Scarlet Bells
by Jenna Ryan
Copyright © 2017 by Jenna Ryan. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce, distribute, or transmit in any form or by any means. For information regarding subsidiary rights, please contact the Publisher.
Chapter One
A foggy day in Boston turned to night in the snap of a bony finger.
Ben Sayer knew he’d passed out. He woke up propped against a dirty brick wall in an alley his hazy eyes didn’t recognize. He could smell the river though, and see his own breath, so the numbness in his limbs wasn’t necessarily due to loss of blood.
His leather jacket creaked when he moved. He wasn’t alone. Shadowy figures shuffled within the layered fog.
Swearing, he sucked up the pain of two bullets—one in his thigh, one in his shoulder—and made it, swaying, to his knees.
The figures continued to move, shuffling closer. Time to look dangerous.
He located his gun, fortunately still tucked in his waistband. Holding it in the hand he braced against the wall, he fumbled for his phone with the other. Speed dial, he thought fuzzily, is a godsend.
Sweat and blood dripped with each quick beep. Two rings later, his stepsister answered. “My God, Ben, it’s Friday night, twelve hours after the latest time you promised to call. I know there’s a reason, just please don’t let it have blond hair.”
His lips ghosted into a weak smile. “Good to hear you too, Ro. Got a problem.”
Annoyance immediately gave way to concern. “Are you hurt? You sound hurt. Where are you? What can I do?”
The shapes drifted closer, but a bigger worry right then was the slow crunch of tires on the street to his left. Two doors slammed. There was a three-second pause, then a pair of powerful yellow lights beamed like snake eyes through the fog.
Okay, well, you had to figure. “Gotta go, Ro. Gotta move.” Ben one-legged it deeper into the alley, half-running, half-hopping as he checked out the lights creeping closer. “I’m down by the river, near Bethany Mews. Meet me. I’ll try for the roof. Number thirteen. Call when you get there. If I don’t answer, leave fast. Hanging up now.”
His breath came in gasps, tight, he hoped, from the cold and damp, and not because his lungs were filling with blood. Hard to tell. His limbs weighed fifty pounds apiece, and his mind threatened to go black at any moment.
He made it to the mews, a row of filthy, stinking apartments no longer fit for human habitation. Broken windows gaped with side shutters dangling precariously. There was dry rot inside and wet rot out, crumbling walls and mutilated floorboards. What electricity managed to trickle through the system sparked when used, and rodents outnumbered the tenants twenty to one.
Ben’s luck, such as it was, held. He passed no one in the narrow hallways or the stairwell. Clinging to consciousness by a thread, he crawled onto a decaying sill, through the window of number thirteen and up to the roof.
He collapsed on ragged shingles with no idea if the yellow spots in front of him came from strong flashlights or curious rat eyes. At this point, he didn’t care. Only one thing mattered. Staying awake and out of sight long enough to see his stepsister, Rosemary, safe.
…
If anything, the fog thickened in the time it took Rosemary Sayer to get from her home in Cambridge across the Charles River to Bethany Mews.
Keeping her hand, and the pistol she’d brought along as a precaution, in her jacket pocket, she looked up at the mostly deserted building. She let five relatively silent seconds pass before raising her phone and making the call.
“You took your damn time,” her stepbrother said, panting. “Is anything suspicious happening down there?”
She swept her gaze across the blurred outline of the roof. “There’s only the fog, Ben, and whatever’s wandering around inside it. You said number thirteen, right?”
“Right, but wrong. I’ll come to you. I’m hearing noises downstairs that I don’t like.”
The skin on her neck prickled and got her moving across the street. “I can tell you’ve been shot. Where?”
“Leg and shoulder.” His breath labored in and out, noisily enough to scare her. “Ro, do rats have yellow eyes?”
“I’m not—” She tugged on the warped outer door. “Some do. I think.” Planting a foot on the frame, she gave a hard yank. “Are you anywhere near downstairs yet?”
The door flew open while she was pulling, and it threw her backward. Before she could catch her balance, 160 pounds of long-haired, tattooed, leather-and-denim-clad stepbrother tumbled across the threshold and sent her crashing to the ground. Alarmed, and with her head reeling from the unexpected impact, Rosemary pushed him far enough away to see his shadowed face.
By filthy streetlamp light, she spied the leading edge of gray stealing across his striking features. And, oh God, his eyes were beginning to glaze.
“You need a hospital.” She got them both to their knees, then stopped and snapped her head around. Were those real voices murmuring in the fog, or was she only hearing them in her mind?
Fiery daggers of pain shattered the thought. She drew a short, sharp breath, and for a moment—less than a heartbeat of time—felt the icy blackness of death glide in and out.
“Jesus, Ben.” Clutching his shoulders, she dragged him up higher. “How much blood have you lost?”
“A lot.” He slurred the words and climbed to his feet as a drunk might after a bar brawl. “Alley’s right there. I lowered the fire escape.” He sent her a meaningful look. “Just in case.”
Because it was what he needed, Rosemary nodded and took his weight. “You always wind up in so much trouble,” she whispered without rancor. “Talk to me, Ben. Who did this to you?”
“Reaper.” His bitter laugh ended on a cough. “It’s what he is and what he’s called. A real green-blooded bastard.”
He stumbled. She caught him. “Hospital,” she repeated through teeth she didn’t dare let chatter.
He gave another feeble laugh. “Come on, Ro, feel me all the way through. No way am I checking in just so I can check out.”
Brilliant red arrows streaked through her head. As they did, Ben staggered and almost took her down again.
They reached the alley, barely. She felt him fighting the pain as he wrenched himself away from her and grabbed the front of her jacket.
“You need to find Tanner, Ro. Do you hear me? Find Sean Tanner. I’m thinking the name of the town where you can do that. Open your mind and take it from me. Read me, goddammit. You’re as good as Great-Grandmother ever was when you want to be.”
I never wanted to be, Rosemary thought, but now wasn’t the time to argue. She allowed the swamp he was visualizing in his mind to take shape in hers. Thick, green, lush. Teeming with insect life. Crawling with reptiles.
“Can you see it?” Ben demanded. “See him?”
A man’s face swam into view. She closed her eyes briefly and the muddy features cleared. “He looks like you.”
“Yeah—no. Smoke and mirrors, Glinda. Same hair and earring, less tattoos, more pissed off. You’ll have a time with him.”
“I’ll have a time with him, why?” Desperate now, she shook him. “Stay with me, Ben.” She glanced into the fog. Definitely bodies in there. “You need to sit. Maybe I can do something to slow the blood loss.”
He started to shake his head but stiffened and squeezed her upper arms instead. “Someone’s coming. Can you hear the footsteps? They’re quiet and purposeful.” He regarded her a moment longer, stared right into her eyes. “You have to go. Go!” he rasped when she hesitated. “For God’s sake, Ro, we’re talking pure evil here. Use the fire escape. Leshad. Remember the name.”
“You’ve told me the name, Ben.”
“Remember Great-Grandmother too. And whatever you do, don’t forget about the Reaper. He’s a big man on the inside. Sorry, I can’t give you a face, but it’s all about secrets in Leshad’s world. He’ll send the Reaper after you. The second I’m dead, Ro, Leshad’ll turn his sights on you. Get to Tanner.”
He shoved her away before she could respond. Stumbling into the fog, he flung his arms out to the sides and let his head fall back. “Man, I can smell that fire and brimstone from here.”
A gun appeared in his hand. Rosemary glimpsed the cocky half-smile she’d seen so often on his lips. And then—nothing. He was gone, firing bullets of pain at her and bullets of lead into the darkness.
Two very real yellow lights appeared. They flickered for a moment before blinking out in tandem.
“It’s you he wants, Ro.” Ben’s voice came directly into her brain. “Run, now, before Leshad gets hold of you.”
Pain bombarded her, wave after searing wave of blood-soaked red. She backed away, heard more shots and finally, a long, rattling breath.
“No,” she whispered, but it was a hollow denial, an empty, echoing sound, swiftly absorbed by the fog.
She closed her eyes, had to so she could jump-start her mind. She only opened them when her shoulder bumped the bottom rung of the fire escape.
A garish face, wooden and painted, hovered in the fog not two feet in front of her. A scream leaped straight into her throat, but she didn’t let it out, and the face didn’t linger. After taking one more backward step, neither did she. Grimly resolved, she grabbed the metal rails and swung herself onto the rusty ladder.
Ben had given his life to save hers. No way would she allow something so costly to be taken away by a mad serial killer or his bloodsucking Reaper.
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