Page 38 of Frosted Torment

“That’s not ominous,” I mocked, growing impatient with his storytelling.

“When your great-great-grandmother died,” Vincent drew out, “we learned she only possessed fragments of the secrets. Each woman passed them down until only one descendant remained to hold them all.”

“And here sits the last one,” I muttered, my palms held up in frustration.

“Yes,” Vincent confirmed. “But the secrets are too immense for an ordinary human mind to contain. It would rupture at the seams.”

I chewed my bottom lip, scrutinizing his stoic expression for any clue to his meaning. Vincent’s lips pressed into a taut line, his body coiled tight as a spring.

“Where are you going with this?” I inquired, as I arched my brow.

A shadow of uncertainty crossed his face before he answered. “It’s only a matter of time before you set off a bomb, destroying everything as you know it.”

The air left my lungs as I processed Vincent’s words. “How do we stop it?”

He shut his eyes and bowed his head. “We can’t. Our best option is to postpone it,” he told me, his voice barely loud enough for me to hear. “Nothing detrimental has happened yet because Vallen hid your soul in the Veil.”

A chill ran down my spine, and for a moment, the world seemed to spin around me. “I don’t have a soul?” I whispered, unable to believe the magnitude of what he was saying.

Vincent nodded. “We can get it back, but it will need participation on your part.”

A nervous laugh escaped me as I felt a sense of terror snake over me. Events of my life began to fall into place as I thought about my past and my current situation. I didn’t have a soul, but I still had most of the secrets since my mom died. They must have helped me in life to some degree. I remained calm, even though I was certain my face revealed a different emotion.

“What twisted carnival ride do you have planned for me next?” I asked.

Vincent hesitated before answering, uncertainty flickering in his multicolored eyes. I didn’t move or say a word. I rubbed my hands together, feeling like a pawn in a twisted chess game between angels and demons.

“With the help of Nevaeh’s granddaughter, Ena,” he admitted, “we can retrieve the secrets and then transport them back to the Veil.”

“If we perform the ceremony with precision,” Jossy interjected, “we have a chance to replace your soul at the same time, Noa.”

I stood up and paced in front of Lex with my stomach in knots. “I’m hearing too many maybes about this situation, and now you’re involving magic?”

“It’s spiritual.” Lex jumped up, taking me by my shoulders to face him. “This world connects Ena’s people and us as celestials. We assist Ena, so it’s possible for her to perform the ceremony,” he explained.

I stepped back from him and fixed my eyes on Vincent. “What happens if I die? If the bomb in me decides to go off?”

Vincent rose from the couch and walked over to look out a window above the front door and leaned one arm against it. “I don’t want any of you to think about that right now.”

“Too late,” I said with gritted teeth to his back. “What happens, Vincent?”

Lex gave my hand a reassuring squeeze, but I couldn’t bring myself to reciprocate. Instead, my face contorted, and I crossed my arms over my chest. I didn’t know what Vincent was holding back, but I would explode sooner than he imagined if I didn’t get an answer. Nothing happening with these secrets was good.

Vincent dropped his arm and turned back to me. His throatbobbed before answering, and I knew I wasn’t going to like what he was about to say.

“If you still hold the secrets and you die,” he started, “everything behind the Veil and the angels here on Earth vanish. You included, so it’s you that turns to mist. Everyone else becomes trapped here as your world becomes forgotten. It becomes uninhabitable. Feeling nothing. Knowing nothing.”

My arms dangled at my sides. “Oh my god. Children and babies, too?”

Vincent nodded, confirming my fears. “They will go mad, as they age with all the decomposition that comes with death, but they will never die. There would be no end for them, Noa, and the most horrendous torment anyone could go through.” He cleared his throat before continuing and said, “That is the punishment for my brother’s actions.”

I sat on the hearth in disbelief as grief began to wash over me. “Once again, a supernatural creature’s dumbass decisions are punishing humans.”

Vincent squatted down in front of me at eye level. “If we succeed in retrieving the secrets, but are unable to return your soul,” he continued in a voice meant to keep me calm, “then you’re the only one who suffers.”

My mouth turned to cotton. “How do you mean?” I croaked out.

“Hell, Noa,” Jossy said, resting his elbows on his thighs and folding his hands together. “You go to hell when you die.”

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