Angel of Death: (Reaper Series, Book 1)

  THE ROGUE

  Peyton never slept that night. Fortunately, she had the next day off, so going to work was not a problem. She was lying in bed, tossing and turning for hours after the police had left, taking Voss' corpse with them. She had relocked the front door and taped a sheet of plastic over the broken window pane, hoping that no keen-eyed potential thieves would spot the weak spot from the street and decide to break in. Peyton had had enough excitement for one night. Possibly forever.

  Her mind just would not slow down enough for sleep to come. She was exhausted, but wired to a point of alertness that no amount of coffee had ever done for her. She would close her eyes, willing herself to sleep, only for her eyelids to shoot open again a few seconds later to stare at the ceiling as she ran through the entire evening's events once more.

  What Peyton thought about most was the invisible man, Darius. How? How was it possible? Who was he? Why was he there? How had he known Voss was going to try and kill her? Peyton had more questions bouncing around inside her head than she could keep track of.

  Eventually, Peyton decided sleeping was a lost cause and threw back the comforter as she swung her legs out of bed and got up. She made her way downstairs, glancing at the front door as she descended the steps. The door was closed. It still looked locked. She walked over to it and checked the lock anyway, just to be sure. Everything seemed fine.

  So why do I feel so edgy? she wondered.

  Darius stood in silence, watching Peyton as she paced around the house, checking doors and windows, even looking inside her linen closet under the stairs. She was scared, he knew. That much was obvious. You didn't need to be a Reaper to see that.

  Darius went to the living room window and peered out at the street, keeping a vigilant watch on everything he could see. So far, everything had been peaceful, aside from Peyton's restless movements. The street was quiet, a tabby cat prowling the darkness across the road, the leaves of the trees rustling in a gentle breeze. So far, there was nothing to worry about.

  "Darius."

  Darius jumped when he heard Peyton speak his name. He spun around to face her, stunned that she was suddenly able to see him. She could only see him if he allowed it, and he certainly had not. He had broken enough rules for one night. However, when he looked at Peyton, she wasn't looking at him. She had sat down on her sofa and was holding her head in her hands, a look of frustrated confusion set on her face. It seemed she had only said his name to hear the sound of it, to hear the sound of anything.

  Peyton sighed in frustration, raking her fingers through her hair. She then threw her hands down with exasperation and shook her head."Never even heard the damn name before."

  Darius began to wonder. How did Peyton hear him before when he hadn't stepped beyond the veil, hadn't revealed himself to her? Was it a one-time thing? Or was there more to Peyton than he and Charon realized? And still, there was that nagging insistence in the back of Darius' mind that he had seen Peyton before. He knew it, but from where? He felt as though the information was dangling in front of him, within sight, but out of reach. Every time he reached for it, his fingers would only brush lightly against the side of the knowledge, but he would come no closer to grasping it. As he considered Peyton, Darius slowly stepped closer to her, away from the window. He was suddenly aware of her natural beauty, of her golden hair and gleaming blue-green eyes. He noticed that, even without makeup, she was breathtaking.

  Darius was so captivated by Peyton in that moment that he didn't notice the rogue materialize behind him.

  Peyton was staring down at her feet, lost in thought, feeling as though she might be driven crazy by the constant whirlwind of thoughts that were blowing through her mind like a hurricane. She was about ready to grab the bottle of liquor she kept in the cabinet and fix herself a drink to calm down with, when she felt the air around her move and, suddenly, the bookshelf to her left crumpled under the weight of an invisible force. Books went flying and shelves snapped as though something large had been thrown against them. Peyton leaped to her feet, staring at the phenomenon. Then she heard a familiar voice, a voice to a face she had never seen.

  "It's you!"

  Suddenly, more movement of air and the coffee table right beside her was crushed to splinters. The room began to steadily tear itself apart, hanging frames being knocked off the walls, cracks appearing out of nowhere along the plaster, the curtains being ripped down from the window, the armchair beside the couch toppling over backwards.

  Finally, everything seemed to go silent and all destruction ceased. Peyton stood frozen on her feet, her breath fast and short, as she surveyed the room. It looked like a fight had just taken place. Destruction was everywhere. She had heard Darius again, she knew it, but now there was only silence. Peyton had the terrible feeling that there was another person there, someone else she couldn't see.

  "Darius?" she whispered. "Is that you?"

  There was silence. Peyton waited for a response, both praying she would get one and also that she wouldn't. Finally, she heard a voice, but it was not the one called Darius.

  "No," it said.

  The voice chilled the blood in Peyton's veins and her hands began to shake. The voice was cold and quiet, barely more than a whisper. It was raspy and labored, as though the speaker was struggling for breath, but there was power there, oh yes, the speaker was strong and confident. As Peyton stood immobile, she saw the air in front of her begin to shimmer, much like the air above a highway on a very hot day might shimmer. Only this shimmering seemed to be made up of darkness, like the shadows were peeling backwards to reveal something more terrifying, to reveal all of the paranoid fears of youth hiding beyond a thin curtain of darkness.

  The creature that now stood before Peyton appeared to be a man. It was the right height, right shape, had two arms and a head, but the sight of it made Peyton stumble backwards and fall onto the sofa. The being stood in a long black cloak, with a hood pulled up to conceal its face. It reached out to her and Peyton went white with terror and was paralyzed with fear when she saw that hand. The hand had no skin, was nothing more than a skeleton's hand, like the kind she and some friends played around with on a fake skeleton hanging in the classroom at nursing school. Only this one moved on its own and was reaching out to her, moving closer and closer, the fingers flexing and curling in anticipation. Peyton wanted to scream, but no words would come out. Her jaw had dropped and her mouth was frozen open in a silent shriek.

  Suddenly, out of the corner of her left eye, she saw the air shimmer again and the curtain of darkness revealed another being, launching itself off the floor before the veil could settle. The man launched himself through the air at the being with the skeletal hand and tackled it from the side, bringing it down to the floor in a mighty crash that shook the house. This man that had appeared from nowhere had short black hair and wore a suit with no tie and was now pinning the cloaked creature on the floor. The suited man reached out to grab the hood of the cloaked figure, but there was suddenly a flash of light and a loud bang, and the next thing Peyton saw was the suited man rolling through the air before crashing hard into the wall on the opposite side of the room, before collapsing to the floor.

  The cloaked figure was immediately on his feet again, lurching towards Peyton in what seemed like desperation, but the suited man launched at him again and grabbed the skeletal arm, twisting it up behind the cloaked figure's back and holding it there.

  "Charon!" the suited man screamed. "NOW!"

  Then, as Peyton watched in horror, a hole in the world seemed to open up in her living room. It seemed as though wind was being pulled into it, the force of the gale whipping Peyton's golden hair around her face, pages of her fallen books flipping at great speed, other fallen objects actually shifting around on the floor, rolling closer to the black hole.

  The cloaked figure, despite resisting, was being dragged across the floor toward the hole, the folds of its cloak flapping as though caught in a hurricane, but with a great am
ount of force he managed to spin around and slam a palm into the suited man's chest, sending him flying backwards. Then the cloaked being faced the black hole and spread his arms wide, as though he was welcoming the dark void. Only then he quickly clapped his hands together, the sound exploding and rolling like a clap of thunder, and suddenly the black hole closed, and the wind stopped.

  "Impossible," the suited man said.

  The cloaked being reached down and grabbed Peyton by the hair and pulled her to her feet, Peyton crying out in pain. She saw the cloaked being draw back its skeletal hand, the fingers pointing directly at her chest. Then it thrust its hand forward and Peyton felt a horrible sensation of something moving around inside her. She looked down and saw that the creature had shoved its terrible, skeletal, hand inside her chest. She suddenly found it hard to breathe and she fought desperately to draw breath. Her eyes bulged as she began to feel faint. The room began to grow dark. She felt as though she was being drawn closer to the cloaked being, being drawn into the darkness of the hood.

  Peyton suddenly felt something large and heavy collide with her and she felt the tight and horrific sensation in her chest pass and was replaced with a strange numbness, followed by a loud and uncontrollable coughing fit. She was vaguely aware of the suited man crouching beside her on the floor, with an arm around her. As she watched, the man extended one hand and flexed his fingers at the air in front of them. Suddenly, the dark void was back, but the wind was not. Peyton felt the grip of the suited man tighten around her waist and, suddenly, she felt the two of them launch forward, directly into the void. If she had been able, Peyton would have screamed, but behind them, as though from the end of a very long tunnel, she heard a scream of rage that exceeded any she could imagine. Looking over her shoulder, she saw the cloaked figure was left behind in her home, rushing toward the void as the opening quickly closed, its skeletal hand outstretched. The scream was unnatural, animalistic and full of more rage, pain and frustration than could be put into words. The scream was not any word, but a simple cry of untold fury, before it was finally silenced as the opening in the void closed and Peyton found herself in a quiet place, held in the arms of a mysterious man in a suit, plummeting through a dark tunnel that had appeared out of nowhere. That was when the darkness completely surrounded her and she lost herself to unconsciousness.