Chapter Ten
Neith
“Because they’re healthier and stronger. Whatever he’s doing to them, trying to turn them into these hybrids, it’s taking a serious toll on their bodies. The stronger the supernatural, the more likely they are to survive the process,” Doc replies.
“Unfortunately, that makes a lot of sense,” Van grimaces.
“We need to be on the lookout for him at the sales tomorrow as well,” Ransom suggests. “There’s a chance that he could be there. This is going to be a huge operation.”
“It is, but it’s nothing that we haven’t done before,” River replies.
“Speak for yourself,” I mutter and then clarify.
“I’ve done this sort of thing before, but usually it’s just me going in, with no backup.
At least I haven’t had backup since I was working with Coen and Dimitri.
Going in with a team this big and with a fuckton of backup is going to be an entirely new experience for me. ”
“What do you mean?” Coen asks, his eyes narrowed. “HID sent back up in with you when you did your jobs.”
I shake my head, “No, they didn’t. Not even right at the very beginning when they didn’t irrationally hate me.
” He remains silent, so I continue explaining because I thought he already knew this, it’s difficult to remember what we’ve told him and what we haven’t gotten around to yet.
“I’m not entirely sure when their attitude switched toward me, although they were never exactly kind, but the more successful I was at working the cases, the harder the cases became.
Until they would send me into situations by myself, ones that should have killed me. ”
I don’t add that they did kill me. A few times, actually.
Coen growls, “I’ll kill them.”
“Let’s go,” Reed replies, his eyes glowing a dark, burnt kind of red, as his demon side makes more of an appearance.
It’s sexy as fuck. I’ve never seen his eyes do that before though.
“Whoa,” Doc mutters, staring at Reed. “Your eyes just glowed red.”
“They did?” He asks, the shock returning his eyes to normal. “They’ve never done that before. At least no one has told me that they have.”
Raiden’s eyebrows dip slightly, “It could be because you no longer have your power on lockdown around us, and it’s allowing things that you had suppressed to come forward. Or it could be a part of your new magic.”
“It might even be a mix of the two,” Ransom adds thoughtfully.
“I feel fine, so we’ll just keep an eye on it,” Reed suggests, sounding unconcerned about the newest development.
To be honest, so long as he’s feeling okay, I don’t feel the need to worry about it. All of our eyes change color when we shift or use our magic, adding another color into the mix isn’t really that big of a deal.
Reed’s gaze meets Coen’s, “Shall we?”
Coen stands, and I stare at them both incredulously.
Van sighs, “As much as I want to gut the fucker who gave the commands, and make him drown in his own blood, we are on a tight schedule. We don’t have time to go back, kill the fucker in charge, make it look like an accident, and not get caught by SID, who are watching them closely at the moment, in order to take down the traitors and those who are taking orders from Casimir. It would take more planning.”
I just sit there and stare at them as they all look disappointed. They’re talking about doing an un-sanctioned mission, and hiding it from their own agency in order to kill the fucker who gave the orders for me to go into dangerous jobs by myself.
I melt, it’s really fucking sweet of them.
“So after we’ve shut down the sales then?” Raiden asks with a dark smile.
Van seems to think about it for a moment.
I grin, I like it a lot more than I think I probably should.
“While I appreciate your willingness to kill for me, in fact, I think it’s pretty fucking hot, actually.
I would rather that he pay for what he’s done, and the number of supernatural lives that he’s destroyed by being locked up.
He’s not dangerous enough to warrant killing, not like Casimir is, and it would actually be more of a punishment, and more fitting to keep him alive and facing the consequence of his actions here before he then gets to the Spirit Realm and the Luciorekis punish him for eternity. ”
Raiden sits forward in his chair, his gaze studying me closely, “How do you know that word?”
I frown, “Luciorekis?” I ask, although there really isn’t any need for the question. All of the other words in my sentence were pretty normal words, and I’m going to assume that he wasn’t asking me about one of them.
Raiden nods, his gaze still intently watching me as he replies simply, “Yes.”
My eyebrows draw down. “I don’t know. Now that I’m thinking about it, I have no idea where the knowledge has come from.
I know I definitely didn’t get taught it, and I’ve never met one of them.
They don’t come to this realm.” My eyes widen, “Again, I have no idea how I know that, but I do with almost one hundred percent certainty.”
The Voices are loud, but they aren’t saying anything, it’s just a cacophony of noise.
I get the feeling that they’re trying to tell me something, but can’t.
Which doesn’t make much sense to me because I know that they can talk to me now.
Although maybe it's only in certain situations? It’s not like they’re talking to me all of the time now.
“What’s going on, Raiden?” Ransom asks.
“I’ve never heard of the Luciorekis,” Griff adds with a slight frown.
Raiden nods, “Very few people have. I technically shouldn’t even know who they are, but I had a run-in with them when I went to the Spirit Realm trying to find my mom.
I shouldn’t have been in the level that I was in.
I’m reasonably certain that the only reason why I was able to escape was that they were so shocked to see a kid reaper in their level, it gave them enough pause for me to leave.
I think if it weren’t for that, they would have at least taken me in for questioning.
That incident was another reason why I locked the other half of myself away. ”
“You never said anything,” Van says, his eyebrows dipping slightly.
Raiden shrugs, “Honestly, I had forgotten about it until Neith mentioned Luciorekis. My run-in with them on their level of the Spirit Realm scared the fucking shit out of me, and I was dealing with everything to do with my mom, and my father stepped his shit up. I was happy to forget.”
“That makes sense, actually. It’s perfectly normal, it’s the brain's way of protecting itself,” Coen replies. He then adds curiously, “So what do you remember now?”
“Everything, it would seem. Looking back now, it doesn’t fill me with the same amount of terror that it did when I was a child, but it definitely leaves me feeling uneasy,” Raiden replies.
Before he can explain anything else, Ransom interrupts him, “How do you know so much about them if you were only there for a short amount of time?”
Raiden smirks slightly, “I said that they were so shocked to see me that it gave me a chance to escape, not that I hadn’t been there watching them for a while.”
I burst out laughing. “You know what, that sounds about right, actually. You were absolutely terrified of where you were and what you were seeing, but so curious that you had to stay and get as much information as possible.”
“Pretty much,” Raiden grins.
“So what happened?” Van asks with curiosity in his tone.
“I learned what they were called, it wasn’t just them on that level of the Spirit Realm, there were others as well, supernaturals that I had never seen before and haven’t seen since.
They spoke of the Luciorekis in hushed tones, with fear in their expressions.
I think they were a breed of supernatural beings who exist specifically to punish those who deserve it in the Spirit Realm.
It turned out that I had somehow made it to the level of the Spirit Realm that was for punishment and torture.
Reapers shouldn’t be able to get to that level.
In fact, in all of our teachings, I’ve never even heard of that level,” Raiden explains.
“It’s simply not mentioned. Although with the reapers, that doesn’t necessarily mean that they don’t know about the level or the supernaturals that occupy it.
All it means is that they haven’t deemed it important enough for the general populace of reapers to know. ”
“Or it’s too important,” Coen points out.
“The reapers like to keep the important shit on a need-to-know basis, where only the higher-ups need to know, and even then, I’m not convinced that all of the higher-ups know what they should.
If the general populace learns what you told me about the fact that the current Reaper Council are not the ones who should be in charge, then all hell will break loose. ”
Raiden’s eyebrows rise slightly, “You aren’t wrong, but I’m not entirely convinced that they would do anything, they’re too afraid of the consequences or being demoted down a tier.”
“Wait, they demote people?” I ask incredulously. “I thought the system was based on strength.”
Raiden sighs, but anger fills his expression, “It is. However, the council decided that under certain circumstances, a reaper can be demoted and lose the privileges of whatever tier he or she was in. It doesn’t take away their strength, not even the Reaper Council can do that, but it does take away their status and the perks that they get with being in a higher tier. ”
“You mean the perks that the Reaper Council made up when they decided that they would be in charge because the original Reaper Council mysteriously didn’t make it through the portal in time when Trieneliea was evacuated?” Griff growls with snark.