Page 141 of Death is My Ride or Die

Duncan’s whole body tensed, a strangled gasp escaping his mouth. Realizing he was immobilized, I pried his hands off me and ripped free. Duncan remained locked in a rigid position, his silvery eyes wide with shock. Tendrils of color surrounded his body like chains.

“Warlock,” Duncan hissed.

I lifted my gaze down the hallway, and my heart plunged at the sight of Ace. He stood with his free hand casually outstretched toward Duncan. The elegant, Victorian-style outfit he’d been wearing earlier at his library was torn, exposing bite marks and cuts all over his body. His once beautiful shoulder-length hair had been shaved down to the white roots, and blood, vivid red against his pallid skin, dripped down his forehead from an open gash.

“Ace!”

“Look at you, you crippled fuck,” Duncan laughed, blood seeping out the corners of his mouth as he remained unable to move. “My newborns really did you in. And your poor little pixie pet. I heard she was ripped apart in seconds.”

My heart plunged. Trixie. She was dead.

Ace’s face trembled with rage, his violet eyes glowing neon and crackling with electricity.

“Kill me now, and your pledge of passivity is over,” Duncan said, grinning wider. “You’ll no longer be a neutral force. The title you’ve worked centuries for—”

Ace crushed his hand into a fist, and the indentation of his fingers engraved Duncan’s neck.“Morior!”

Duncan released a horrific scream. Veins swelled in his face, and a wheeze emptied his lungs as blood vessels exploded beneath his skin. His eyes bulged out of his head. I turned my head away; the sound of Duncan’s eyeballs exploding made an involuntary noise of shock escape my mouth. Still, I peered back—I had to. Duncan’s skin melted off his body like wax sliding down a burning candle. His corpse collapsed in a pile of sludge and bones.

I looked up at Ace in quiet horror. I’d seen plenty of gruesome deaths that night, but that one took the cake. He didn’t look proud of what he’d done, but he didn’t look regretful either.

Ace limped to the pile of gore on the floor and picked up his cane.

“Have you seen Death?” I asked.

“I believe I have,” Ace replied. “He wasn’t himself, though.”

“We were supposed to meet the reapers and Death’s Fallen in a different part of the mausoleum. Death and I entered another way. We were using Malphas as bait, but then—”

“Malphas?” Ace’s full attention snapped to me. “Malphas Cruscellio?”

“Do you know anybody else on the planet with that name?” I joked. “I know you can’t talk about your vision anymore, but I can’t shake this feeling that Malphas has a bigger part in all of this. Especially with the riddle he keeps repeating—”

Ace seized my arm in an iron grip. “Whatriddle?”

My attention clung to Ace’s fingers around my wrist. He’d touched only a sliver of my skin, and cold speared through me like frostbite. My heart rocketed into overdrive.

I wrenched my arm free and stepped back. “You’re not Ace.”

Ace appeared puzzled a moment longer.

Then he straightened, his entire affect changing in an instant.

“Your power is stronger, Chosen,” the impostor said, taking a confident step toward me as I took another backward. “Ace put up an honorable fight against me. But after he watched the consequence of refusing me, his lover brutally torn apart, well . . . ” His slow smirk brought chills down my spine. “He ultimately succumbed to my will.”

I could hear the tremor in my voice as I whispered, “Ahrimad.”

Ace’s violet eyes clung to the torn part of my belt. “You’re just in time for the show.” His hand rose toward me.“Somnus.”

The command shot out like gunfire, a gust of magic blasting out and knocking me from consciousness.

XXXVII

Dim light from a filthy lightbulb filtered through the metal bars and lit the confined space. With barely enough room to stand, I felt as if I were sitting in large coffin with jail bars for walls. Beside my claustrophobic cell was another.

Pure dread speared through me as I noticed another person behind the barrier of metal bars. Edging closer confirmed my assumption—it was Ace. He was so still, lying face down with his head angled away from me. I crawled across the space, my body aching with every movement I made.

“Ace?” I whispered. I fought not to burst into tears. I pictured his wounds, his tattered clothing, and my heart clenched. The thought crossed my mind that Ahrimad might have continued to possess his body, so I reached out and shook his arm. No sensation of coldness. “Ace? Ace, wake up. Please, wake up.”

---