Page 60 of Guarded By Death

His dimpled smile threatens to melt me. "You," he says, his deep baritone filling the room.

I laugh. "Any hobbies?"

"Same answer." He winks, I playfully swat his arm.

He raises a brow at me. "Why are you so curious?"

"I'm just trying to figure out what you would do if you didn't do... this." I gesture to him and a half-smile creeps up his face.

"If I was human, like you." His eyes hold something I can't put a finger on, longing maybe? "I would find a suitable job and marry you. Start a family and we would live a beautiful life. I don't care what job I had, as long as I had you my life would be perfect." He looks at me pointedly, placing his warm hand on my thigh. "More importantly, what do you want to do? You have your entire life ahead of you. I know you said you were undecided but that surprises me."

I give him an odd look. "Why does it surprise you?"

"You're just so good at so many things." When I don't respond he continues, "You're really good with people. You would make a great nurse or doctor. You're smart, funny, -"

I cut him off before he can continue, embarrassed at all of the compliments. "I think you give me too much credit."

A long silence passes before he lets out a deep breath. "I’m being too careless," he sighs and I give him a curious look. "With Preta, I mean I thought a random kid in the street was him. The bike could have crushed him."

"But it didn't."

He looks at me for a long moment, "I would like for you to come with me somewhere soon.”

"Your version of somewhere and mine are different. What does it have to do with him?"

He begins to pace the small room. "I've been trying to find more information on Preta... I've heard of a library of sorts. It's ancient and filled with information for things like this but it's abandoned, I'm not sure what we will find."

I shrug. "Let's just go now." I would like to know more and after what just happened, I'm in no mood to sleep.

We materialize in front of a cathedral style church. Large chunks of broken rock decorate the overgrown lawn, having fallen from the crumbling building.

"Where are we exactly?" I look around at the desolate scenery.

"Venice, well the outskirts anyway.”

"Wow." Italy. My eyes gaze in awe at the deteriorating building. Roads that would have led to the church have been taken by nature, nothing around but the quiet patter of wildlife in the dense wooded area around us.

"Yeah." He takes my hand, leading us towards the cathedral.

I admire his tall frame, dominating the landscape even though we're in such a hauntingly beautiful place. "Before you, I've never really been... anywhere,” I admit.

He turns to look at me, his gaze traveling my features. "Me either."

I find that hard to believe, obviously, but I catch onto his sweet word usage.

As we walk further it becomes eerily quiet, the birds have stopped singing as they flee in a hurry above our heads. The only sounds are the crunch of our footsteps on the ground.

Pierce gestures in front of us as we make our way through the tall grass, dodging large pieces of fallen stone. "This is where exorcisms used to take place. It's rumored that the basement holds what we need. Diaries and ancient log books from long ago." He throws up his hands imitating a ghost as he laughs. "For real though, don't let go of my hand. I'll get us out of here if the foundation begins to fall. By the looks of it, no one takes care of this place."

"Why wouldn't they have gotten the books out?" I ask.

He raises a brow, contemplating if he should tell me. "No one will set foot in this place." He stops talking and I nudge his arm.

"Sure you wanna know?" he asks, tilting his head to the side.

When I nod, he stops walking and plants his feet in front of me, his height forcing me to crane my neck up. "A couple hundred years ago there was an exorcism performed here." A funny thought pops into my mind, remembering how comical this would have sounded to me such a short time ago when I thought demons were just things of nightmares.

He continues, "Things went wrong. Three priests died and two were possessed. They went home and slaughtered their families and villages."

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