Reaping Hell: Kiara Blake Book 2 Read online

  Reaping Hell

  A Kiara Blake Novel - Book Two

  Kinsley Burke

  quirkyMuse Publications LLC

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Mailing List

  About the Author

  Also by Kinsley Burke

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblances to locales, events, business establishments, or actual persons-living or dead-is entirely coincidental.

  * * *

  Reaping Hell

  Copyright © 2017 by Kinsley Burke

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  ISBN: 978-0-9985493-2-3

  Created with Vellum

  There’s a name for a place where chocolate is nonexistent and family reunions are non-alcoholic.

  It’s called Hell.

  -Kiara Blake

  Chapter One

  I met Addie at a 7-Eleven by a Slurpee machine. The colorful contraption standing proudly on top of its counter had beckoned to me from the moment my feet crossed the threshold from icy cold winds into stale climate-controlled air. Logic had dictated that since the outside of me was frozen solid, the inside of me needed to be too. At the time, it had made perfect sense. Legs moved toward the icy slush of goodness as fast as the length of four-year-old limbs allowed. But while my small frame was long enough for quick mobility capable of dodging grabbing parental hands, it wasn’t tall enough to pour some of that red cherry slush of ecstasy. The cups? Yeah, they were at the fingertips of grasp. It was the damn lever that had left me standing with narrowed eyes while Mouth ran rampant with words like You stupid piece of fudge! Give me my Slurpee! and Oh, fudge! Because, for some reason, it annoyed the heck out of my mother whenever I said that word while expressing an angry tone of voice. At least I’d never dropped the F-bomb like my father did each time he stubbed a toe because that particular word really annoyed my mother.

  While I’d batted a paper cup up at the obstinate lever remaining rigidly in the wrong position, I was keenly aware of the panicked voice sounding very much like my father’s as it made its way up and down each aisle yelling, “Kiara!” Every second counted when you were determined to score an unauthorized cherry Slurpee in the middle of twenty-degree weather. Dutifully responding to a parental summons was wasted time. Cuz much to the convenience store clerk’s delight, once that cherry stuff came out of the machine, it wasn’t going back in, and the parent had no say in the matter.

  The handle to the machine was pulled by some invisible fingers while I stood glaring, and it shot down right as my father stood one aisle away. My cup filled with red, and then the overflow tray filled with red, and then a round circle of red appeared on the floor. And that circle grew. Because much like I couldn’t turn on the machine, I couldn’t turn it off.

  Then I’d heard the giggles. A girl just a little taller than me, with dirty blond hair pulled back in tight ringlets, leaned against a cooler wearing a simple cotton gown. Of course, at the time, I didn’t know her gown was made of cotton. Nor did I understand that ringlets were even a word. But I knew she looked strange. Her dress was nothing like anything I’d seen before, and she appeared cold. It had started snowing outside, and she wasn’t even wearing a jacket.

  The longer I stared, her eyes widened, and her grin fell. Then she poofed, leaving me to take the fall for a once-white floor now stained with cherry slush that moments before had filled the inside of a Slurpee machine.

  Addie was the first dead person I’d seen while holding the understanding that they were dead. Or rather, she’d helped me gain the understanding that odd people I’d seen during my short years of life were actually deceased. That poofing thing held a lot of explanation that my parents had refused to explain. But although I saw dead people, I didn’t see dead bodies.

  Ever.

  Until Red Coat, a woman I watched be hit by a car after my leg tripped her foot and sent her spiraling into the middle of the road. Gut developed an odd sensation. One informing that with this recent life change, time was ticking and my days were numbered. That beating sound I heard was not Miss Prim, who stood across from my desk with one hand propping up her deathly pale chin while the fingers to the other rhythmically tapped against the paper strewn surface of the wood. Prior to Miss Prim’s proximity, said papers had been stacked in perfect order.

  “I’m bored,” she said.

  The lobby of Fated Match, the exclusive matchmaking service owned by psychic Maude Taggart, was empty. A love-desperate client waiting to discover what soulmate the stars had aligned them with was not available for Miss Prim’s morning amusement. The office was vacant, as it should have been since I was still compiling information on Maude’s next client. Because the only thing psychic about Maude Taggart was her prediction that if she texted the word coffee at nine o’clock at night, I’d bring her a steaming cup from Java Addiction at nine o’clock at night. Checking Account dictated that I jump to Maude’s bidding. As soon as I found enough money for alternative arrangements, Checking Account and I were getting divorced. Then I was taking the cash—all barely-enough-to-cover-next-month’s-rent currently tucked inside the bank.

  Fingers flew across the computer keyboard as I wrapped up the latest client report. Miss Prim’s withdrawn face was not worth the glance as I said, “Then leave.”

  “But I have nothing to do. I’ll still be bored.”

  “Then I can’t help you.”

  Miss Prim’s head shook. “You’re no help.”

  Eyes may or may not have rolled. “Find a hobby.”

  Her sigh was long. Dramatic. Irritating. Just when I was about to crumple my hot-off-the-printer report and stuff it into her mouth…

  “Maybe I can take up archery.”

  Flying arrows shot by invisible fingers? Yeah, that would go over sooo well. Miss Prim was the newly appointed resident ghost at Fated Match. She’d strolled in one morning wearing her prim white button-up blouse and swing skirt looking for true love and failing to realize that it was five decades too late for the house, the kids, and the white picket fence. Although I had promised to find her a ghost to spend the rest of eternity with, unfortunately, the last spirit to catch her eye had a permanent date with Hell, and I was pretty certain Satan didn’t share.

  An appointment reminder on my calendar dinged. One peek at the task had my jaw clenched as I fought back my own sigh. “Go stare at Wilcox’s butt,” I said.

  That ding was the alarm set by one (currently) bored ghost, and it had spelled out in very precise letters: Check out Detective Wilcox’s butt. While I’d have to be senile, blind, dead, and buried six feet under to not notice that Wilcox di
d indeed have a very fine ass, I was not the female in the room sneaking onto the work computer in the middle of the night to update her Hot Detective Butts blog. The last I checked, Miss Prim was up to four hundred followers. More than one hundred different detectives’ butts had made their photographic appearance on her page. Women in America, and most of Western Europe, really liked police detectives and their butts—or the latter, at least.

  “He wasn’t at work last week,” Miss Prim said, speaking of Detective Wilcox. “Your fault.”

  “Hey, not my fault. I saved his life.”

  “You sent him to the hospital.”

  “He should have stayed behind me,” I grumbled, sliding down in my seat and typing up a summary to a new client application like there was no tomorrow. Because it was my fault, a smudge of guilt hounded me day and night over Wilcox’s injury. The irate ghost we’d faced had been pissed at me, not him. I was the one tasked with sending the ghost to Hell. It was my job as Praedator—a specialized Reaper working for Satan—to inform certain marked spirits that their time of blue skies and soon-to-be crisp fall air had come to an end. None had yet taken the news well. Five hard-to-please ghosts were down—as in, down below. Way below… where the flames burned hot, and ice was nothing but a myth. I’d received my sixth assignment that morning.

  Since I’d scored the ghastly no pay or benefits job, my life was going very well. I’d been seconds away from changing my mailing address to Hell. I’d taken a swim in the mall fountain while sparks from ghostly induced malfunctioning lights exploded above my head, and I’d played dodgeball with cars as I flew across the interstate at the speed of traffic, only not with the flow of traffic. And not from the inside of a car. Considering that all week I’d managed to get my assigned marks onto the Hell Express within the allotted timeframe, things were going great. I simply wished the job came with hazardous pay.

  “Besides”—Miss Prim stood up and pursed her lips as her eyes narrowed—“Wilcox is a man, and I’ve given up on men, so I’m not going to look at his butt anymore.”

  Eyebrows rose. “So, I can take this appointment reminder off my calendar?”

  “No, leave it. Maybe I’ll want to look at his butt again in the future, and I will need the reminder. In the meantime, I give you permission to keep butt-looking. Take notes.”

  All right then. I returned to my typing. Miss Prim paced a circle around the room. She rearranged a few chairs that had been perfectly fine in their previous positions. She fluffed a few flowers and walked off with petals stuck between her fingers. Then she poofed.

  “Well, aren’t you going to ask?”

  A Miss Prim head popped up through my desk, stopping inches from my face. Butt lifted three feet off its seat. Pulse ran an unscheduled 500-yard dash, and I was still convinced Miss Prim held a death wish. Mine.

  “What the hell? What…” I leaned back and took a deep breath. “Don’t ever do that again.”

  Miss Prim stepped out from the middle of the desk. “But you didn’t ask.”

  “Ask what?”

  “Why I’ve given up on men.”

  “Why have you given up on men?”

  “Because you don’t have a man and you do perfectly fine. You haven’t had any since I met you. You even tried killing the only one I found for you—”

  “I didn’t try killing him.”

  “But despite it all, you seem perfectly normal. And you haven’t bought a cat or started knitting tea cozies.”

  “Thank you, I think.” I finished working on the last of Maude’s folders. “Now, can everyone please stay out of my love life? This has gotten old.”

  “No one likes seeing people all alone, especially not those who scoff at the idea of dating. You represent a work in progress that everyone wants to help. A challenge.”

  “I don’t scoff at dating. Besides, doesn’t that mean you’d become the same challenge everyone wants to help if you begin putting off men?”

  “Exactly.”

  My cell phone rang. Sexy Butt flashed on the display screen. Eyes flew up to stare at one way-too-innocent looking ghost whose own eyes refused to meet mine.

  “I gave Detective Wilcox your number.” Miss Prim took a wise step back. “You better answer that.”

  She poofed. I remained staring at the spot she’d vacated, the attempts to will her back so her throat could be throttled became futile. I hit the accept button on my phone one ring before it went to voicemail. “Hello?”

  Did my voice croak? Damn.

  “Kiara? This is Ty Wilcox.”

  No croak sounded in his perfect tone of voice. It was smooth and touched with the same arrogance I’d gotten to know all too well. I could replace arrogance with confidence, but I didn’t. Not yet. But there might have been a hint of something more than the arrogance—or confidence—in his inflection, but I couldn’t quite place what.

  “How can I help you, Detective?”

  “Call me Ty.”

  Stomach plunged, and my grip on the phone tightened. “Okay… Ty. What can I do for you?”

  Friendly and flirty Brain coached. Which I knew I so was not being. Because here was a hot guy with a job and no signs of a Chia Pet fetish, calling me on the phone. But Mouth panicked, and it clamped shut in self-preservation mode. Brain had yet to find the override. No wonder I hadn’t had a freakin’ date in eight months.

  “Can you meet me at The Alchemy Hotel?”

  Wait—what? That was not the direction I foresaw this conversation going. Actually, where was it going? Fantasies would become rampant if they didn’t receive some direction. Like soon. “Hotel?”

  “I need you.”

  Fantasies moved into overdrive. That’s what happened when the majority of your day was spent with a lovesick ghost who gave constant reminders to a sexy butt attached to soulful dark eyes of one sometimes prickly detective.

  “Andrew thinks—”

  “Detective Ross?” I asked. Wilcox and Ross? Yeah, okay. Fantasies didn’t run that rampant. Logic found the override button for Mouth. “Can you explain what this is about?”

  “We have a case, and I need your help.”

  A case? Wilcox and Ross were homicide detectives. They knew when they had a case based on one human-sized clue. Gut chimed in. The feeling was strong. I was about to see my second dead body

  Chapter Two

  More than six feet of lean muscle paced outside the front entrance as I approached The Alchemy Hotel. Confident. Arrogant. In charge. Those descriptions normally defined Detective Ty Wilcox. Not this restless back and forth. Nor the hand scrubbing through thick, dark hair. What happened to the most confident sounding man I’d spoken to minutes before—or the one hundred percent assertive man I’d last seen two weeks ago? That something other previously hinting in his tone of voice on the phone now reflected across his face. Whatever this other was, it wasn’t good.

  Instinct determined the morning should be spent running over to Java Addiction for the cup of coffee Maude hadn’t yet realized she desired. Because I wanted no part of Wilcox’s agitation.

  Dark eyes lit on me. Damn. Too late.

  The man stilled his relentless pace, and Feet felt a tug. They changed direction from the beckoning sidewalk of escape to walk toward him. It might as well have been a death march. Gut screamed its protest, a churning sensation of nerves leaving the pit of my stomach queasy. But a glint in Wilcox’s eyes, almost like relief, clenched my jaw in determination as I stopped before him.

  “Ms. Blake, thank you for coming,” Detective Ross said, materializing from the inside of the building. His voice was startling, and it jerked my gaze away from Wilcox’s anxious stare. Whatever this was, it was bad. Detective Ross’s smile appeared grim as he approached. Yet somehow the corners of his mouth still tugged up at an angle to appear pleasant. Talented, that one.

  And Wilcox? Quiet. Too quiet. Despite having known the man for only a few short weeks, I didn’t question my gut instinct when it informed that this wasn’t natural. W
ilcox’s usual take-charge attitude came across as defeated.

  “What can I help you with?” I asked, looking from one solemn face to the other. “Why am I here?”

  That was the real question. Other than with a couple of recent dead clients at Fated Match, I hadn’t any experience with police assistance. Or police hindrance. Depending on who was asked.

  Wilcox’s hand settled on my shoulder. The left hand. Because the right arm was caught up in a sling of support held against his chest. Eyes refused to focus on his injury because guilt demanded that I apologize for my lack of protection, which had resulted in that injury. Yet the words didn’t know how to form on my lips. The right hand wasn’t the one that now held my snagged attention. It was the left. And it felt warm. Comforting. The nervous shaking I was doing had become soothed.

  “Kiara, have you ever seen a dead body?” Wilcox asked.

  Lungs halted. I knew it. And sometimes I really hated being right. “Once.”

  At the detectives’ continued silence, I elaborated, “A few weeks ago, I witnessed a woman hit by a car.”

  “Would you be okay coming upstairs to view one?”

  “Why?”

  “There’s…” Wilcox stalled. His eyes flew up to share a questioning glance with Detective Ross. “There’s something unnatural about this death, and we think you might be of some help.”

  “Because I see ghosts?”

  “More like, because you may know if a ghost could commit this type of crime,” Detective Ross said.

  My head shook. “I doubt I can help. I see spirits, but they aren’t usually killing people when I notice them.”

  Red-Eyed Ghost flashed in my mind. Him. I had watched as he’d leaned over the railings above while trying to toss me off the side of a bridge when I was fifteen. And New Target had done his best to kill me with a bookshelf. Then Wilcox and I both witnessed Logan Bradley try to take the life of a thieving, murderous bastard. Damn. Ghosts all with the intent to kill. Thoughts spun. All of the murderous attempts made on me during the past week came to mind as I had chased my assigned marks. One after another they flickered through my head. Life had made a drastic change without my permission, and perhaps I knew a lot more about murderous ghostly ways than I cared to admit.