Bewitched & Betrayed by Lisa Shearin

Prey was just food they hadn’t eaten yet.
    I was most definitely prey.
    “Vegard, get Raine out of here,” Mychael ordered. “In my office, behind the wards, and seal them.”
    “Yes, sir.”
    I didn’t move. I felt the cold flowing down the hall on one of the floors below, flowing away from us. “It’s not after me.” I focused my will and found them. “Two Reapers, one floor below.”
    “The mage’s ghost,” Mychael growled.
    Damn. The exorcist was working to separate it from the body it had possessed. One body, two souls, both weakened. Would the Reapers be able to tell which one belonged? Would they care?
    A scream from below said they didn’t.
    Mychael shouted commands and the Guardians stationed at the stairs charged down them, Mychael and Nachtmagus Kalta right behind them.
    Vegard’s hand locked around my arm.
    I didn’t have time for this, and neither did the man downstairs. “Vegard, let me go.” I tried to be reasonable, but I was prepared to be violent.
    “Not this time, ma’am.” He’d been there for my first run-in with a Reaper. He knew how close I’d come then to being taken.
    Shouting joined the screaming, and I felt more cold spots blooming below.
    “There’s more coming,” I said urgently. “They’re outnumbered down there.” I could have done any number of things to get Vegard to let me go, but I was counting on his loyalty to Mychael, not to Mychael’s orders. If Mychael tried to stop those Reapers from feeding, they’d turn on him like a pack of wolves. “I can help him. I can sense Reapers, so I can probably see them.”
    And probably no one else could. Just like the specters. I didn’t need to say it; Vegard knew it.
    “Dammit,” he snarled, releasing my arm. “Not three feet from my side. Not. Three. Feet.”
    We got downstairs and at first glance there were only four Guardians in the hall. I didn’t have to look much closer to see what else was there.
    I could see them. Hellfire and damnation, I could actually see the things.
    “Raine, get out of here!” Mychael shouted.
    “I can see them,” I said. “And there aren’t two of them.” An insubstantial form slipped through the stone wall not ten feet from Mychael as if the wall wasn’t there. “Now there’re five.”
    Nachtmagus Vidor Kalta stood utterly still in the middle of the hall, as if listening to something no one else could hear. “With more on the way.”
    The terrified screaming continued from inside the containment room. It ended abruptly.
    “Clear!” Mychael’s hands were glowing incandescent white, and I felt a tightly focused, controlled surge of power as he put his hands on the door.
    And the door—four-inch-thick wood, banded with heavy iron—simply vanished.
    I felt something cold closing in behind me and spun to face it. “Make that six.”
    A Reaper floated there, mere steps away, watching me. At least I assumed it was watching me; the thing didn’t have any eyes.
    An up-close look at a Reaper was something I never wanted.
    Vegard took up a guard position in front of me, his glowing sword waving slowly back and forth. “Where is it?” He obviously couldn’t see it.
    “Right in front of us.” I didn’t move; I didn’t want to give the thing any ideas.
    Vegard’s pale blue eyes darted back and forth, seeing nothing, but alert to anything. “What’s it doing?”
    “Waiting for something.” I knew we didn’t want to find out what that something was.
    Reapers were only visible to the dead or dying. My connection to the Saghred made me a special case. The rock held thousands of disembodied souls that were not truly alive, not entirely dead. To Reapers, they were shining beacons, irresistible lures, prizes they had been created to capture. As the Saghred’s bond servant, souls could pass through me to the Saghred, so souls could pass out of me into a Reaper—and my own soul would probably be taken right along with them. Slurp. Gone. I didn’t know for sure, and I sure