Reaper: The Demontouched Saga (Book 3) Read Free Page A

deserve this. It’s like the motel all over again. The only solace I have this time is knowing I’ll be unconscious before too long.
    It’s not helping me any now.
    I notice the ground starting to glow a shade of reddish-orange. It is coming from somewhere ahead of me, judging from the dancing shadows below.
    Pimp Hat lets out a blood curdling scream as the glow brightens. Within moments the only way I can tell it’s still night out is the shadows still lingering in my peripheral vision.
    “What the hell did you do, bitch?” Baldie drops me and I hear him jogging in Sara’s direction.
    I look up and see her backing up in an attempt to get some distance from him. I focus on the knife and send it into his back, making sure to put a little something extra into it when it got close. He drops on his face, dead before he even gets close.
    Sara runs to me at full speed. “Are you O.K.?”
    “I’ll survive. How about you?”
    “We have to get you to a hospital.” She puts her hand on my wound.
    “Rip it off,” I say holding my arm out.
    She tears off my remaining sleeve and wraps it tightly around the wound. I then remove a button from my shirt and slip my hand in like a sling.
    “I need to get to Uriel first.”
    “What is so important that you need to see her before getting your arm looked at?”
    “I need to know how you used the amulet.”

 
     
     
     
     
     
    - 3 -
     
     
     
     
     
     
    “Tell me, again, what did you do to activate the amulet?” Uriel asks her for the third time. She is just wanting to be thorough, but I can see the weight of the questions wearing on Sara.
    “I told you. I don’t know. When he tried to grab me I just closed my eyes and held my hands out.”
    “And then he just started burning?”
    “I was just trying to keep him away.” She wipes the tears from her eyes. “I didn’t mean to kill him.”
    “You did good, child.” She looks over the amulet again. “What I don’t get is why she could use it at all?”
    “Maybe part of Israfil managed to get imprinted into the amulet?” It was the only theory I had. The only information we had on the amulet was that it could imprison a demon and linking it to the wearer. I assumed that the demon could vacate after the person died. Apparently I’m wrong.
    “You may be right. We need to study this before you try to use it on Einuir. The last thing we want is to have you dealing with two demons fighting for your soul.”
    “No doubt. One is bad enough.”
    “As for Sara, I want to keep you away from it. We don’t know what it might do to you if you keep it around.”
    I fully agree with her there. It is scary enough knowing she was able to do something with it in the first place. I remember how much I changed after I made my pact. I don’t want her to go through that if I can avoid it.
    “What do you think about the attacks?”
    “I believe that your friend from the strip club was involved. They may have had the other blasts set up ahead of time, in case there were others outside of the building.”
    It was supposed to be a big event. It wouldn’t have been hard to imagine close to a hundred thousand people showing up for it. Shit, it would be hard to imagine that many people wouldn’t show up for a chance to get things back the way they were. Running water and electricity are two luxuries that most people would kill to have back.
    “Something still doesn’t fit. The only documents on that file we found were linked directly to the bombs in the convention center. If the two were linked, then why didn’t we find more?”
    “Israfil was a brilliant strategist. He loved to leave clues scattered around to throw us off of his trail. We would set up ambushes and attacks based on that information just to find ourselves on the receiving end.”
    “So you are telling me he knew we would learn about the bombs ahead of time? And then he knew we would have a celebration afterwards? Some of those bombs went off blocks away from