Page 118 of Death is My BFF

“Clearly!You know, at this point, nothing really surprises me!

Angel of Death, this is my Aunt Sarah, demon hunter. Aunt Sarah, this is the Angel of Death.”

“Hi,” Death said, then cleared his throat. “I mean,yo.”

I faced Aunt Sarah. “He’s a psychopath.”

“It’s an art, like anything else,” Death said.

“I was under the impression he was just an asshole,” Aunt Sarah quipped.

“You two spoil me with compliments.” Death tipped his head back over the railing behind him, lounging without a care. “Faith, your aunt and I already know each other. She and Lucifer crossed paths once or twice—”

“Shut up,” my aunt snapped at him. “Shut your mouth, or I’ll stick this cross so far up your ass—”

She stopped midsentence, as Death picked himself up and rose to his incredible height. He raised a huge boot to the railing at the back of his cart, then the other, and balanced impossibly on the edge like a cat. His leather jacket had evaporated into darkness, shadows billowing out from his frame into a long regal cloak, which whipped around in the night. At the sight of his looming frame, Aunt Sarah backpedaled a few steps, and me with her. With a sinister laugh, Death took a single long stride, stepping over the gap between our carts. He jumped down in front of us, metal clinking underneath his cloak as the cart shuddered from his weight.

“If you think I feel threatened by a little pocket cross,” he growled in that deep, lilted voice, “you’regravelymistaken.” With a slight swish of a gloved hand, his enormous scythe appeared at his side, gleaming in the night.

Aunt Sarah gripped the cross tighter, and I could see her fingers were trembling. “I’m not afraid of you. I have the power of the Ancients by my side.”

Death cocked his head. “I was wondering what that smell was.”

“Lucifer knows better than to send you to harm a hunter of the Guild,” Aunt Sarah said. “The Elders will find out, and who knows, maybe this will be the last straw. Maybe you’ll get your wings sliced off again. Unless you want the flight of a penguin, I suggest you leave us alone and go prey on someone else.”

“You’re clearly out of the loop.” Death weighed the staff of his scythe in his gloved hands. “I’m not here for you. I’m here forher.”

Aunt Sarah looked at me in quiet horror. “What?”

“Faith died, I spared her life with a deal,” Death explained,

“and now she owes me. It’s time for me to collect what is mine: her soul . . . andher. Attempt to break this arrangement, and you will only be damaging your niece in the process.”

Aunt Sarah kept her attention daggered to Death, like he might attack her at any moment. “Why didn’t you tell me about this, Faith?”

“Because I prefer my bedroom over padded cell walls? How was I supposed to know you were so well acquainted with the supernatural world?”

“I’m so sorry you had to find out this way,” she said. “I can’t tell anyone what I am. Not even my own sister. As for you, Fallen, my niece and I are getting off this ride. If you follow us, Iwillcondemn you to Hell.”

“By all means, go for it,” Death dared. “It’s a little nippy outside anyway.”

“If you’re after the book, you’re wasting your time,” she added.

“Faith knows nothing about it, and she doesn’t know where it is.

Nobody does.”

“A book,” I echoed, suddenly recalling what Ace had told me in his séance room about me leading those who sought the book. “TheBook of the Dead,” I said, recalling the name. “You’re talking about theBook of the Dead.”

Shouldn’t have said that out loud.

Panic filled Aunt Sarah’s expression. “Who told you about theBook of the Dead?”

“If I had to guess, she learned about it from a warlock, Ace,”

Death answered, sounding entertained by my aunt’s panic. He maneuvered his scythe in a skilled movement and rested it on the back of his shoulders with his arms draped over the pole.

“I don’t understand,” Aunt Sarah said. “What do you want from Faith?”