Page 15 of Death Wish

His voice rose as panic set in. “Tell me who you are!”

I held my hands up in surrender. “Woah there. Easy now. No need to get gun-happy.”

A gunshot boomed against the silence, and I winced. As expected, the bullet flew right through my form and bounced off the wall somewhere behind me before skittering across the ground. I didn’t feel a thing.

“Cole? Cole Masters?” I talked fast, hoping to gain his attention before he shot at me again. “My name is Jade, and I’m here to help you cross over.”

He wasn’t listening. He reached into the back of his jeans, flicked the side of the gun open, and swapped out the bullets. I kept talking.

“That’s not going to work on me,” I said as he aimed at me again. “If you let me explain—”

Another booming shot, but this time, the bullet ripped through my right shoulder. White-hot pain unlike anything I had ever felt before exploded. The shock of it sent me reeling back and cursing. My hand flew to the wound, and to my horror, there was a hole the size of a quarter blown through my flesh above my collarbone. Black smoke emitted from it.

Impossible.

The pain ricocheting up and down my arm said otherwise. Undeniably real. The tears welling in my eyes only proved it more.

I didn’t have time to contemplate what was really going on. Cole was already reloading his gun. I didn’t know how he was able to shoot me, but I sure as hell wasn’t going to let him do it again. Talking wasn’t working. Cole was more of a shoot-first, think-later type of guy obviously, so I had to come up with a different way to beat him.

Azrael was going to get an earful from me again about giving reapers some kind of weapon to aid in tough cases. There was no way for me to beat him. I couldn’t get close enough to touch him with his trigger finger.

A woman’s scream tore through the silence, making both of us turn. It was coming from my right, in the shop next to us.

Fear seized me, and I instantly forgot the danger staring me in the face.

The pastry shop. Kay. She was in trouble.

No longer caring about Cole and his magic gun, I sprinted past him to the front entrance. He didn’t shoot at me, and even if he would have, I didn’t care. Something was wrong. The sounds of commotion rang from inside, tables falling over, things being thrown. The shop was dark, but shadows moved inside. I passed through the door to find Kay on the floor, crawling backwards as a man lumbered toward her.

Nearly six feet, shaved head, glasses, wearing one of his typical geek-inspired “Wizard in Training” T-shirts from the Harry Potter movies, it was Kay’s boyfriend, Laurence’s, everyday look of choice. But something wasn’t right with him. His posture was all wrong. Not laid back with a slight slouch. His body was rigid, as if every muscle was tight and struggling to move. Veins bulged from his neck, and his lip curled up slightly.

Was that a snarl I heard?

Kay screamed again, terror fixed on her face.

When Laurence took another menacing step forward, I called his name, forgetting he couldn’t hear me. Kay did, though. Her head whipped toward me, and her eyes widened even more.

“Jade! It’s not him!” she shrieked. “It’s not Laurence! I don’t know what it is, but it isn’t him!”

To my horror, Laurence’s head swiveled my way, his gaze finding me.

Kay was right. His face morphed before my eyes into a hideous creature with fangs, sunken cheeks, grey skin, and a thick, protruding brow. His eyes were the most jarring—they were an unnaturally brilliant shade of red. I blinked, and the grotesque mask disappeared. Laurence was glowering at me once again, looking as I knew him.

What the fuck is that?

I rushed over to Kay’s side.

“This doesn’t involve you, reaper,” the thing mimicking Laurence growled. The voice coming from his lips sounded nothing like his usual calming baritone. More guttural with a thick accent I couldn’t place. “Leave us.”

This was definitely not Laurence.

Suddenly, the glass door behind me exploded, sending shards of glass everywhere. Kay screamed again as Cole pushed through. His eyes locked on Laurence, and he held out his gun again.

“Xaver,” Cole barked at him.

He hissed back. Hissed.

“I knew you wouldn’t be able to stay away.”

---