Page 148 of Death is My Ride or Die

I wiped my sleeve over my eyes as I nodded. A foolish part of me had thought Death would have an answer for all of this.

His grin slowly fell. “Don’t cry.”

“This whole night, all I’ve wanted to do was help, but I haven’t managed to do anything right without someone else’s help.”

“You can start by pulling the knife out of my back.”

“Now is not the time to get figurative, Death.”

“I’m being literal. There’s a blade wedged in my lower back. I haven’t been able to move my legs.”

I rushed around to look at his back, gasped, and pointed a finger. “Holy cheese!”

“Holycheese?”

“Why didn’t you say something sooner?”

“Because I’m not a little bitch.” He managed a laugh, despite the situation. “And I kinda like the pain.”

“Of course, you do.” I reached forward to solve the problem at hand, then pulled my fingers back at the last second. “Can we please give Faith some instruction here? Faith didn’t learn this in Death’s boot camp.”

“I’ll make sure to add ‘third person panic attack’ to the lesson board,” Death growled. “First, take a deep breath.”

I did.

“Rub your hands together nice and fast, so they’re not too cold.”

I rubbed my gloves together so vigorously it was like I was trying to start a campfire.

“Perfect,” he said. “Now grip the hilt with both hands, firm but not too firm, and just . . . stroke it out, cupcake.”

I flipped him off, and he burst into strident laughter.

I marched in place, anxious again. “All right, here we go. Here we go, I got this!”

“You’re screaming.”

“I got this,” I whispered.

“Just pull the damn thing out of my spine.”

“At least it’s kind of cool-looking. It’s got these weird designs on the hilt.”

“Don’t touch the blade!”Death suddenly roared.

I jumped back and clutched my chest, startled.

Death craned to look over his shoulder, trying to get a glimpse of the blade. “It’s my scythe. It can turn into a normal dagger. If you had touched it, you would have burned to ash. In a heartbeat.”

“Shit,” I said, pushing sweaty baby hairs away from my forehead with my hand.

“This was all a game to Ahrimad,” Death said. “Leaving us both in this room, paralyzing me with the very weapon I was looking for all along.”

Suddenly, I sensed we weren’t alone. Fear shimmied down my spine as I slowly turned to investigate the room. The little hairs at the back of my neck rose at the sight of the six massive demons. They manifested with fanged mouths and snarled in unison from across the room. Burly frames, massive horns, giant fangs, and bat-like wings with translucent black membranes.

Thesemust have been the high-level demons that were summoned by Ahrimad.

“Shit,” Death muttered.

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