Page 81 of Death is My Ride or Die

When I turned my head to the left, she mirrored me. To the right, the same. Then a sly smile unlike my own curved her mouth, and she stopped following my lead.

“I have waited for you, Chosen,” it said. “Tell me, Faith Williams, what do you seek?”

It all warped away, and I was screaming. Devin had slammed the book shut, the thick glove disintegrating into smoke as he hastily tugged it off.

I sagged in my seat, trembling, utterly exhausted.

Doomed beyond belief.

It was true. I was the Chosen.

“Excellent,” Devin said, clearly having arrived at the same conclusion. “I will need more equipment to move the book to a safer location.”

“I hope it melts the scales off your nasty lizard face,” I spat.

Devin leaned back, though he appeared more amused than insulted. “You have quite the spirit in you, Faith,” he observed. “I do admire aspects of it.”

“I don’t,” Death grumbled as he slowly licked the pink lollipop he balanced casually between two fingers. “In fact, I often think of something she could wrap her mouth around to shut that spirit right up.”

My face burned.

Devin’s lip curled with a low hiss, and the room’s temperature rose a few notches. “Now that we have confirmation that she’s the one,” he said, speaking to Death as though I were no longer in the room, “we need to discuss where you are with regard to recovering your scythe.”

I looked over at Death in confusion. They hadn’t discussed recovering his scythe this entire time. Weren’t Lucifer and Death a team?

“I have a source that is confident that Ahrimad will open a portal into the mortal realm in a week and a half. All I need to do is narrow down the location.”

“How many soldiers will you require to resolve this situation quickly?”

“Not sure yet.”

“Very well,” Lucifer said with a dismissive wave of his hand. “I’ll watch the girl while you’re gone.”

“Wait, what?” I exploded. “What about Ace? What about his vision?”

Death slowly turned his head toward me, his jaw twitching, like I’d made an enormous mistake. He bit down on the lollipop with a crunch.

Lucifer’s sharp gaze snapped to Death. “What is she talking about?”

“May I speak with you in private?” Death asked Devin, his politeness carefully masking what I knew to be rage. He hadn’t told Lucifer about Ace’s vision. But why?

“What you have to say to me, you can say out loud,” Devin said. “I wouldn’t want to be rude.”

“The warlock,” Death began begrudgingly, “had a vision. He said a portal between this world and where Ahrimad is located would open, and that is when Ahrimad would unleash his army.”

“And you didn’t tell me this,” Devin questioned, biting the words out,“because?”

“Your Majesty, you indicated on multiple occasions I was to recover my scythe on my own.”

To this, Devin said nothing. “And what about the girl’s training?”

“Whataboutthe girl’s training?”

“If I didn’t know any better,” Devin said around a hostile grin, “I’d say you were training her to come with you.”

“Because he is,” I said, and suddenly all eyes were on me.

And Lucifer began to laugh. I waited for Death chime in. Instead, he lit up another cherry cigarette and snickered under his breath.

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