Dead Reaper Walking Read Online Free PDF Page A

to the house, I felt the weight of the Grimm settle over and around me. Protecting me. Most times I didn’t need to pull on it so heavily, but with what waited for me inside, I wanted every advantage I had.
    I reached the side of the house and paused for a moment, working out where the thing was, the front or back of the house. I don’t do drama, or property damage, if I can help it so unless kicking in the front door would concuss a demon hiding behind it, I’d go around the back. Or find a key.
    As if on cue, the pink lifeline in the corner of my vision started to pulse in a line leading around the back of the house. A lifeline ready to reap and everything non-human about me itched to get in there and make it happen. But pink? Seriously? Not just pink but iridescent pink, all pretty and fairylike. It didn’t fool me, I’d been doing this job too long now. In my experience, the prettier lifeline something had, the more dangerous it was.
    Humans, for example, had silver lines. Dull compared to a demon line but pretty enough because, let’s be honest, humanity could be freaking horrible to both each other and species weaker than themselves.
    Their lines were like a light-show compared to the dead, flat non-line of a Reaper though. Ours are pitch-black, barely visible if they show up at all. Although we walked and talked, breathed and danced in the rain—all that crap—there was nothing there. No one came to reap us. What could? What happened to us after death, I don’t know. None of us do. I mean, it’s not like we can have a near ‘us’ experience, can we?
    In my world, sparkles didn’t mean fairy dust and happy endings. They meant trouble, blood, and death.
    I slunk down the side of the house, all my bravado gone now that no one was watching me. The place was quiet, eerily quiet. If I was into that kind of humor, I’d say it was quiet as the grave. With three human souls in there to reap, it would be less humor and more accurate. I reached the kitchen door and risked a peek in. Cream trim, beige-speckled surfaces. Two mugs near the sink and a plate. I shook my head. Someone didn’t do their washing up.
    The stones of the gravel pathway crunched softly underfoot but not loudly enough to alert anyone, or thing, within the house. I snapped my head around to see Troy and his boss sneaking up the side of the house.
    Great, just great. Obviously neither could follow simple instructions. Perhaps a demon chewing on their faces would educate that shit right out of them.
    “What the hell are you doing?” I hissed, trying to wave them back. “I told you no one goes in but me.”
    They reached my side and the three of us hunkered under the window like peas in a pod. Troy grinned. “Well, technically no one’s gone in yet.”
    “Cute.” No point in arguing. It was their funeral, not mine. Although…there were no new silver lines. I looked at them both, one then the other, directly. “Fine. Stay behind me and don’t interfere. This is my world and I see and hear things you can’t.”
    “Yes, ma’am.” Troy ruined his reply by winking, but Reilly looked at me. His eyes were pale, but there was a darkness I was familiar with. This man had killed before. He had that dead look only Reapers and soldiers get.
    Curious, I reached for the shade and took a look at his timeline. It was as flat and silver as any human’s I’d seen. Nothing supernatural about him at all… but there was an expectancy, a buzz, about it that I’d seen before. Somewhere, sometime soon, something was going to happen to this man to change the course of his life completely.
    I just hoped it wasn’t the demon inside the house.
     
    He’d never lacked for courage, and simply being a cop in the big city soon weeded out the cowards, but right now, faced with going into a house with an actual demon, Troy was glad he had backup. He could storm anything with Reilly at his back, but he wasn’t so happy about Laney being in front. His caveman