Page 152 of Finders Reapers

It was different. It was new. A weird metaphysical connection twanging like cello strings in his chest, and from the looks on his friend's faces, they could feel it too.

Even Maddox, who was so dense, it was a wonder he functioned emotionally.

He saw the moment that Vallie spotted them. Her face was pale and stricken. She shouted something, shooing them away, but Fletcher couldn’t stop himself. She was going to get killed. She didn’t even have a scythe.

The beasts wriggled from the holes in the ground, ready to eat everything in sight; their movements caused the ground to shake and the dirt to grumble, not a shock wave that had lifted his body for a moment.

Vallie extended her arms and turned away.

It started as a shock wave, like a wall of dense air and lifting his feet from the ground.

“What isdoingthat?” Jamal said through gritted teeth.

Vallie closed her eyes.

“Oriax is going to blow her to smithereens, and that’s I those damn worms don’t eat her. What was she thinking?!” Jamal tried to move forward, but it was as if he was encased in molasses.

Fletcher realized that all of the guys were watching Oriax; he wasn’t even sure if they had noticed that Vallie’s feet had lifted from the ground as she rose, weightless, into the sky.

Another pulse rippled down, forcing Fletcher’s breath from his lungs. “Valentina...” He whispered her name.

She was too far away to hear.

Vallie threw her head back, and darkness burst forth so forcefully that it twisted her limbs and left her mouth and eye sockets. An all-consuming cloud of shadows raced out and sucked the blue from the sky and the color from everything Fletcher could see for miles around.

The rumbling of the emerging beasts stopped, the Oriax’s wings stopped as if time was frozen.

Vallie was gone.

Another pulse.

This one turned Fletcher’s vision white.

All he felt was pain.

He couldn’t see. He couldn’t feel his arms or legs; all he could see was pain.

He didn’t know when he woke up, but it felt like only a moment.

The sun overhead had moved over the sky, no longer rising but directly above baring down.

Fletcher sat up, grabbing at his chest. Every breath burned, and he felt like he was on fire. He managed to roll onto all fours, coughing and hacking up bile that was both black and bloody.

No angel was laughing and mocking them. No earthquakes, but no other sounds either. Fletcher placed his fingers to his ears, and they came away sticky with blood.

He blinked and looked up. His vision burned away and slowly returned. He felt like he had been slapped with a two-by-four right in the face.

Finally, when his vision cleared enough, he saw Maddox, Rome, and Jamal, but they weren’t in a much better state. Deaf, recovering from some kind of blindness brought on by the burst of light and stumbling about in pain.

Vallie!

Fletcher sat up, frantic, as he scouted the area for Valentina, but he couldn’t see her.

Maddox ripped his shirt at the collar as if trying to put down a fire, clawing at his skin. Confused, Fletcher watched as Maddox revealed a demonic rune burnt into his pectoral muscle, right over his heart.

Had that been what that pain was?

Fletcher reached for his t-shirt and stretched out the neck, looking down, he saw that he had the same mark.