*Deep breath* HiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiI!

HOPE YOU'RE ALL DOING WELL AND HANGING IN THERE AND STAYING HEALTHY! THESE ARE UNCERTAIN TIMES BUT I PROMISE WE'RE GOING TO GET THROUGH THIS TOGETHER!! LIVE IN LOVE AND STAND UP FOR WHAT YOU BELIEVE IN AND THERE IS NO ROOM FOR RACISM AND HATE!!!

XOXOXOXO.

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            "Death? Death!" I rushed right over to him, my hands lunging for the cuffs around his wrists, but when my fingers touched the chain, some sort of magic fired back at me and stung my skin. A surge of electricity rushed through me and I fell to my knees, my teeth gnashing together. "Shi-i-i-i-i-it!" I fell forward, breathing hard as I my body continued to shake and chatter like maracas. "Je-e-e-sus Christ!"

"Wrong..."

My head jerked upward. Death was looking down at me through half-open lids, his irises pinkish red as hell with Layla's potion. "Hey," I said, standing up and reaching toward him, careful as I touched his bare chest. "Hey, you're okay. I'm going to get you out of here. I'm going to figure this out."

"Pretty." His eyes clung to my lips with a less intense version of Ace's love-struck stupid, goofy grin plastered on his fanged mouth.

My mouth tightened. "You have got to be kidding me." Glancing over my shoulder at yet another empty room, I started brainstorming.

"Alright," I said, clapping once as I looked back at Death. "Clearly you're still under Layla's spell."

Death tilted his head all the way down until his head flopped, blatantly staring down at my chest. "Yummy."

I grabbed his chin up with my gloved hand and lifted his head up. "Hey," I said extra sweetly, as his tongue darted out to try and lick my thumb on his skin. "I know you're riding an empath demon high, or whatever, but I need you to try and focus for like five seconds and tell me how to get you free. Because that shock I got earlier? Yeah, that sucked booty."

"Yes," Death said.

"Yes?"

"Suck booty."

"Are you understanding anything that I'm saying?"

Death nodded and I thought maybe he'd been putting this on thick. Suddenly laughter burst out of him like a raspberry, which somehow turned into silent sobs. "I'm so horny it hurts."

"That's it. You're freaking me the hell out!" Unable to deal with this anymore, I pointed a finger gun at him like I had with Romeo and the empath twins and shut my eyes. "Lo siento!" I managed a tiny zap of light fired, which exploded on Death's pectoral.

Death snarled on impact, his bare skin sizzling as his whole body momentarily locked from the shock. Plumes of red evaporate from his blackened skin, swirling away from his eyes as his familiar mismatched green returned.

"FUCK!" His roar thundered the room and the lights actually flickered, his muscles bulging as he ground his fangs together. His head tilted up and groaned in discomfort, catlike pupils tightening under the light above him as he gazed at me. "Faith? Ow!" He twitched, tilted his head down to his chest. "Really?! You fried my fucking nipple! What is up with you and my goddamn––" Realizing his hands were shackled, his features turned livid. He writhed in the restraints and yanked hard, growling like an animal. "What... the...fuck?"

"Death, Death, stop. Stop. You have to calm down."

"Calm down! I'm chained to a fucking ceiling!" He heaved himself up the chains with his upper body strength and yanked as hard as possible, before dropping back down. He looked all around as if he were dizzy, his mind visibly whirling. I recognized the panic attack clear as day. A total state of fright. Something I hadn't really ever seen him in. "I have to get out. I have to get out right now––"

"Death, you're okay. Everything is going to be okay. Focus on me."

His nostrils flared. He blinked hard, focusing hard on me, his chest still pumping fast from adrenaline.

"How did I get here?" he demanded, blackness whirling dangerously around in his bright mismatched green irises. "We were in the sigil room. We were in the sigil room, and now I'm here."

"You were enchanted by empath demons."

"Empath demons." His breathing had slowed down until I could barely see his chest moving. "I remember that. So was Malphas..." He analyzed my face as he spoke, reading me. "What happened? Tell me what happened."

"Death," I began, wringing my hands out. "I know this is already a shitty situation, and I know you're probably so overwhelmed, and that freaky ass portal ringing nonstop doesn't help––"

"Faith," Death cut me off, his eyes closed in some sort of tired acceptance. "It's alright. Just tell me."

"Malphas manipulated us both to steal the Book of the Dead," I blurted. "And he did it. He stole the flipping book from me. Now he's in the other room with the Reapers doing god knows what to them, and now you're tied up, and I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do, Death! I'm panicking. Everything is going wrong and the universe is against us! Just please, please tell me what to do! You always know what to do!"

Death's dark slashed eyebrows furrowed together.

Unable to stand still, I raked my fingers through the top of my braid, pacing a short distance back and forth.

"Ace is the one who enlightened me that you would never, ever work with Malphas. That's when I realized the Book of the Dead was gone. He'd ripped it from my belt during a fight against the empath demons in the sigil room. It was all a setup to get the book, Death. He took advantage of us. He took advantage of me being a complete and utter idiot and feeling bad for people, and he took advantage of your...state..." I let my arms drop to my sides. "He's working with Ahrimad."

I expected some sort of explosive response. Death didn't seem at all surprised, or angry. He just looked...cold, so cold.

"Death?" I whispered.

His head slowly swiveled to me. "I should have never brought you into this. Now I'm running out of time, and when I leave, you'll be stuck in this goddamn mess."

I stared at him, horrified. "I can't believe you just said that. You're not going to run out of time. I'm going to figure this out––"

"It's over," he said in a rough voice, and angrily shook his head. "All my life. All my fucking life, he's had it out for me. I was never good enough. No matter how hard I 'tried, I knew I wasn't the son he wanted." The deeply pained look in his eyes made me want to hold him close and never let go. "But I didn't think he'd actually...honestly..."

"Want you dead," I finished, feeling like my heart was breaking. "Death, you have to know, none of this is your fault."

"But it is. All the wrong choices I've made have led me to this."

"But they also lead you to me," I said, and his eyes flicked to mine and held on for a meaningful moment. "I'm getting you out of here. One way or another."

"Maybe there's still a chance you'll get out of this alive," Death began on his own train of thought.

"We're both getting out of this alive."

"Look at me, Faith," Death demanded, and I gazed up at him with wide eyes. He looked exhausted. Defeated. It hurt. It hurt too much to look at him, as I fought back tears. "I'm strung up like an animal to be butchered. This isn't easy for me, either."

"You're not going to be butchered. You're giving up. You said you wouldn't give up."

"I'm not giving up," he said, but it sounded like he didn't even believe himself. "I'm being realistic––what are you doing?––Wait!"

I was already firing my finger gun at his left wrist. I closed my one eye as I aimed, tongue poking out as I fired. A small beam of light bulleted forward and struck the manacle around Death's wrist. The light bounced off the metal and fired down at my foot. I jumped out of the way at the last second, nearly falling over in the process.

"I could have told you that would have happen," Death muttered bitterly.

"Damn it!" I stomped my foot in frustration. "You are such a know it all!"

"Is this your new approach? Finger gunning your power?" His mouth lifted in a small grin. "And stomping your foot like a child?"

I wiped my sleeve over my eyes as I nodded. A foolish part of me had actually thought Death would have an answer for all of this.

His grin slowly fell. "Don't cry..."

"This whole night, all I've wanted to do was help, but I haven't managed to do anything right without someone else's help."

"Well, you can start by pulling the knife out of my back. That's pretty much a one-man job right now."

I wiped at my eyes again. "Huh? Now is not the time to get figurative, Death."

"I'm serious. There's something wedged in my lower back. I haven't been able to move my legs."

"Wait, what?" I rushed around to look at his back, gasped and pointed a finger. "Ah! AH! Holy cheese!"

"Holy cheese?"

"Why didn't you say something sooner?!"

"Because I'm not a little bitch." He managed another wicked grin, despite the situation. "And I kinda like the pain."

"Of course, you do." I marched anxiously in place, reaching forward to solve the problem at hand and then pulling my fingers back at the last second. "Can we please give Faith some instruction here! Faith didn't learn this in Death's bootcamp!"

"I'll make sure to add third person panic attack to the lesson board," Death growled. "First, take a deep breath."

I did.

"Rub your hands together nice and fast, so they're not too cold."

I rubbed my gloves together so vigorously it was like I was trying to start a campfire.

"Perfect," he said. "Now grip the hilt with both hands, firm, but not too firm, and just... stroke it out, cupcake."

I flipped him off, and he burst into strident laughter.

I marched in place, anxious again. "Alright, here we go! Here we go! I got this!"

"You're screaming in my ear."

"I got this," I whispered.

"Just pull the damn thing out of my spine!"

"At least it's kind of cool looking. It's got these weird designs on the hilt."

"Don't touch the blade!" Death suddenly roared.

I jumped back and clutched my chest, startled. "Ever hear of inside voices?"

Death craned to look over his shoulder to try and get a look at the blade, cursing in a foreign language. "It's my scythe," Death snarled to my disbelief. "It can turn into a normal dagger. If you had touched the blade, you would have burned to ash. In a heartbeat."

"Shit," I said, pushing the sweaty baby hairs away from my forehead with my hand.

"This was all a game to Ahrimad," Death said. "Leaving us both in this room, paralyzing me with the very weapon I was looking for all along."

Suddenly, we weren't alone. Fear shimmied down my spine as I gazed around the room, the little hairs at the back of my neck rising at the sight of the two massive demons that Ace and I had encountered at the far end of the room. Their fanged mouths snarled in unison, and suddenly three more of them appeared in a thunder of flame in various parts of the room.

"Shit," Death muttered.

Layla came skipping barefoot through the wall, melting through it like a phantom, and bringing in two more high level demons. The ones that me and Ace had encountered when we'd fallen through the trap door.

Behind them, Malphas stormed in with Ace in his clutches. Death's chains rattled, his features sharpening into something else as his gaze laser focused on his father.

Malphas had his hand wrapped around Ace's upper arm and a frustrated look on his face. He steered the warlock forcibly toward the front of the room. Ace's limp from his bum leg was so bad, and he was so delirious, that Malphas was practically carrying him. Layla climbed on the edge of a raised platform beside the portal and balanced on edge on her knees. I thought she was reaching seductively toward Ace, when I realized it was toward Malphas, as he came over to dispose of the warlock into her care. Malphas shrugged Layla's advances off with a sharp exchange of words and jabbed a finger to Ace. Rolling her eyes, Layla turned her affection to Ace. She ran her hands all over his short white hair, smooshing his bruised and cut up face. Layla laughed maniacally as the raging pink to Ace's eyes evaporating at once. He jerked into awareness, looking all around in panic. His focus hitched on Malphas and lingered as they shared an indescribable exchange.

Malphas pivoted sharply and moved toward Death and I, his quick determined strides, paired with the chilling blackness still webbed out from his onyx eyes–– just like it had in the room with the reapers–– making my pulse spike. I took a backwards, a protective step toward Death, when Malphas came to a halt. He stood in a wide stance with his hands clasped behind his back, reminding me of a drill sergeant.

"Faith Williams," said a voice that made my blood curdle. At the head of the room, beside the portal, stood Ahrimad. "Welcome to my humble abode."

Aharimad looked drastically different than the last time I'd seen "David Star." He was thin, sickly thin, like a parasite was draining from the inside-out. I imagined that was ironic giving his nature. As he glided closer, I noticed how the skin of his face pressed tight against the angles of his skull, and his cloak––Death's old cloak––draped off his wiry body.

He was powerful. I could feel it on my skin as he crossed the room toward me, like a high voltage powerline looming closer. And his eyes, the once chocolate brown eyes of David Star, were now a vibrant amber, blazing so bright they seemed to flare out like lights star bursting in the dark.

"I feel other congratulations are in order," Ahrimad continued, while I tried to maintain my cool under his frightening, piercing stare. "After making it through all those vampires and the twists and curves of this building, you also managed to break free of your confinements and free the warlock. I must say, I'm impressed. Especially because you're a young woman."

Misogynist dick.

I pinned my lips together, but couldn't keep it in. "It's hard kicking ass in-between reapplying my lip gloss and changing my tampons, but I promise that I'll do my best to finish tonight's job."

Ahrimad's brows bowed inward. "I'm afraid you have referenced a word I do not understand in your language." He turned his head slightly to the side, drawing my attention again to Death's father standing dutifully behind him. "What is tampons?"

"Tampons are cotton devices females use for menstruation, my liege," Malphas answered.

"My liege?" Death snarled out with a laugh, but Malphas didn't respond. I stared at Death's father in in puzzlement. His focus was arrowhead straight ahead of him. Like a robot in the "off" position.

"Nevertheless," Ahrimad continued, drawing my attention back to him, "I am delighted all my guests are here." He reached out and placed a hand on my shoulder, and I felt my whole body go rigid, as if my very soul. " There is much we have to discuss."

I didn't have to look back at Death to know he was seething with rage throughout this entire exchange, as low growl unfurled from his throat like a warning. "Don't touch her," he hissed.

"Or what?" Ahrimad asked gently amused.

"Or I'll shred you to pieces with my teeth and throw you in a dryer on low tumble."

"You can try all you want to pull in the reigns of your darkness," Ahrimad said. "But I know the truth. You never really had it under control. You never tapped into your full potential. Now it's closing in on you, like a black hole. Soon your demon will take over. You'll be a creature of pure, animalistic instinct, and your power? It will be mine. Along with your soul."

Death's lips pulled back from his teeth as Ahrimad treaded closer to him.

"Are you frightened, Alexandru? You will be." Ahrimad reached behind Death and yanked the "dagger" from his spine, and Death's features contorted pithily in agony. "Take him down and place him in the front of the room with the girl. I want all my guests to have a front row seat."

***

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