Page 35 of Death is My Ride or Die

A bad feeling prickled the back of my neck.

I was not alone.

When I turned, I faced a floor-to-ceiling mirror. I had no reflection. The glass surface rippled like water, and suddenly, from its depths, a bulge appeared on the surface. I moved backward. A face and body came forth, stretching across the mirror’s surface like someone was shoving against a barrier between worlds. The barrier broke as a man emerged.

Ahrimad.

He stepped through the mirror like a door, just like he had in my vision of the willow tree with Alexandru. I remembered how he’d vanished into the mirrored ceiling at the D&S ball too. His amber eyes burned with wrath, but their spite was not directed at me.

He couldn’t see me.

I assumed this was in the future, that some time must have passed, because Ahrimad appeared weaker, nearly unrecognizable. He was too pale, too thin, too sickly, like a parasite had drained him from the inside out. His cloak—Death’s old cloak—hung off his wiry body, and in a bony hand he clutched Death’s enormous scythe.

Another figure emerged from the mirror.Malphas. His eyes were like sharp onyx stones as he stalked the perimeter of the room, critically analyzing every inch of it. He sneered at a crack pipe on the floor and kicked it to the side.

“This place is foul,” Malphas said, his rough voice grating like sandpaper. “It reeks of mold, and it’s filthy. I strongly advise we assemble elsewhere.”

Ahrimad strode past Malphas, a disturbingly evil grin stretching across his serrated teeth as he looked around the cold, dead space. “It is perfect. This is where we will house our army.”

I gasped awake, jolting upward from the bed. My alarm clock read 7:30 a.m.

It had just been a dream.

Or maybe not.

Deep breathing did very little to calm me. With each exhale, my breath clung to the air like tiny clouds. The room was as frigid as a meat locker. Raking back a strand of damp, sweaty hair from my face, I crawled to the end of my bed and froze.

Marcy’s spot on the blow-up mattress was empty.

Jumping off my bed, I jogged into my bathroom. Empty.

Hurrying back into my room, my attention snapped to my bedroom window. It was open, the curtains blowing in an icy breeze. A sliver of sunlight dawned on the horizon and seeped through the evergreen trees in the distance, creating a strange blue tint along our entire front yard. In the middle of the lawn, facing the street, stood Marcy.

My heart slammed into my ribs.

“Marcy?” I leaned out of the window. “Marcy!”

She stayed motionless, unresponsive. A cloud cast a shadow over the yard, darkening our surroundings to a dull gray. When I looked toward the horizon, I realized it wasn’t a cloud at all.

Rawk!Rawk!Rawk!

Hurling myself through the window, my bare feet hit wet, dewy grass, and I tried to run. My body didn’t seem to get the message. My limbs were heavy, lethargic, like moving through a dream. I stumbled to my knees. The air rippled in the sides of my vision like a mirage, and from behind the old oak tree emerged a dark figure with onyx eyes.

Malphas Cruscellio.

“Get away from her!”The scream tore from my throat like a roar, and heat rushed down my arm. Acting on instinct, I hurled out my hand, light unleashing over my surroundings, but my arm never made the full arc toward Malphas. One of the ravens had darted down from the sky toward my face, and the trajectory of my power sliced into the creature instead. It disintegrated into nothing. Another raven speared toward me, and I stumbled out of the way at the last second.

When I frantically looked up, Malphas was gone.

Marcy was gone too.

Gone.

In the blink of an eye.

XII

Malphas had taken Marcy.

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