Reap & Reveal (The Reaper Series Book 3) Read Free Page A

when he walked her into the smoke-filtered lights of a bar. It was a rough clientele, which suited Camael just fine. Weak souls were more malleable, and nothing made a soul weaker than an overabundance of alcohol and hard times. It was like taking candy from a baby. Or in this case, a soul from a drunk.
    Camael himself didn’t harvest the souls. Even though he was capable of extracting a soul if necessary, there was no need for him to dirty his hands. He had minions for that. As he pushed his way through the crowded dance floor and up onto the small stage, a cadre of his demons flanked the entrance and exit on both sides. No one would leave this bar intact. He’d summoned plenty of demons, nearly a dozen, to make sure of that.
    His appearance on the stage, or more Maeve’s appearance, stunned the crowd briefly and brought all eyes forward as the band stopped playing. A hush fell over the bar as they waited in anticipation to see what was about to happen. A few whistles sounded from the corners, then hisses and boos as Camael continued to survey the room silently through Maeve’s eyes. She felt a slow smile cross her face as Camael spread her arms wide, closed her eyes and tilted her head to the ceiling in expected triumph.
    “Yes!”
    Then the room fell to chaos. The demons swept through the bar, tearing souls from the patrons’ pitifully weak bodies in dark gray torrents, the empty bodies slumping to the floor. The sounds of skulls and bones cracking against the hardwood sickened Maeve.
    Some of the humans clamored back to their feet after a few moments, others stayed down. Herding the screaming, still-souled bar customers toward the center of the room, the demons worked their way inward. Panic grew, but since the demons carried no visible weapons and weren’t physically assaulting them, the patrons were confused about what the exact threat was. The fallen weren’t bleeding or visibly injured, but many were obviously dead, and the others…
    The clientele couldn’t see the souls of their fellow revelers. What they could see were the vacant eyes of the afflicted staring back from the faces of the still-living victims.
    It happened in a matter of minutes. Too quickly even for help to be summoned.
    The only sound remaining was the shambling of the survivors as they bumped into tables and chairs, clattering around in mindless forward motion.
    Camael laughed, pleased with the progress. Taking no chances, he opened a slight chasm beneath the dance floor. The wood cracked and splintered as the ground tore open to reveal a temporary exit portal to Hell. Steam and sulfur rose from the slim fissure and the demons stepped into the chasm one by one with their bounty: nearly a hundred and fifty souls.
    It was all very efficient. Camael smiled before closing the portal behind them.
    Maeve screamed silently.
    Nate woke, gasping for air as he thrashed about, trying to disengage himself from his covers. His heart galloped painfully in his chest. He panned the room, trying to assure himself he wasn’t in the crypt, wasn’t still in Maeve’s mind.
    How the hell had that happened?
    Through his connection with Maeve, he now knew that Camael planned to hit every bar downtown, grid by grid, while the pickings were still easy. He could probably have two more nights of success before people stopped going out and stayed home out of fear or by decree. Collecting souls from door to door would be much less efficient, but he had no doubt Camael could make it happen.
    Dammit.
    Things were about to get a whole lot worse.
    This wasn’t his first lucid dream. Nate had experienced them before. But it was the first one he’d somehow shared with Maeve, and it was more intense than any of the visions he’d ever experienced before.
    While he had seen inside more than a few Meridian crypts during his patrols with the Authority lately, he didn’t recognize this particular one. From what he could remember, there was no way to determine her location.