“I am ravaged, but spirited damaged, but still deserving.”

-Segovia Amil

_______________________
Death

Watching her leave and disappear without really knowing if she will go home scared me. She was unpredictable and uncontrollable, she’s done it once again when she walked in here and started to touch the giant feathered things behind me. What was she thinking doing that? Her touch felt like fire along every part of me, and of course instead moving away from her I stepped closer. Like a moth to flame. How encouraging it was to believe someone as Adeline could force me to break the rules I've set myself with for centuries.

“Shit.” Small groans and cries come from behind me, they finally register when I remember who interrupted us. I should blame the cat for barging in here, yelling up a storm about nothing at all. Maybe she’s done it on purpose just to screw me over.

“Why are you here Bastet?” I wanted to take my anger out on someone, my first instinct when something went wrong.

“It’s nothing.” She sniffles again. “She was here the whole time. How the hell did she get here anyway?” She’s hiding something, when she’s emotional she can’t keep as many secrets hidden as she would sober. She babbles looking delusional and mentally unstable.

“Bull, what is going on? You said you did something when you came in here talking, what is it? I want to know everything you two have been doing and leave nothing out. She was very upset with you for someone who doesn’t get along with just about anyone.” Bast might act like she's the life of every party but she isn't, I know her and this is not normal. Why she would befriend a human is beyond me but to keep secrets between each other is something even worse than the first?

“Oh please! Bite your damn tongue you prick. What did you do to her, I might have made her angry but you broke her heart? Did you really have to fall for the human girl Death?”  It takes seconds to toss her across the library and as she's laying on the ground I press down on her throat cutting off her air.

“Don't go there. I asked you a question, I did not need yours nor did I ask for them.” My voice is low and threatening. She had it coming though, I release her letting her take air into her small lungs.

I run my hands through my hair, my nerves getting the best of me. She thinks I've fallen for the girl, no it's a mere fascination. Adeline was a choice I shouldn't have made, I said to her once before that I didn't regret saving her and I don't but I do regret making her mine. I am foolish to think I could possibly change who I am, I am defined by my past and she can't be apart of it. For now on I will do as she asks and give her back to her humans, I know she wants it more than anything or anyone.

Being distracted with internal thoughts Bast almost slips through a portal, I quickly retain her tossing her to the side of the library. “I don’t think so, you aren’t going anywhere.” If I couldn’t go to Adeline, neither would she. “Just leave her be for now until I do what I have to first.”

Harbinger isn’t going to get away with what he did to Tyche and I still have to find out what he has planned with Adeline. She’s still partly my responsibility, I won't let her die either. If she’s going to be by herself tonight I need to do this now.

“What is it you need to do that’s so freaking important?” She was angry but so was I.

“It hasn’t traveled to you yet but I’m sure after this is over it will. Harbinger has betrayed me. For reasons I am unsure about, that is what I have planned and it is important because he has something against Adeline.”

Whether it be reasons of his own it is entirely up to him but to go back on me and betray me for some foolish feelings is uncalled for. Even for someone like him, I would think he was the last person to do this to me but I know now that I was wrong. Apparently about more than just him.

“You don’t expect me to fight with you, do you. I can tell you now that I won't do so good against one of your reapers. Harbinger is old even older than I.” She said, her eyes practically bugged out from her head.

I roll my eyes, she honestly thinks I would ask her to help me. She's as finical as a cat, true to her nature. “Don’t worry, I won't be needing you for that but I will keep you until you decide the right time to tell me everything. So you either follow me to see Harbinger, where you can sit in the side lines while I take care of him or you can sit in a cage. Your choice.” I forgot to mention that the cage will be rather small but I think she knows where I'm going with this.

“You ever think why no one likes you is  maybe because your anger gets the best of you.” She crosses her arms in front of her chest, her eyes becoming small yellow slits.

“You have ten seconds to answer.” I raise a hand and begin, “One…two…three… four… five … six…seven. You know that book you wanted is very valuable I could always sell it to someone else. Someone who will keep it even closer than I.” That should do the trick. “Eight…nine.”

“Fine!” She screams, while throwing her hands up in the air. “But I'll tell you everything after your dealings with Harbinger.”

“Deal. Now let's get going before we lose him.” I call to my scythe, creating a portal to the most outer region of the underworld. It's where he's hiding and it's where no Reaper goes or should go.

“Where is it that you found him?” She follows closely behind as I enter the portal, my wings lower me safely on the ground.

“The demon that resides here is not friendly, Lucifer doesn't bother with him either and since he could care less what he does around here everything has turned to nothing. So, I and many others have called it the Void.” She will know what it is, every demon does because of its reputation.

“You’re insane. Freaking Harbinger is bloody insane. Why would he come out here, no one goes through The Void Death and lives.” I should send her back but it's already too late, he's here I can feel him.

“Stay hidden, turn if you have to and hide up inside one of the trees until I am finished. It shouldn't take long but if for some reason I do not come back get help.” They can't kill me but that doesn't mean I don't have a weakness.

“Okay. Just be careful.” She melts into her cat form and climbs one of the trees left that still carries some of its leaves.

With my scythe in one hand and my sword in another I go forward, he has yet to sever the connection that flows between Reapers so finding him is the easy part. However, when I reach the end I stand on an abandoned field, the floor is nothing but black sand and he stands there with his back to me. He knew I would come and the betrayal feels fresh with every step I take, it is hard to believe still that he has turned against me.

“I would have thought you would have come sooner, did the girl distract you once again.” The bitterness is evident in his voice, I remember hearing it when he spoke about her but I didn't think it was a growing attribute.

“What has happened Harbinger? You are my brother! Someone I could trust and now you stand here reeking of vengeance but you have no cause for it. Have I hurt you in a way so terrible that you question my loyalty.” My hands tighten around my weapons as he faces me, his face has changed. He is no longer the old man who walks with a cane but a man that carries himself with new found strength.

“You stupid boy!I have grown so tired of your voice, hearing it order me around as if you were superior. You are nothing but a broken hearted boy trapped with a greater power that you no longer desire. A power that I care for, a duty I crave. I want nothing more than to serve but as a master of my own. As for the human, she has clouded your mind even as your kingdom falls she still has a hold on you. I tried to mention this to the others but they did not concern themselves with your feelings because they are your own. But if your feelings affect us, what then, are we disposable. I have been thinking, for so very long and now I have found the solution to everything.”

I refuse to show weakness in front of him, the words he speaks of are insane, spoken from a madman who craves the power of the universe. He uses Adeline as an excuse to destroy what I have created, my past is my own and he has no right to throw it in my face as if I were nothing but dust.

“You seek a power that is not your own, you can argue that I have wavered from my duties but I still conquer them in the end. You act as if I treat you differently from the rest but you were the first I chose. The first one I trusted but you didn't want friendship, you didn't want loyalty, you wanted what I had. But it is you who are the weaker one standing here. I may live with strong emotions and they may direct me on the course I choose but at least I do not betray the ones closest to me. At least I do not pretend!” I calm myself before I kill him and if I do I will not get the answers I need.  “You are wrong Harbinger, I am not the fool here, you are.”

He shakes a finger, a sadistic grin forms on his face as he laughs, “Oh, but you are. You think the human is on your side. How about the cat?”

He will not poison everyone around me, of course Adeline had her differences and Bast was only working for me because she wanted something but I don't think they would do something like Harbinger did.

“The look of confusion is all I need to confirm what I know. You see the girl and Bast have been digging, very deeply if I might add, all because the human wants to be freed of the demon. Where they have been digging is the interesting part.” He stops, directing his attention to where Bast hides in a tree. “Should I tell him now or will you?”

Bast falls from the tree as a cat, landing on her feet gracefully. The sound of her soft steps become more clearer as she turns to her human form. “I have already agreed to tell him, everything.”

“Are you sure it will be everything? You and the human have been quite busy.” He said.

I had a feeling before that she was sending her to insane places, Calio's club was one of them but I didn't think it had to do with her wanting to become human. “Bast, what were you two looking for?”

“Yes Bast please do tell.” Harbinger was thrown across the field as Bast kicked him in the chest.

“Bast!” What the hell is she thinking, he will kill her? “Go, now.”

She runs wild eyed just as Harbinger raises from the ground. “You defend her now but soon you will tear out her throat just as I want to now.”

“Enough Harbinger. Who is really behind this? My Reapers dying, Adeline dying, all of it. I know there is someone pulling the strings that seem attached to your back.”

He glares not liking my use of words, “You won't live to find out.” He spits.

He charges forward, his staff at hand. I break into a run my wings drag behind me but they too are surged by adrenaline as my sword connects with his staff. I block his attempts at trying to sweep my feet from under me and counter his swings with my sword.  He strikes again, his anger driving him to strike multiple times onto my scythe. I grunt at his never ending assault, his hand is not easily dodged as he punches me knocking my head back. The strike disorients me and he uses the opportunity to disarm me, his staff connects with my left hand sending my sword scattering to the floor a good distance away. I shout from the pain but do not give up so easily, he has yet to take my scythe. We have trained together for hundreds of years, we are matched in battle.

I wipe my nose with my forearm, while we circle each other watching each other's movements with careful precision. “You forget who trained you boy.”

“Every fighter surpasses their teacher.” I counter.

“Then let us see.” He attacks first, his staff swinging high so I duck left countering his attack. The move gives me the opportunity to slice open his side which sends him clutching it in pain.

He grunts, his hand coming away with blood as he faces me. “Come on!” He pounds on his chest like an animal, so I will end him like one.

This time I charge him striking with every bit of force that I contain, when the blunt end of my scythe hits him in the jaw he staggers back spitting blood on the floor. I do not let him rest, my foot connects with his chest, the sound of his ribs breaking under my foot is overshadowed by his screams of pain. He still stands clutching his staff in one hand, blood oozes from his mouth but I am far from done. I knock away his staff sending him to his knees in front of me.

“I will not spare you. Hell awaits all betrayers.”

“You think you have won.” He chokes on his own blood, spitting it on the ground as he stares at me with glazed eyes. “She will end you.”

“Goodbye, my brother.” I use the blade of my scythe to sever his head from his body.

I breath out wiping away the spray of blood that coats my face. I do not watch his body turn to dust, nor will I forgive him.

“Bast!” She better have not left.

She drops from a tree, “I'm sorry you had to do that.”

I ignore her sympathies, all I want from her are answers.”Speak. Or you will end up just like hm.” I make sure to point to Harbingers disappearing body.

She fidgets before talking, “What I did was wrong? Going behind your back and getting Adeline into trouble.” She breaths and closes her eyes for a brief second before speaking, “That's why I'm going to tell you. Everything.”

••••••••••••••

Don't forget to comment until your hearts content, vote like no tomorrow, and follow to receive updates on this very book.

I will try and update as frequently as possible.

Until next time,

-Ash
Xoxoxo

I'm sorry for the long wait...I broke my phone and that's how I used to update. Now that I got a new one I will be updating as usual.

Sooo  for a special treat if this chapter gets ten ☆ I will update the next chapter for you!