Chapter 1

“Mitto ego te ad vidisse igneos puteos horrendam daemonium de inferno!” Ru Roberts repeated the phrase over and over again under her breath as she paced back and forth across the floor of her bedroom in Angel Grove, the ancient wooden floorboards squeaking in protest at each step. She’d been practicing that phrase, along with the other two Rider Michaels had taught her on the long flight from London to La Guardia Airport the night before. She alternated between them, making sure she had all of them down before they left for their mission later that evening. She knew this particular incantation meant a captured Reaper would be sent to Hell but not destroyed. There was another incantation for that, which went, “Infernus et perdere faciam te in nomine Domini,” and she was told this is the one they usually used, unless of course they had a particular reason why they would want to question the Reaper. Cutter Michaels, another Keeper, and Rider’s cousin, who had done most of Ru’s training, had made it pretty clear he preferred this second incantation.

However, if she was going to close the portal to Hell, the one they all believed was located very close by, out in the woods near Angel Grove and the town of Reaper’s Hollow, then she would need to know the incantation for that as well. In this case, it wasn’t so much the words that were important, it was the sentiment behind them and the power she could wield. No one was certain if any of the Keepers would be strong enough to close it, but for some reason, not only did everyone seem to think that Ruin was capable of locating the portal, but that she was the only one who could seal it for all time. It was a lot of pressure, particularly since she’d only known she was a Keeper for a few months while the rest of her team had known their whole lives that they were half-angels who had powers that allowed them to control either light, air, or earth. She’d heard there were occasionally Keepers who could manipulate water, but she had yet to meet one with that particular power.

“In nomine domini, ut claudere infernum est effi- cimur, omnium aeternum,” Ru whispered, continuing to pace. She had to write all of the words down initially, but now she was able to recite them from memory, and she was pretty sure she was saying the words right, though she’d needed correcting at first. Luckily, the flight had taken forever, so she’d had plenty of time to practice.

She hadn’t been able to sleep at all on the plane and hadn’t tried to since she’d gotten back to New York state, either. There was just something about being back here that made it hard to even consider taking a nap, though Cutter had suggested it. He was the unofficial leader of their group. Tall and stunningly handsome, with the same light blond hair as the rest of them, and piercing blue eyes, when she’d first met him a few months ago, she’d thought he looked like an angel—or a Greek god—but she’d never imagined the tales he’d tell her, ones of Archangels and demons, Grim Reapers and the Keepers who fought endlessly to keep them from collecting unmarked souls, people whose names were not yet written in the Book of the Dead. Ru had thought he was crazy at first, despite the fact that he’d demonstrated his skills as a Keeper of the Light more than once to her. But, once she’d tangled with Thanatos, the most powerful Reaper operating out of the area, she’d realized everything Cutter had told her was true, and she’d left her life as a fourth grade teacher behind.

The most compelling argument Cutter made to cause her to decide to pursue this path involved finding her birth mother. Cutter had produced enough evidence to convince her that she was capable of finding her mom, someone she only remembered in her dreams. He’d even taken her back to where the rest of the Keepers had grown up, a small town fittingly named Los Angeles, in Wyoming--not California--and introduced her to her mom’s mother, a sweet woman named Nana Sue who shared the same affinity for cats that Ru had. She was taking care of Ru’s precious kitty, Piper, even now.

Meeting her mother, whose name had been Seraphina when Ru was born, though now she preferred to be called Maggie, had been Ru’s reason for traveling to Holy Island, a place off the coast of Great Britain that was both quaint and difficult to access. They’d found her due to a humming sound only Ru and Lyric, who was a Keeper of the Wind, could hear. And even though Ru had envisioned bringing her mother back to the States with her, Maggie refused to go, saying she was willing to stay at Holy Island as long as necessary in order to pay penance for the love of her life, Larkin, a Reaper, who happened to be Ru’s father.

Getting on the plane to come back without her mother had been difficult, but Ru had called her as soon as they landed at La Guardia. Maggie assured her no Reapers had shown up, and Ru was relieved to hear it since she was pretty sure Thanatos, otherwise known as Nat, would’ve loved to find out where she was. For some reason, he seemed almost as interested in finding the lost Keeper as Ru was.

Now, they were back in Reaper’s Hollow, and Ru’s first true test of her skills would come tonight, if, and only if, she was able to find the portal. Her mother had said she believed in her daughter’s ability to find it, even though Maggie didn’t know the location as the Keepers had believed. Without that information, it would be up to Ru to follow her senses and feel it out.

And in all likelihood, they wouldn’t be alone. Their last night in London, Ru had dreamt that Nat warned her not to try to close the portal or else he’d have to hurt her. She wasn’t sure if it was a real dream or if he’d actually been there. She was certain another Keeper was present in her dream, but when she’d asked her friends, they’d all said it wasn’t them. Whoever it was, they hadn’t gotten close enough to Ru for her to recognize them before she attempted to leap realms and ended up back in her own hotel room, staring at the ceiling and wondering what had just happened to her.

Allowing her mind to wander was distracting her from her practice, and Ru tried to focus on the incantations. She was repeating the last one for about the hundredth time when she heard hurried footsteps outside of her door. A knock followed by the door opening had her frozen mid-sentence. “Ru, sorry to interrupt,” Rider said, “but we have a problem.”

She was starting to get used to that. “What is it? Nat up to no good?”

“No, it’s not him, but we need you to come downstairs right now. Cutter has some info he wants to fill us in on. It’s not good.”