Page 47 of Death Wish

Boy, was Sean wrong. I could tell him that from experience. I mean, look at what I was involved in now. My boring afterlife led me here, and none of this was safe. It could be fate or just bad luck, but this kind of stuff sought you out if you were asking for it.

“So what does the list say? What do we need?” Cole was so close to me now, his warm breath tickled the side of my neck and shoulder. His shaking fingers hovered over the skin in my hands, as if he were about to snatch it any second and run off with it.

“Uh…” Scanning the list again, my focus readjusted, and the symbols changed to actual words I knew. “The Holiest ground. Breath of life. Hell’s fire. And damned blood. Whatever that means.”

“The elements,” Sean said. “The ingredients are based on the four elements. Earth, wind, water, and fire.”

“Water? Did I miss something there?” Cole asked.

“The blood,” I replied with an eye roll.

“My blood?”

“Or Kay’s. I guess.”

“Well, that’s easy enough. At least we have one item on the list right off the bat.”

Something told me it couldn’t be that easy.

I passed the piece of skin back to Sean. “The Holiest ground…like a church or graveyard?”

“That would make sense,” he answered. “I can’t believe you can read this. I’ve never seen this language before.”

Wyatt stroked his white beard in thought. “Yeah, not this exact language.”

“I have no idea how I can.” I was just one big ball of mystery, wasn’t I?

There were other things scribbled in the corners of the list, but before I got a good look at them, Cole snatched it from Sean’s grip.

“So Holiest ground…” Cole repeated. “I know plenty of cemeteries and churches. There has to be fifty in this town alone. We can just scoop up some dirt—”

“But it says ‘The Holiest of grounds,’” I cut in. “How do we know one of those are the Holiest of grounds?”

“She’s right. It can’t just be any cemetery dirt,” Sean added.

“Well, what makes a cemetery ‘Holy’?”

“A few things,” Wyatt chimed in. “Being blessed by a man of the church, prayer, Holy Water… All religions have their things, but the principle is always the same.”

“You’d think the Holiest ground would be one of the oldest, too, right? The one blessed the most or the longest,” I said.

“That’s true. The age certainly wouldn’t hurt.”

“Old-ass cemetery. Okay, still easy.” Cole ran his shaky fingers through his hair. “Two out of four.”

“I’m not sure that’ll be it.” Sean glanced back down at the writing.

The more I thought about it, the more I knew Sean was right. It couldn’t be that easy. This was supposed to be the cure to a demon’s cursed blood. If it were that easy, Halflings wouldn’t be such a problem, now would they?

Think, Jade. You live in the afterlife and work for the Angel of Death. You should know something about this.

Maybe my tablet had something to help me out here? As I reached for my tablet in my back pocket, I paused, remembering the piece of chalk in the front of my jeans—the piece of chalk that allowed me to hop between the living and non-living world. I pulled it out, an idea forming. Wouldn’t the Holiest of times or places be when the dead and the living collide? When one could cross into the other freely? Like when the veil was at its thinnest?

“The solstice.” The words burst from my lips as the realization hit. “Maybe the blessed earth needs to be collected during the solstice, when all worlds are aligned and demons, spirits, whatever can cross over?”

Cole’s eyes widened. “She’s right. That would be considered the Holiest of nights.”

Sean and Wyatt exchanged looks and then nodded.

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