Page 33 of Reaper Unhinged
Keon’s jaw ticked.
“You’d have taken the time to come after me, wouldn’t you?” I took a step away from him and toward the edge of the path. “You’d have tried to save me.”
“Fee, don’t do this.” Keon bared his fangs and advanced on me.
I turned and ran into the fog.
* * *
“Uri? Uri, where are you?”I ran through the fog, boots crunching on stuff I couldn’t see.
“Fee!” Keon was hot on my heels. “Damn you, woman.”
Crap, if he caught me, he’d drag me back to the path. This was my only shot at finding Uriel and getting him out. I wouldn’t lose him. I couldn’t.
“Uriel!”
A strange silence descended on me, pressing down on me, its weight a palpable force pushing me to my knees.
“What?” My voice was a gasp. I couldn’t breathe. “Keon…” The word was a vise trying to squeeze the life out of me. I was going to die. “Please, God…”
The pressure eased suddenly, and air rushed into my lungs. I fell forward, hands braced on the earth, gasping in lungsful of sweet air. Oh, God. I… Fuck. Wait…What the hell?
The fog was gone, leaving me in a clearing by a river. Slender trees stood proudly around me, the canopy of dark, lush leaves reaching for a night sky dappled with stars.
“You shouldn’t be here,” a male voice said.
I scrambled up, dagger at the ready, to find a man dressed in rags sitting on a fallen log by the tree line. In his hands was a pipe…A flute or some kind of musical instrument.
Wait a second… “Youplayed the music?”
“Come closer, child,” he said.
“Not likely.”
“Now, is that any way to speak to someone who just saved your life?”
He’d stopped the vise?
He canted his head and smiled. He had a pleasant face, a trustworthy face, but his eyes were dark pools of sorrow, and his shoulders slumped as if he was carrying the problems of the world on them.
His brows flicked up slightly. “Well? Gratitude is a humble emotion.”
“Thank you for saving me, but you took my friend.”
He sighed. “No, child, that wasn’t me, and this?” He held up the flute. “Isn’t mine. I found it here. The spirits love mischief, and it seems they’ve taken a liking to your friend. They enjoy new playthings.”
“He’s not a plaything, and I want him back.”
He studied me for a long beat. “Why are you here?”
“Why are you here?”
He let out a bark of laughter, then pressed his lips together as if shocked by his reaction. “I asked first.”
Maybe if I played nice, he’d help me. “Fine, if you must know, the Beyond is dying, and I need a power source. Rumor has it there’s one here.”
“Here?” He looked amused. “In this place filled with the ancient dead?”
