Page 55 of Reaper
“You did this, Harker!You cut off my daughter’s head, and now I’m going to cut off your girlfriend’s.You’re gonna know what pain feels like, Quincy Harker, I swear it by every demon in every Circle of Hell!”Then Mort leapt over the bar at us, clearing twenty feet in a single bound, and all my thoughts of figuring out what sent Mort off into Psycho-land vanished as every monster in the place came at us, and the shit well and truly hit the fan.
There were easily fifty shifters, vampires, faeries, and monsters from all corners of the magical world in the room, and I had one human standing with me.But it was the one human I loved more than anyone in the world, so I knew there was no better backup anywhere.Becks opened up with her shotgun, filling the bar with gun smoke and thunder, while I spun up a one-sided shield a couple feet in front of us.It wouldn’t hold anyone back for long, but a few seconds can be the difference in a fight for your life.
The shield stopped the first wave of attackers, and Becks’ torrent of silver and iron buckshot took down half a dozen in the first few seconds.I drew my Glock and put six rounds in faces from less than a yard away, dropping more bodies.Then the shield failed under the pressure of three dozen angry monsters, and I dropped my pistol, holding both hands forward, palms out, and calling power.
“Forzare!”I bellowed, channeling kinetic energy through my hands to push the pile back.If they swarmed us, we were done.The power coursing through my hands shoved me back a foot, but it flung ten or so of my opponents ass over teakettle backward throughout the bar.I summoned my soulblade and stepped forward, slashing through limbs and necks with every step.I didn’t even look at where I was swinging, just moved forward like my sword was a scythe and it was harvest time.They wanted the Reaper, well it was my fucking time.
Becks’s shotgun boomed again and again, and every time she fired, monsters fell and the screams of the wounded grew louder.I hacked through arms, legs, chests, and necks for what felt like forever, until my arms felt like they had anchors tied to them and my shoulders felt like knots of rusty steel cable.The fight was short, loud, and bloody, as Mort’s hired (or more likely volunteered, given my popularity with the local monster populace) goons fell like toy soldiers.It was barely two minutes after they charged that the only ones left standing were Becks, me, and the vampire Mort was riding in.
Mort stood at the back of the pack, just watching us and grinning.When the last of his henchmonsters fell, I banished my blade just as I heard Becks click empty on her shotgun.She dropped it to a nearby table with a loudthunk, and I saw her lean against the back of a nearby chair for support.
You okay?I asked.
My shoulder feels like hamburger, but I’m not injured.Just a little sore.You?
None of them even got a scratch on me.They didn’t stand a chance.Not sure what was up with this.If they had no shot at taking me down, why throw their lives away?
I looked at Mort, who just stood there grinning.“What the fuck are you smiling about, jackass?We just killed your whole crew.”
“But now you’re tired, and I’m still here.And this body I borrowed is almost as old as your dear uncle, so he’s one of the most powerful vampires in the world.Time to reap what you’ve sown, Harker.”
Then he sprang at us, and all the bullets in the world wouldn’t have done me a bit of good.He slammed into Becks, shoving her roughly against the front wall of the bar, and jammed his mouth down over her throat.In half a second, he had her head turned to the side and his fangs buried in her carotid.Except instead of a scream and a gout of blood, we got thecrunchof breaking teeth as he bit down into her chainmail choker instead.Mort jerked his head back, spitting teeth onto the floor and glaring at my fiancée.
“Won’t save you from a broken neck, bitch,” he snarled, broken teeth making him lisp a little.
“This will, asshole,” Becks growled back, then pulled the trigger on the pistol she had wedged up against his ribs.She slammed all fifteen rounds into his midsection in the span of a couple seconds, and Mort staggered back, shock spreading across his face.“You think Harker’s the only one here who’s taken out monsters, you stupid fuck?I faced scarier ish than you when I was a rookie walking a beat.And now I know what hurts you bastards, so I can pack all the silver and fire I need.”
Becks ejected the magazine, which must have been loaded with either cold iron or regular ammunition, since Mort was still standing, and slammed a fresh one home.She took a solid stance and leveled the pistol at the vampire with a demon riding shotgun.I noticed the red paint on the bottom of the magazine and knew if she hit Mort with one of those, it was game over.“These are tipped with white phosphorous, motherfucker.You get one of these in your gut and you’ll go up like a goddamned sparkler.”
I called my soulblade and gripped the hilt in both hands.“You ready to call this vendetta off, Mort?Or are you ready to die for real?Because if I shove this up your ass, you don’t go back to Hell.You justgo.For once and for all.No rebirth, no waking up all comfy in a lake of fire.You’re just done.Is that what you want?Is that whatChristywould want?”
I’d hoped bringing his thoughts back around to his daughter would give him clarity, let him see exactly how fucked he was, and maybe, just maybe give me a chance to prove to him that whatever he had in his head about what happened to his daughter was wrong, and that I had nothing to do with her death.
I have seldom been more wrong in my ridiculously long life.He didn’t gain any clarity, he just went further round the bend.He spun around to me and charged, hands outstretched like he wanted to rend me limb from limb.There was no plan to his attack, no strategy, just a mad rush at someone he wanted to destroy totally and finally.
Someone who was waiting for him with a very big sword.I stepped to the left, bringing my soulblade up as I did, and sliced through his neck without the least resistance.In an image mimicking Christy’s death years ago, his body collapsed like a puppet with its strings cut, but his head rolled forward, sightless eyes fixed on me as every bit of light, of tortured soul, went out of them.Mort’s borrowed body was turning to slurry even as it fell, but his eyes stayed locked on mine until I turned away, banishing my soulblade and walking wordlessly to Becks’ SUV.
There was nothing more to say.Nothing more to do.Mort was gone, and so was one of the last vestiges of Sanctuary in my city, and my life.
EPILOGUE
EPILOGUE
What was all that really about?”I asked our assembled brain trust that night.I sat at the head of our conference table in the apartment we kept empty as a “war room,” with Luke, Becks, and Xia all gathered around.Nameless had hopped up on the table itself, typically disregarding anything resembling propriety, and now lay curled up at the far end under Luke’s hand.I felt oddly disgruntled about my uncle completely co-opting my cat, despite never wanting a cat in the first place.
“What do you mean, babe?”Becks asked.“It seemed pretty clear-cut.Mort still blamed you for Christy’s death, and he wanted to kill you for it.”
I shook my head.“Not that.I get that, misplaced as his anger was.”I noticed the confused look on Xia’s face and gave her the condensed version.“Mort’s daughter, Christy, was a half-demon, a cambion.She was murdered a few years ago by a bad guy who wanted to open a Gate to allow his demon boss a permanent visa in this plane of existence.I had nothing to do with her death, didn’t even know she was his daughter until she’d already been taken, but that didn’t make her any less dead.”
I shook my head again.“But Mort said some shit right before he came at me that didn’t track.He talked like he’d gotten some kind of new information that implicated me in Christy’s death.Like I’d given her over to Orobas for some reason.That’s what made him decide I had to die—because he thought I legitimately killed his daughter.”
“What would give him that idea?”Luke asked.“Our encounter with Orobas was quite a number of years ago at this point.I would expect that any information about your involvement with Christy’s death would have come to light before now.Not that there is any information to come to light, of course.”He added that last bit at the end in an uncharacteristic nod to my prickly feelings.
“I have no fucking idea,” I said, refilling the rocks glass by my right hand.I was running low on Johnny Walker Blue, and this time I didn’t even have Faustus to blame.“And Mort was standing right next to me when we confronted Orobas.I don’t know how he could get the idea that
“Have you pissed anybody off lately that would be devious enough to come at you through Mort?”Becks asked, polishing off her detective skills.“You’ve got a lot of enemies, but they tend to come at you head on.Who wants you deadandis sneaky enough to use Mort to do it?”
I wracked my brain for as long as it took me to drain my glass, then set it down with aclickon the glass.“No idea to that one, either,” I said.Then something struck me.“But I had a question for you guys.”
