Page 100 of Death is My BFF

I wedged myself between David and my home. “Get the hell off my property, or I’ll bash your head in with this bat,” I whispered.

David studied my weapon. When our eyes met again, a darkness spread outward from his pupils, consuming his chocolate-brown irises and a portion of the sclera. A slow, leering grin spread across his evil mouth. “Try,” he dared.

Then he brushed past me with his hands in his pockets and struck up a conversation with my father about a recent Giants game.

My mother called me from the kitchen, so I withdrew to her, never taking my attention off David. The outer edges of my vision blurred. I was going to have a heart attack. What the hell was I supposed to do? Kill an immortal creature? Mom plated a cupcake and handed it to me.

“He’slovely, Faith.” She performed a little dance in place. “Eeeek!

Your first boyfriend, a Star. He’s even more handsome in person. And he smells like a dream!” Her eyes fell on the bat still clutched in my hand. “Honey, please, enough with the bat. Put that thing away.”

Looking at her numbly, I set the bat down on the counter and gripped the plate with white knuckles.

“Honey?” Mom asked, concern lacing her voice. “Faith, are you okay?”

I strained to smile.Everything is marvelous, Mother, except the factyou invited a murderous, soul-sucking demonic parasite into our home,and he has a bone to pick with me.

My father cackled at something David said, which drew my attention back to the monster in my house. Skittles rubbed against his calves, purring. She’d taken an unusual liking to him, considering she despised anyone outside of my family and Marcy. Still conversing with my father, David lowered to a crouch and ran his hand over Skittles’s snowy-white fur. She bowed her head in submission as though to worship him. Then she rolled over and purred obscenely.

Perfect. Even my cat was charmed by him.

David turned his head. Our eyes connected again. This time, he winked.

I stormed toward him, tossing the plate and cupcake to the side.

His spine straightened as I fisted the warm sleeve of his leather jacket.

“This is between you and me, psycho,” I grated between my teeth.

“We need to talk. Inprivate.”

I hadn’t even noticed there was background noise until every sound in the house smothered to a complete hush. I looked at my father, to find him unmoving, perched mid–football throw. I looked back over my shoulder at my mom, who was mid–hair flip.

When I turned back to David, he glared down at my hand on his jacket. “Yes,” he said, clipping the word. “Let’s talk.”

White-hot pain ricocheted up the hand touching him like an electric current, traveling to a place over my stomach, where the ghost of a bullet wound lingered like an eternal scar. I released his arm and lurched back, clutching at my gut. A flicker of pleasure burned wickedly in his gaze as he watched me hyperventilate.

“I warned you not to touch me,” he purred.

In a moment of clarity, I reached back, grabbed the bat on the kitchen table, and swung hard at David’s head. Like a scene straight of a movie, he snatched the bat at the last second before it pulverized his face. His head tilted. On the side of the bat was a big dollop of strawberry-pink frosting from one of the cupcakes.

Keeping his intense stare on me, his tongue darted out and licked all the icing off, before his fingers crushed the aluminum barrel to a pulp as if it were a can. He tore the bat easily from my hand and cast it aside.

“Now, that wasn’t very nice,” he growled and bared a mouthful of serrated teeth.

Stumbling out of the kitchen with a scream, I ran into the hallway. I struggled to focus on “David” as my whole body felt inhibited by pain. Thunder rumbled through the hallway and the lights surged on and off. He pursued me with a lazy, unhurried swagger, shadows peeling off the walls on either side of him like stripped paint. They latched onto his shoulders, forming a regal cape, which then reshaped into a cloak as he leisurely blended into the darkness.

“You should have left my business alone, Faith.”

His voice was deepening, altering, an unmarked accent rhythmically purring out the words. A horrific look of wrath carved into his features. Bones shifted in his face, forming something sharper, angular, as beautiful as poison. He cracked his head sharply to the side and light-colored markings danced beneath his skin, spreading like a wildfire. They climbed up his neck, curved alongside his face, and blackened into tattoos.

“Nobody cheats Death.”

Boom!I jerked as another rumble of thunder was unleashed outside. The hallway light stuttered wildly over his features, and I screamed as his image distorted to the wicked, green-eyed creature I’d watched Alexandru turn into. The lights surged on for the last time, before finally going out altogether. I took off through our one-story house, sprinting into my room in the direction of the window and . . .

Crashed into a hard cloaked frame.

“Especially you,cupcake.”

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