“You know him?”
“I’ve known Death since he was human.” Those violet eyes darkened. “We were friends, once.” Ace produced a small business card from the inside of his suit and flicked it into the air. It landed perfectly in front of me. An ace of spades. The surface shimmered, revealing his business and contact information in fancy cursive. “Although I understand your hesitation in trusting me, I feel you would be making a grave mistake leaving here without my help. Please, at least take my card.”
I picked up the ace of spades, his warning echoing in my head.
Perhaps all the answers were sitting right in front of me. If I didn’t accept this help from Ace, I had a feeling, by the dread churning sourly in my gut, there would be consequences. Consequences I could not afford right now.
At this point, I had nothing left to lose.
“No need,” I said, flattening the card on the table with my palm.
“You have yourself a deal, Ace.”
“Fantastique, ma chère.Once we begin, neither of us will be able to leave this room, no matter the circumstances. Not until the crystal has cleared. Breaking our connection could harm either one of us.
Do you understand?”
“What if something goes horribly wrong?”
Ace pursed his lips. “Do you have good health insurance?”
“Let’s do this,” I said, shaking my head at the whole ludicrous situation. “I’m done thinking. Do your thing before I change my mind.”
“Silence, please.” Pulling my hands slightly closer to the center of the table, Ace bowed his head and shut his eyes. All I could hear was the crackle and flicker of the candles. He was quiet for a while, until he whispered foreign words under his breath.
He flinched. A candle blew out to my right.
“L’esprits.”The warlock’s lids slowly opened, and he raised his head up. His irises had morphed from a bold violet to a coal black, and I stiffened. Then he spoke in a monotonous, dry voice unlike his own. “You have been given the Kiss of Death. There are consequences to this. A part of your soul has died, replaced by a fragment of Death’s immortal one.”
“Would that make me . . . immortal?”
“Not exactly.” I couldn’t remember the last time Ace had blinked.
He was looking in my direction, but not quite into my eyes. It was as if he were torn between two worlds, interpreting what he was seeing to me in theelsewhere. “You are not immortal. You are not mortal either. You are . . . in-between.”
Another candle blew out.Okay. This was a bad idea.
Ace flinched and his head snapped sharply to the side. His hands gripped mine tightly.
“What’s happening?” I asked.
Ace remained locked in a rigid position, his breathing shallow for a few seconds, before he was able to turn his head back to me.
“Hurry, look within the crystal. Tell me what you see.”
Although I was shaking at this point, I did as he said. The liquid inside the crystal ball swirled around into obsidian smoke and my heart hammered in my chest.
“I see . . . darkness. Nothing.”
“Impossible.” Ace’s voice was now bottomless, distant, as if he were searching for something deeper in that other world. “Your spiritual path is uncertain, which could mean—” His words were cut short, and as his breath hitched, three more candles extinguished.
“There is no stopping the evil that is after you. The spirits are all talking at once. Chanting . . . They are chanting,you are her!”
“What do they mean I’m her? Who’sher?”
“Light.”His eyes shifted back and forth, as if he were reading something fast. “A pure soul, a girl, wandering between Heaven and Earth, will be pardoned by Death himself, and with her resurrection will come a great power. She will bring with her a war unlike any other, the final fight between Heaven and Hell and the in-between.
This evil, which is after you, is the most malicious of the rest. It thirsts for revenge. It cares not for your well-being, but for your purpose, for you will bring to it great power, and an ancient tome, called theBook of the Dead. If you do not bind yourself to the one who seeks this grimoire the most, he will kill everyone you love . . . ”