Chapter 31

Quinn found himself riding in silence with Anna and the little girl back to town. The little girl sat close beside him. He tried to ignore her, but her steady stare was unsettling.

Very unsettling.

Her daddy question hit him like a two by four swung right into his belly. It made him literally breathless. To add to the confusion, his mind was running around in circles trying to figure out what to do with her. Somehow it had become his job to make sure she was okay. He had enough experience with the System to knowshe was never going to go there if he had to run for the rest of his life to keep her out.

But he wished she would quit with the staring.

He gave her a side eye and was surprised when her little head snapped to the side to peer out the passenger side window.

A faint scream had sounded.

“Bad things,” She murmured, “Wrongness.”

Anna was looking at her with an expression of absolute shock.

Quinn stopped the truck and backed up to the driveway of the farmyard they had just passed. He wrenched the wheel and pulled in.

Anna switched her still-shocked gaze from the little girl to him.

“What are you doing? This is old Edna’s place.”

“Something’s wrong. Didn’t you hear the scream? Can’t hurt to check it out.” Quinn had far too much experience with fey feelings to ignore them.

An old run-down farmhouse squatted at the end of the driveway. The place looked like it hadn’t been cared for a long time. A rusty old pickup stood in the driveway. A ramshackle barn and corral lay in the background. The corral held a starved looking mustang horse, its head hanging low, a picture of silent misery.

Underlying all the disorder was the scent of apricots. Quinn turned his attention to the barn.

Chanting.

The apricot smell grew stronger.

His glyphs flared hot. He could feel his hair standing on end. Massive waves of magic blossomed out of the barn.

A triumphant shriek sounded, and half the barn disappeared behind a warp in the fabric of reality. Through it Quinn could see a night sky lit by two enormous moons. A cold wind blew out of it bringing the dank smell of bog and swamp.

Alfheim, the land of the Sidhe. Quinn remembered the place very well—he’d spent a lot of time in the world of the Sidhe.

A keening wail echoed. It rose in pitch until it passed beyond human hearing.

“Sweet Mother of All, what is that?” Anna asked. Her normally tan face was pale.

“The hunting cry of a Soul Reaper,” Quinn said absently. “The Algonquin sorcerers used to call them the Wendigo. They are members of the Dökkálfar assassin brotherhood, the Drygioni.”

The Hag strode out of the barn with a triumphant expression on her wrinkled face. “Not a coven in a million could have summoned a Reaper from across the rift, but I did it alone.”

“With blood magic, sister,” Anna said with disgust.

“The covens are far too timid, sister. This is a glorious power.” She stretched her arms out to the side and spoke.

“Kill them, my beauty, save for the shifter girl.”

While the Hag ranted. Quinn watched the Reaper. He had always thought they looked like a cross between a tall man and giant bone white praying mantis. Stick thin, huge hands hung on arms far too long for its torso, it looked awkward, ill constructed—but reapers were killers without many peers. A shift in the breeze bought its scent to him. Swamp smell mixed with brimstone smell of the rift warp.

Quinn breathed deep, quickly working his way into his centering discipline. He whispered his battle mnemonic:

“My name is Lachlan Joseph Quinn—Venu la bataille, vient la mort,” Come Battle-Come Death. His Other to come to the fore—and — they MERGED.

Lachlan Quinn became what the Vísdómur had forged—a perfect weapon—a pure killer with thousands of days and nights of fights like this. Humanity ground away so only death remained.

The reaper’s head swiveled from the little girl and Anna back to him. Crystal green multifaceted eyes fixed on him.

“Oh Reaper,’ Quinn sang. “I foretell your true death this day.”

He was centered—perfectly merged with the Other. A thousand details that had gone unnoticed now came into focus. He could hear the heartbeats of the surrounding creatures. He sensed the reaper’s heartbeat elevate. His boldness made it slightly apprehensive.

It advanced toward Quinn in an awkward looking stilt-stepping walk that for all its clumsy look covered ground quickly.

It muttered to itself in the distinctive whistles and clicks of low Alfar:

“Lovely. A human, a wolf-kin, and a high circle witch. What a gift. A touch of rage and fear, what perfect spice. You all will soon gift me your terror-struck souls when I take your lives. Never doubt it.”

The Reaper scuttled closer. Long delicate fingers swept its cloak aside and drew a falcatta so black it seemed to absorb any light that fell on it.

He settled into the sharp-edged combat mode the Vísdómur had taught:

Detached.

Remote.

Emotionless.

Centered.

He flicked his right wrist and the dragon that encircled his arm from palm to shoulder rippled under skin and emerged and unwound.

The Dragon’s Razor shrieked in joyous anticipation of feeding. The sentient weapon gifted him by the troll women had taken a hundred deaths to master. Seven years and seven days of lessons, fights, woundings — and magical healings so he could do it again the next day. The Vísdómur believed that if a fighting lesson weren’t to the death or at least maiming, it wouldn’t stick.

He swung it side to side with measured, hypnotic metronomic beats. He knew precisely what had to be done. He’d fought the reaper-kind before.

The Reaper reached inside its cloak and filled its other hand with a white wand. Waved the wand back and forth and chanted.

Quinn’s glyphs flared as the compulsion spell hit and rolled over him and dissipated.

Behind him he heard Anna fall.

The Reaper’s eyes widened.

“Oh Assassin,” Quinn sang in High Alfar. ” I will hear your death song. When was the last time you had to fight instead of slaughter? The true death is coming for you.”

Quinn could hear its heartbeat rising now. Panic was starting to blossom. Panic that distracted.

He snapped his wrist—the dragon whip shrieked again as it lashed out to the reaper’s face—its right eye disappeared in a mist of gore.

The roar of pain was deafening.

Quick as thought, it riposted the black falcata at Quinn’s face.

And missed. The missing eye had damaged its depth perception.

Quinn snapped his wrist once more.

The Reaper’s mouth gaped a silent scream of agony as the arm holding the sword dropped to the grass—its remaining eye now showing blossoming despair.

It scuttled backward pleading, “Mercy, Shadow Walker.”

“No.”

Quinn snapped his wrist one last time.

Sudden spray of dark green blood and the Reaper’s head toppled to the grass.

Silence.

Quinn absently flicked his left wrist and the symbiote obediently wound itself back into its home.