Page 73 of Mortal Desires

I was here where I didn’t belong, no Brumas around, just a human with a computer trying to figure out who organized the parade in the first place.

To me, it didn’t matter. I was ready to drag Pilar back to the underworld and ignore everything here. But as the giggles flew from her mouth as she talked to her sister upstairs, my throat made a noise and I shifted my hooves making the human startle again.

I rolled my eyes.

I could hear her heartbeat, and taste her tears like they were dropped into my mouth. I felt her pain when she was separated from her sisters and since things changed between us my selflessness made me put my wishes to the side.

I decided that Pilar was content in the underworld even when she never said she wanted to stay. I thought the mark of the serpent decorating her chest was the ultimate proof she was one with the underworld and yet that didn’t seem to be enough.

I knew she was loyal to me, but was that enough for her to be away from her sisters?

Their laughter took me out of my thoughts as they both came down the stairs and into the kitchen, arm in arm, linked forever.

Pilar smiled at me big and I dipped my chin, not sure what to feel at that moment.

“Marnie thinks she can find out where our father is,” she announced.

“I’d imagine you can send me there,” I said.

Marnie frowned and considered, but Pilar was tutting. “No. We’ll figure out where he’s at and then—”

“Then what, witch?” I raised an eyebrow. “They belong to the underworld. I’m its god and I’ll drag them back to hell.”

“Now, that’s all very intense…” Marnie whistled and settled beside her human. “But Pilar is right, we need a plan.”

I moved my eyes to her. “The plan is to send them to the fires of hell. Christians or not.”

She opened her mouth to argue, probably confused with my mention of religion but I didn’t care to explain. My mood was souring by the minute. I wanted him found… now.

“Wouldn’t the spell drag them here?” The human asked. “As it happened with Pilar and—”

“Vicious,” I said in a low rumble.

“Vic,” Pilar corrected.

I liked when my little witch called me that but I definitely wasn’t going to let a human use it. I eyed the man head to toe and he shook his head. I’d prefer if he recoiled in fear, but as long as he knew better than to call me Vic, all would stay good.

“I’m trying something different, still tracking them through the power link. They have a link with the underworld, which means…”

“They have a link with Vic,” Pilar continued.

“And with you,” I decided to add.

I’d never felt the intense feeling that was taking over my body and gripping me by the throat. Every second I spent here I was losing Pilar. I could feel her slipping through my fingers.

She was linked to the underworld too. I wanted them all to know.

“He’s linked to me too because he’s my dad.” She shrugged.

“That doesn’t work.” Marnie twisted her nose. “If lineage was enough I’d be able to track you all, but when I used the crystal, I kept finding you all… here.”

“Everything happens at the same time,” Pilar and I said at the same time.

Marnie and the human looked stunned and Pilar giggled while she explained. “When we say realm and plane of existence we are not really talking about geographically different places. Or even times. It’s all happening now and in the same places. If I was in Europe the crystal maybe could find me, but I was in the underworld and that’s just here.”

“Because the underworld is closer than Europe?” the other Morales questioned.

“No. It’s just…” Pilar looked at me hoping I had answers. I didn’t. “It all happens at the same time.” She sighed. “I complained a lot about that explanation but it is hard to say anything else.”

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