Page 44 of Reaper's Pack

“He’s Hell-bound for sure,” I mused, to which Gunnar snorted and nodded, both of us looking back to the gathering of police vehicles ahead. Red and blue lights washed over the surrounding buildings, and a few brave humans had started to gather at the scene, their phones out and recording. I rolled my eyes. “This man… He outsmarted human authorities for a long time. He’s been killing for almost a decade—total narcissist. Psychotic. Thinks he’s always the most brilliant man in the room. His soul won’t be any different.”

Gunnar gave a deep bark in response, tapping his front paws like he was winding up for a sprint. I pressed my lips together, fighting back a smile; for all his talk, for the ridiculous way he pressed his shirts, dressing the best out of the pack, using a fork and knife before the others—Gunnar was the yappiest of the three by a mile.

It was almost endearing.

“If he gets away, he’ll become a very cruel spirit,” I remarked. Souls had slipped my grasp before in the last ten years, but I had only worked small towns back then, and I could count my lost spirits on both hands. None of them had been as foul as this one, and if he got loose, he would take great pleasure in tormenting the living, just as he had done in life, for the rest of eternity.

Not on my watch.

And, apparently, not on Gunnar’s. The hellhound paced forward a few steps, growling low, then looked back to me and barked in a Come on, let’s go! tone that almost made me grin again.

Then he stilled, head whipping forward, snout pointing in the direction of the newly departed soul. Of course he could sense it. I had been creating soul-scent signatures for over a month now, putting the pack through the ropes so that when they faced a real soul, they would know it in an instant.

Even if I couldn’t see a soul, I always sensed them. A bright, vibrant, humming energy released into the celestial plane, they were how I imagined stars might feel. Orchid-scented stars. Even now in Lunadell, other souls entered the plane, hundreds dying each day from this or that, but Alexander would see to them with his pack, managing the metropolis until me and my boys were ready to shoulder some of the burden.

For now, it was Gunnar’s responsibility to focus on only this soul.

“Let’s get him,” I said. Those three words sent Gunnar into a gallop, and I jogged to keep up with him, sliding through the clustered police vehicles, both of us blitzing through humans in uniform. Already they had erected a barricade at the mouth of the alley, beyond the cars, and a crowd gathered in bolder numbers now, eager to get a look at who had died. Behind me, wheels screeched over the pavement; Kenneth Miller would be on the news this evening. No one needed to ogle his corpse now.

As we cut through the swath of officers, they parted for someone else: a sobbing woman with a black eye and ripped stockings, led away by two paramedics and men in suits, their copper badges hanging off their necks. Gunnar sniffed at them in passing, but none of the dozens of distractions deterred him. Good. A hellhound needed to act quickly. Not every death took place in a sterile hospital room; scenes of blood and guts and gore could easily distract the best of them.

Halfway down the alley between two buildings, the gap wide enough for delivery trucks to pass through on a regular day, Kenneth Miller had been gunned down. Knowing what I did about him, his life’s story playing on a loop quietly in the recesses of my reaper mind, I suspected he had forced the officers’ hands—he had chosen this, death by firing squad. Someone got him in the head, blood weeping from a wound in the center of his forehead. His glasses had fallen off, cracked at his side. A jagged hunting knife was in the process of being bagged by a rubber-gloved officer.

And the soul of a serial killer stood over his body, staring down at it with a cold detachment I so rarely saw in recently departed humans.

Gunnar paused on the tips of his toes some ten feet from the body, as if to take Kenneth in. Souls were a touch more translucent than their human forms, but otherwise they looked the same. In time, if they remained on Earth, they would rot and become the things of nightmares.

Kenneth Miller was an average fellow—but his type usually was. Tall, strong but not threatening, sandy-blond hair, and a full broom mustache. Still clothed in the outfit he’d died in, you wouldn’t look twice at him on the street. Jeans. A grey tee. A black hoodie—a bit young for his forty-six years, but certainly not unusual. Worn sneakers.

A butcher in sheep’s clothing.

I stopped at Gunnar’s side, scythe prominent, my attire leaving no room for doubt: the grim reaper had come calling. Slowly, the soul lifted his gaze to us, first to me, then the scythe, before creeping over to Gunnar.

“Kenneth Miller,” I started, my tone calm but assertive—stronger, perhaps, than my stature would suggest. It wouldn’t be the first time a soul, particularly a male soul, didn’t take me seriously because of my appearance. I held out my pale hand, palm up, and arched an eyebrow at him. “It’s time to move on.”

Head cocked, the man’s soul studied us both intently for a moment, his mouth in a tight line, his forehead crinkled—and then he was off. A runner. Of course.

My heart skipped a beat, the chase always a little adrenaline-inducing, but Kenneth sodding Miller managed to actually surprise me. Rather than bolting down the alley away from us, he darted left, then crab-walked up the side of the building, screaming bloody murder the whole way, and somehow managed to twist his head fully upside-down like a demented owl.

So soon after death and well on his way to poltergeist territory, eh? Definitely damned.

I gritted my teeth as Kenneth went up and over the rooftop, disappearing, and then exhaled sharply, already annoyed with the stunt.

“Up,” I ordered, striding over to touch Gunnar so that he could teleport with me—only he acted before I had the chance. The hellhound vanished before my eyes, so swift and fluid like he had done it a hundred times before, and for a brief second, my heart plummeted into my gut and out the other side.

Because what if this was it? What if this was his chance to flee, in the middle of chaos and turmoil, a soul on the loose?

Barking erupted from the roof—more like snarling, really, a gruff, harsh sound that resonated through the celestial plane. I leaned heavily on my scythe for a beat, relief making my knees weak, before teleporting up to the rooftop myself.

Gunnar had figured out teleportation before the rest of them. While I had no clue what other magic hellhounds had at their disposal, all the power denied to them and suppressed by their demon masters, I knew for a fact that Gunnar would discover—and conquer—it first.

I materialized on the roof’s edge, taking a moment to assess the situation as it unfolded. Ahead, Kenneth Miller had broken off in a full-tilt sprint, blitzing across the flat, dusty surface, skirting air-conditioning units, and leaping from this building to the next.

And right on his heels, Gunnar, his body sleek and elegant, lean muscles rippling, charging after the wayward soul like a missile.

Impressive.

Beautiful, actually.

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