Angel of Death: (Reaper Series, Book 1)

  TARGETED

  Peyton sat silently on the sofa in her living room, staring at the blank TV screen on the opposite wall, lost in thought, almost completely oblivious to the dozen or so police officers that were traipsing around her home. Uniformed officers would come and go and a police photographer was taking pictures of Voss' body and the broken glass around the door. Plain clothed officers were talking in hushed tones in the kitchen. Peyton could feel them glancing in her direction on occasion. Or maybe she was just imagining it.

  She hadn't told anyone about her conversation with the invisible man. And definitely not about the strange scream that she had heard, the one that felt like it was going to burst her eardrums and make her head explode. She knew it would sound crazy. She wondered if she was crazy. She had had a full conversation with a man she could not see, but told her his name was 'Darius' and that he had killed Voss to protect her. Which, by the way, was against the rules of his secret society. The more she thought about it, the more Peyton began to seriously consider the possibility that she had lost her mind. The only thing that prevented her from believing she had, was the fact that Doctor Voss was lying dead on her hallway floor without a scratch on him.

  "Miss Paradisa?"

  Peyton looked up at the mention of her name and saw a red-haired woman in her thirties approaching, wearing a suit and a red blouse.

  "Detective King?" Peyton said.

  "That's right," King replied. "Looks like I was more right than we knew when I said you had problems to deal with. Do you mind if we have a talk? I have a few questions I need to ask you."

  Peyton nodded and gestured towards the small armchair. "Okay. Have a seat."

  As King sat down, Peyton looked over her suit once more and then became dimly aware of the fact that she was still in a pair of pajama pants and a tight fitted T-shirt. She now suspected why the male officers kept giving her looks.

  "To start with, how about you run me through what happened?" King said.

  "I already told the other officers," Peyton said.

  King nodded. "Yes, I know, but it's better for my investigation to hear it from you. In your own words. If you don't mind."

  Peyton nodded and then explained how she had just gotten home from work and was in the kitchen when she heard a noise from the living room. How she had looked and found Voss standing there, drunk, accusing her of getting him fired. How he had cornered her in the kitchen and picked up the knife. How she had fought him off, but Voss had overpowered her in the hallway. Peyton concluded with how Voss had been about to stab her when he had suddenly gone rigid and unresponsive and that Peyton had realized he was dead when she was able to easily push him off of her.

  King made notes throughout Peyton's story, not interrupting or making a sound, but when Peyton finished, she finally looked up from her notepad and met Peyton's eyes.

  "Miss Paradisa, it's no coincidence that I'm the detective on scene," King began. "The reason for that is that the death of Doctor Voss is remarkably similar to that of the young woman we found in the park a week ago. Do you remember the one I mean?"

  Peyton nodded. "Yeah, you said there wasn't a mark on her."

  "Exactly. Now we have another victim with no visible cause of death, who you reported as having broken into your home to kill you with a knife. Is that right?"

  "Yes," Peyton said quietly, still shaken.

  "What do you think caused his death?" King asked.

  Peyton shrugged. "I honestly have no idea. I first thought of a heart attack, but there were no warning signs, such as shortness of breath, suggestions of chest pain, anything. Heart attacks work slower than people think and there is usually time to prevent them from becoming fatal if you know what to look out for. Doctor Voss would have known right away, and I'm pretty sure his own survival would have meant more to him than my death."

  “But you said he was drunk,” King said. “Could he have been so drunk that he failed to recognize any signs of a heart attack or any other life threatening event?”

  “Well, he wasn’t so drunk that he couldn’t hold me down and try to shove a knife through my chest,” Peyton pointed out.

  "Did he show any signs of illness?" King questioned. "Could he have contracted some sort of virus from the hospital?"

  "Any virus or other type of contagious disease that could kill someone that quickly would have wiped out the entire hospital by now," Peyton replied. "It would be a pandemic. I don't think he was sick. He was drunk, but not sick."

  "Do you have any theories?" King pressed. "If it was only Doctor Voss, we could write this up as some sort of accident, but because of the previous death, people are confused. And when the people I work for get confused, they don't like it and they demand answers. Anything you can tell me would be a huge help, even if it doesn't seem like much to you."

  Peyton averted King's gaze as she thought about the invisible man, Darius, and what he had told her before the loud wind came and he wouldn't answer her anymore. Peyton had wandered through her house for nearly twenty minutes, calling out and searching for him, before she determined that he was gone.

  "No," Peyton said to King. "That's all I know."

  Though no one could see him, the rogue stood just behind Peyton's left shoulder, staring down at her from under his hood. He longed to reach out and take her. She was the final piece to his plan, the one he had spent so long searching for, the one that had taken so long to find. He knew it from the moment he saw her. This Peyton Paradisa looked so much like her. There was no doubt that she was the one he needed. That her soul was the one he must have.

  Except now was not the time. There were too many people around. The rogue could easily destroy them all, certainly, but that was unnecessary. He had only intervened with the last soul because he had to take a living soul, and those men were going to kill her. Peyton was safe. She was in no immediate danger.

  However, the rogue had looked at Peyton's memories and was troubled by what he saw. Another Reaper, Darius, had stepped in and all but revealed himself to this mortal. The rogue was grateful that Darius had prevented Peyton's demise, because there was no telling how many more centuries the rogue would have to wait to find another like Peyton, or if he ever would, but what troubled the rogue was the fact that Darius was now aware of him. Undoubtedly he would soon figure out that Peyton was a target, that self-righteous, know-it-all, Charon having certainly spelled it out for him by now. Peyton would soon be under constant surveillance by Darius.

  The rogue wasn't too troubled by the thought of being confronted by Darius. He was confident that Darius would be no match for him, after all the power the rogue now had, power he was not supposed to possess, but if Charon was protecting Darius, then that was of great concern to the rogue. Charon and his strange connection to the being known as Tartarus was one of the few remaining things in this universe that could defeat him. One of only a handful of beings stronger than he currently was. If he were able to take Peyton's soul... well, that would no longer be the case.

  The rogue reached out a hand toward Peyton, as though he was going to lovingly stroke her hair, her beautiful, silky, golden hair, but he stopped himself just inches from contact. He looked down at his hand, frowning beneath his hood.

  The flesh was gone. All that remained were the bones beneath. He held his skeletal hand up to the light, examining it, curling and flexing his fingers,turning his wrist and watching the bones move without the aid of any muscular structure. As much pain as he was in, he found his transformation to be fascinating. He had learned to shield himself from the eyes of those like Charon, those who watch over the Reapers, all for the purpose of his cause, but the closer he came to fulfilling his goals, the closer his plan came to completion, the stronger his curse became. Even now, he could feel his flesh burning. He could feel his flesh smoldering beneath his robes, slowly turning to blackened charcoal, only to then crumble from his bones like ash. It had been slow, at first, but now... when he started this night, his hand
had been intact. Now it was nothing more than bone. He would need to leave Peyton’s soul with her for now. He was feeling weakened from the energy of holding himself together. He would need to rest before having the power to tear out her soul. He would leave and regenerate as much as he could, then return and fulfill his destiny.

  When I have her soul, I will have the power to undo this curse. And I will rain death down upon everything.