Reaper Mine: A Reaper Novel Read Free Page A

She pulled herself the rest of the way into the cemetery. The beast rose and the dark smoke he had used as camouflage rolled off of him like water.
    “You can’t hide in there forever,” The freaky thing growled his voice deep, giving Elle the chills. He snapped his jaws and growled causing Elle’s blood to run cold in her veins. He was huge, and Elle just stared for a moment unsure exactly what she was looking at.
    He was easily six and a half feet tall. And green, like pea soup green. And muscle. All muscle. Pointy yellow/white teeth which currently dripped blood. Her blood, she thought with a shiver. He was a Freak if there ever was one. Gasping for air, Elle scrambled back on her elbows.
    “What the hell are you?” she gasped. Pain radiating up her leg, she looked down at the bite mark, blood poured from the gaping wound. She wouldn’t last long against this huge Freak. Helena would have an aneurism when she didn’t show up at the safe house on time.
    The thing lunged at her but came up against the invisible barrier, and Elle smiled. “Hallowed ground, you piece of freaky shit.”
    He rolled his head on his large neck and then smiled, showing slathering pointed teeth. “But I can outwait you, little god.”
    Elle flipped him off and pulled herself behind one of the crumbling headstones she ripped part of her t-shirt off and tied it around her ankle staunching the bleeding for now. She had left everything including her phone back in her truck, in her clamber to get away. After being run off the road by the Freak ramming into the hallowed barrier behind her. She leaned back and stared up into cloudless night sky, the constellations of her mothers and fathers taunted her from the heavens.
    “You know you can’t hide in there forever.” the thing snapped irritation dripping off of every syllable.
    “You know you’re not actually supposed to exist right?” Elle threw back. “I certainly don’t make it a common practice to have conversations with creatures who shouldn’t exist.”
    It laughed. A humorless sound she never wanted to hear again. However the sound battled with the ringing in her ears, when had her ears started to ring? Elle had to admit her condition actually couldn’t get much worse.
    “Give up Elle and you won’t be hurt anymore.” He laughed as he said it, making her seriously doubt his words.
    “How do you know my name?” she asked as lights started to pop on the edges of her vision. Elle shook her head and took several deep breaths until her vision cleared.
    “I’ve been sent specifically to claim you. My master demanded I know exactly who and what I was retrieving,” The Freak expounded.
    “You answer to the Tribunal?” she asked peeking around the headstone.
    “My master will rule the Tribunal.” It laughed again.
    “Um okay. Your master seems delusional,” she snapped. “Why don’t you go get your master and then I’ll talk to him or her. I don’t think it’s safe for me to leave my current position, until I can verify the sanity of this master.” Sounded like a sane idea to her. Even though the world was starting to spin.
    Her demand met with another guttural laugh. “Why don’t you come out and I will take you to my master?”
    She laid her head down deciding any further conversation would be a bad idea, she had no phone, had been run off the road, and trapped in an ancient graveyard in the middle of the woods in gods where. Helena had no way of finding her. She had lost a significant amount of blood. And had no way out.
    “You have the emergency number right?” Helena’s question haunted her.
    Elle would have laughed if she had the energy but as she had looked down at her ankle she knew she had very few options. Bleeding out looked like the death option for the day. Regardless she didn’t actually want to die.
    She cleared off one of the headstones. Dipping her fingers into the blood pooling at her foot, Elle drew the symbols she had memorized over millennia