Reaper: The Demontouched Saga (Book 3) (5 page)

“It’s been a while. Someone is due to walk in anytime.”

Decision time. I’ve been testing the handle enough during the conversation to know that I still can move metal. I know that I could handle two of them if they are the stupid type. AKA the type that will bring a knife or a gun into the room. A demon would handle me in this state without a weapon, so I would be gambling on whether or not Rick put a few human thugs outside the door.

The other option is to wait it out and play possum when the next being comes in and strike when he thinks it’s safe. The bad thing about this plan is that the odds tell me they would only send a demon to check on me.

I decide on option three.

This one has me playing dead when the next being comes in to check on me and then making my move on the handle a few minutes after they leave. It doesn’t take long for me to put it into action.

The door to the room opens up. I try to take as much of a peek through my closed eyes as I can, but all I can see is a nice pair of Red Wing boots on his feet.

He grabs my hair and lifts my head up. “Anyone in there?” I feel him shake my head around a few times. Nothing too rough, but it doesn’t take much to intensify my headache. “Tell Rick that he’s still out.” He forces my head back down to my chest.

The door creaks slightly as it opens. “He said to stay in there until he wakes up,” a voice says before the door shuts again.

“Did he now?”

I feel pain in the side of my face as he knocks me to the ground. If being slapped wasn’t bad enough, I know I’m going to get a nasty bruise from landing on my arm.

“Wakie-wakie little priest. Dickie-Ricky wants to play with you.” He kicks me square in the gut.

The pain of the blow nearly has me in tears, but it is harder to contain the laughter. From the force of the blow I can tell the idiot walked in here with steel toe boots. Someone didn’t get the memo.

It’s time to play.

I open my eyes and see him rearing his leg back for another kick. My mind focuses directly on the toes of his boot and I give it a push with my power. His footing gives, forcing him to fall on his face.

“What the hell?” he asks right before he feels my knees hit the side of his head.

I roll over on my front and try to pick myself up. If you have never tried to stand up with your hands tied behind your back, then consider yourself lucky. I’ll assume the rest of you have been arrested or have otherwise been detained at some point in your life. I barely get up to a kneel before Steeltoe grabs a chair leg and throws me back against the door.

The chair cracks slightly on impact, but not enough for me to bust further. If I don’t get out of this chair soon this fight might be a little one sided.

“I’m not that easy to kill,” I rush at him, knocking him into the bed. I hope that Zeke will be able to do his nifty death touch power without using his hands. When Steeltoe gets back up, I know I’m wrong.

“I’m going to make you squeal before I kill you, boy.”

I put everything I have into holding his boots in place. “Something tells me you aren’t the yoga type,” I say with a smile.

He shakes his head violently as I spread his legs apart. The screams start shortly after they are past his shoulders. A few moments later you can see the blood collecting in the crotch of his pants. I’m going to rip this fucker a new asshole for kicking me in the gut with those boots.

Literally.

The door opens and knocks me to the ground before I can finish ripping his leg off. Some guys know how to ruin all the fun. I’m back on my knees before I notice the blade moving to my throat.

“Enough.” Rick lifts it up slowly, forcing me to raise my head to avoid being cut. “Get that moron out of here.”

The two guys at the door enter the room and remove Steeltoe from the room. They stare at me intently as they pass by. I probe their bodies for metal while they pass, but come up empty. Looks like plan A was a loser too.

“I told that idiot not to wear those boots in here. He never believed that you were special.”

“Some people are intent on learning shit the hard way. You worked for Nal long enough to know that.”

“Nal didn’t teach me anything new. He is an amateur compared to what I’ve seen.”

That confirms my suspicion that Rick’s a demon. That would explain why he is walking around after he took a gunshot to the head when the hotel got attacked, and why he had the orb downtown.

“Why are you here, Mitch?” he asks.

“I came to see Nal. Happen to have a few questions for him.”

“Ahh. Shame you won’t have time to ask him.” He pushes me back onto the chair. “He is being prepared for his, gift.”

“So you are planning on killing me. I thought we were past that part of our lives.”

“Oh, Mitch. I will miss your sharp tongue when you are gone. You could have led armies, instead you are too busy licking Nal’s boots.”

“Better than working for you fucks. I’m going to make sure you regret trying to take shit over.”

Rick laughs. “I almost forgot, we have company in the room.” He sits on the bed next to Zeke. “Your little guardian angel has been rather quiet. He brushes the angel blade against Zeke’s chest. He isn’t trying to break the skin, but you can tell that it is making Zeke nervous.”

“Takes a tough guy to threaten someone tied up on a bed,” I say.

He gets up and walks to the door. “Do you think I’m a fool? Ezekiel here could kill me thirty times over without breaking a sweat if I untied even one rope.” He opens the door and says something I can’t make out to someone outside the door. I watch him close the door and turn around holding an orb.

How many of these things exist? I was tickled to know that one shattered in my fight with Duncan, but seeing another has me worried. Why would they need to collect souls?

He sets the orb on the nightstand near the bed and sits back down on the mattress.

Tears are running down Zeke’s face. I’ve never seen an angel cry. Shit, I’d be surprised if anyone has. He has to be scared like hell if he is crying now.

“What’s with the orbs?” I ask.

“Do you take me for your Saturday morning cartoon villain, Mitch? Some secrets are best kept closed.” He wipes a tear from Zeke’s eye before it is allowed to cascade down his face. “There is, however, one thing I have always wondered.” He tilts his head sideways at Zeke. “Do you have a soul?”

I watch in horror as Rick takes the angel blade and sticks it into Zeke’s chest. My attempt to stand up thwarted when a blast of bright white energy shoots out from the angel, knocking me into the wall. The chair shatters upon impact, sending me to the ground. I watch as the white light leaves his eyes, floating in the air for a few seconds before being pulled into the orb.

“Well, well. Angels do have souls,” Rick says smiling.

I try to get back to my feet, but my body won’t cooperate. I feel the tears form in my eyes right before my eyelids go heavy.

For the first time in my life I welcome sleep.

- 7 -

I wake up to the sensation of being carried over someone’s shoulders. The rocking motion would be soothing if my mind didn’t immediately go right to Zeke. I open my eyes and get welcomed by darkness. Whoever is carrying me obviously doesn’t want me to know where I’m going. Normally, this would send me straight into freak-out mode, but instead I welcome the chance to let the tears loose.

Zeke was a good man, a solid friend. We might not have met in the best circumstances, but he wasn’t one to leave a friend behind. It makes me feel like shit to know he died trying to help me. When I get out of here I’ll make sure he didn’t die in vain.

I hear a door open and then feel the weight of my body crash on the floor. I’m itching to talk a huge amount of shit right now. It’s probably a good thing it knocked the wind out of me.

“We’ll be back for you soon, princess.” The man kicks me in the gut before slamming the door behind him. Apparently this whole place wants to piss me off today.

It takes a minute, but I twist my body around and manage to plant my butt firmly on the ground.

“It’s been a while since I had company.” I hear from across the room. “Does the princess have a name?”

“Nal, is that you?”

“Holy shit!” Nal says. “Out of all the unlucky fuckers they could have thrown in the room with me, they choose the esteemed Mitchell Butler.”

“Not the smartest move they could make,” I say. “I take it they have you tied up too?”

“I have been for a while now. Bastards made me miss my own display.”

Guilt hits me like a ton of bricks. Ever since the night the convention center was demolished, I’ve been looking to blame Nal.

It was hard not to. Even he would tell you that the evidence is pointed squarely at him. That leaves only one person to blame.

“Did Rick get you too?” I ask.

“Yep. I came back here to pick up a camera before the show. No sooner than I walked into my room he hit me in the back of the head and knocked me out,” he says. “Been in here since.”

“Got a plan?” I ask. It was worth asking. Every plan I have come up with today has been a complete failure. Maybe it is time to get some fresh insights.

“I didn’t until you got here,” he says. “Hard to do much of anything when you are alone in an empty room.” He scoots on the ground towards me. “This way, princess. Follow the wall.”

I follow his lead and wiggle my way across the room until we bump into each other.

“Now, I’m going to assume you are tied behind your back like me,” he says. “We both need to twist around so our backs are at each other.”

“I got you from there.” It takes a minute, but we end up in position. He doesn’t need to say another word as I work on getting him untied. If the school system had known how things would go down, they would have taught this skill in school. Five minutes in I wish I had a knife handy as my hands are cramping badly.

“Can’t untie a knot without looking at it?” Nal laughs. “Here, let me get it.” It takes him about two minutes before he has my wrists loose enough to wiggle out. My first order of business is removing the sack from my head before getting Nal free.

“Took you long enough,” he says as he stands up. “Always pinned you as the boy scout type.”

“Parents weren’t a fan,” I say. Not that my aunt had much time to take me after they died either.

Nal walks to the small closet in the back and pats the walls.

“What the hell are you doing?” I say.

“You weren’t around in the beginning to know this, but when I took this place over I had a few guys working on some… modifications.”

“Doesn’t sound like you. Why would you need to change this place?”

He looks back at me. “This world is different, now. I saw the direction things were going and wanted to make sure I could hold onto anything I got.”

“That didn’t turn out well, I see.”

“Hard to plan on getting hit hard two times within a few days. We lost too much manpower on the first raid,” he says. “But, getting back to the story. I had the guys modify the closets a bit.” He pushes a spot about three feet up on the wall, allowing it to swing out into another room. “I also knew that there would come a time when I would need to get the hell out of here. Every room has a wall like this. All leading to the next. I tried to link up closets where I could, but there are spots where we just had to improvise.”

“The whole place is linked like this?”

“Every room.”

Well, I’ll be damned. I always knew that Nal was a forward thinker, but I never pinned him as the strategist type. For the first time, I felt like I may just get out of here in one piece.

- 8 -

“What floor are we on?” I ask as Nal opens another trap door.

“Fifth. Unless my judgment is off.”

That puts us too high to jump off, and probably too far to climb down. Meaning we’ll have to take the stairs down a few floors at some point. With any luck we can find a weapon or two first.

Nal walks into the next room with me directly behind him. The first thing that draws my attention is the walls being lined with piles of foodstuffs. I knew he had a large supply down in the kitchen, I would have never guessed he had some up here too.

I grab a box of beef jerky and throw a few to Nal. “Now if you had a room full of guns, we would be set.”

“Damn shame I decided to keep them up at my office. I wanted to keep a closer eye on those.”

I would have too. In his line of work, you rarely surround yourself with the most reputable people. It takes a special type of person to work for a crime boss. It just so happens that this sort of people end up believing that they could do things better than the boss.

Not going to say they all end up making a move, but the odds are higher than with any other line of work. This is precisely why Nal worked hard to keep me around.

“There should only be two more rooms before the stairwell.” He searches the wall for the door release. “Lucky for us, I had the guys open up the end doors into them. Unless they have someone watching the stairs, we should be as close to home free as we can get.”

“We should be good, the front set was clear when I came in earlier. I’d put money, though, that they got smart and posted a few guards in the lobby.”

“Probably best to assume that anyways.”

I hear the audible click when he finds his spot. Hopefully the next couple are quieter. If they have someone posted in the stairwell, we will be in trouble pretty damn fast.

The next room opens into a room still set up like a hotel room. The wall stops as it hits the frame of one of the twin beds spread about five feet apart. Nal closes the passage once I’m safely inside.

“Why is this room setup like a hotel room and the last one storage? Wouldn’t it make sense to put all your supplies on one floor?”

“Then they would know where to hit. This way it keeps them guessing. After a few rooms, most people would believe the floor to be empty and move up to the next. We could have the whole team picked off long before they even found one storage room.”