Reaper's Dark Kiss Read Online Free Page A

ending in sharp points. “Can’t concentrate,” she said and swiped the screen into empty black. “Question two, what do you do, and who do you do it for?”
    “Bodyguard,” Julian said, itching at the lie he used in the Sun World. “Can’t say who for. My clients like their privacy.”
    “You know what’s funny about you?” Sky’s silvery-gray eyes scrutinized Julian in a way he wasn’t used to. “Everything you say sounds like a cover story. There’s almost enough to make sense, but not quite.”
    Buying time with a few slow sips of coffee, Julian said, “What do you think I’m covering up?”
    “You know how those people are dying.” She spoke calmly, measuring her words as if she were ticking off points on a list. “You think you can stop the Fang Killer. You don’t know where to find him. You act like you and he are in the same club, maybe a club that does weird things, but this guy got a little too weird, and you got sent to rein him in.”
    With nearly nothing to go on, Sky had gotten too close for Julian to risk lying. He said nothing.
    “Who is he?” Sky asked.
    Vandar’s scent was all over the bodies. He was addicted to draining the same way a mortal could be addicted to heroin. All Julian needed to get the council to issue a death scroll was to witness Vandar doing it one time. That was the law. But something wasn’t right. The bodies didn’t fit. Vandar was too smart to dump drained mortals in plain sight in the Sun World. It was like advertising for a signed death scroll. Julian told Sky the truth. “I don’t know all of it.”
    Sky put her feet down and gazed out into the trees. Julian recognized the haunted look on her face. He’d seen it in the condemned when he’d found them hiding, trying to outlive their sentence. Whatever was eating Sky didn’t have anything to do with dead mortals in the park. It was personal.
    “What happened?” Julian asked quietly.
    “I saw something really weird,” Sky said. “And it’s making me feel a little crazy.”
    “And it scared you,” Julian said.
    “Yeah,” she said in a bare whisper.
    “Then let’s do something not scary,” Julian said, trying to think of what would keep Sky with him until dawn. “Where do you like to go?”
    “I like dinosaurs. I’ve been going to see the same fossils since I was a little girl.” Her voice became slow, considering. “They’re always there. They don’t go anywhere.”
    “I think I know someplace you’d like,” Julian said, getting up and offering Sky a hand. “Not every museum’s behind walls.”

Chapter Five
    “How far do these go?” Sky asked.
    “All over the city,” Julian said. “Paris has catacombs. New York has old train tunnels.”
    After they left the park, Julian had led Sky to the far edge of the network Shadow Worlders used to travel the day. This part had been abandoned decades ago when mortals built too close for safety. Fugitive light seeped in through the roof’s stonework.
    “There it is again,” Sky said. “Cover story. These aren’t tunnels for the trains anymore. Someone added on.” She turned to Julian. “You don’t know who might have done that, do you?”
    “Someone with too much money and not enough friends to tell him not to?”
    He brushed his hand against hers, and she slipped her fingers through his. Julian took her through narrow winding byways until they came to the Old Circle. It used to be a meeting place, safely underground from the sun. The domed roof was a mosaic that told the story of how the Shadow World came to be. Stone benches rose in concentric circles around a small stage. Smoky moonlight drifted through pinprick holes where tiles had fallen away from the mosaic. Julian helped Sky up crumbling steps to the stage. They sat on the edge, side by side, legs hanging down.
    “Let me guess,” Sky said. “This is an old station nobody knows about except bodyguards with secret clients.”
    Julian leaned back on his elbows. “You guess