Reaper by K. D. Mcentire Page B

one or not, she had to do something. Pushing aside the sharp voice hissing orders, Wendy reached for the cords of will containing the Light within, but she'd waited too long.
    The insidious cold had wormed too deeply inside. Her will was slow, drowsy, her grasp on her Light weak. There was a sniff at her neck.
    Another.
    Then the Walkers were on her; spectral, flaking hands plucking at her hair, thick yellow nails digging at Wendy's elbows, the stench all around gagging her as skeletal fingers raked up and down her body, pinching, pulling, twisting. Numbed by the cold, Wendy was so frozen that she was having trouble recognizing that the pack was trying to pull her apart piece by piece.
    I'm going to go out like Mom did , Wendy realized dimly, in some far-off protected place deep in her mind. The Lost ripped her apart. The Walkers are going to do the same thing to me.
    “Reaper,” hissed the closest Walker, running a blackened tongue up Wendy's jaw and into her ear. “This prey tastes of Reaper!”
    The other Walkers stilled for a split second, glancing at one another and shivering like dogs on point.
    “Reaper?” asked another, brackish black-brown drool dripping over its chin and soaking the ragged front of its cloak. “Real Reaper flesh?”
    “Move!” ordered a third, shoving the licking-Walker aside. This one was a particularly nasty-looking grey-clad woman with only half a face, the rest of her flesh soapified and sagging off her cheekbones, the remains of her left eyelid dropping over her bloodshot eye. This lady Walker pushed close, sniffed, and then chuckled. “Reaper,” she confirmed. “Mine. The one I've been sent for.”
    At this declaration, Wendy began struggling in earnest. The fugue wasn't completely gone, but her panic was serving to push it back, to give her energy and a little hidden strength. Wendy reached for the closest Walker to her left—her Light surged just a bit, hardly more than a flicker—and grabbed it by the chin.
    The Walker hissed in pain, scrabbling at her hands and twisting Wendy's wrist free. A flap of skin came off in her hand, writhing with teeny white and black maggots, as Wendy stumbled back a step. The Walker, growling and spitting, clutched its face and cursed.
    The closest Walkers dug their hands into her shoulders, mumbling in a slow, dark language, and Wendy sagged again as the overwhelming cold poured over her chest in a sheet, an intense wave of numbness that bullied every nerve into instant submission, leaving only her mind intact. Wendy lolled in their grip.
    “No!” hissed the licking-Walker, pushing the Lady Walker back a step. “Ours! All ours!”
    The Lady Walker rolled her good eye and straightened, grabbing the licking-Walker by his face. “Mine,” she insisted and, reaching forward quite casually, snapped his neck. Then she looked at the others, pointedly ignoring the writhing Walker on the floor as he struggled to set his flopping head straight on his abused neck. “Questions?”
    “Orders?” hissed the closest Walker.
    “Hold her.”
    They hauled Wendy to her feet and the Lady Walker jabbed her hands straight out, skeletal fingers jamming into Wendy's chest. The sensation was a terrifyingly deep, tidal tug from her very core.
    Nauseated by the sensation of a hand poking around in her innards, Wendy was stunned to realize that she could actually feel each individual finger scrape along her ribs, the icy press of the woman's hand as it brushed her heart and dug deeper in, seeking…something. Her Light, maybe? The cold was nothing in the face of this pain. Despite the numbing chill of the Walkers holding her down, nerves no longer deadened from cold, Wendy arched back, whimpering, and the other Walkers pressed in, forcing her to her knees.
    “Found you,” the female Walker whispered. “Looked and looked and here you are, where she said you'd be. At last. At long last.” She squeezed an organ—a loop of intestine, perhaps?—and Wendy yelped in