The sun was setting, casting an orange glow on Ace's club. Over the entrance of the club was a bright red sign that read "Spade"–Ace of Spades, how ingenious–and was wedged between two thin buildings, just as his bookstore was. As small at it appeared on the outside, I had a feeling that looks were deceiving, and it would be enormous on the inside. People were lined up down the block to get inside, dressed in skimpy Halloween costumes, cramped together, and chatting excitedly.

Then there was Death and I, quiet as the night and aloof from civilization. We stood on the opposite side of the road from the club in the shadows, slight right of a Quick Check with fluorescents so bright they singed my retinas.

I looked over at Death, who had one foot propped up on a brick wall, melting into the shadows as if he was born into them. To a passing person, the orange glow of his cigarette would be the only indication that he was standing there.

"Are we going in the club?" I asked.

"I'm enjoying a cig," he said in an obvious tone. "Regretting inviting yourself on this little adventure, are we?"

"Not at all," I said coolly, and averted my gaze from him.

"Pookie, nobody knows what fear looks like more than me. You're scared shitless of a supernatural club."

"Just finish your cancer stick." I ran my hands nervously down the sweatshirt that he'd added to my new ensemble. There was an intimacy involved with wearing his clothes. They smelled like him and I fought the urge to bring his plain cotton sweatshirt to my nose and inhale. I tried not to think about how silly I looked. The Chicago Bears jersey alone was so big that the hem nearly hit my knees. One could imagine how the sweatpants fit me.

"You look like a participant in one of those weight-loss commercials," Death commented in a low, emotionless voice, "where they smile and hold up a pair of their old jeans, and it's twice the size of their entire body." He chuckled deeply and inhaled from his cigarette. "Or an aspiring rapper. When does your mix tape drop, DJ Strawberry XXX Cupcake?"

I flipped him off. A breeze kicked up, loosening stray strands of hair from my thick braid. I could see my breath as I exhaled and yet I couldn't feel the cold. Ever since Death had put his bloody tongue in my mouth, which I was really trying not to think about, I'd felt strange warmth within me, like an invisible heating pad lined all of my skin. I probably needed to get that checked out. Asking him about that would have gotten me yet another clever dodge from the answer on his part.

Death glanced over at me. "Devil's horns, you're shaking like a maraca on Dia de los Muertos." He briefly acted out the maraca playing. "The last thing we need is for you to be fidgeting left and right and attracting every single creature's attention in that club."

"I think I've proven to you that I can protect myself," I argued dryly.

"Alright, Super Girl. But if your pew-pew powers don't work, remember that it's up to me to save your ass. And I'm not feeling the hero gig today, so take a few deep breaths and chill, or whatever." He then casually turned away from me and leaned against a street sign pole. To anyone else, it would have looked like he was looking at the sunset. But I knew something was wrong. If I didn't know any better, he seemed to be pushing at his stomach.

Ever since the D & S party disaster, I'd noticed many things off about Death. Physically, he still seemed to be leaner than he normally was. Weaker. I'd been so accustomed to him moving a slightly inhumanly fast that I was noticing now that he was moving slower, too. He appeared to be acting more mechanical around me as well, as if he was constantly correcting himself, in order to perform a certain way. And most importantly, I couldn't shake this horrible feeling I'd had since he was back in own body. I was tense and hyper-aware of his presence. I'd started to get used to Death, and ironically, safer around him, but now? Now I was in a constant state on edge around him because I feared–I knew– his beast was still famished, and prowling just beneath the surface, watching me.

"What are you looking at?" Death snapped over his shoulder, tearing me away from my thoughts.

"Nothing," I nearly stammered, stunned by his harsh tone. I found my voice at the bottom of a deep pit and when I recovered it, it was somehow still heavy with concern. "I mean...not nothing. Nothing would imply that you're not acting weird." He turned completely towards me now, and I could feel him drilling a hole in my head with his eyes. "Are you...okay?"

He went still as a statue, until he flicked his cigarette. Then he turned towards me and smiled, but it was unfriendly and perhaps more of an opportunity to remind me he had fangs. "Princess," he said hoarsely, maybe even intimately, as if he were breathing it into my ear, "you wouldn't be with me right now if I wasn't okay. Because I'd be stuffing my face with the likes of you. There are hundreds of multiples of myself collecting souls as we speak." Death dug into his sweatshirt, put a second cigarette between his lips, and lit it, before offering it to me. "Now quit worrying about me and take a few hits and loosen up. Don't get too loose, though, or I'll have to give you the birds and the bees talk. Or as I like to call it, the shackles and knives talk."

"I don't smoke, nor will I ever."

"Narc," Death coughed out. "Come on. Just pretend it's a sugar stick and shove it between your pretty pearly white Chiclets that Mommy and Daddy paid thousands of dollars to straighten."

There was something about his tone that was really ticking me off. Like he knew he could get under my skin now and I couldn't do anything about it because I'd signed a contract with him. "It must feel awful to deflect all the hurt inside of you with humor and intimidation."

For a moment, Death seemed a little stunned. "Blessed be," he finally said, "the virginal lantern therapist has spoken to me and promised to lead me down the path of righteousness."

"Only further proving my point," I snapped, feeling the atmosphere between us become thick with tension. No matter how hard I tried not to have sympathy for him, there was always a part of me that wanted to understand him and that was my own fault. Something about Death sparked my curiosity and drew me into his story like no one else's.

"Maybe if you were nice to me more," I decided to add, which suddenly made the conversation more serious. "I'd sit down and be a fresh set of ears for you. Maybe I could–"

He held up a hand. "Do not finish that sentence. We will never be friends, Faith. We are cat and mouse. And everyone says they'll listen, until you have too much to say. Until you're a burden, a hindrance, and or just depressing. Nobody really cares about anyone else, unless it's his or her family who has the issues. And I don't have any family worth mentioning. Cry-cry, tear-tear, who gives a shit?" He inhaled from both cigarettes. "I sure don't."

My chest felt tight. "Death..."

"Pass." He stomped out both cigarettes. "I'd rather hot iron my dick than share my fictional feelings with you, Faith. Hell, I'll rather hot iron my dick than be talking to you right now when you have that ridiculous doe-eyed look on your face like you can put a Band-Aid on me and make me all better. I don't need your sympathy."

I just stared at him. "Would it hurt you to be nice to me for five seconds? You could have just said you didn't want to talk."

"Would it hurt you to have bounteous amounts of booty sex in a cathedral with the Pope watching? I rest my case." He reached out and flicked my braid into my burning face, popped the color of his leather jacket, and then walked towards the Quick Check and held the door open for me. "Now move those matchstick legs, birthday girl. I'm having a sugar low and we can't be late for our date with Mr. Croissant."

Rolling my eyes, I entered the Quick Check. I could have sworn I felt Death's hand brush against my ass. Furiously, I turned and went to punch his arm, but he dodged and spun away from me like a basketball player. He dribbled an imaginary ball down one of the aisles and slam-dunked an imaginary basket.

"You're four years old!" I shouted at him and icily kept my distance. I crossed my arms over my chest. God, his up and down moods were so infuriating. You like it, I thought quickly afterwards.

I crossed my arms over my chest and averted my gaze from anything tall, dark, and bipolar. My fingers brushed against a box of cake mix that someone had, oddly enough, pulled the cardboard tabs open on. I smiled a bit sadly, remembering my mother's homemade birthday cakes she made me every year. Seeing my family wasn't an option. I couldn't expose them to what I was dealing with.

It was so short-lived that I almost didn't notice it, but my pendant burned against my chest. And as I reminisced down that aisle, holding the cake mix, I'd felt a whisper of cold air over my shoulder, followed by a rancid odor.  What the...?

The hairs at the back of my neck rose. Slowly, my eyes lifted up, finding a massive circular security mirror that reflected the aisles behind me. It rippled the moment I looked upon it, and in the reflection, directly behind me, stood three things. Two of them were in the shape of men, and one was too abnormal to be anything less than a creature. All of them had skin that was metallic and reflective like a mirror. As I stared at them in horror, the metallic of their skin began to melt away, leaving behind two somewhat human looking men. One of them had a shaved skull and large beady black eyes, and the other had stark white hair and eyes to match. Between the two men was a massive, horrifying looking creature with hairless skin and no noticeable features.

I whirled around. There was nothing behind me. Not even the rancid odor remained. But I couldn't shake the feeling that something was staring at me. I held my breath and felt my pulse in my ears. A stray piece of my hair blew back into my face from my left. My gaze flicked to the side, aimed at seemingly empty air. But I knew better now than to question the impossible. I was surrounded. Across the store, Death turned his hooded head towards me. His head inclined slightly to the right, as if he had heard an acute whistle.

An invisible hand reached out and grabbed my arm. Out of instinct, my knee jerked up, slamming into soft flesh. I heard a masculine "oof" and another hand grabbed me around the throat. Death materialized a few feet in front of me and let out a monstrous growl. That must have caught the attention of his invisible opponents, because soon enough, Death was slashing the air and taking hard hits to the face and stomach.

I didn't know what to do at first. My heart was in my throat and for a moment, I was just standing there, watching Death get the shit beat out of him from unseen opponents. I head out my hands, but they were shaking too hard and I couldn't focus on my ability. An idea hit me. I ripped open the cardboard tab of the cake mix I'd been gripping for dear life. In one quick motion, I popped open the plastic bag and moved closer to the fight. I threw out my hand and scattered most of cake batter powder in the air, and the outlines of two tall men came into view. This instantly changed the outcome of the fight, as Death grabbed one of the cake-batter covered men by the cake-batter head and smashed his gloved fist into hard bone. Death took a dagger out from his leather jacket and lunged towards the next opponent, slashing where perhaps a throat would be. Black blood splattered the freezer doors as the first invisible opponent went down. The man with the shaved head and large black eyes became visible as he bled out on the tiled floor. 

"Well hello, gorgeous," Death purred, checking himself out in the reflection of the glass doors to his right. He flexed his arm. "I am so hot when I destroy things."

The second man, who Death punched and had yet to kill, rolled away from the fight. Cake batter powder outlined the mystery man's head and his shoulders. He seemed to be held motionless for a second, certainly in shock from what Death had just done to his friend. 

Death tore his attention away from his reflection and started towards the invisible man, but before he reached his next prey, as if the truck had slammed into him, his massive frame was thrown back from a good twenty feet. I screamed as his body shattered the glass doors of the wall of refrigerators in the Quick Check. A high-pitched noise pierced through the air, drawing my attention away from Death. I threw out the rest of the cake batter, outlining the shape of the hairless creature I'd seen in the mirror.

The creature stalked towards me and I threw out my hands in a desperate attempt to protect myself. Nothing happened. Seriously?! The creature was nearing in at rapid speed and let out another bloodcurdling howl. I braced myself for it to kill me or snatch me.

Instead of doing either, the creature stiffened and let out a gurgling nose that saturated the air with a putrid odor. It clutched at its throat as a line of blood slid horizontally across its neck.  My eyes nearly popped out of my skill as the ugly creature became visible and it's head slid clean off its neck. The rest of it collapsed to the ground as well with a sickly wet thud.

Death stood directly behind the creature, twirling the dagger that he'd used to kill the beast between his fingers. His hood was down, which, embarrassingly enough, stunned me more than what had just occurred. I stared at his lighter green eye, which sported the long jagged scar that stretched from his eyebrow to his cheekbone. Once upon a time, something with hooks for fingers had ripped into his face and not even immortality could heal it. His head was shaved shorter on both sides; the top had longer, thick midnight hair that was spiked upwards into a fohawk.... That harsh scar over his right eye, paired with numerous piercings scattered around his features, made him look vicious, like he'd scalp a guy for looking at him sideways. I could never imagine Death wanting to embrace anything or give it affection unless it threw itself upon him, or he was suffocating it with his bare hands. He had this whole "I Eat a Bowl of Nails For Breakfast With Bleach as the Milk" look going on, and his markings only assisted it. I was certain no tattoo parlor could ever match the harsh jet-black designs that curved around his sharp facial structure. It was as if a steady hand had embedded the ink into his skin with the intention of finding a balance between both beauty and poison. That's what he was, after all. A poison.  A hot poison.

Death stalked past me, showing me the back of his fohawk head, which thankfully freed me from the strange hypnotic state looking at him had put me in. His hood was torn by claws–that hairless creature he'd beheaded' claws, which explained why he couldn't put it back up.

Now that I wasn't in La-La Land and stopped licking my lips at the Angel of Fun and Knives, I heard Death furiously ranting to himself in a different language. I was certain he'd been oblivious to the unnecessary and poorly timed reaction I was having to his face.

"One of them escaped," Death said in English, and my mind shifted to the man with the snow hair and matching eyes that I'd seen in the security mirror. "Back into this security mirror. To Limbo, or perhaps another realm. A portal to another world was breached here."

"What were they?" I asked, sadly to make sure I hadn't lost the ability to form words.

"Two were demon rogues, who steal from realm from realm, and that creature was a Slur, which eats from realm to realm. They must have felt a breach into the human realm and broke through it. Or maybe..." I flinched as Death suddenly threw his dagger at the security mirror, shattering it. He caught the dagger, twirled it around in his fingers, and faced me. His mismatched green eyes were wide, crazed, and held a fire that burned more vicious than a thousand stars.  "Or maybe you used that which doesn't belong to you around your Slim Jim neck"–he motioned to my pendant, aka his mother's old pendant–"and called those pals here to attack me."

I blinked. Had he really just accused me of doing that? "You think I...? WHAT? It doesn't even work like that!" His gaze flickered with iridescence and that made my heart skip a beat. He was the most beautiful, yet tortured looking man I'd ever seen. Looking at him was chilling, and by the way he was looking at me, he knew it too. I felt like I was seeing something that was off limits and he felt like I didn't have his clearance, either. "I only called on the pendant once and I learned my lesson."

Death started towards me. "It didn't seem like any of them lay a single fücking finger on you, now did it?"

"I felt a hand on my arm! And my neck!"

"Oh, poor you," he spat. "Well I felt a hand nail me in the balls, and another nail me in the face four thousand times!" Death's catlike pupils insanely dilated and the muscles in his neck tightened. He turned his head slightly away from me, as if resisting something–a hunger, I realized, but then with a low growl, his gloved hand snatched the front of the sweatshirt. He didn't force me back, but when he stepped forward, I found myself retreating with him until my back hit the shelves behind me. "Did you call on them through that portal?" he demanded, that deep voice frigid as ice .

"No," I said as nicely as possible. "I did not call on anything through the portal."

"Why don't I believe you, little cupcake?" He had a knack for taking a sweet sentence on paper and presenting it out loud like a vicious threat. "See, it's just you, me, and the cashier, who's soul I sucked out like a Slurpee before he could call the police. Maybe it was Ahrimad but I'm just too dang curious that you were standing right in front of that mirror when it opened." His mouth hovered at my throbbing pulse, stubbly grazing my skin. I was trembling so hard that my chest felt like it was rattling. He'd freaking snacked on the Quick Check cashier!

"Thoughts?" Death inquired, when I didn't say anything.

"Thought: You need a lifetime supply of chill pills crammed up your–"

Death yanked me against him by the sweatshirt and bared his fangs at me. I craned my neck back away from them. "If I find out that you did this. Or that you're in cahoots with Ahrimad I will take you far, far away. Away from your mommy and daddy and especially away from Devin–who, by the way, is really the only reason I haven't eaten you thus far. I will take you someplace where nobody could ever see or hear you screaming. And I will gnaw on your fragile little body like corn on the cob."  

"Is this a threat or are you just voicing your ideal date with me? I can never tell with you."

Death let out a low noise, a mixture of a satisfied purr and a ticked off growl. Then his lips twitched. I thought he was going to smile, but then he scowled and fisted my sweatshirt harder. "I think we should have this discussion thousands of feet over the Grand Canyon with your Elsa braid duct taped to your ass."

"You've seen Frozen?"

"It was a low time in my death."

"Get your meaty hands off of me," I grated out. "Or I'll fry you until you're the texture of those Funyuns to your right. You're wasting your time and mine doing this right now."

"I'm too angry to get a bøner from that." Death's catlike eyes flickered with a vicious thick heat. Slowly, his fingers uncurled from the front of my sweatshirt, but he made no move to step away from me. "Nope, there it is. See, it's a shame I can't stick a straw in your chest and slurp that wonderful soul dry. Yummy." He snapped his fangs together and I winced. "And you know, I don't always look like this. Give me a few days of soul-ifying and I'll be plumper and tanner and prettier than ever." He inhaled a little through his nose, an amused grin framing his face. "But you seem to like me very much, regardless. Either that, or I'm losing my touch, and you're just turned on by the dank smell of hairless Slurs."

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D

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