Page 140 of Death is My Ride or Die

I touched the hilt of my blade protectively. The weapon I realized I hadn’t reached for once that night. “Why? So you can make me disappear too? Where the hell is Death?”

“We will deal with thatafterthis,” Malphas said, his gaze locked on the creature. “This is a high-level empath demon. Death and I were fevered by her power. He must have shifted elsewhere in the mausoleum. I assume he is taking longer to shake off the effects because he’s weakened. He could be delusional. More reason togive me your sword—”

The beautiful creature lunged forward and hissed something in a language that sounded quite rude. The fabric over her face shifted around as she screamed, and I started to get the sick feeling in my stomach that the scarf was hiding something I didnotwant to see.

Three more she-demons crawled down the side of the room like spiders, their long fingers stabbing into the marble like it was made of papier-mâché, anchoring them to the wall. Malphas grabbed the back of my hood and yanked me behind him as the demons flipped upright onto the floor beside us, bloodred eyes flickering like flames. The one in the middle appeared the most confident, the leader.

“Malphas,” the golden demon drawled, her accent matching the other, more deranged demon. “Magna praesesinferos. Do my eyes deceive me? The last time I saw you, you left me in an empty bed and never called.”

“Layla,” Malphas replied with a nod.

“Yikes,” I said. “Ex-girlfriend?”

“Silence,”Layla snarled, her voice vibrating the magic in the air. “Stupid blue-eyed bimbo!”

The nameless demon with the cloth over her mouth laughed.

I fisted my hands, heat centering in my palm. I had no idea what these creatures were capable of, but apparently, Malphas did. He stood in a protective stance in front of me. Or maybe, I thought, as I slid my hand possessively over the harness at my side, he was just protecting the book.

Layla strutted closer to Malphas, her hips rocking side to side seductively as she walked. The fabric over her groin barely covered what it was supposed to—if it was even supposed to.

“Yes, I remember that handsome face in the Underworld,” she purred. “So much sadness behind that cold, stoic face. Everyone wondered if you had been summoned to Earth or if you had escaped. How did you do it?”

“I’m a walking enigma,” Malphas said dryly.

“I am enslaved to my new master, Ahrimad,” Layla said. “He ordered me to destroy whoever crosses into this room. It’s nothing personal.” She put her hands on her narrow waist. “I promise to make your demise as painless as possible, for an old friend. If you tell me what you offered Hades to free yourself.”

“As much as I appreciate such a kind offer”—one of Malphas’s hands, which was clasped with the other behind his back, reached blindly behind him and gripped the hilt of the sword at my hip—“I’m going to have to decline. And, as the mortals say, ‘Go fuck yourself.’”

One of the demons sprang forward with her blade drawn. Malphas’s nails ripped my sword and its scabbard straight from my belt. The sword turned over in his hand in a whirl of motion before his other hand joined on the hilt. His whole body moved with the violent action as he evaded the empath’s attack and arced the blade upward, slicing through her heart. Another swift movement of his hands and her head was severed clean, smacking against the ground with a wet thud.

“Sister!”Layla screamed. The crippling grief on her face vanished, traded instantly for vengeance. Her hands spread out, and she chanted quickly.

My vision swam as the air thickened with magic. Multiple sigils on the floor glowed red. Air heaved like a mighty hurricane as it had before, and I planted my feet wide to stay balanced. “Can’t we ever catch a break?”

“She’s cocooned herself in magic to summon the rest of her sisters!” Malphas shouted over the looming chaos. He tilted his head down to me. “Go! Find Death!”

I couldn’t help but think that I was leaving Malphas to die. I also couldn’t help but think that he had a greater part in all of this. If I never saw Malphas again, I needed to know if my gut feeling held any truth at all.

“Is it true?” I demanded. “Did you kill his family?”

The frantic darkness in Malphas’s eyes seemed to settle, like black stone lying at the bottom of a river. In a heart-stopping moment, he handed me back my bloody sword. “I have done unspeakable things in this world that have left me entrenched in sin, but my greatest offence is my most painful secret. A secret that I will take to the grave. You must discover these answers on your own.”

My breath caught in my throat. The same answer as the one he’d given me in the projection with the willow tree, verbatim. Like a broken record.

I was struck by the eerie possibility that hecouldn’tanswer my question.

The raven demigod stepped into Layla’s chaos, a blurred figure amidst a whirlwind of red mist. She released a shrill shriek from her magical freaky butterfly cocoon, and the marble crumbled. Pieces from the ceiling came loose and hit the ground in an explosion of debris. I pivoted and committed to my escape from the sigil room, sprinting down another hallway. When I looked over my shoulder, the archway behind me had crumbled, blocked by debris. The sigil room had buckled in on itself.

I turned and kicked into a run, tears blurring my vision. Where was Death? When I turned another corner, I crashed into somebody, and Master Vampire Duncan slammed into sharp focus.

He held some sort of weapon. I saw the flash of Ace’s cane in his fist as he punched it hard into my gut. It knocked the wind right out of me, the momentum sending me flying backward until I landed on the marble floor.

“Going somewhere, bitch?”

Adrenaline fired as Duncan kept coming at me. I struggled to catch my breath as I clutched my stomach and crawled backward. His hand gripped me around the throat, faster than the newborns in the graveyard, and plucked me straight up off the ground. With no ability to cry out, I stayed silent as Duncan slammed me against the wall. I pictured all his newborns we’d destroyed as his nails dug into my throat. I tried to writhe out of his grasp, blood dripping down my neck.

“I see you managed to get past the summoning room,” he breathed into my face. “Ahrimad wanted you alive, but I don’t care what that old bag of bones wants anymore. I’d rather dump your dismantled body right in front of the Prince of Darkness—”

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