Page 60 of Shadow of Death

Yeah, there was thatspecialword, and he thought he was flattering me.

“I’m not special at all.” My voice was flat and as exciting as a mud puddle.

There was a fine line here that was near impossible to walk, somewhere between not shutting him down completely but also not giving in. If I moved wrong and he called my bluff, he’d find out I didn’t even have a pair of deuces.

“Things don’t have to be bad between us. You just need to cooperate. That’s all,” he said with a shrug.

“Or you’ll kill me?” I asked, trying to keep my tone calm. “Go ahead. I’d like to see you try.” The way I saw it, we were playing a game of chicken, seeing who’d veer off first. I couldn’t afford to let him see any more weakness, even if that meant we’d be crashing into each other.

He smiled again as if this just amused him. “You’re not scared of much, are you? Or not for yourself, anyway. You think you’re invincible, but you aren’t. I’ve made a lot of calls and done a lot of digging. The things you’ve done, how you went crazy when you thought my brother was dead. So even if you don’t want to cooperate foryou, you might want to do this for him and that little brother of yours.”

Don’t panic. Don’t let my heart rate rise.He was probably bluffing about Charlie. He was too far from his reach. At least, that was what I repeated in my head. I wished I could believe he wouldn’t kill Kicks, that he wouldn’t do that to his brother, but I’d known the second I met him that he was the exact type that would.

“I think it’s time for you to talk. Why did you kill my father and how?”

Screw it.Whynottell him the truth? He knew I’d killed his father. Maybe if I could get him to believe my true situation, it might benefit me. At this point, would it really hurt?

“He pissed off a very powerful creature when he killed off most of the world’s population,” I said.

Emotions ran across his face, but the one I’d been watching for, shock, didn’t seem to be in the mix. He might not have had a hand in it, but he must’ve known or suspected something.

“I gave you an answer,” I said. “Now you tell me something. What did you know about what your father was doing?”

“I knew he was messing around with some dark arts,” he said, seeming genuinely solemn for once. “Now you. How did you kill him?”

“Something happened when I was turned into a guide. It allowed me to kill with a touch. But then Death got involved and I became more lethal. She’s mighty pissed off about what has happened.”

His gaze narrowed on me. “Death?”

He didn’t believe me, but I hadn’t expected this to go easy. “Yes. Death. The Grim Reaper? The taker of souls?”

“You’ve got to be bullshitting me,” he said, laughing.

“I’m not.” I shrugged.

Death appeared, sitting on the corner of his desk, staring at him while I stared at her. What was she doing here?

I’m bored,she said, and then did one of her weird shrugs.I also don’t like being laughed at. She glared at Varic with such coldness that he probably would’ve peed his pants if he could see.

“Do you plan on helping me out with this?” I said.

“What are you talking about?” Varic asked.

“Death is here, sitting on your desk, looking at you.” It was strange how easy that was to say to him. I’d stressed for weeks over coming clean to Kicks, but I didn’t give a shit what Varic thought of me. If he thought I was a freak, no skin off my bones. Maybe it would freak him out enough he’d throw me to the curb and end this situation.

“Bullshit,” he said, but he didn’t sound confident.

“You know your father killed off most of the world and yet this you don’t believe? Fine. I’ll prove it to you. Death, give me something.”

There was a gleam in her eye. She wanted to scare him. Was reveling in the opportunity to do it.That’swhy she was here.

Tell him that you know about the girl in town he raped when he was fourteen.

And I’d thought I hated him before.

“You raped a girl in town when you were fourteen.”

He told her that if she said a word to anyone, monsters would come and kill her entire family that night. Then he shifted in front of her so she’d be so terrified she’d never say a word.

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