Free Reaper by K. D. Mcentire Page A

example, did you three ankle-biters know that there's more than one Lightbringer in this great wide Never of ours?”
    “Of course,” Piotr said, bored. “Wendy and her mother. But now this is no longer, it is Wendy alone.”
    “Oh no, son, not even close.” Frank tilted his chair back so he was balanced on the back legs and threaded his hands behind his head. “We're talking a whole battalion of ladies like your little ‘friend.’ Lightbringers? Might as well call ’em Lightslingers! Cousins and aunts and great-grandmothers twice removed, and damn near every last one of them has a vested interest in wiping out the dead. Dead like you, son. Dead like me.”
    “ NET! ” Piotr snarled, rising to his feet. In his periphery he spotted several of Frank's guards start forward, and both Lily and Elle tensed beside him, fists clenched. “You lie! Wendy would have—”
    “Cool it, Red. Sit down.”
    “I will not—”
    “I said: sit…down.” Frank crossed his arms over his chest and gazed evenly at Piotr until Piotr, irritated and uneasy, settled back in his seat. Frank waved at the men in the crowd and waited until they'd melted back into the mass to continue. The guards on the doors, however, remained.
    “Listen up, Red.” Frank rapped the table with his knuckles. “I'm not claiming that Wendy knows hide or hair about her veritable tribe. Mary was known for backroom deals and playing her cards close to the vest, especially when it came to the old biddies that ran her family. Chances are, she never told little miss lovely a thing about ’em. In fact, I have it on good authority from a little birdie that your Wendy did not, in fact, have a clue from where she hails. She might now, but she didn't before. Dig it?”
    “So the Lightbringer comes from a clan,” Elle sneered, still tense and eying the crowd. “Whoopdy-freaking-doo. What's that got to do with the Riders?”
    “Miss Mary Quite Contrary up and split,” Frank said solemnly. “We've got seventeen years worth of odd-ball souls that should've been sent on ages ago wandering around this city—more than a handful of them starting to slide toward crazy with a vengeance—and a whole peck of Reapers coming home to roost. You all kept your heads so low, I'm not surprised that this is news to you.”
    “Your point?” Piotr asked.
    He buffed his nails on his shirt. “Every sane soul in the Never from Berkeley to Santa Cruz knows through the grapevine that your little miss wasn't trained up proper-like, that she's winging it. If we know that, do you really think her family doesn't? They've got ears with ears plastered to ’em. Spies, Red, and lots of ’em.”
    Lily pursed her lips. “I hardly think it's Wendy's fault if she was not run through the gauntlet. They cannot blame her for Mary's shortcomings. Your words are wind, sir, all you do is blow hot air.”
    “Agreed,” Piotr said, rising. “We need not stay and hear what this zadnitza has to say. From his mouth the truth is as twisted as lies.”
    Frank sneered. “Don't you take that tone with me, Commie Red. I may only be dead a handful of decades but I'm still old enough to lay you flat on your ass, even with the pretty miss here flexing those fingers at me. Oh, and by the way? Get bent.”
    “Enough talk!” Piotr slapped his fist against the table, making the empty glasses rattle. “Tell us what you would, make your offer, and let us take our leave, Frank. I would be done with this foolishness.”
    Frank shrugged. “Fine. It's your funeral.” He tapped the table and waited until Piotr had sat down again to continue on.
    “You've got something we want. You not only know the Lightbringer, you two were…close.”
    Piotr glared but made no comment.
    “Furthermore, Mary and I had a lot of long nights negotiating the territories. We talked. I got to learn more than a little about the way those Lightbringers—Reapers, whatever you wanna call ’em—think. You following me so far,