Reaper (5 page)

It was another hallucination. I pushed myself to my feet and grabbed the dagger. Trying to shrug off the horrible feeling of having just died, I set my face and walked to the house, refusing to let whatever was messing with me see my fear.

Once I was safe inside the house, I allowed myself a few hyperventilating breaths. None if it was real, I reminded myself. Still, I just felt so weak. I held a trembling hand up so I could find my way to a light switch in the dark kitchen. The overhead lights gave me an instant headache. Squinting, I set the dagger on the counter and nearly screamed.

It was covered in blood.

“Ohmigod,” I dumbly stammered. “Ohmigod!” My shirt was soaked in blood. Fresh, wet, warm blood. My blood. Screaming in frustration and fear, I panicked and yanked my shirt over my head. “No!” I yelled. I wasn’t dead. I wasn’t a ghost. I looked down at my skin and whimpered.

I shook my head. “What is happening?” I whispered. My stomach was as smooth as ever, with no stab marks, scratches, bumps, or bruises. I threw the bloody shirt on the floor, glaring at it as if it might come alive at any second.

I didn’t know how long I stood in the kitchen, just staring in a stupefied state of confused fear. When my feet began to hurt, I shook myself back into reality.
 
Tentatively, I took a step forward and picked up the shirt, holding it between two fingers. I tossed it on the counter and, with trembling hands, spread it out.

Blood covered the front.

“What the…?” I whispered. “No.” I backed away, shaking my head. I cupped my face in my hands only to realize that they were covered in blood. With a small shriek of disgust, I raced to the sink and started scrubbing my hands.

Once the water ran clear, I stopped the drain and threw the bloody shirt in. I squeezed half the bottle of dish soap into the quickly filling water and tried my hardest not to hyperventilate. Without thinking of what I was doing, I turned the water off, picked up the bloody dagger and went upstairs.

I stripped out of the rest of my clothes—which were also covered in blood; no one warns you just how messy getting stabbed in the stomach is—and got into the shower. Warm water rushed over me, soothing my nerves and washing away the memory of my almost accidental suicide.

The Burning Man wasn’t real. He hasn’t been real—ever. The hoof beats, someone calling my name…none of it was real, was it?

“I’m going crazy,” I muttered, on the verge of tears. “And stabbing myself?” I questioned and held up the dagger. Droplets of water ran down the smooth blade. “It was real, I know it. My clothes prove it.”

An unwelcomed foreign thought entered my mind with such force it made me gasp. Unsure why I should object, I held up the dagger. Carefully, I pressed my index finger to the tip of the blade. It didn’t take much pressure to puncture my skin. Water mixed with the blood, sending a whirl of light pink down the drain.

“Holy shit!” I swore when I saw the little slice on my finger close up. I set the dagger down and inspected my finger. “It’s fine,” I stammered. “Ohmigod.”

 
And if once wasn’t enough, I sliced open another finger. The same thing happened. Healing got sped up times a million; blood seeped out of the wound, abruptly stopped and my skin fused together, not even leaving a scar. I pressed my finger on the blade again, mesmerized by the fast healing. I felt a little sick to be cutting myself, and after five times of slicing the skin on my index finger open, I stopped.

Without drying off, I got out of the shower and went into my closet. I retrieved a small knife, held it up, and brought my finger down on it. It took a few seconds for the bead of scarlet blood to seep out, and it took even longer for it to subside. I set the knife down and held up my dagger, cutting myself once more. As expected, the cut healed in seconds.

“I can’t cut myself with my own dagger,” I whispered hoarsely. “That’s pretty freaking awesome!”

I stuck the still bleeding finger in my mouth, debating on whether or not I should try re-cutting the wound with my dagger to see if it could heal over. Deciding not to chance it, I sat down on my bed. Water rolled down my hair and splashed onto the sheets, reminding me that I was still naked.

Leaving the dagger safely under my pillow, I toweled off and got dressed. Buzzed on fear, adrenaline, and now bewilderment, I wasn’t tired in the least. For the next hour, I went over everything in my head.

I knew the dagger incident was real, and, more so, it made sense to me. The daggers were made by magic for magic, and only those who possessed that magic could work them. Of course the makers would work in some sort of safety clause. How they gave the metal a memory was beyond me. But I didn’t want to question something I was eternally grateful for, though I was curious to what a fatal stab would do. Was it possible to heal in time? That was another thing I wasn’t willing to try.

The Burning Man, the whispers…there had to be
something
to connect them. Two years ago, I wrote a report on the effects of sleep deprivation. I hadn’t been sleeping well since Ethan and Hunter left; maybe that was the culprit? Deep down, I knew it wasn’t true.
 

At four-thirty, I felt the drag of exhaustion. I let out a deep breath and tried to go to sleep. When that didn’t work, I recalled a meditation technique I had read about in the psychic self defense book. I imagined that a ball of positive energy was floating above me, encasing me with its protective white light. Even I felt a little hokey summoning a ball of imaginary energy, but it worked and I didn’t wake up until late the next morning.

~*~

Ethan called as soon as I was done feeding the horses to tell me he had just left and would be home in time for dinner. Explaining to him that I discovered I couldn’t cut myself with my own dagger wasn’t fun; he didn’t take me seriously until I sent him a video. I was afraid he would run the SUV off the road in shock. I shared my fear of not wanting to test out the healing of a deep cut, and Ethan agreed. He asked me to stop self mutilating until he came home to see it in person.

 
I rode both horses, cleaned the house, and relaxed by taking the Book of Shadows and a blanket up to the turret. The spring air was growing warmer each day; if it wasn’t for the breeze, I wouldn’t have needed the blanket.

I flipped through the old pages to a section I had been skimming over the last several weeks. Whoever wrote it was a fan of small cursive writing, and I guessed that it was written by someone left handed, as the writing was smeared and nearly indiscernible at parts. I bent over for a closer look at the tiny black letters that spelled out ‘The Nether’.

From what I was able to read, The Nether was an entirely different dimension than the one I was living in. The thoughts of different dimensions and planes were confusing enough on their own. Add the impossible handwriting and an hour later I had a headache.

I closed the book and leaned back on the bench. I had only just relaxed when I felt it. I shot up, my heart swelling with something bigger than joy. As if a part of me I didn’t know I was missing was suddenly back, Hunter’s thoughts connected with mine. He and Ethan were close. I couldn’t judge the distance but I could feel the familiarity in Hunter as he looked out the window. Hunter was able to sense Ethan’s excitement to be home, which, somehow, I could feel.

“Holy crap,” I stated to myself.
 
I gathered my stuff and raced inside. If Ethan left at a normal morning hour, then he shouldn’t be this close to home yet. Maybe he left early on purpose and was hoping to surprise me. If that was the case then I didn’t want to crash his plan because I could telepathically talk to my dog.

Laughing at how odd that sounded, I opened up my laptop and started up
The Sims
, sitting cross legged on my bed, pretending to be enthralled in the game.
 
I didn’t have to look out the window to know that the black SUV was turning down the bumpy, gravel drive; Hunter’s mind showed me everything.

As I predicted, Ethan asked Hunter to wait downstairs while he crept up to our room. I couldn’t help but smile as I waited. I looked up just in time to see him appear in the doorway, with a smile on his face as well. I set my computer to the side and stood up; Ethan hurried over and wrapped his arms around me.

“I missed you,” he breathed, turning his head so he could kiss me.

“I missed you too,” I confessed. I pressed my lips to his and tightened my grip around his shoulders. “And you, boy,” I said as soon as we stopped kissing. Hunter leapt up onto the bed. I let go of Ethan and hugged my Guardian, who greeted me with just as much excitement as any other German Shepherd greeting his owner after being away for several days. “You guys got home early,” I stated.

Ethan shrugged but failed to keep the smile off his face. “Yeah, I woke up earlier than I planned.”

“You were homesick,” I teased.

Ethan sat on the bed next to me and wrapped his arms around my waist. “I think I was,” he told me.

“You think?”

“I never really had a home to miss,” he reminded me. “We were always moving or gone. Whatever we had came with us; there was nothing to come home to.”

“That’s really sad,” I said softly.

He shrugged. “That’s the life of a hunter.”

“Not anymore,” I promised.

“Show me the dagger trick,” he said eagerly.

“Ok,” I agreed and pulled the dagger from under the pillow. I spent the next few minutes stabbing my poor index finger so Ethan could watch it heal. He was just as fascinated as I was. I put the dagger under my pillow and sat close to Ethan.

He rested his head on my chest. “I’m tired,” he sighed.

“Me too,” I agreed. Since I got zero sleep during the night time, a nap sounded good right now. I suggested it to Ethan and he quickly agreed. He stripped out of his jeans and tee shirt and pulled me onto his chest.
 
I closed my eyes and listened to his slow, steady heart beat and smiled when I recalled how scared I was the first time I counted out the beats and realized his heart beat slower than the average sixty beats per minute. Ethan laughed and assured me it was normal for him since he was in good shape. I, of course, wasn’t satisfied until I looked it up on the internet and found out that it was true.

Hunter settled next to us and I resituated so I could have one arm around Ethan and one around Hunter. Safely sandwiched between my two favorite guys in the entire world, I fell asleep in a matter of minutes.

~*~

Nothing weird, odd, or remotely abnormal happened for the next three days, leaving me to think that stress and a vivid imagination made me crazy. The more I thought about the confusing incidents, the more I was convinced they were more or less dreams. In fact, the more I thought about it, the harder it was to remember. That, in its own, made my stomach twist and turn in knots.

I had stayed up until three-thirty in the morning finishing a book and opted to sleep in instead of going to the gym with Ethan. Hunter was still snuggled in bed next to me when Ethan came home. After throwing his dirty clothes on the floor and kissing me, Ethan got into the shower.
 
I pulled the blankets around my head and drifted back to near-sleep by the time Ethan came back into the room.

“Please tell me you’re not going to this,” he said.

“To what?” I mumbled.

“This,” he repeated.

“I can’t see,” I said, though I thought it was obvious. Holding a towel around his waist in one hand and a piece of paper in another, Ethan sat on the edge of the bed.

“A Coven Gathering?” he questioned with a hint of laughter in his voice. “You want to hang out with a group of tree-hugging, wannabe witches?”

“No,” I said honestly, though I felt slightly offended by his mocking tone. I had forgotten about the flyer, the Gathering, and meeting Sage at the bookstore.

“Then why do you have the flyer?” he asked.

“Someone gave it to me.” I sat up and ran my hands through my messy hair.

“Hmm,” Ethan said and read the info printed on the paper. “On second thought, maybe you should go.”

“Why?” I raised an eyebrow.

His brown eyes met mine and he smiled before quickly looking away. “No reason, I think it might be nice for you to meet other people with, uh, similar interests.”

I continued to stare at Ethan. “Similar interests? I doubt any of those people have seen a Harvester.”

“Not
demon
interests,” he went on. “Magic interests. Yeah, they don’t have powers like you, but they, uh, like magic stuff,” he tried.

I flopped back down on the bed. “I’m a social recluse and you know it,” I sighed.