Reaper II: Neophyte Read Free Page A

do with it.
    I wasn’t sure how I was going to do it exactly, but by God, I’d see them dead.
    The night air was cold against my unprotected face, but I ignored it as I chased down the brutes that had attacked me.
    I gained distance on the fat man quickly, besting his uncoordinated paces with long strides of my own. My limbs felt augmented with a feeling, almost of invincibility, as my muscles worked in harmony to catch up to him.
    Closing in on the fat man with only a few paces behind him, I jumped onto his back, forcing him to the ground with my momentum. He grunted as we fell to the wet gravel of the path, me on his back, him on his fat stomach.
    Instinctively, I buried the strange claws that had formed at my fingertips deep into his throat. The talons were so sharp it was like slicing a hot knife through butter.
    I tore the flesh of his throat to the point I nearly severed his head with the blow.
    With my newly enhanced night vision, I saw the wide arcs of warm blood washing the ground, soaking the dead autumn leaves with each fresh spurt. His blood looked almost black in the
    darkness of the night and from the warm liquid came wisps of steam that rose skyward in the cool night air.
    With his throat ripped, I knew he was a dead—or dying–man.
    Somehow, I knew that I had done the right thing.
    Sudden and unexpected, I had the strangest vision—a collage of images of the women that he had attacked in the past, racing through my mind like leaves scattered by a windstorm.
    How many women had there been?
    From the visions that swept through my mind, there were too many to count.
    Some raped, some just murdered in cold blood—others raped and murdered.
    More than twenty victims for sure.
    There were even men and children among them.
    I held my hands up before my eyes, marvelling at the dark red blood that glistened on the sharp edges of my new fingers. The blood, strangely enough, began to disappear, and somehow, I knew where it was going.
    It was seeping into me, feeding the Dark Thing, the strange exoskeleton that covered me, making it—and me—even stronger.
    I found it disturbing that I didn’t feel the slightest amount of remorse. I had just killed a man and I didn’t feel remorse. I found that odd. I thought that I should have cared enough to want to stop with the blood or at most, the death of one criminal.
    Nevertheless, thinking of his many victims, something drove me on to pursue his companions.
    It felt like a deep-seeded urge of some sort.
    A calling.
    Yes, it was a calling for the blood of these evil men that drove me on.
    That and my fury is what drove me on.
    My unchecked rage…
    It seemed as though I could even smell them.
    Intuitively, I seemed to know what direction my other two assailants were heading in. It wasn’t just a hunch or an educated guess. Rather, it was something of an intense gut feeling, coming from somewhere primitive and dark inside of me.
    Suddenly, I trusted my instincts as I had never trusted them before. In a moment, I was on my feet and on the run again, a huntress, fueled by the need for evil blood, drawn by its scent.
    By its signature...
    I veered left, heading in the direction my newfound instincts lead me.
    Can I hear him running or am I just imagining things?
    No! It was heavy breathing that I heard…and footsteps.
    The footsteps of a guilty man.
    The tall black man. 
    Jason.
    I saw him crossing a lit path a hundred yards in front of me. He slowed his gait and turned his head toward me as though sensing danger. His eyes widened as he realized that I was pursuing him. They looked like twin white orbs beckoning me to the kill.
    Yes, I was following him.
    Hunting him.
    The fearful expression on his face made him look as though he were seeing a ghost, but it was he, not I, who would be dead.
    “Holy fuck!” Jason yelled in terror. “Jesus fucking holy fuck!”
    I tackled the tall man, but as we fell, my momentum carried us to the side.  As we hit the damp and