Page 15 of Death Trap

“Is everything okay?” I asked him.

To my surprise, he laughed, a grin spreading his lips for the first time since I’d met him. “I don’t feel it anymore,” he said, his voice climbing with joy. “I don’t feel it!”

“Uh… Feel what?”

He threw his hands toward me close enough that the sudden heat singed the side of my face, and I winced. He pulled back just as fast.

“The itch I would always feel to summon the fire… The need. And the evilness that clung to me after. I don’t feel any of it anymore!” He extinguished the fire by clapping his hands. “Am I free?”

Something dawned on me then. “Kyle, did you kill yourself because of the corrupting Hellfire?”

He stayed quiet for a long moment, but finally, he said in a low whisper, “Yes. It was the only way I could think of preventing it from taking over. I was losing control over it, and I didn’t want to end up like…”

“Like who?”

“There was another boy at the one foster home I stayed in—another orphan, like me—who was also half demon. He was a bit older, and so he was the one to explain it all to me. At first, we were friends. Another person to share the secret of what I was among humans, you know? And it was cool. But then I saw what using the fire did to him. He was…turninginto something else.”

A Halfling.

“After I got adopted, I couldn’t stop myself from using the fire. It was like an addiction or something, and I felt myself slipping away. I couldn’t become like him. I wouldn’t let myself get like that. I had to stop it.”

Crossing his arms, he shuffled back and forth on his feet. “I just wish I didn’t have to do this to Greg and Nina. They were great parents to me. They loved me…a lot, but they didn’t know the truth of what I was.” He sniffed, sadness weighing on his expression. “They’re going to be so upset.”

I walked over and touched his arm. It was the only thing I could think of to calm him.

“I understand,” I told him gently. “It’s okay. I’ve seen the things you’re talking about. They’re called Halflings, and they’re nasty bastards.”

I didn’t want to tell him he’d done the right thing because that in itself was a slippery slope. But I couldn’t blame him. I could see where he was coming from. Especially if he was that close to losing himself to the corruption.

I mean, Cole was in the process of hunting down his demon father and doing God-knows-what to try the demon cure on himself again.

“You’re safe now.” I gave his upper arm a pat. My awkward effort at comfort seemed to work, too, because he took a non-existent breath and nodded. “Now, let’s get this going. The faster we get through that door, the faster you can get through your orientation and onto the fun part of living your afterlife.”

A small smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. “You’re coming with me, right?”

“Orientation you have to do alone,” I said. “Think of it as freshman orientation in college. But unlike that, you can’t skip it.”

He chuckled.

“You’ll be fine.” A flash of light caught my eye on the outside of one of the living room windows, making me hesitate.

When it passed by the glass again—a ball of pure white light bouncing in and out of sight—I almost cursed aloud. It was just like the strange light ball that had saved my ass during the encounter with Xaver and all his Halflings.

I clamped my mouth shut, though, knowing any sudden movement could scare Kyle into not passing through the door, like he was supposed to. So, I waited, muscles tense and eyes glued to the spot in the window, while I gestured for him to go on through the door.

“I’ll be right behind you,” I said, giving him a little nudge.

He jumped on through without another moment’s hesitation.

Once the door’s light glistened, telling me Kyle was where he needed to be, I smudged the chalk lines and rushed over to the living room. Standing with my back against the wall, I waited for the light to pass by again.

Sure enough, after a minute, there it was, hovering near the glass as if it were peering inside the house, looking for something. Looking for me.

A warning zipped up my spine. What the heck was this thing?

The moment it flew away again, I sprinted back to the kitchen and to the sliding door, hoping to find a way to sneak in behind it. Timing it the best I could, I phased through the door just as the ball of light made its pass at the living room window again.

“Hey! You!” I shouted at it. “Whatever you are—stop!”

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