LOL at me posting this chapter on a Sunday. (Most of the time it somehow ends up working out like this. xD)
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The moment we stepped up onto the curb and faced Ace's club was the moment that Death deserted me to talk to the bouncer at the door. I rolled my eyes. The line to get in was as long as I could see, roped off by red velvet and monitored by massive men in suits, who walked back and forth down the line, checking people's ID's and muttering things into walkie-talkies.
A wide chest cut off my view, as the Irritable Angel of Panther, stepped in front of me like the attention-seeking cat that he was. I looked up at his face and seemed to hold my breath. There was no possible way I'd ever get used to the Angel of Death's beauty. Even the autumn wind didn't dare embrace him, as it picked up, leaving his thick black fohawk untouched by the its icy tendrils. His angular, pale features were locked in an unreadable expression, but those haunting, mismatched green eyes, were more wicked and vibrant than ever before.
Someone had clearly stolen all the cookies from a cookie jar. Well, that actually wasn't too far off, since he'd stolen Twinkies and jolly ranchers from the Quick Check before we raced the hell out of there.
"Let me guess," I said dryly, once I cut off my swooning. "You threatened the bouncer and now we're cutting the line."
"Guilty." He flashed me a wolfish grin, fangs and all, before swiftly dropping it and reading off a list of commands. It was amazing how quickly he could shut down any trace of humanity in his features. "No socializing," he said, ticking off his gloved fingers in front of my face, "no dancing, no drinking, no eye contact, and especially no Faithing with anyone in that club. Until we're alone with Ace, your name is Hope. Just Hope. But you shouldn't have to introduce yourself as such because then you'd be chitty-chatting and breaking my first rule. This is not La La Land where you're untouchable because you get sparky once in a blue moon. Either you follow my instructions, or I leave you to the pool of sharks until you cry SOS and flail your chicken leg arms. Now, what's your name again?"
We looked at each other unflinchingly. The night was a gift that casted shadows over his face, alleviating the harsh reaction I had to his beauty. He was so irritated that he was a walking heater set on two hundred degrees Fahrenheit and I was turning the thermostat up a notch by challenging him.
As he continued to glare down at me, an electric glow sparked deep within his irises, lighting his eyes. His hunger and wrath nearly dripped off of him, saturating me like I was standing in the middle of the hurricane. Yet there I was, cool as a cucumber, imagining the beast would take shot at me with those knives for teeth. Maybe my reflexes kicking in this time and I would light him up like a Christmas tree. Oh, I'd have my moment to rip this guy a new one, but it wouldn't be now. Soon.
My smile was flashy and sarcastic. "My name is Hope." When I tried to look away from that intense stare, he suddenly captured my jaw in his strong-gloved fingers and held my gaze.
"How do you feel right now?" Death asked me, intensely taking in my features. I just stared up at his beautiful face as if he'd asked me the deepest question of my life. How did I feel? How did I feel? As if he even cared.
"I'm barely holding it together," I finally said and felt the weight of my words tighten my lungs. The resentment I still held towards him surfaced. "No thanks to you. How the hell are you?"
"Oh, you know"– he let go of my jaw and slid his gloved hand to the back of my head, leaning in to whisper at my ear– "mentally unstable, sadistic, masochistic, deflective, vindictive because Daddy doesn't love me, frustrated that I must coexist with thick-headed nincompoops, painfully horngry, and tired...tired for the past two-thousand years." When he pulled back, his serious vanished and he broke into a grin. "But besides that, killin' it! I mean did you hear about that flesh-eating virus I spread in Guadalajara? L-O-L! Bump it, cupcake." He extended a gloved fist towards me. When I made no move to 'bump it', he took my right hand, curled my fingers into a fist, and tapped his knuckles with mine. "Nice."
That was easily the most Death ever open up to me and I was just...stunned. Stunned by his choice of presentation and the significance of his words. For a brief moment, I'd felt his sanity surface and my heart reached out to him. He joked too much and it didn't seem like it was all a big laugh to him at the end of the day. He'd saved me and protected me on multiple occasions. Was that justifying all the wrong that he'd done to me in the past? All the cruel things he'd said to me? He had so little redeemable factors about him and yet there I was, at war with myself.
We were so different. But no matter how much we pushed each other away, neither of us could, not wanted to, get rid of each other, and that much was true. I tolerated him because I could, like I was meant to, not because I was forced to, or because I was damaged. And that truth was never spoken out loud. It was only hinted between the things that we said, and the things we couldn't. It was felt in the silence that had placed us on the same spectrum. Maybe it was better left alone.
"Earth to Dweeb." Death waved his gloved hand over my features, snapping me out of my thoughts. "Did you hear anything I just said? It's time to mingle with Wizards of Waverly Place. Keep pace." Death stalked past me down the sidewalk, heading towards the muffled music. I started to follow in his footsteps, but paused as my eyes glued to a strange figure.
He was standing beneath the halo of a street lamp, a few buildings down from Ace's club, and wore a white cloak that was as thin as silk. As I stared at him, the stranger slowly pulled his hood away, revealing a too familiar face. Devin?
No, a male voice answered. Lucifer is my brother. I am Gabriel, Archangel of Heaven and Messenger of God.
There was a burst of light and an image pierced through the night, hazy, distorted, but familiar, like the lingering affects of a nightmare as it stains your mind even after your eyes are wide open. There he was in a silent vision that played before me. Devin, but not, dressed in the same white robe, except with gore and blood soiling his pure silk, like a crime scene left untouched. This was Gabriel. Snowy white wings uncurled from his back as his ice blue eyes remained trapped between terror and grief. Gabriel's hands were wet with blood as he grabbed me, but I couldn't feel anything, nor could I hear as he shouted muted words. I was trapped in someone's perspective. Deaths, the male voice answered again. I was Death, but he was different than he was now. His arms and hands were tan and bare, unmarked by black lines. His fingers violently, desperately clawed and gripped at Gabriel's bloodstained robes.
All at once, Death's hands, and the angel who was identical to Devin, was gone, and I was alone. I was alone in a golden palace that was much larger and intricate than anything I could ever imagine. When I looked down at my hands, they were my own, and there wasn't any blood or Death in sight.
Eyes wide open, I took in my surroundings. The walls were golden and decorated with art and mirrors. Past gorgeous balconies, staircases, and shelves and shelves of books, where a ceiling should have been, was night and day, which came together in a surreal kaleidoscope. I gawked up at white clear morning clouds, floating in a pool of sky-blue, and dusky stars drowning in midnight. The two times of the day twirled together in an impossible mixture of matter. And although it appeared more like an open skylight than a ceiling, at the center of the entire kaleidoscope madness, dangling from thin air, hung a golden chandelier with the finest crystals, which played with the light on the walls of the dreamlike palace.
Where am I? I'd meant to ask the question out loud and to myself, but my voice was mute.
You are in Limbo, the realm of memories and lost souls, Gabriel's voice replied, although he was nowhere to be seen. What you see now is an imitation of His Palace of Gold, on the day that Alexandru was stripped of his wings.
How did you take me here?
I did not take you here. You took me here. It is in your nature to seek my subconscious and I am a willing participant. You seem to have control of this visage and all the sensations you feel. I also cannot take a physical presence here.
This is super trippy. I rubbed the pads of my fingertips together and felt nothing. What do you want with me, Gabriel? I already signed over my soul, FYI.
For now, I am here to inform you that your situation, and Alexandru's actions towards you, has not gone unnoticed. I am here to urge you to help maintain the balance between good and evil. You have a fate greater than you can imagine and gift that has its purpose. That purpose begins now. A creature that you are familiar with threatens the stability of the human world. Your warlock will use his vision to guide you to your solution. We urge you to follow the warlock's vision, as daunting as it will seem.
I see, I thought noncommittally. Great, now Heaven wanted me to be at their beckoned call. And Heaven can't prevent this themselves because...?
Gabriel's voice remained calm and he overlooked my uncontrollable ass. The Heavenly realm is not to interfere with God's creation, but you are an exception. Through reasons left only to God, answers are given to few who seek it, and only those few who listen are presented with the solution. You are one of those chosen. It would be wise to keep this encounter a secret. In your hour of need, turn to the light and speak my name.
Wait, I thought as I felt him slip away. You must know what I am. What am I?
All the gold and the palace vanished, and I was falling away from the sun. I remembered this. I'd dreamed of this. My body would hit black water and a suffocating cloud would consume me beneath the rolling waves, holding me down as tendrils of black stained my skin. Death....
Reality snapped back into place but not all of me was quite there yet. My vision was blurry and my ears were ringing as if a gun had gone off beside both my ears. You are light. I blinked hard and my senses came back to me in a rush. Pounding bass that shook the floors. Colorful beams of light bounced. Even though my mind had been somewhere else, my body must have kept moving on its own. My eyes roamed wildly over my surroundings. I was oddly relaxed, as if I'd just exited mediation, but the sensation fleeted before I could appreciate it.
The club was huge with dark purple walls, purple accents, and a sleek black floor, with a backdrop of clanking glasses filled with neon drinks, and groups of people chatting in private booths, through sheer lavender curtains drawn around their table. The dance floor was a third of a football field, with woman in flashy Halloween costume, grinding against their dates. Others were scattered along the edges of the club, pressed flush against the walls and performing explicit acts that made my eyes nearly bug out. Now I felt flushed. Lust was so thick and musky in the air that it clung to my skin, like a lingering kiss.
A gloved hand lifted in front of my face, pointing towards a couple against the wall. "That's called sex," they purred condescendingly at my ear.
The hairs on the back of my neck lifted. Death stood directly to my left, motionless against a wall. Once again, that fluttering sensation in my stomach did not go unnoticed. He was so in tune with his surroundings that he'd found the perfect spot where a shadow, like him, could lurk like a predator, just beyond the reach of any colorful lights. Maybe he was just a slave to the darkness. As I stared at him, the darkness shadowing his body lit up as, and his furious, striking eyes radiated like two mismatched icy green orbs.
"Where were you?" he asked. If ice had a voice it'd been his in that moment. His sharp, masculine features were held motionless, locked in an expression too flat to be calm. When I considered the relationship I'd witnessed firsthand between Gabriel and Death, my gut told me it was best to keep what happened to myself.
My birthday was already anticlimactic and stressful as was. The last thing I needed was to be Death's mouse chew toy as well.
"I was right here," I answered and almost believed myself. For someone who'd just been approached by a heavenly angel, I was getting pretty good at lying. But even as I lied, all I could thik about was the golden palace, those tan, bare hands reaching at Gabriel's robes, and the grief in Gabriel's ice blue eyes. Not to mention, Devin had a freaking twin.
"Mm." He arched a pierced eyebrow and popped a jolly rancher into his mouth. "See, that's not a good enough answer." As if predicting I was about to step away from him, Death hooked a gloved finger in the hood of my sweatshirt. "I said your name many times and you didn't respond. Hamster? Hamster? Hamster? Nothing. Hamster wasn't home running on her little hamster wheel, where she's supposed to be. So my next question is, how was your phone call through Limbo with Ahrimad? Informative? Is he sending me a postcard?"
"When are you going to stop?!" I shouted. "You and I both know there's an even chance that you also attracted those creatures through the portal in Quick Check! Did it even cross your cat-sized brain that Ahrimad sent you a little Happy Halloween trick or treat gift basket for, oh, I don't know, trapping him in your cloak for two-thousands of years!"
Death stared down at me as if I had five heads.
"You're weak right now," I reminded him boldly, stepping up to him. "And my power might be unreliable, but it must really sting when it does work, because you look like crap and I know it's not just from the possession. So if I were you, I'd watch your back around this virginal lantern, or you might lose another scythe." I looked pointedly at his crotch.
Anger contorted Death's features, but then everything even remotely human vanished from his expression as it went flat. As he glared at me with those bizarre eyes, I felt the club mute around me. Leisurely, his head to the side, and so did mine. It was as if he'd captured my attention and had control of me like a hypnotist. Death pushed off the wall, quickly closing the distance with his long legs.
Like a feline snatches a mouse by a tail, he clawed at the air and pinched the front of my sweatshirt between a few fingers. In an instant, my body was flush against his. I could feel every ridge of his muscles–abs a brick wall beneath his sweatshirt–and spikes of heat jabbed at my core. His silver piercings winked under the dance lighting as he leaned in real close, expression impenetrable.
His lips were cold and tender as he brushed them against mine, yet his pierced tongue was hot and bold, flicking out to trace my bottom lip. With a growl, his lips ceased their tormenting and crushed against my mouth. He tasted like watermelon jolly ranchers. I couldn't pull away. I didn't want to. Maybe he never had a hold on me to begin with. My lips parted for him as the kiss deepened.
Death made a low, dangerous noise at the back of his throat, and something dark swayed in his eyes, like a shadow summoned from the deepest depths of his being. It budded out from his pupil and stretched over his icy green irises. His hands curved down my lower back and pressed our hips together. I felt myself wilting, wilting, wilting, and an alarming amount of pain burst over the bullet scar on my stomach. I wanted more.
He wasn't breathing me in, and yet my lungs were failing at his command. My mind was screaming, too. But through it all, my heart, trapped in a cruel fever, sang from the mountains, even as it slackened to a sluggish rhythm. I imagined all he had to do was inhale and I was condemned by his judgment.
The darkness shrunk from Death's pupils and he sharply pulled his mouth away from me. My lips burned from the graze of stubble, as I revitalize with ever-sharp pull of oxygen into my lungs. I snapped out of my spell and tried to tear from his grasp, but Death made a "tsk-tsk" noise and imprisoned the back of my neck with his gloved fingers, gently, yet securely, like I was his favorite plaything.
With his other free hand, he lifted my chin up with a single fingertip, so those exotic green eyes delved deep into my own. "Listen to me closely," he hissed in a terrifying voice, around a mouthful of enlarging fangs. "You don't know what weak is. You're naïve. The only tangible thing preventing me from you is I. And all I want to do––all I ever want to do, is fücking eat you. Don't give me more reasons to forget myself."
"Look what the cat dragged in," a voice thankfully intervened.
Death let me go like I was the magma to his dry ice.
I turned over my shoulder and faced a woman around my height and age. Trixie. Ace's assistant. The last time I'd seen her, she'd had a gun pointed at my head in Ace's library because she'd thought I was an intruder. The chick was badass. She had a mess of brown curls, olive skin, a slim waist, and high cheekbones. She sported thick black eyeliner and a smoky eye shadow around amber eyes, which swelled with a past that didn't seem to be so pleasant. She worked out often and she flaunted it in a slim brown corset and matching leather pants. Honestly, I would have killed for her biceps. I eyed the strap along her waist that had a walkie-talkie, and then a gun holster, which her right hand rested cautiously on.
"Trixie the Pixie," Death growled behind me, and when I peered back over my shoulder, he had a slow, vicious grin lining his mouth. I could tell by his tone and that smile that he loathed this woman. "It's been too long."
"Not long enough," she snapped. "What you did to him was dishonorable to our treaty." Clearly, she loathed Death as well, and, it was safe to assume that a fraction of that hatred stemmed from the whole 'Death possessing Ace' dimemma.
I stood so that I could see the two of them go at it. If only I had a big tub of popcorn and a soda, because his was going to be good.
"Someone's hitting immortal menopause," Death commented. "And I see you're also suckling on Ace's staff? Only a pixie who gets a hefty bowl of mystical French onion soup everyday, can keep that much glamour in place." He made an explicit gesture with his fist pumping towards his mouth and a choking sound, accompanied by his tongue poking the inside of his cheek.
"Auta n'alaquel a' lle assa, talant!" Trxie roared, her eyes igniting to white. "Lama amin delotha ten' lle no' lle 'ksh-, talant!"
Death turned to me and we stared at each other. I expected him to translate for me, but instead, he simply arched a pierced eyebrow and said, "I have no freaking idea."
"It's protocol to check in with me when you get here," Trixie continued without even a flinch in her pissed off expression. "But you already knew that, since I've reminded you for the past three-hundred years. "
Death's lips twitched with laughter. "Darn, I guess I forgot."
Her amber eyes finally slid to me, back to Death, and then back to me. She wagged a finger at me. "I remember you," she said. "Don't tell me you're sleeping with this parasite, or worse, dating him."
"Biiiite me," Death sang, popping a blue raspberry jolly rancher into his mouth.
"Oh, we aren't–" I started to explain.
"The dating type," Death intercepted, flicking his wrapper at Trixie's face. "Hope and I just like to fool around in public places and share ghost stories under blanket tents while wearing our jammies." He chuckled, sweeping his tongue over his fangs. "Now, Tinker Bell, extra offense–I'd rather play with Polly Pockets than continue to talk with the bothersome likes of you. Take me to your Wizardly Shake Weight, por favor."
"At least he said please this time," Trixie said to me, before swinging her amber gaze back to the Angel of Punk. "But if it were up to me, Fallen, know that you'd have so many holy bullets between your freaky eyes, that you'd start singing Alleluia! Alleluia! Praise the Lord." She snapped beckoned for us to follow her. "This way," she said.
And we went.
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