Tears of the Reaper Read online

  “They sure as hell don’t like having me here, do they?” he could not keep from asking Elder Barrow.

  “You are an outsider, Lord Owen, and a Reaper. You are something completely unknown to them. They mean you no disrespect so please excuse their curiosity,” the older man replied.

  He saw Rachel standing beside a well in the center of the compound. She glanced at him then quickly away, lowering her head as she cranked the handle to bring up a pail of water. He felt as though she’d slapped him and put a hand up to his cheek. He had to tear his mind from her as Elder Barrow ushered him into the infirmary.

  The healer came toward them, bowing slightly. “I am Healer Benjamin Tate,” he introduced himself. “It is an honor to meet you, Lord Owen.”

  Owen clenched his teeth at the title. Where it hadn’t bothered him on his home turf, it irritated the hell out of him here in Manontaque.

  “He needs Sustenance,” Elder Barrow said. “Taken from the arms of volunteers.”

  “Taken as you would a normal blood transfusion,” Owen was quick to say for the healer’s face had blanched.

  “Ah!” Healer Benjamin said. “That we can do.”

  “Male, preferably strong males such as Edward,” Owen insisted.

  “I will gather the men while you get things ready,” Elder Barrow said, and didn’t wait for agreement from the healer before hurrying out of the infirmary.

  “I wish we could have placed you here in the infirmary but we have two men who are dying and…”

  “I was making too much noise,” Owen said. “I understand. Can you tell me where the body of Elder Carlton is?”

  “Through there,” Healer Benjamin answered, pointing to a door at the end of the room. “Do you wish to see him?”

  Owen nodded. “Are you the mortician as well?”

  “We call that job Diener,” the healer replied as he began laying out the instruments necessary to transfuse blood. “It is assigned to my cousin Gilbreth.”

  “Has he started preparing the body?”

  “Not as yet.”

  “Good, then perhaps I can find clues to track his murderer.”

  Owen went through the door into the embalming room and wasn’t surprised that the healer followed him.

  “He was found in his field?”

  Healer Benjamin replied that he had. “His family are dairy farmers and he was out inspecting his herd. When he did not return for the morning meal, his five-year-old son went looking for him.”

  “A bad way for your child to find you,” Owen observed as he stared down at the horrible pallor of the dead man’s face.

  “Elder Carlton was not the first to die in this manner.”

  Owen looked across the body to the healer. “Barrow didn’t tell me that.”

  Deep creases formed in the healer’s forehead. “That surprises me for it was his nephew who was the first to die.”

  “When was this?”

  “Five months ago. There has been a death each month since.”

  Owen blinked. “And your militia hasn’t been out to investigate?”

  Healer Benjamin shrugged. “The other deaths appeared to be the work of wild animals. The bodies were mangled,” he replied. “This is the first where there are no deep scratches or ragged bite marks.”

  “Were there puncture wounds like these on the other victims?”

  “Aye and all the blood was gone. Gilbreth found not a drop when he prepared them for burial. The bodies had been savaged horribly.”

  Putting his fingertips to the dual wounds on the dead man’s throat, Owen unconsciously swept his tongue over his own lateral incisors. “No animal did this,” he said.

  “Perhaps not this one,” Healer Benjamin said. “Elder Barrow believes it to be the work of a balgair. I suppose…” He stopped for the Reaper had bent over and flicked out his tongue, dragging it across the puncture wounds. He slapped a hand over his mouth to keep from gagging.

  “Not balgair,” Owen said as he straightened up. There was confusion on his handsome face. “Not Reaper DNA either.” He stepped back from the table. “Something else, something not human.”

  “Then it is an animal,” the healer said against the camouflage of his hand.

  “No, not animal,” the Reaper stated. “I need to be alone for a few minutes.”

  The healer’s face drained of color and he quickly turned away. He was out of the room before Owen could tell him he needed to contact the Shadowlords at the Citadel.

  “What the hell do you think I’m going to do to the body?” he grumbled as Healer Benjamin firmly closed the door. “Eat it?”

  Well, he thought as he looked around for a place to sit down, it wouldn’t be the first time a Reaper had consumed a dead body. It just wasn’t something he had ever contemplated doing, but then again, the need had never arisen.

  Locating a chair, he sat down with his knees spread and braced his elbows on his thighs. The headache was making it hard for him to think coherently and he knew he was missing something here, something vitally important. Attempting to clear his mind of the pain and the myriad thoughts crowding it, he closed his eyes and called Lord Kheelan’s name.

  He didn’t have long to wait before the High Lord answered.

  “You are well, Lord Owen?”

  “No,” Owen answered, “but we have a situation here and I need your help.”

  There was a minute pause then Lord Kheelan asked him where he was.

  “Some place I gods be damned have no business being,” Owen replied. “I’m in Manontaque.”

  “You are correct in saying you should not be there but I sense more to this. What is wrong with you, Owen?”

  “I believe I have tenerse poisoning,” he admitted. “I’ve been taking too much of the drug.”

  Censure filled the High Lord’s voice. “Abusing the drug to forget your problems is not what I imagined you would do when I granted you leave. I thought you a stronger man than that.”

  Owen flinched. “I thought I was too, but my condition is unimportant. The Colony where I am has had several murders. One of the elders thought it was a balgair.”

  “In the Provinces?” Lord Kheelan exclaimed. “We have had no Intel on that.”

  “It isn’t a balgair,” Owen stated. “It’s something else and I’m not sure there’s just one of them.”

  There was another long pause and Owen had the impression Lord Kheelan was conferring with Lords Naois and Dunham. When the High Lord spoke again, he asked Owen to concentrate on the taste he had pulled from the dead body.

  “Tell us all you can of it,” Lord Kheelan demanded.

  It was a bitter, acrid taste Owen had picked up from the wound. The slight bit of dried saliva left behind had stung his tongue when he licked it.

  “It stung or it singed your tongue?” Lord Kheelan wanted clarified.

  Owen shook his head. “What’s the difference? I don’t know that I would…”

  “Did it feel as though your tongue were burning as though from coffee too hot or was it like a paper cut to the tongue?”

  Thinking back on it, Owen replied it was more a paper cut.

  Again there was another long silence then Owen distinctly heard Lord Kheelan clear his throat.

  “We are sending Lords Glyn and Iden to help you with this. Where in Manontaque are you?”

  Owen had no idea and called out to the healer. It took the man a moment before he slowly opened the door and stuck his head inside, his gaze staying away from the dead man. “What is the name of this place, Benjamin?” he asked.

  “We are the Communalists,” the healer replied. “Our Colony is called New Towne.”

  “How far are we from the Forbidden Zone?” Owen queried.

  “Two miles to the northeast,” was the reply.

  “I am two miles northeast of the destroyed Saint Marie on their side of the border,” he told the High Lord.

  “Let them know your fellow Reapers are coming and I’ll research what I can find out ab
out the Communalists. Something prods my mind about that name but I need to investigate further,” Lord Kheelan sent to Owen.

  “Thank you, Benjamin,” he said, waving the man away.

  “I will have your teammates fly to Saint Marie and pick up horses and supplies there. We will send medication to help you with this problem you have developed,” Lord Kheelan said when Owen gave him the healer’s answer. “Don’t take any more tenerse than is absolutely necessary to maintain your cycle—which I assume you’ve fucked to hell and back.”

  Hearing the High Lord use such language shocked Owen and he almost forgot to ask for a pair of the dark spectacles Glyn used.

  “I will have him bring them along and, Lord Owen?”

  “Aye, your grace?”

  “Expect a lengthy stay with us when you return to the Citadel.”

  Chapter Four

  Annoyed that he hadn’t asked Lord Kheelan what he and his fellow Shadowlords thought was behind the murders, Owen left the embalming room and the stench of death cloying in his nostrils and went out into the infirmary. He was surprised to see several strapping men sitting on straight-back chairs with the sleeves of their dark blue shirts rolled up above the elbows. Among them was Edward, who gave him a wan smile.

  “I am grateful to you men for your help,” Owen said, rubbing absently at his right temple.

  “It is an honor to be of help to you, Lord Owen,” Edward replied. “If you can find and stop the creature that is killing our people, it will be a godsend.”

  “Why do you call it a creature, Edward?” Owen asked. He had to sit down for the few beakers of blood already drawn were screaming at him to gulp them down. The hellion was bunching and twisting in his back and intensifying the agony in his head.

  Edward glanced at one of the other volunteers. “Brother Daniel Patterson saw it,” he answered.

  “I surely did,” Brother Daniel confessed. “I thought it would attack me but it ran away.”

  “I only just heard of this. He did not tell Elder Barrow of the sighting,” Healer Benjamin accused.

  “Why not?” Owen asked. He was licking his lips and several of the men were turning green from watching him.

  Brother Daniel held his hands up in apology. “It bore the look of Brother Landon but it had long claws, sharp fangs and red eyes. Its face was a strange greenish color. I did not think I should dare speak of such to Elder Barrow.”

  At Owen’s look of confusion, Edward told him Landon had been Elder Barrow’s nephew, the first to die.

  Owen sat back in the chair, his headache pushed aside. “You are sure of this? You couldn’t be mistaken about what you saw?”

  “Brother Landon and I were close friends, Lord Owen,” Brother Daniel told him. “I know what I saw but the creature only looked like my friend. It was not truly Brother Landon. He is dead and long buried. I helped carry his coffin. This thing that bore his likeness was depraved, a creature of great evil.”

  The Reaper could no longer wait for the Sustenance. His body was burning with fever and the hellion was tormenting him brutally. He asked the healer to hand him one of the beakers.

  To give the men of the Colony their due, not a one lost their lunch from watching the Reaper consume their blood but their faces were pale as he did so. By the time he’d downed four of the beakers they did not appear quite as squeamish about it.

  “Where are your people buried?” Owen asked, wiping the back of his hand across his mouth.

  “Our graveyard is west of the compound,” Edward replied.

  “Your elders aren’t going to like this but I need to open Landon’s grave,” Owen told them.

  “Desecrate his grave?” Brother Daniel gasped. “But why?”

  “I wouldn’t do this unless I felt it was necessary,” Owen replied. “Who do I need to speak with to open Landon’s grave?”

  “Me,” Elder Barrow said from the doorway. No one had heard him enter. He stood there with his gaze fiercely angry, his hands clenched into fists at his side. “Why would you wish to do such a blasphemous thing?”

  “Brother Daniel believes he saw Brother Landon just before Sister Margaret was murdered two months ago,” one of the men spoke up. He was a younger version of Elder Barrow and it was easy to see they were father and son. “He hesitated telling you for fear of hurting you, Papa.”

  Elder Barrow’s attention snapped to Owen. “What filth have you been feeding my people, Reaper?” he demanded.

  “He has said nothing, Elder Barrow,” the healer injected. “He has only asked questions.”

  Taking several steps toward Owen, the older man glared down at him. “You think my kin is vampire?”

  “It isn’t a balgair or a Reaper killing your people,” Owen told him calmly. “I don’t know what it is but I have contacted the Shadowlords and they are sending two of my teammates out to help me find and rid you of these creatures, whatever they are.”

  “Our Míliste…” Elder Barrow began.

  “Will be of no use if these are creatures not of this world,” Owen reminded him. “It will take blood drinkers to find blood drinkers, vampire or not.”

  Elder Barrow narrowed his eyes. “My nephew is not a vampire. I will open his grave and prove it to you and when that is done, I want you gone from New Towne!”

  Owen was accustomed to being treated as though he had the plague. It was the same wherever Reapers went. Even those people who needed and asked for their help were glad to see them leave, only too happy to be rid of them after the job had been done. With the exception of the extraordinary people of Haines City, it was always the same. He didn’t know why he thought it would be any different above the border.

  “But we need him, Papa,” Elder Barrow’s son declared. “We need his help.”

  “Do not speak to me, Brighton!” Elder Barrow hissed. He turned his back on Owen. “Come and let us be done with this atrocity so he may be on his way.”

  “He is not well, Elder Barrow,” Healer Benjamin said. “One has only to look at him to see that.”

  Elder Barrow made no comment but kept walking, snatching open the door and striding out into the compound with his head high and shoulders rigidly back.

  “I am sorry, Lord Owen,” Healer Benjamin said.

  Owen got to his feet and held up a hand. “Don’t sweat it. I’m used to being the outcast,” he said.

  “You are not an outcast here. We will go with you,” Edward pronounced, and Daniel as well as Brighton came to stand beside him.

  * * * * *

  The graveyard was as neat and pristine as the rest of the Colony that Owen had observed. It was fenced in with an intricate wrought iron barricade with a stunningly beautiful pair of wrought gates that looked like spreading live oaks.

  “Did you fashion this, Edward?” Owen asked.

  “My grandfather did before I was born,” Edward replied, gripping one of the three shovels they had stopped by the stable to get. The men refused to allow Owen to take one though the Reaper had offered.

  “But he has added the benches you see scattered about,” Daniel put in.

  “As well as the urns, which hold the flowers,” Brighton added.

  “You are a talented man,” Owen told the blacksmith, for he was staring at one of the low benches Daniel pointed out to him.

  Elder Barrow opened the gate on the right, the squeaking sound the only one to be heard on the hill upon which the graveyard sat. A slight breeze scattered the leaves that had fallen from the maples positioned around the immaculate grounds.

  Each grave was marked by a simple wooden cross with the deceased person’s name and dates burned in elaborate script upon the arms of the cross.

  “Brother Samuel does the calligraphy,” Brighton explained. “And my father uses a soldering iron to follow the script.”

  “He is not interested in such things, Brighton. Pray cease your prattle,” the elder snapped. He was gripping a crowbar he had brought with him from the stable.

  “I am intereste
d,” Owen disagreed. “I took to whittling when I was a boy and still do it from time to time.”

  “I can provide you with a kit if you wish to do so while you are with us,” Daniel said.

  “He will not be here that long,” Elder Barrow declared as he came to a halt before his nephew’s grave. The name and dates read Landon Dane Grimes, April 26, 3449–July 10, 3478.

  “Twenty-nine years old,” Owen said. “Much too young to die.” He glanced at Daniel.

  “We could not have an open-casket ceremony,” Brighton said. “He was mauled too savagely.”

  “It was a wolf,” Elder Barrow stated. “I am sure of it.” He gave Owen a hard look. “And that is what killed the others.”

  “It wasn’t what killed Brother Carlton,” Owen said quietly.

  The older man snorted and went to sit on a nearby bench. He looked out over the rows of crosses, seemingly unable to watch his nephew’s resting place desecrated.

  Owen was having a hard time standing there in the sun with the brightness piercing his skull like shafts of steel and he did not want to join the elder on the bench for he knew he wouldn’t be welcomed. So he sat down tailor-style on the neatly clipped grass as Daniel, Edward and Brighton set about opening the grave to dig up Landon’s coffin. Arming the sweat from his brow, he looked down at his lap and he heaved a long sigh. From the way his cock had reacted to Rachel, it was in good working order. That was one worry off his mind. He had been afraid he’d never function as a man should after the incident in Calizonia. But—he reminded himself—the proof would be in the putting.

  He grinned at the intentional pun and when he looked up, he was a bit surprised to find Elder Barrow staring daggers at him. The Reaper’s smile slowly faded.

  “I am glad you can find amusement in this, Lord Owen,” Elder Barrow snapped.

  Knowing there was nothing he could say that would help the situation, Owen kept silent. He turned his attention to the men excavating the grave.