Chapter One

I’VE ALWAYS SEEN THE REAPERS.

Even as a toddler—with little understanding of spirits, death, or the horrors that lie in the shadows—I’d been aware of them. As I’d gotten older and my knowledge of the mystical had strengthened, I’d begun to call them Death, because the people I’d seen them following had always died within a day or so.

In my teenage years, I learned who and what they really were. They called themselves reapers, and they were collectors of souls. They took the essence—the spirit—of the dying and escorted them on to the next part of their journey, be that heaven or hell.

The reapers weren’t flesh-and-blood beings, although they could attain that form if they wished. They were creatures of light and shadows—and an energy so fierce, their mere presence burned across my skin like flame.

Which is how I sensed the one now following me. He was keeping his distance, but the heat of him sang through the night, warming my skin and stirring the embers of fear. I swallowed heavily and tried to stay calm. After all, being the daughter of one of Melbourne’s most powerful psychics had its benefits—and one of those was a knowledge of my own death. It would come many years from now, in a stupid car accident.

Of course, it was totally possible that I’d gotten the timing of my death wrong. My visions weren’t always as accurate as my mother’s, so maybe the death I’d seen in my future was a whole lot closer than I’d presumed.

And it was also a fact that not all deaths actually happened when they were supposed to. That’s why there were ghosts—they were the souls uncollected by reapers, either because their deaths had come before their allotted time, or because they’d refused the reapers’ guidance. Either way, the end result was the same. The souls were left stranded between this world and the next.

I shoved my hands into the pockets of my leather jacket and walked a little faster. There was no outrunning the reapers—I knew that—but I still couldn’t help the instinctive urge to try.

Around me, the day was only just dawning. Lygon Street gleamed wetly after the night’s rain, and the air was fresh and smelled ever so faintly of spring. The heavy bass beat coming from the nearby wolf clubs overran what little traffic noise there was, and laughter rode the breeze—a happy sound that did little to chase the chill from my flesh.

It was a chill caused not by an icy morning, but rather by the ever-growing tide of fear.

Why was the reaper following me?

As I crossed over to Pelham Street, my gaze flicked to the nearby shop windows, searching again for the shadow of death.

Reapers came in all shapes and sizes, often taking the form most likely to be accepted by those they’d come to collect. I’m not sure what it said about me that my reaper was shirtless, tattooed, and appeared to be wearing some sort of sword strapped across his back.

A reaper with a weapon? Now, that was something I’d never come across before. But maybe he knew I wasn’t about to go lightly.

I turned onto Ormond Place and hurried toward the private parking lot my restaurant shared with several other nearby businesses. There was no sound of steps behind me, no scent of another, yet the reaper’s presence burned all around me—a heat I could feel on my skin and within my mind.

Sometimes being psychic like my mom really sucked.

I wrapped my fingers around my keys and hit the automatic opener. As the old metal gate began to grind and screech its way to one side, I couldn’t help looking over my shoulder.

My gaze met the reaper’s. His face was chiseled, almost classical in its beauty, and yet possessing a hard edge that spoke of a man who’d won more than his fair share of battles. His eyes were blue—one a blue as vivid and as bright as a sapphire, the other almost a navy, and as dark and stormy as the sea.

Awareness flashed through those vivid, turbulent depths—an awareness that seemed to echo right through me. It was also an awareness that seemed to be accompanied, at least on his part, by surprise.

For several heartbeats neither of us moved, and then he simply disappeared. One second he was there, and the next he wasn’t.

I blinked, wondering if it was some sort of trick. Reapers, like the Aedh, could become energy and smoke at will, but—for me, at least—it usually took longer than the blink of an eye to achieve. Of course, I was only half Aedh, so maybe that was the problem.

The reaper didn’t reappear, and the heat of his presence no longer burned through the air or shivered through my mind. He’d gone. Which was totally out of character for a reaper, as far as I knew.

I mean, they were collectors of souls. It was their duty to hang about until said soul was collected. I’d never known of one to up and disappear the moment he’d been spotted—although given that the ability to actually spot them was a rare one, this probably wasn’t an everyday occurrence.

Mom, despite her amazing abilities—abilities that had been sharpened during her creation in a madman’s cloning lab—certainly couldn’t see them. But then, she couldn’t actually see anything. The sight she did have came via a psychic link she shared with a creature known as a Fravardin—a guardian spirit that had been gifted to her by a long-dead clone brother.

She was also a full Helki werewolf, not a half-Aedh like me. The Aedh were kin to the reapers, and it was their blood that gave me the ability to see the reapers.

But why did this reaper disappear like that? Had he realized he’d been following the wrong soul, or was something weirder going on?

Frowning, I walked across to my bike and climbed on. The leather seat wrapped around my butt like a glove, and I couldn’t help smiling. The Ducati wasn’t new, but she was sharp and clean and comfortable to ride, and even though the hydrogen engine was getting a little old by today’s standards, she still put out a whole lot of power. Maybe not as much as the newer engines, but enough to give a mother gray hair. Or so my mom reckoned, anyway.

As the thought of her ran through my mind again, so did the sudden urge to call her. My frown deepening, I dug my phone out of my pocket and said, “Mom.”

The voice-recognition software clicked into action and the call went through almost instantly.

“Risa,” she said, her luminous blue eyes shining with warmth and amusement. “I was just thinking about you.”

“I figured as much. What’s up?”

She sighed, and I instantly knew what that meant. My stomach twisted and I closed my eyes, wishing away the words I knew were coming.

But it didn’t work. It never worked.

“I have another client who wants your help.” She said it softly, without inflection. She knew how much I hated hospitals.

“Mom—”

“It’s a little girl, Ris. Otherwise I wouldn’t ask you. Not so soon after the last time.”

I took a deep breath and blew it out slowly. The last time had been a teenager whose bones had pretty much been pulverized in a car accident. He’d been on life support for weeks, with no sign of brain activity, and the doctors had finally advised his parents to turn off the machine and let him pass over. Naturally enough, his parents had been reluctant, clinging to the belief that he was still there, that there was still hope.

Mom couldn’t tell them that. But I could.

Yet it had meant going into the hospital, immersing myself in the dying and the dead and the heat of the reapers. I hated it. It always seemed like I was losing a piece of myself.

But more than that, I hated facing the grief of the parents when—if—I had to tell them that their loved ones were long gone.

“What happened to her?”

If it was an accident, if it was a repeat of the teenager and the parents were looking for a miracle, then I could beg off. It wouldn’t be easy, but neither was walking into that hospital.

“She went in with a fever, fell into a coma, and hasn’t woken up. They have her on life support at the moment.”

“Do they know why?” I asked the question almost desperately, torn between wanting to help a little girl caught in the twilight realms between life and death and the serious need not to go into that place.

“No. She had the flu and was dehydrated, which is why she was originally admitted. The doctors have run every test imaginable and have come up with nothing.” Mom hesitated. “Please, Ris. Her mother is a longtime client.”

My mom knew precisely which buttons to push. I loved her to death, but god, there were some days I wished I could simply ignore her.

“Which hospital is she in?”

“The Children’s.”

I blew out a breath. “I’ll head there now.”

“You can’t. Not until eight,” Mom said heavily. “They’re not allowing anyone but family outside of visiting hours.”

Great. Two hours to wait. Two hours to dread what I was being asked to do.

“Okay. But no more for a while after this. Please?”

“Deal.” There was no pleasure in her voice. No victory. She might push my buttons to get what she wanted, but she also knew how much these trips took out of me. “Come back home afterward and I’ll make you breakfast.”

“I can’t.” I scrubbed my eyes and resisted the sudden impulse to yawn. “I’ve been working at the restaurant all night and I really need some sleep. Send me the details about her parents and the ward number, and I’ll give you a buzz once I’ve been to see her.”

“Good. Are you still up for our lunch on Thursday?”

I smiled. Thursday lunch had been something of a ritual for my entire life. My mom and Aunt Riley—who wasn’t really an aunt, but a good friend of Mom’s who’d taken me under her wing and basically spoiled me rotten since birth—had been meeting at the same restaurant for over twenty-five years. They had, in fact, recently purchased it to prevent it from being torn down to make way for apartments. Almost nothing got in the way of their ritual—and certainly not a multimillion-dollar investment company.

“I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

“Good. See you then. Love you.”

I smiled and said, “But not as much as I love you.”

The words had become something of a ritual at the end of our phone calls, but I never took them for granted. I’d seen far too many people over the years trying to get in contact with the departed just so they could say the words they’d never said in life.

I hit the END button then shoved the phone back into my pocket. As I did so, it began to chime the song “Witchy Woman”—an indicator that Mom had already sent the requested information via text. Obviously, she’d had it ready to go. I shook my head and didn’t bother looking at it. I needed to wash the grime of work away and get some sustenance in my belly before I faced dealing with that little girl in the hospital.

I shoved my helmet on then fired up the bike. The vibration through the metal told me she’d come to life, but there was little noise. Hydrogen bikes ran so silently that when they’d first become commercially viable, state laws had required manufacturers to add a fake-engine-noise device to warn people of their approach. That law was still in existence, but these days it was rarely enforced—mainly because people had a greater worry. Air bikes—or air blades, as they were officially called—were becoming more prevalent, but given the laws that restricted them to low-level airspace, pedestrians had more chance of losing their heads to a blade than being run over by a bike.

I wasn’t a huge fan of the air blades, which in my opinion were little more than jet-powered skateboards. I preferred the feel of metal and the vibration of power between my thighs, and the exhilaration and sense of control that riding a bike gave. Blades were all about the danger. Riding them was akin to riding a wild horse that could buck you off at any moment.

Besides, I liked the option of being able to put my feet on the ground when I needed to.

I rolled out of the parking lot, and the old metal gates automatically closed behind me. The traffic on Pelham Street was already beginning to build, but I weaved in and out of the cars without effort, and was cruising down Punt Road toward Richmond in very little time.

I slowed as I neared my place. This part of Richmond was mostly pretty little Victorians, but scattered in among them were newer buildings and converted warehouses. My place was one of the latter—a big, square, two-story monstrosity whose bland gray exterior belied the beauty of its internal space. I’d bought and renovated it with two friends—the same two friends who co-owned RYT’s (which stood for “rich young things”) with me.

As I swung into Lennox Street, the sensor attached to the bike flashed, and the building’s roller door began to open. I drove inside, seeing Ilianna’s somewhat battered Jeep Wrangler but not Tao’s vivid red Ferrari. I hoped it meant he was actually on his way to work rather than in someone’s bed, having forgotten once again that it was his turn to work the morning shift. Not that the staff couldn’t cope without him—mornings tended to be the slowest of the three shifts. Nights were the worst—or rather, the hours between one and five, when wolves hungry after a long night of loving at the clubs sought a different kind of sustenance. RYT’s was one of a handful of Lygon Street restaurants licensed to be open twenty-four hours a day, and its gourmet hamburger and pizza menu was proving a huge success. Of course, it helped that Tao was a brilliant chef—when we could actually get him into the kitchen, that was.

I parked my bike next to my more mundane—and little used—Toyota SUV, then killed the engine and kicked the stand into place. I took off my helmet and dropped it onto a nearby hook, then shook out my hair to unscrunch my ponytail as I headed for the stairs. The door at the top was a thick metal alloy that was both fire- and bulletproof. Ilianna had insisted on both it and the accompanying eye-scanning security system. Despite the fact that between boarding school, university, and the restaurant, she’d now lived in the city for a good part of her life, she still didn’t feel entirely safe here. I guess there was some truth to the old saying that you could take the mare out of the country, but not the country out of the mare.