing my mind as I concentrated on the sights and sounds of my surroundings. No matter how many hallows I came in contact with, it still came as a surprise. A pale figure tore out from around the corner of the brick building. His clothes might have been nice and neat at one time, like when he was alive.
For a moment no one moved.
I lunged forward.
“Piper!” Zane called.