XXXV

Gone was the sweet, sweet, blessed sensation of earth, as Death's wings took us high into the air. Heights were a bellowing HELL NO from me, and this was the unanticipated amusement park ride of the century. I wrapped my arms frantically around his corded neck, holding on for dear life.

We landed on a flat portion of the roof of the mausoleum, where a massive, overgrown oak tree blocked our view of the sky. Well, landed isn't really what happened. He landed and then tossed me away from him. I rolled over twice and ended up on my back.

Death stood over me: horns, wings, demonic eyes.

My mind whirled as he flexed those lethal talons.

"Um, hey," I said, rather awkwardly. "That was a little rough, don't you think?"

Death worked his jaw in an odd, animal-like way. "Hungry."

"Same," I said. Laughing uneasily, I cast another desperate look around us to find one of the reapers. But all I found was a wall of shadows surrounding the roof. "I could really go for some chicken nuggets right now. Or a Big Mac. Anything but disgusting flesh like mine . . . "

Death freed a low hiss through his fangs, darkness pulsing from his wings. I felt rooted to my spot.

"I don't want to hurt you," I said, my teeth slightly chattering from both fear and the cold. "And you don't want to hurt me either. I think. But if I have to, I will hurt you, so snap out of it."

Death's full form prowled toward me in a slow stride. His sinful power saturated the space between us with menace, hunger, and undeniable seduction.

"Death, it's me," I said, finding it difficult to form a sentence. I could feel his hold on me even as I motioned for him to stay back with my raised hand. "It's Faith. You can fight this."

Death homed in on my raised hand and cocked his head, cold eyes fixated on my fingertips as if he were waiting for something to happen. Realizing this was my moment to scare him off, I focused to try to get a light beam going. I even started snapping a few times. The snapping thing ended up way too jazzy.

Needless to say, Light Beam wasn't cooperating. Now we both knew it.

Death's eyes slid to mine like two cynical slits. Doom settled. He grinned, sharp white fangs filling his gruesomely still-beautiful face.

"Give yourself to me, mortal," Death hissed, completing the cinematic visual. His voice: monstrous and grating. His talons: large and menacing. His hand: outstretched toward me. "Give me your soul!"

Death bared those outrageously terrifying fangs, and I launched the light at his face. Death's head turned at the last second, and he watched the light burn a wicked hole into the oak tree behind him before fizzling out.

Shadows snaked from Death like little beasts and pinned my wrist to the roof. When Death turned back around from his inspection of the damage I'd caused to the tree, his mouth had quirked up into a slight smirk.

"D-minus." He worked his jaw again, and his fangs retracted a little into his gums. Darkness shrunk back into his pupils, leaving behind two mismatched rings of green for his irises. "That's being very, very generous."

I looked up at him, completely dumbstruck.

"I didn't work you all day for weeks," Death continued, "for you to wear that doe-eyed look the moment an enemy is about to kill you. Had I truly not been in control, you would have been chunks of meat stuck between my teeth by now. Use your brain next time and not your weird quirks to dissuade monsters."

As Death continued to roast me into another life, my fury took over as I ripped free from his shadows like a madwoman. "You were testing me ? I almost had a heart attack!

"A heart attack?" His eyes flicked to my breastplate with interest. "Stimulating."

I launched to my feet. "I could kill you—"

"Shh." He clutched my wrist and pulled me toward him as he retreated smoothly behind the thick branches of the overgrown oak. A creature flew past us overhead, and I huddled closer to him. "I saw you fall to your knees. You looked like you were hurt, and then your mind barriers slammed shut. With the ravens circling you, I took matters into my own hands and brought you up. You had a vision, didn't you?"

I pictured the wrath I'd seen in Ahrimad's gaze, the way he'd looked like a parasite was eating him from the inside out . . . A shiver raked through me at the image. "Ahrimad is weakened. He looked sick, thin. He almost resembled a—"

"Skeleton?" Death offered. He didn't seem surprised by this information. "Yes, I suspect even with my scythe, Ahrimad can't properly feed. My scythe serves as an anchor for his soul to remain, for a short amount of time, in this world. His soul might be immortal, but it needs mortals to survive, and he has no power here without my scythe. Not as a soul. He'll need to become permanently corporeal to survive."

I touched my belt, where unbeknownst to any of the creatures I'd encountered that night, the book was tucked away, safe and sound.

"He'll need a dark spell for that," Death added gravely. "He'll also need a new body to possess. Someone who can handle his eternal soul."

An awful feeling settled in my gut that he would take Death. And I had no intention of watching Ahrimad overtake Death's corpse. I couldn't bear it. Lifting my chin, I met his gaze fiercely. "I won't let him get to you."

Death stepped into my personal space. "Faith," he growled in a deep, commanding voice that I imagined petrified his subordinates to the point of soiling themselves. "Do not start. You made a promise to me—"

"Don't get myself killed. I know. But guess what? No matter how much power you have, there are some things in this life that you will never fully control. One of those things is me."

We stared at each other, waging a silent war.

For once, he backed down. "You have so much trouble with authority that you can't even listen to me to save your own life."

"You are my life," I said, unable to hold back, "and we can't seem to stop fighting long enough to figure out what that means for both of us. I mean, seriously, Death. I can never tell if you like me or if you're prepping for your future favorite meal of the century!"

"You're the loudest, most stubborn, most annoying little vermin I have ever met," he growled. " Annoying is too soft a word, really. Nothing I say or threaten you with stops you from doing what you want to do. It drives me fucking nuts. Of course, I don't like you—"

"Let me stop you there," I interjected, raising my hand. "This stressful battle from hell is enough torment for the day. I don't need you to roast me in the midst of it on top of—"

Death grabbed my hand and brought our faces close. "I wasn't finished, cupcake. Of course, I don't like you. Hell only knows, that would be much less agonizing. You are the genesis of a madness I can't escape."

My mouth parted in a small gasp, so he kissed me, stealing away the rest of my breath A touch of pure, unrelenting fire that melted me to the core. He lifted me off the ground, and I hiked my legs up around his waist, capturing his mouth again. His hands were rough weapons carefully cradling my waist. His fingers climbed underneath the tight fabric of my armor to clutch the bare skin of my lower back. The sweet and minty taste of his tongue. The masculine scent of him, his darkness flying all around us, unpredictable and merciless like the man who wielded it.

Suddenly, Death dropped me to my feet with a strangled noise. He went down on his knees, writhing in agony. The sharp prickles of claws penetrating my brain overcame me, and I went down with him.

"Well, that was rather easy," proclaimed a raspy voice. Through the blurring, debilitating agony, I saw Malphas Cruscellio with his hands clasped behind his back. "Awkward timing, though, I will admit. Perhaps there will be blessed water inside to douse my eyes with?"

"You sonofabitch —" Death tried to lunge for his father, and I watched the veins in his face and neck engorge as he went down on all fours. Panic slammed into me, but I couldn't move.

"Do not bother, Alexandru," Malphas said coldly. "You are severely out of practice against me, but I remember your mind inside and out." The raven demigod stretched a pale hand toward me. "Faith. I'm to escort you into the mausoleum. Shall we?"

His power let up on my mind, my whole body shaking from the aftermath. I thought fast, my mind whirling as I leapt into action. I fired my light quickly from my free palm. Malphas cursed as it burned through his pant leg, and that was when I unhooked a pair of cuffs from my belt and slammed one onto Malphas's right wrist.

"What the—?" Malphas's arm went limp at his side. He glared accusingly up at me, blackness webbing from his eyes. Pain exploded in my skull. I could feel his power trying to stab its way into my mind, but I kept shoving back in an internal battle of tug-of-war. His jaw set. Right when I thought he might win, I lunged forward with everything I had and shackled his other hand to the cuffs, binding his hands together.

"We shall not," I growled.

Freed from Malphas, Death leapt up from the ground in a blur. "I'm going to rip you in fucking half—"

"Stop! " I screamed, throwing myself between them. "He's subdued, Death. Look." I passed Death the leash attached to Malphas's cuffs—the same ones I'd subdued Duncan with. "We can use him as bait."

Death froze, his eyes still wild with anger as he processed the idea.

Malphas sighed. "This is a severe waste of your time—"

"Shut up," Death snarled. Then he handed me Malphas's leash. "You want to walk the dog, or should I?"