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We edged down another long passageway and reached a T shaped hallway where we had to decide left or right, when Ace had stopped for a break and leaned against the wall to perceptively give his weaker leg for a break.

"It would be much easier to navigate through this mausoleum if I wasn't practically crippled," Ace grumbled. The sweat on his brow and the paleness to his complexion concerned me enough, and now the fact that walking moving was bringing him serious pain made me doubt his involvement.

"Maybe you should stay here and rest," I decided, even though the thought of being left alone in this place was the most frightening thing I could imagine at the moment. "Let me go ahead."

"I'm fine, ma chère." But the tension in Ace's face gave away the real answer as he pushed off the wall and made a right down the T shaped hallway. "My leg is only a psychosomatic injury," he tossed over his shoulder. "Conséquence de La Magie. Black magic, to be more specific."

"So, technically your leg is fine?"

"Oui. Being the unlucky fils de pute that I am, I am gifted with a lingering consequence. I've been trying to reverse almost all of my life. I believe it was the result of a difficult spell of which I can't seem to remember. Some spells are more destructive than others."

"What about the spell that Ahrimad wants from the Book of the Dead? What kind of consequences would they have?"

"Sometimes ignorance is bliss, ma chère."

Before I could ask more about this curious subject, there was a wave of something in the air that rippled through me like a chill.

"Did you feel that?" Ace asked, turning to face me.

"Yes. I felt that same feeling earlier, when we first entered the mausoleum."

"This is good. This means the portal is still open."

The trepidation of getting to that portal and finding Death made me sick to my stomach with worry. I hoped that Death was alright.

Ace reached out to grab my hand. "Everything is going to be okay," he said firmly, smoothing down the back of my braid with his hand. "Trust in yourself. You are a strong and capable young woman. You have to keep it together. For all of us."

A trapdoor beneath us blew open before either of us could decide, and we fell down into a chamber and hit slope that slid us down into the dusty depths of an even lower floor. We were violently pitched across the floor. Ace processed what was happening faster and grabbed onto my bicep. He rose with me quickly as a group of monstrous creatures encircled us. Creatures taller than life with burly frames, massive horns, giant fangs, bat-like wings with translucent black membranes. They reminded me somewhat of Death's true form, except these creatures were hideous. Wide, meaty skulls, oozing burn blisters in their complexions, ripples of hard, hairless, wrinkly skin, and black eyes that flickered at the centers with fire.

My mind harked back to the sigil room, fear overtaking my senses as I realized these must have been the high-level demons that were summoned by Ahrimad.

"What do we do?" I asked Ace, my whole body frozen as both demons released low hisses from their throats.

"We tell them to take their small dick machismo and fuck right off," said a female voice. Layla, the female empath demon from the sigil room, strut into the clearing. "Well? What the hell are you two bulbous head idiots staring at? These two are mine to receive."

I cupped my hand on one side of my mouth and leaned into Ace. "The hot demon bitch with the sisters I was talking about," I whispered.

"Oui, I can see that..."

Layla flipped her hair over her bare shoulder and posed with her hand on her hip. "Hello, hello," she greeted with an eyebrow raise, her stare lingering on Ace as she studied him with a smug grin, before darting her red gaze to me. "Oh, honey. You look terrible. Well, honestly, you both look terrible to me, but it's a species preference thing. Night not going as planned?"

The mock in her voice set me off. Ace fired me a warning look in my direction and clutched my wrist, and it kept my mouth from running.

"Listen, it's nothing personal, about the whole sigil room thing," Layla continued in that fake friendly voice. "Sure, Malphas really didn't take me with him when he left the Underworld, but there were never any hard feelings. We are what we are, ya' know? It all worked out, when Ahrimad summoned me as soon as he could, upon Malphas' request."

The confirmation that Malphas and Ahrimad were working together made an awful sensation rake down my spine.

"You know, we heard rumors about you in the Underworld," Layla continued. "None of us thought they were true. How a mortal's life was pardoned by the Kiss of Death. Death, pardoning a mortal? You must have been something special. And, as it turns out, something stupid. Since you put all your trust in the evil demi-god father of your boyfriend."

A derisive laugh shot out of me. "Who's to say Malphas isn't using you, too? You put all that energy into bullshit theater show in the sigil room, but he'll screw you over one day. But go off, keep putting on your badass independent woman front while you keep trying to pathetically prove that you're worth it to an selfish demi-god."

The irritation in her face brought me great satisfaction, until she hooked her talon-like nails hooked into Ace's shirt and kissed him hard on the mouth.

"Ace!" I screamed.

It happened in an instant. Red plumes expelled from Layla's pores like a bad perfume commercial and seeped into Ace's skin like a poison. His violet eyes widened, his palms instinctively trying to push her away as the kiss continued. I thought he was dying by the locked tautness in his body, when a dreamy look overrode his features. The plumes of smoke tainted his irises from the inside, turning them a bright red. By the time the plumes of smoke dispelled around them and I could try and rip them apart, Layla had already broken the kiss. She grabbed Ace by the collar of his ripped shirt and tugged him to her

"He tastes like grief, but his lips are so luscious," she purred. "It's a shame I can't torture him like I tortured the Grim Reaper. Ooh, I love saying that. Grim Reaper. Thrilling."

"What did you just say?" I could feel the power within me start to rise for the surface, the thought of Death suffering under the hand of this crazy bitch making me absolutely livid. "Fix him," I demanded, jabbing a finger toward Ace. "Fix him right now, Layla, or I'll––i'll–– fry you to ash!"

God dang it. I really needed to work on my intimidation tactics.

"Now, now, Faith," Layla purred, gliding a step to the left to press herself against Ace. In his delirium, his mouth was plastered with a big, goofy, lovestruck grin, and his hands eagerly gripped the small of her back. I imagined all he needed was heart shaped pupils to complete the visual. "You have to play along for the party. Kill me, and the emotion incantation will never ware off of your friend over here. Both the warlock and Death are fine, for now. As long as you don't act up."

I glared down Layla, showdown cowboy style. Heat tingled my fingertips at the thought of ending this bitch once and for all. But if she was telling the truth, killing her wouldn't be worth it. I breathed deeply, trying to calm myself down. I had to keep it together. I had to keep moving forward.

"Take me to Ahrimad," I grated out.

Layla's mouth curved. "Follow me, Blue Eyed Bimbo."

Layla lead me and high as a kite Ace further into the catacomb, torches lighting up polished tan marble on either side of us and the floors, a reflection of what the upper-part of the mausoleum used to look like before it was shit on. The further we traveled, the more prominent the buzzing vibrating through me like the ground was pulsing. The portal was getting closer.

"Get in," Layla commanded, inkling her head toward the door as she turned toward me. Beside her, Ace's bicep was still gripped by Layla's deadly taloned hand. I couldn't leave him like this in the hands of Layla.

"Move," Layla ordered, her ruby gaze sultry with menace. "Or I'll slit his throat."

"Just do what she says," Ace said in an exhausted voice. He blinked slowly, disorientated like he had been in the cellar. "I'll be fine."

Heart racing, I turned around and faced the stone door before me. Anger fueled me as I burst forward and shoved it open. I stormed inside and the door closed behind me with a resounding thud, sealing me inside the spacious, polished marble room.

Then I saw the Seven Deadly Sins tied in a circle on the floor beside him. Their backs faced each other, and they were stripped of weapons. All of them Wolf and Denim's heads lolled to the side, drawing my attention to the dreamy far-off look to their eyes and the reddish tint that they were under the empath demon's spell.

A sharp whistle made me turn my attention elsewhere. I moved further into the room to find Romeo standing flat against a marble wall, shirtless and covered in...hickeys?

"What are you doing here?" Romeo asked, whispering it. He put a finger to his lips, indicating I do the same

"Layla stuck me in here for the––er," I glanced around at the empty room, "party..?"

"I'm in the middle of something kind of epic," Romeo said, glancing to the side before nodding toward a staircase entering deeper into the catacomb. "They're coming from that way. Could you hide behind that pillar and not breathe or excrete any smells or sounds for like, five seconds?"

"What the heck is going on?" I demanded.

"Layla's lovely big breasted empath sister didn't know that charming me wouldn't work, like it would on my brothers," Romeo explained. "Turns out, she never learned English in the Underworld. Which is really, really hot, by the way..."

"Romeo, get to the dang point," I hissed.

"Long story short, they think I'm charmed in a different way. I'm a little rusty with the Empath language and whatever I said to the big breasted sister made her uncuff me and want to screw me. But don't worry, I'm a professional with dignity. I politely declined the one-on-one action. Now she's bringing her other sister to––"

"Are you kidding me?" I exploded. "Now is seriously not the time for a threesome, you idiot!"

"If you would just let me finish, cheeky," Romeo said, "the other sister has the keys to the Reaper's chains. And she can get rid of these ones, so I can at move my own hands." My gaze locked on the cuffs around his wrists, and I realized they were the special handcuffs Romeo had showed me could debilitate a person's arms.

"Ahhhh..."

"Yeah, ah." Romeo's attention snapped to the side again, as if he'd heard a noise. He waved me off and mouthed, Hide.

I ducked fast behind the pillar, but not without peering around the corner. Sure enough, two female empath demons with similar lingerie looking outfits to Layla rounded a marble wall and prowled around the tied-up Reapers, before heading toward Romeo. Talons outstretched, red eyes flickering, they practically through themselves at him. I cringed in disgust as the one sister cooed and spread her fingers through Romeo's pink mohawk, while the other one tried to get his belt off.

I tore my gaze away and peered back around the pillar. Romeo seemed to be forgetting about the plan, as one the one empath demons managed to unzip his pants and kneel to the ground. His eyebrows shot up and he pursed his lips in consideration.

Unable to see any more of this, I pointed a finger gun at one of the wall lights and closed my one eye to aim. The empath twins broke away, startled at the light fixture, while Romeo looked wide eyed at me. I jabbed a finger at the empath twins and made a punching motion, communicating my impatience.

Looking around in confusion at the mini explosion, the empath twins started to turn toward me. I pulled back fast behind the pillar again.

"HA-HA, sparks are literally flying with us," Romeo said loudly, a clear distraction from me. "Either of you sexy, foreign, unfairly off-limits empath demons into hot wax foreplay?"

By the time I peered back around the pillar, the girls were already over my interference and back at climbing Romeo like a tree. He wiggled his pelvis out of the one empath's grasp, while battling an aggressive French kiss from the other. "Ladies, ladies. I'm totally here for the public sex and keeping me tied up to have your way with me, but hear me out..."

While Romeo had the twin empath's distracted, I searched every corner of the room for a visible exit, only to find that we were surrounded by walls with no doors. Even the way I'd come in had disappeared. That doesn't seem like a good sign.

When I turned back at Romeo, shock rattled through me as I realized his hands were already free off the cuffs. One of the empaths sister's laid gasping for air on the ground, her bronze skin a horrifying grey. Mid-kiss with the second sister's skull clenched between his two palms, Romeo came up for air and crushed her head with a horrifying crunch, before shoving her body back, littering her drained corpse across the floor like a finished Capri-Sun.

I gawked at the whole ordeal, open-mouthed.

Romeo's head snapped toward me with a snarl, his normally playful pink eyes seethed around the edges with a ring of fire, and some sort of black marking bleeding through his chest over his left pectoral.

"Oh-oh," I said.

Romeo continued to glare at me for a long, concerning moment. Something shuffled back a step, shaking himself. He glanced down at himself and cursed, zipping up his pants. And just like that, his affect was back to normal.

"Whoopsies," he said with a chuckle. "Almost lost it there and had disturbing thoughts about eating your face." He held up a ring of keys and thumbed over his shoulder toward the disoriented Reapers. All of which seemed to be blinking out of their emotional stupor. "I'll get to work with freeing them. Since I've got the magical fingers and all. You keep look out, yeah?"

"Sure," I said, still uneasy over the way Romeo had crushed that girls head like an eggshell. Or maybe I was just generally uneasy over the fact that Layla had brought me to this room for a reason and I didn't think it was because of the Reapers. "Just try and hurry up."

Romeo freed each of his brothers one by one, pressing his palm into their heads. Each time, the empath's venom expelled from their bodies in plumes of red smoke, and they awoke in a state of confusion.

"What happened?" Leo asked, coming to faster than the others. His hand rubbing his skull, like he had a headache.

"You were all enchanted by empaths," Romeo explained, wiping his nose as he turned toward the mutilated corpses of Layla's empath twin sisters. "I, um. Well..."

Wolf cupped a hand over his mouth, noticing the mess. "Yooo! They be dead as shit!"

As the Reapers all flicked a glance at the bodies and complimented Romeo, I rolled my eyes and chimed in. "Yeah, okay, cool. Back to the task at hand. Do any of you remember seeing Death?"

"I thought he was with you?" Leo asked, treading closer as he worked out a knot in the back of his neck.

"He was enchanted. Just like you guys. We need to find out where they're keeping him first. Layla must of lead me to this room for a reason."

"Well, it looks like they're going to have to come to us," Wolf said. "This room is sealed tight with a ward." Wolf patted down his gear. "Bastards took my weapons. Anyone see my bow?"

"Up your pretty arse and around the corner," Blade replied, bending down to pick a knife wedged from a secret compartment in his boot and straightening with a cynical grin. "And speak for yourself. I'm always covered."

Wolf jabbed a finger at Blade. "It's funny, for someone so prepared, I distinctly remember you getting us into this mess."

"That's right," Gunner said, remembering too, "those twins sucked up all Blade's pent-up anger like leeches and strangled the rest of us with their power. We wouldn't have been enraptured had you not gone rogue and attacked them before the rest of us were ready!"

Blade scowled at Gunner. "Don't be a wee clipe just because I'm better at you at fighting. Always whining like a little babe when you're ravening."

"He has a point, Blade," Denim said with his booming voice. "Your wrath is spiraling faster than the rest of us. Focus on your patience."

"Oh, boy," Flash muttered, shuffling somewhere behind me. "Denim dropped the P word."

"Pussycat?" Romeo called out from across the spacious room, where him and Wolf appeared to be feeling for openings in the wall for doors. "Why don't we all just take a deep breath, eh? Zen all around."

"Piss off!" Blade snarled.

"We're running out of time chatting about nothing," Leo said, drawing everyone's attention to him. "We need to focus. We need a plan." He turned to me. "Didn't you enter the mausoleum with Malphas as well?"

"About that."

Suddenly, the ground trembled beneath our feet. Our heads turned in unison as a segment of the wall beside us rippled away like a mirage, an archway that had never been there to begin with appearing to reveal another room adjacent to this one.

My heart pounded as I stared right at the massive mirror-like portal rippling a mere fifty feet away from me.

"The portal," I whispered.

"Nothing gets past you," commented a familiar raspy voice. Malphas made himself known from the portal room as he rounded the narrow archway and stood in the middle of it, bracing his arms on either side. "But apparently, things get past me..." He looked down at the empath twins and grimaced. "Yikes."

The rage his presence brought me made my whole body uncontrollably shake. "You...motherfucker!"

Malphas' onyx black gaze flicked up to mine, amusement dancing within their endless depths. "Now is that any way to talk to family, Faith? I'm practically your father-in-law."

I stormed toward him, when a hand gripped my upper arm and stopped me.

"What's going on here?" Leo demanded.

"Getting some major betrayal vibes," Romeo muttered, standing guardedly to my right, opposite of Leo.

"He stole the Book of the Dead," I grated out in an unsteady voice. "He manipulated me and Death. He's the reason Death went missing––"

"Let me stop you right there, holy dove," Malphas said, putting a hand to his chest with a grin. "I didn't just manipulate you and Alex. I manipulated all of you." He gestured with a sharp nailed finger at all of us, the epitome of arrogance.

"Are we killing the bird, or what?" Blade demanded.

A muscle in Malphas' face twitched. Swiping a nail over his bottom lip, he sauntered away from the archway and stopped in front of Blade. "Have you ever seen a moron with his dick attached to his forehead like a unicorn?" A pause. "Would you like to be the first?"

Blade cleared his throat a little but said nothing more.

"Here's how this is going to go," Malphas continued, his gaze steady, calm, as it swept over the other six Reapers. "Surrender to Ahrimad. All of you. Or don't."

The sly smile that tilted one side of his mouth communicated he'd very much rather they didn't.

"So, this is what rock bottom for a demi-god looks like," I chimed in. "You're Ahrimad's bouncer bitch."

"Excuse me, dove," Malphas said, holding up a finger for me to be quiet but not looking at me. "I was talking to the Seven Deadly Shits. Thanks."

The Seven shared looks with each other, furious. All of us were weaponless in a mausoleum that had more secret places than a labyrinth. But there were eight of us, and one of him, and that much was translated between their silent communicating.

It happened in a blur. Denim and Wolf lunged forward on either side of Malphas, but before they could get within a foot of him, they were both crippled in agony and dropped to their knees, their bodies arching back as their faces locked in twisted pain.

Darkness had webbed out Malphas' eyes in a millisecond, spreading outward across his pale skin and bleeding into the air like wisps of black. Blade lunged forward to strike the Raven Demon, but he too was crippled by pain and dropped to his knees.

Chills raked through my body at the awareness that I couldn't move either. He'd had affected me without me even knowing it. I hadn't even thought to protect the Reapers was because every part of me was locked already into obedience. I'd already succumbed to Malphas' manipulation a long time ago.

The rest of the Reapers quickly succumbed to a horrifying consequence of Malphas' power. It paralyzed them all on the ground, their screams of raw torment unlike anything I'd ever heard. They sought out things that weren't even there, clawing at their skin, their heads thrashing. Like they were trapped in a nightmare with their eyes wide open.

Malphas stood in the middle of this quick and violent torment, motionless, his expression void of any emotion, like a true, picturesque monster.

"Don't do this!" I screamed at him, the muscles in my neck so tight with his power I could barely breathe. "Please, Malphas. The Reapers are just trying to save Death. You're going against your own flesh and blood!"

Malphas' onyx eyes slithered to mine. "Maybe next time he'll make sure I stay dead."

The sensation of talons scraped the inside of my brain.

My knees locked as the floor moved beneath my feet. My boots slid against the marble by force as I tried to fight the momentum. The Reapers screams were muffled as I crossed through a threshold into complete silence and a ringing in my ears. I hit the floor and landed on all fours, still unable move any of my limbs on my own. I stared down at my hands and imagined pulling them upward, but my own brain betrayed me. The ringing grew louder, my head tilting up to gaze at the massive mirror across the way. Just the sight of it made my stomach churn, like I was here in this moment alone unavoidably.

Malphas' power wore off, as I regained ability to move. I quickly got up onto my feet, turned away from the portal, and raced forward, just in time to watch the archway from which I came close off, leaving behind a marble wall. I banged my fists against it, begged my power to unleash as I imagined what that psychopath was doing to the Reapers on the other side. My body was so drained, so fatigued, that nothing sparked from my hands. I pressed my back against cool marble and fought back tears, my emotions spiraling as my mind struggled to catch up with all of this.

Coldness washed down my spine.

With quickened breaths, I walked uncertainly further into the room. Turning my head to the side, I froze. Death. Hanging limp from the ceiling by chains. 

***

AHHHHH!! SCREAM "CUPCAKE" IF YOU WANT MORE ;) !!!!!!

Okay, so the book is almost at the end. Where are my conspiracists at? What do you think is going to happen next????? 

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DEAR CUPCAKES,

Hope everyone is staying safe and being wonderful little cupcake beans. Been really going through it myself, but we all are going through things, and that's a good thing, because that sense of universal connection is so important to get through this! But yeah, crazy times, and some good news would be great right about now. 

What have I been up to?? Well, I've just been trying my best, staying creative as much as I can, working on lots of different projects. I'm pretty much writing wherever my creativity is flowing because I feel a lot of pressure to be productive. I want you to know that if you feel the same, you're def not alone. Listen, you have plenty of time after this crap to be productive and live your best life. If right now you feel better taking care of yourself, reading, watching Netflix, eating your soul out with hot cheetos and Ben & Jerry's Chunky Monkey Ice Cream with whipped cream, cherry, and rainbow sprinkles (this was oddly specific, wasn't it!) then DO YOU. But try not to wallow for too long. Hey, not saying wallowing isn't good to process and feel. Journaling is great, too. But you need to also remember you are SO STRONG, you're SO COURAGEOUS, you're doing the best that you can, and you know this is all temporary in the grand scheme of things. If you don't know all of these things, keeping telling yourself them until they feel true, because guess what? THEY ARE ALL TRUE!!! 

This is a small tricky fragment of the rest of your life. Stay safe! Wear masks! Social distance! Don't be so hard on yourself, this isn't easy and navigating through it is a challenge we all are facing! 

And just know...very wicked things are coming your way, Cupcakes... ;)

Love,

Kat

THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR READING!!!! PLEASE MAKE SURE TO VOTE AND LEAVE LOTS OF COMMENTS TO SUPPORT MY WRITING! <3333

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