Page 124 of Death is My BFF

“No more running, Faith,” Alexandru said. The voice was recognizably Death’s, but the intonation didn’t sound quite right. I couldn’t put my finger on it.

“This is impossible,” I said, retreating back. The closer he got, the more detailed he became, down to the slave bands around his ankles. His feet left imprints in the ground.

“In my world, nothing is impossible.” He held out his hand like an offering. His fingers were long and calloused, his palms large and masculine. I pictured Death’s leather gloves and knew they’d fit perfectly over those powerful hands.

“I feel . . . strange.” I kept my arms locked at my sides, straining to concentrate on his face as the cornstalks shifted colors again.

“Don’t you find me attractive, Faith?” Now he was standing right next to me like a jump cut.

My mouth felt bone dry, my lips cracking from the frigid air. “I don’t understand. I watched you change, in the arena. You’re not this man anymore.”

His head cocked. “I’m anyone you want me to be.”

“Am I dreaming?”

“Don’t you want to touch me?” His voice was a low purr, as his lips hovered over my cheek. The instant he touched my skin, I was drowsy again, leaning into him. His fingers lingered on the zipper of my sweatshirt. The bare skin of my arms hit the frigid air as he slipped my jacket off. “I want you, Faith. Take your clothes off.”

I drowned in his exotic eyes, itched to touch his smooth skin. I pressed my hand against the plate on his chest. The metal wasn’t cold, as I’d expected it to be. In fact, it didn’t feel like much of anything, if that even made sense. This little puzzlement sobered me up.

“You’re not real,” I said, coming fully to the realization.

“I’m not real?” He grinned, ran the tip of his tongue over the edges of his top teeth. “Of course, I’m real,cupcake.”

His voice. His voice was what triggered it. A spell broke. Clarity hit me at full force, and the small hairs on the nape of my neck lifted. I shunted him away. “Your voice,” I said, pointing at him with accusation. “You don’t have his accent. You’re not him.” Coughing, I clutched at my T-shirt and reeled backward. Smoke expelled from my lungs, as tears forcefully streamed down my face. “Show me—

show me what’s true!”

Alexandru blinked, and his eyes clouded. Like a mirage, his image shimmered away, and his face altered, transforming into a frightening thin creature with pale skin and yellow teeth. The creature had various tics and twitches, as if it couldn’t stand still. A terrifying grin was permanently engraved into its features, as if its lips were pulled up by invisible fishhooks. I knew it was male from its bared genitals.

“What a clever girl!” it shouted with glee. “You found my fault!”

An identical creature materialized beside the first monster. This one was narrower and possibly female. “You were amazing, baby.”

She approached the other creature and they started to kiss in a graphic PDA of lizard-like tongues, groping, and saliva. Then they broke apart and looked at me at the same time.

The male transformed back into to the image of Alexandru.

“Dinner is served, my love,” he said.

The hideous female started toward me.

“Don’t forget your appetizer, bitch!” Aunt Sarah sprang into the path and hurled herself into the one creature, knocking it to the ground. She was saturated in blood, most of which wasn’t her own, with two deep lacerations cut into her bicep. She was weak, profusely sweating. Still, she was able to bury a dagger into the female’s throat, ripping through cords of muscle and tendons, severing its head.

Fake Alexandru released a snarl and lunged for my aunt, tossing her damaged body like a rag doll farther down the path.

My eyes bulged out of my head. “Don’t touch her!”

Its attention swiveled to me. The Alexandru clone moved in a flash, jumping right in front of me as he released a heinous screech.

“Fine, I’ll eat you first! After all,you’rethe prize!” The creature clutched my throat with bony fingers and opened its nasty mouth. I felt paralyzed as its jaw dislocated to become unnaturally wide, so I could see down its putrid throat. Needlelike teeth lengthened from rotted gums, and—

Suddenly, a curved blade cut upward through its middle, and the creature gurgled a strangled noise. Rotten skin crackled and burned.

Death’s cloaked frame rose behind the creature in a whirl of shadows, his gloved hand gripping the curved weapon penetrating the creature. “Fun’s over,” he hissed. “I don’t like to be imitated.”

He removed the blade and sliced the air again. The creature rippled, transforming from Alexandru back into its true form. With a hand still clutching my neck, the demon crumpled, and I with it.

The creature’s ugly head slid off its wrinkly body before hitting the ground in a slop of flesh. I held back a scream.

---