I stood in front of a familiar mansion, staring up at the giant willow tree. Skirting the gaping mouth of the Gate that guarded the home, I headed to the front door.

Before I could knock, a raven-haired girl in a collared dress pushed the double doors open.

“The Masters do not expect your visit, Alessandra,” Mei said in a thick accent. Her forehead wrinkled ever so slightly, as if in search of words to translate her thoughts into. “This may not be an… ideal time.”

That was when I figured out that I was still reliving a part of Alessandra’s memories. If I was seeing this by purpose or by accident, it was hard to tell. This time, I couldn’t get any of her thoughts. I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t move. It was like I was locked up behind a glass window, forced to watch everything.

From the gap between the doors, I saw a boy walk by. He was no less than fifteen, just in the brink of manhood. Just below the delicate waves of his dark hair, a pair of large blue eyes watched me with sheer curiosity.

Vincent! My mind cried.

With a slight nod, he smiled a smile I had never once seen before. The gullible, gentle smile that was now lost forever.

Laughing, he ran across the corridor. In a few moments, he was back, towing the frail but smiling Adrianna into view.

“Look, Addie!” Vincent said to her, excitement undeniable on his once blithe face. “Look who has come to see you!”

Addie. The thing about Vincent is, never in your wildest dreams would you imagine that he was ever a child. And a cheerful one. Honestly, I thought he was born with congenital mid-life crisis. For a moment there, a tinge of envy crept within me.

Adrianna sure got all the luck in the world, getting to be with Vincent when he was still possibly nice. I would bet if she met the Vincent of today, she would beg someone to put her back to sleep.

Mei stepped aside and gestured for me to come in. I could tell she was wary of my presence—of Alessandra’s presence. Having killed two Immortals in one sitting, I guess it is possible to get infamous overnight.

As Vincent and Mei left, Adrianna all but shrunk in a corner in the presence of her sister. Perhaps, it was the cold merciless air about Alessandra. Perhaps, she could somehow tell that the girl in front of her was no longer the same person as the one she once called her sister.

“Prepare your things,” Alessandra ordered. “We shall have to leave before nightfall.”

Gently, Adrianna shook her blond head. “I cannot, sister.”

I could feel Alessandra’s outrage by the way her blood boiled. “It is not a request, Adrianna. Come dark and the Grandmaster’s sentries shall come here to take your master’s mother. An edict to capture all immortal concubines and their execution had been issued. This once, the Grandmaster shall no longer be capable of protecting her, including this cabal should they retaliate.”

Adrianna’s brown eyes probed into Alessandra’s, perhaps in search for the sister she once knew.

“I told you. I cannot,” she answered tenderly. “The Grandmaster himself has arranged for the Mistress to flee into a place unreachable to Immortals. Now I must stay to protect her sons.”

In half a heartbeat, my palm landed hard on her cheek. I had never slapped anyone before and it was  horrible.

“I have become a murderer to buy your freedom and this is how you repay me?!” Alessandra’s stern voice resonated against the walls. “That boy you are protecting is not even of Immortal blood!”

As Adrianna wiped the tears from her eyes and muffle her sobs, she took my hand. “Vincent needs me.”

Her pleading eyes, her desperate resolve etched into my memory as the whole place whirled and distorted around me. I was being sucked into a black hole.

Next thing I knew, I was draughting.

The woods bordering Centralia, now a smudge of shadows and gray slipped away from my peripheral vision like runny ink being spilled on the night.

I was heading someplace. Urgent matter. And I had an idea where.

From a distance, I could see a whole legion of wraiths dispersing in all different directions.

A scream scraped past my windpipe as I leaped high in the air, my scythe materializing in a millisecond. With all the calmness of a Tasmanian Devil, I hacked through the swarm like there was no tomorrow. The intense anger—Alessandra’s anger—that welled within me fueled every strike. With every wraith I felled, I felt stronger, hungry for more.

When nearly all of the wraiths had either escaped or departed, I stood there so Alessandra could admire my work.

So much death. So much hate.

I trained my eyes forward to the mansion. Not just any mansion, but Sinclair Mansion.

My legs moved faster than I could imagine, with purpose and hurry. Easily, I bounded over the dark crumpled bodies that littered the forest floor.

All of a sudden, the screams of a boy tore through the night. It was Vincent. He had screamed at me more times than I comb my hair, so I would know.

A crimson column of light shot out of the roof, disappearing into the clouds. The rest of the legion surrounding the mansion screeched in a million pitches of discordant voices and scattered up in the air in a frenetic attempt to flee. But the crimson light had reached them one by one; a multitude of lightning strikes raining over the whole courtyard faster than my immortal eyes could follow.

In one breath, the courtyard was transformed into a mass grave. Silent. Unmoving.

I had never seen such power before and neither did Alessandra. The sudden distress that stuck her feet to the ground told me so. Whoever summoned that crimson light was a force to reckon with.

Upon recovering from the shock, I all but hurled myself to the mansion’s porch before smashing the door open.

I stumbled upon a complete mayhem. Half of the living room had collapsed. Broken furniture and dead wraiths scattered about the floor.

Hunkered down in a corner, cradling Adrianna’s limp body in his arms was no other than Vincent. A ten-foot wide hole through the roof gaped right above him. Smoke wafted from his whole body. Gleaming red scales covered his arms, his neck, up to his chiseled jaws. His shoulders shook, his face hidden under the waves of dark singed hair.

“Adrianna…” Alessandra’s voice broke for the first time.

Vincent clenched his teeth to muffle the strange choking sounds that kept escaping from his throat. He tried so hard to contain it, but soon, the sounds got louder.

I wanted to cover my ears. To look away. But Alessandra’s eyes didn’t listen. I was forced to help her fill the empty space her sister used to occupy with hatred towards this boy. Forced to watch him suffer.

I didn’t want to see this. I couldn’t stand it.

Stop it! Stop crying, you idiot!

My chest felt like it wanted to explode to a million pieces and then burn up until I was nothing.

Finally, Vincent lifted his face from the crook of Adrianna’s neck. Tears stained his grimy face. His eyes were an angry red with yellow reptilian slits for pupils, now sluggishly turning back to its former glass-blue color.

The millions of tiny bright lights pervaded my field of vision with Vincent crying out to the skies as though commanding it to bring the spiraling fireflies back into his now-empty arms. Pleading to the universe to put the little glowing pieces back together.

A quiet gentle presence—Adrianna’s—lingered in the air around me, touching my cheek.

“Together…” she whispered in a far-away voice.

At last, my hands listened to my brain. I covered my face with them and strained to control the sobs. I curled, burying my face on my knees.

“Stop…” I moaned through trembling lips. “STOP IT!!!”

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It's me again! I just wanna thank all of you super awesome nerds for making Reapers #1 in the paranormal charts last week! It means the whole Halo to me! Don't forget to hit that star button before going to the next page okay? You already did? Yay!!!