Page 4 of Reapers Don’t Ride

Chapter

Two

For a week, I waited. My thoughts refused to focus, and during my Thursday exercise with Cherry, I accidentally gave her a concussion from my lack of concentration. The poor ghoul.

The images of the crime scenes played over and over in my head to the point that I’d sketched them out, weighing every carefully arranged death over and over. There was no mistaking it. Tralcon was back, unless he had a copycat. I wasn’t sure which would be more terrible, the demon I knew, or a new one who aspired to the heights of evil Tralcon had achieved.

Finally, on Monday morning, I was in my cell, trying to focus on the silence and failing miserably, when Barbie came to my door.

“754, you’re wanted again, but this time, you get to bathe first.”

I stood slowly, walking over to the door while she studied me, brow furrowed. “What do you mean? I get to bathe first?”

“Those are orders. You’re to bathe and then dress in your civilian clothes before I take you on the roof.”

I smelled her concern. “You don’t like it.”

“Turning you over to the angels isn’t merciful unless you’re one of them. You’re a vampire.”

I smiled slowly. They’d finally come for me after an eternity of waiting. “I had noticed. Don’t worry. I won’t be gone long.” At least that was the hope, that we could kill the rising demon before he became a serious threat, and then I could get back to my idyllic existence here. It really had been my favorite way to live, in my private cell, blood bags every day, no one to force me to do anything I didn’t want to do.

She frowned at me. “That’s what they said? That they were going to use you for a job and then throw you back in here?”

She smelled so motherly. What was she doing in a prison when she cared about vampires? “It’s a privilege. And I’m grateful that I’ll get the chance to bathe first. I smell like stale blood.” That’s what my lawyer had told me when she bullied me into my court appearance wardrobe, that I smelled like stale blood and I wanted to be appealing to the jury, some of which might be sensitive to smells.

In the showers, I was in the echoing tiled room by myself for the first time since I’d gotten to prison, but I bathed as quickly as I ever did, washing the scent of blood from my skin, then putting on the lotion that was meant to neutralize my scent and add a little something extra. The clothing wasn’t mine, but what the lawyers had bought for me so that I would make a good impression. The red sheath dress beneath the long black jacket was a world away from what I usually wore, which was a black, supple, shadow-gripping suit that covered all of my pale skin. The red heels were the worst offenders to my sense of self-expression. I was an assassin, not a female propped on a corner to lure strangers, but apparently appearances mattered, and I wanted to make a good first impression on the angel, so I took my time with my appearance, even applying the subtle makeup that would make me look less dead. I already had much more color, since I’d been feeding regularly, every day a new blood bag whether it was stale or not.

When I was finally ready, I stood by Barbie, waiting for her to stop frowning at me.

“You don’t look like a criminal.”

“Good.”

“No, not good, just not a criminal. You look too clever to be caught. Come on then. May as well get this over with.” Was that a slur? I’d gone to the Sphinx in Song intentionally to be caught. If I’d tried to evade capture, then no one could have taken me alive. Not that I wasn’t already dead.

She led me up the stairs, down the back corridor, and then finally to the door where I’d let out the fly a week before. Was it my time to fly free?

If we were going out on the roof, then there must be a helicopter waiting for me. A helicopter meant that we would move quickly. I definitely approved of that after a week of doing nothing. I walked out, my heels annoyingly loud when they sank into the gravel, but I didn’t make a point of being silent. I didn’t want to look like a threat. I wanted to look normal, healthy, reasonable, not like an insane and out-of-control killer who couldn’t be trusted to work with angels.

The sky was overcast, and it took me a moment to make out a figure in the shadows in the corner of the building. When I made out the angel’s features, I stumbled, almost going down, but catching myself at the last second and flinging my damp hair back with the grace of a fresh-hatched duck. In other words, I hadn’t been so clumsy in a hundred years, but that face, the aura, the dark shadows coalesced around that perfect beauty was my favorite ghost.

It was him. The specter who had been with me a hundred years ago when I was starving for blood and killing the monsters who competed with Tralcon for dominance. It was in those moments on the far side of madness that I’d found solace in the company of a ghost who was only a symptom of my fevered, twisted, tortured mind. It had been a hallucination, and I hadn’t seen him for decades, not since I got more regular feedings in the ownership of Mr. Good, but that face was burned indelibly in my mind. Was he not real? Was I seeing things again? Now was not the time to break down into that feral creature I’d been when a demon owned my soul.

I stood very still, staring at the apparition until he slowly approached, unfolding from the shadows until I was almost sure he was flesh and blood. Still, could any creature be so unearthly beautiful?

“I'm Gavriel, and you are…” His voice was barely a whisper, but it still penetrated through my shock.

“Names aren't important,” I said through lips that apparently still worked.

He tilted his head ever so slightly as he studied me, my red sheath dress beneath long black jacket, down to the impractical heels. “Names are very important, and so is trust between partners.”

“Partners? You're my parole officer, not my friend.” I pressed my lips together, horrified that I’d said that to him. I was trying to be agreeable. Why couldn’t I be agreeable?

"I could be both." He smiled slightly, and I found myself sneering back. If he was real, he was too pretty, too beyond angelic into something disturbing. He was death’s shadow. No, he was death, and death was something I couldn’t pretend with.

“I don't have friends.” I took a deep breath. “But that doesn’t mean I can’t be a valuable asset to the team.”

“Team?” His voice was slightly louder that time, and the effect on me was instantaneous. I wanted to sink my teeth into him and drink up that voice until I reverberated with it. Which wasn’t a rational reaction. And I was trying to appear as calm and pulled-together as possible. And not insane. Difficult when I still wasn’t sure if he was a hallucination.