City Of The Damned (Darkly Devoted Series, Book 5)

Chapter 1

CITY OF THE DAMNED

DARKLY DEVOTED 

Book 5

Chapter 1

ON THE NIGHT, I MADE MY BARGAIN WITH HIM, I chased the Reaper to the edge of a cavern north of Manna City. I needed to find out who he was, but he had disappeared. My soul belonged to this creature of the night called the Reaper, but for days, he melted into the darkness, only to reappear out of the corner of my eyes whenever I ventured out of hiding. After we made our deal, I moved far from everyone I knew. I was afraid that if I told anyone about my deal with him, the Reaper would claim their lives as well.

Then, when he didn't reappear right away, it slowly dawned on me that he was waiting. He wanted me to make a move first, to misstep, to lead him somewhere he had no business being.

For that reason, the only man I spoke to in the past few days was the current acting leader of Qarnik, Calmen Jin.

Mr. Jin and I had never met in person, but until now, we didn't have a reason to communicate with each other. Qarnik is an organization that is sympathetic to the Reaper. They believe that there is a place for everything in creation, including a being that, as the stories say, torments and eats human souls.

Although my family always had ties to Qarnik (thus why we were never very beloved in Manna City), I never felt much allegiance to them. I called Mr. Jin and left him a message that I had met with the Reaper in person and that he should arrange a meeting in person if he wanted more information.

I did this because I knew this was my best chance of luring the Reaper out of hiding. The last thing he would want was for me to meet with Mr. Jin and to make him sympathetic to my plight. Or perhaps, worse yet, Mr. Jin would offer one of his followers as a sacrifice to the Reaper instead. Maybe Jin possessed a pretty virginal daughter who wouldn't mind descending to the world of the dead as the Reaper's special guest.

God knows, a middle-aged woman like me wasn't the best candidate for the Reaper to have picked to waste his time on.

It was no surprise to me that Mr. Jin accepted. He said he would immediately send a plane to fly me to the island of Xisidus. I had never been to their lair before. I knew that it was past Greenland over the continental plates. It would take me far from Manna City, and for that reason, I knew the Reaper would try to stop me from leaving. He wanted me here, not in some hidden corner of the world where I would be far from the action.

That night, after the sun had set over the wreckage of our home city, the Reaper appeared just outside my window. I wasn't living in Manna City at the time, but rather in a cottage far north of the city, just outside my father's castle. It was where the servants lived, back when we had servants.

Now, no one lived here. No one was left to bother me.

The Reaper spoke the first words he had said to me since the day we made the deal to exchange my son Orion's life for my soul, "You will not contact Calmen Jin again."

I had heard his voice before. It was deep and husky, like black volcanic rocks scraping against one another. Yet, this time, I didn't hear his voice with my ears; rather, the sounds reverberated inside my mind.

He didn't need to open his mouth to speak to me anymore. He could slip in and out of my head to convey his message. Perhaps, he exercised this talent because I sold my soul to him, or maybe because I had invited him in. Either way, he only confirmed what I already knew — my thoughts were not my own anymore. He was listening. Nothing was a secret to him anymore.