Page 52 of Death is My BFF

“Like hell I am!”

“It wasn’t a question.” Death clamped down on my good arm and hauled me off the ground. I was so light-headed that I rocked backward. Cocking his head, he caught my other arm and examined the wound there. He elicited a foul curse in a foreign language.

The grotesque claw marks on my arm had stopped bleeding.

It didn’t seem like the best scenario, considering the skin around the wound blackened to a rot, and I’d lost complete feeling in my fingers. Five Deaths also swam in my vision.

I tore my arm out of his grasp. “What’s happening to me?”

“Your body is accepting the demon’s mark. You’re going to turn unless you trust me.”

“Turn? Into one of thosethings?”

“Amputation might be the most viable option.”

I looked up at him with wide eyes. “Say what?”

“You still have time.” Blackness dispersed from his shoulders. He stiffened, rolled his wide shoulders. Freed another venomous swear word. “Or not—a spell is preventing me from dematerializing. I’ll have to carry you.”

I flattened against the wall. “Don’t you put your hands on me!”

This was happening too fast, and I was in unbearable pain, but I had enough moxie to put up a fight. “I need to go to a hospital! I need a doctor!”

“They won’t be able to save you,” Death growled and reached for me again. Shadows stretched over the pavement. We craned our necks up at the same time. To my utter horror, birds piled into the alleyway from all directions.

“Stay down!” Death ducked and brought me into the lapels of his cloak as debris tore up from the ground. My legs abruptly gave out from beneath me as I doubled over in pain, but Death caught me with a strong arm.“Cruentas!”He signaled to the end of the alleyway, shadows expelling from his gloved hand. A thick, eerie fog leaked out from the crevices of the ground from where he gestured. What was a terrifying experience without fog?

The sound of a horse galloped in the distance, hooves clacking against wet pavement. Beyond any doubt, I was hallucinating through the sheeting pain. Or maybe I was already dead. Out of the fog and shadow came a monstrous, handsome black stallion at full gallop, untouched by the pelting rain, the birds, and thunder from above. The muscles on the animal’s body were enormous and sinewy, and its eyes were abnormally red, like two ferocious rubies burning beneath the sun.

The beast charged at the birds, flames shelling out from its nostrils right before it collided with them. As the fire hit the animals, they burst into ashes and then disappeared altogether. The stallion stood up on hind legs and knocked more birds away from us, smashing them with its hooves until there was enough space for a getaway.

Death bent down and threw me over his shoulder. He darted through that gap and leapt, straddling the beast from behind me. I slipped into a new wave of disorienting pain. Spots dotted my vision.

I slumped forward, unable to keep myself upright. Death hooked a strong arm across my midsection and grabbed the reins with one gloved hand.

Thousands of birds circled the pavement, forming a vortex of obsidian feathers. For whatever reason, this grand display had caught Death’s interest enough that we weren’t moving. The beast whined, hooves scraping against the ground. It tried to resist the strong pull of the vortex as we were on the verge of getting sucked in.

Just then, the pull gave way all at once and the birds combined in a clumped mass. Death’s muscles tightened around me like a vise and the stallion regained its footing.

“It’s been far too long,” proclaimed a gravelly voice, “Death.”

I peered around Death’s arm to see what had formed from the birds. Or, more specifically,whohad formed.

It wore no clothing, only feathers layered over the most intimate part of its body. It had long talons as hands, endless obsidian onyx eyes, and a misshapen face contorted in such a way that the bottom half resembled a beak. Upon its head lay thick black feathers in the shape of hair.

The creature forcefully beat its wings and they began to gain a fleshy color, transforming into well-shaped male arms. His beak-like mouth modified to a narrow Roman nose and a man’s lips. He was clean-shaven, slightly hallowed in the cheeks, with skin so gray it bordered silver. He cracked his head from side to side and lowered his arms in a graceful movement. The feathers upon his head cascaded down into Viking braids and long, silky rivulets that matched the color of the ravens.

He took two gliding steps forward and silk pants curtained down his long, powerful legs. As I stared at him, those blistering coal eyes burned back.

“What’s the matter?” He shifted those unblinking, soulless eyes to Death. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

“More like swine,” Death grated out.

The demon released a hiss, treading toward us. Death returned the hiss like a wild animal. The horse beneath us went up on his hind legs and shot at the demon with blistering tendrils of fire. The flames made the demon withdraw to his original spot.

“Aren’t you going to introduce me to your little friend?” The demon turned his head to me and bared his fanged teeth in a grin that must have been charming once upon a time.

“She has nothing to do with our vendetta, Malphas,” Death snarled. This version of his voice brought chills down my spine.

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