Fairest (An Unfortunate Fairy Tale #2)(58)

She shook her head in confusion. Not understanding and not believing who she saw. She recognized him. It didn’t make sense.

He clicked a button on the side of the wooden staff and a sword shot out. “You are just in time,” Karl spoke gruffly. “For the reaping!” He swung the sword at Mina’s head.

Chapter 24
Mina fell backward, tripping once again over the prone form of Dr. Martin. Karl smiled cruelly and easily pushed the hospital bed with Nan on it out of the way, exposing a direct path to Mina. What could she do? He could, kill any of them at any moment. She could only do one thing. Stall.

“Why now? Why didn’t you kill me earlier when you had the chance? I mean, come on now, you had me and let me go. That doesn’t sound like you are a very good Reaper,” Mina taunted, forcing herself to sound braver than she was.

Karl stopped and bared his teeth angrily, and then he did something unexpected. He laughed. A deep menacing chuckle that only got louder and louder.

He stopped laughing and smiled at her. “It has been quite a few years since I killed my last Grimm, and truthfully, I wasn’t expecting to almost run one over.”

He moved to the left, and Mina mirrored his movements by moving to the right, keeping out of reach of the sword.

“Well, obviously, we are not all dead,” she taunted again, eyeing the blade.

“I had caught wind of a new one arising and was hunting the Grimm.” Karl eyed her up and down carefully. “I wasn’t expecting one so young. For you to actually lie and tell me you were this girl,” he nodded to Nan sleeping in the bed, “was brilliant.”

“If I had known who you were, I would have instantly killed you in the woods instead of delaying my kill.” He reached into his jacket and pulled out a black leather bound book. Mina stiffened when she saw it. It was the Grimoire, although it looked different since it had changed shape to accommodate its new master.

“That’s mine,” Mina demanded.

“Was yours.” Karl waved the book around. “It’s probably the only thing that saved you that night. I hadn’t planned on finding this. I didn’t recognize what I had, and when I finally figured out it was the fabled Grimoire and that you had lied about who you were, it was too late. Someone had alerted the rangers to where we were. So I took my prize and let you escape. But I knew that if I baited you, and killed this Nan Taylor, you would come to me.” He opened his hand in an inviting way and pointed to Mina. “And I was right: here you are.”

“So you are the one imprisoning the Fae in the book,” Mina accused.

Karl shrugged his shoulders nonchalantly. “They all had it coming. Actually, all of the Fae have it coming, including you.”

“What about Jared? What did you do to him?” Mina yelled.

Karl looked at her confused. “I didn’t capture a Jared. Well, not that I know of,” he laughed.

Her mouth pursed in thought. She was out of time. She heard a commotion in the hallway that was coming closer, and so did the Reaper. Karl yelled loudly and raised his sword high in the air when the door burst in and Nurse Diedre rushed in jumping directly into the path of the sword. She screamed and halfway changed shape midair right as the sword cut down onto her silver-scaled shoulder. It imbedded deep into bone. Her scream dissolved into a roar of pain as she collapsed to the ground. The sword had broken in two; half stuck in the dragon Diedre, the other half held pathetically in a very nervous Reaper’s hand.

The old nurse, beaten and battered, pulled herself up and changed fully into her dragon form, backing the reaper into the corner. He tried to dive right, but she clawed at his jacket and ripped open the pocket containing the Grimoire.

Mina saw it fall out and skitter across the floor. She dove for it, but so did Karl. Right when he grabbed the Grimoire, Diedre bit down on his leg. He screamed and reached into his jacket for another of his reaping weapons--a wickedly curved blade which he stabbed into the dragon’s nose.

Mina didn’t look back; she didn’t have time. She fumbled and pulled Dr. Martin up to a standing position and rolled him onto the foot of Nan’s bed. He was barely on. She unplugged Nan from the machines and began to roll the hospital bed toward the opened door. Giving thanks, that the new hospital rooms were large enough to accommodate a moving bed and a large dragon.

She swung the bed into the hallway and looked back toward the door to see a large gust of flame erupt out of the room. She could hear the sound of fighting and smell the smoke of the dragon. Mina needed to get people out of the hospital and fast. On the wall was a red fire alarm, and she pulled it. Immediately, the alarm went off, and the few night staff that weren’t downstairs watching the police commotion outside began to evacuate the hospital rooms. Thankfully, Nan’s room was the only one occupied down her hallway. When a nurse began to run toward the room filled with fire, the dragon, and Reaper, Mina intercepted her.

“Hey! Don’t go down there, there’s a fire. I managed to get them out, but I need you to take them.”

The nurse, whose name tag read ‘Mandy’, looked down the hall to where Mina pointed. Her eyes widened in fright and her training kicked in; she grabbed the bed and began to push toward the emergency exit. Mina could see patients that were strong enough to walk, being escorted toward the stairs. Others were lifted and carried.

Looking down the hall, Mina saw the nurse wave to a young man who did a fireman lift on the doctor and head down the stairs. Mandy scooped up Nan and carried her down herself. They were the last to exit the floor. Satisfied that they would be safe, Mina ran back toward the room.