“After the zapping of our bodies?” I curved an eyebrow. “We might as well start picking out our kids’ names.”
The look on her face was totally worth it. “You’re…you’re…I’m speechless!”
I winked. “I can make you scream my name too.” Hell, I was even getting on my own nerves. I swallowed down the shame and said. “I’m sorry, that was a sleazy thing to say. I honest to God can’t help myself sometimes.”
Her face flushed red. “Are you always like this?”
I scratched my forehead. “All right, Izzie, no flirting with me. It’s time to get serious.” And there I went right back to being annoying.
“Just stop.” She palmed her forehead. “Does your mouth actually get you anywhere with the ladies?”
“We have a murderer on the loose and you want to ask about the ladies from my past?” I shook my head and turned away. “You coming with me, witch?”
“Do I have to? Can I just stay here?” She groaned like a child. She was short and reminded me of one of those dwarf hamsters that were as cute as a button until you tried to touch it, unleashing the gates of hell on your ass.
I shrugged. “You’re safest with me, but here is good too.”
“Sebastian.”
Her meek voice made me tilt my head back to look at her. She let her gaze slide over me with uncertainty.
“I can trust you, right? I’ve not run this long to fall into another web. I won’t hesitate to kill you or anyone that tries to use me.”
Use? I’d have to ask her about that later. Right now I didn’t have the time. And she said kill like she had forgotten I was an entity.
“You have the portal chip. You can leave,” I said even though I hated the idea of her actually doing it. I could help her with whatever this was with Harvest she was running from, but at the same time, I had to show her she could trust me. “Or stay and let me help you.”
“Why?” She frowned. “Why do you want to help me?”
“You aren’t curious about our touch?” She bit her lip, and I added, “I’m more than curious and since I’m on the subject, I really, really fucking want to touch you again.” I turned my head away. “And saving people, human or otherwise, is one part of my job.”
I turned back and winked, then left my witch to decide for herself. I hoped she’d decide to stay, but it wasn’t like I couldn’t watch out for her wherever she went. I just didn’t like the idea of not getting to her in time.
_______
I re-faded into my parents’ ballroom, then slipped into the family room where we all gathered when we were all called here at once. I was the last to arrive which was unusual since it was normally August or Prudence.
“Sleeping beauty arrives,” August said as I stepped into the room.
“You actually let August beat you here,” Prudence said nonchalantly as she stared at her black nails. With her blue eyes, dark hair, and pale skin, Prudence could pass for Dracula’s wife since she was always wearing dark makeup and nail polish. I told her that once. She killed me. Literally.
“I’m hoping this is news about the whereabouts of our heart eater?” I sighed and dropped down on the sofa between Joy and Prudence. Joy was the mild-mannered one of my siblings. No matter how much Maureen chastised her kindness, Joy smiled and shrugged it off.
Everyone was here except Kitty. Maureen and Barron sat across from me on a large sectional. August stood alone, peering out at the window.
“Where’s Payne?” Joy asked in the same hopeful voice she had ever since she was a kid when mentioning Payne. I hated how desperate she was when it came to him. Over a hundred years later and she still crushed on a guy that completely ignored her. None of us even knew where Payne lived, and I had my suspicions that Joy was the reason.
All four of my sisters favored our mother for the most part. Same round eyes and small pointy noses. It was Prudence and Maureen that favored the Grim Reaper the most with their dark hair while like me, Joy and Kitty’s hair took the lighter side from Mom. Prudence was the quiet one. Sometimes I wondered if any of us really knew her.
“Probably paying for sex,” August joked from his spot by the window.
At August’s words, green bloomed on Joy’s arms. She pulled down her sleeves trying to hide it from us. “Probably not,” Prudence murmured, and I smiled. Prudence kept herself guarded around us, but she knew when to voice her opinion, especially if it might make one of us feel better.
“Yeah, that guy’s all work and no play.” Maureen snorted, casting a quick glance at Joy as she did it.
“Boring ass.” I had a creeping suspicion that August was smirking out the window while he said it.
“What the hell are we even doing here?” Barron growled. “Where are they?”
“Right here,” Mom said, entering the room.
All I heard was the loud thud, and I turned around to see Dad, the Grim Reaper, pinning August against the wall. Dad smirked at him. “Getting rusty playing with all those women,” he said to August.
August faded, Dad followed. Then came flashes of them fading and re-fading all over the place as they fought with one another. Each time they reappeared, someone else would be holding the other in a chokehold. The last time they re-faded on the other side of the room, Dad wrapped his arm around August’s shoulder and smiled. “Shouldn’t have to be an emergency for you to come visit your mom.”
August shrugged him off. “I’ve been busy lately running all the businesses I own in the Underworld.” There was a quietness in the room where we all acknowledged his curse, his greed before he walked over to Mom with that smile that was sure to win her over. “I’m sorry, I’ll visit more.” She shook her head at him and hugged him, then her eyes fell on Prudence next to me. “You too, Prude.” Oh, the irony in her name. Why the hell would our parents name her that?
“Dad keeps us all busy,” was Prudence’s dull response.
“Why did you call all of us?” Barron grunted, looking slightly ticked.
Maureen placed her hand on his shoulder. “Calm your tits, Barron.” If me or August had said that to him, we’d be on the ground twitching. He didn’t say anything to Maureen though.
“We have a lead on our demon,” Dad told us all. “Or witch, I should say.”
“Makes sense.” Maureen nodded. “The kids said their captor could change his face. Witches can do all kinds of funny business.”
“It’s a woman,” Mom added. “Delena Wells. She’s well past her time, but she’s been living youthfully by stealing the virility and youth of those she kills.”
“Why would a witch steal so many children and eat their hearts when only one is needed for so many hundreds of years for her to stay immortal?” August frowned. “Sorry, Old Timer, I believe you and Mom are getting rusty. That doesn’t make sense.”
Dad raked his fingers through his hair. A sign of his impatience. “I didn’t say that was what she was doing with the children, did I? We actually don’t know what she is doing, but we do have good reason to believe the witch is our guy.”
“And, why do you believe this?” Maureen crossed her arms and asked.
Mom smirked, an expression we knew all too well. Mom was naturally an easygoing and sweet person until you got on her bad side. It was safe to say we’d all encountered her wrath at one point growing up and if I had to choose who to be more afraid of, the Grim Reaper or his wife, I’d choose Mom.
Mom walked back toward the door, bent down, and pulled something up from the other side. It was a person. A low-ranking demon to be precise. I felt no power from him and being powerless in the Underworld made a demon shady as hell. The Underworld was a hard place to live when everyone was out to get someone. We kept things in check but shit still had to happen at some point or another.
“This right here is Moe.” Mom dragged him past the sectional and forced him to his knees. “Say hi, Moe.” We were all grinning now. Mom was a savage.
“How’s it going, Moe?” Maureen joined in and by n
ow, the demon was practically shaking. His busted lip gave him a pathetic look, but we had no mercy in this house when it came to innocent lives at stake. There was an order to keep. The Grim Reaper’s job was passed down to us, his work was ours. We kept balance while guiding death. We kept evil controlled just enough so that the Devil would never escape his prison. No wonder he cursed us all, we were the very thing keeping him from bringing on the end of the world. When that happened, his reign would stretch into the human world and as a Reaper, our very existence would cease to exist. There would no longer be a reason for us to live between two worlds.
“I’ve already told you who,” he cried. “Just please don’t kill me.”
“Pathetic,” Prudence said in that bored monotone she used for everything.
“You told her a who,” Dad stepped forward and bent down in front of him. “You didn’t give her a why or tell her what the witch was planning.”
“And what if you’re lying…” Mom slid her hands down his neck.
“We’re good buddies with Fear, you know Fear, right?” Dad asked him, and his face turned white. “Oh, seems you do. He has no choice but to kill and torture people. I’d imagine he’d like for us to bring him someone new.”
“We haven’t in a while,” Mom agreed.
“Or just let me beat him to a bloody pulp.” Barron cracked his knuckles and gave one of his rare smiles to the demon. It was scary as hell—no wonder he didn’t smile much.
“I don’t know! I don’t know anything!” he screamed.
“She wasn’t the one controlling the imps, was she?” I asked him. “Was it Harvest?”
His head snapped to me. “The entity? You guys are the first ones I’ve ever seen.”
“I don’t think he’s lying.” August observed him. “Look at his britches.” I could smell the sick aroma of ammonia as Moe pissed himself. I covered my nose as it began to seep onto the floor from his soaked pants.
“Not on the carpet!” Mom hissed.
“Here, love,” Dad pulled the demon up by his shoulder, “I’ll dispose of him.”
“Please do.” She sighed, placing her hands on her hips as she eyed the wet stains where the demon’s knees had been. Once Dad faded with the demon, Mom turned to me. “Sebastian, why did you ask about Harvest?”
“I have reason to believe that he may be a part of this mess.”
“Why?”
“Because… Right now there’s a pretty little witch at my house being chased by imps and she said he’s the one after her.”
Mom exhaled. “Most demons order imps to do their bidding. They aren’t hard to get nor are they hard to control. They need masters.” She arched an eyebrow at me. “Sebastian, are you getting distracted by a beautiful face? Who is this witch?”
“Someone I plan to keep safe,” I answered easily then scoffed. “And I hardly call myself distracted, in fact,” I smiled smugly, “she may very well be my cure.”
Prudence side-eyed me with a disgusted look. “You think she’s your soulmate?” Joy practically beamed as she asked.
“Oh, please, Joy!” Maureen mocked.
“Don’t encourage him.” August glared at Joy.
“Dad found Mom,” Joy protested. “We’re all meant for someone…”
Scowling, I interrupted, “She’s something, all right. What would you say to her touch waking me up from my curse?” Everyone was silent in the room. “All she did was touch me and I woke back up just like that. I passed out twice in a row in a human hospital and she brought me out of my slumber by simply touching me.”
“I’d say that’s amazing news,” Joy said next to me.
I grinned while Mom had tears in her eyes. “Don’t get your hopes up.” She looked away from me. “It could be a onetime thing.”
“Or…” Maureen stared off at the wall with a grin spreading over her face. “She could be the cure for us all.”
“This witch… What’s her name?” Barron asked, taking me by surprise.
“She’s at your house?” August looked downright crooked.
“Oh no. No, no, no, no,” I told them. “You will all leave her alone. She hardly trusts me. That’s all I need is for you guys to show up and scare her away. She’s my energizer.” I marked my claim.
“For now, let’s focus on the witch we’re after and leave Harvest out of it until we have reason to believe he’s a part of this,” Mom changed the subject. “That’s all we need is to piss off another entity if he isn’t the one.” Mom turned toward the door. “The problem is, whoever is doing this is upsetting the balance. We’ve lost a lot of lives that weren’t meant to die, and something’s in the air that’s keeping your father from resting every night. I don’t have a good feeling either.”
Eight
Isabella
I still didn’t know what to think of Sebastian, but if I had to pick a poison—a sexy, tall handsy Reaper or Julius… Yeah, the choice was easy.
That was why I was still here in Sebastian’s house snooping through his living room thirty minutes later when he came back from wherever it was he went. “Find something interesting?” I turned my head around to the sound of his voice and saw him propped up against the doorway that separated the kitchen and living room.
“You left me here and expected me not to snoop?” I asked, turning back around to look through his movie collection.
“Isn’t that common courtesy?”
“Isn’t staying with your guests?”
“Do you like to argue?”
“I don’t.”
I heard him moving, then felt his looming presence standing over me. “Could have fooled me.” I was sitting on the floor with my legs tucked underneath me when he squatted behind me, filling my entire backside with his unique essence. He had an aura of warmth clouded beneath all the power that enclosed around him. I stiffened, but not enough for him to notice. I waited to see what he was doing. His hands wrapped around my sides, but he made no move to actually touch me, instead he reached around and grabbed the DVD in my hands. “You like The Evil Dead?”
I shook my head. “Never watched it, but life as a witch is disastrous enough. I’d rather not watch any nightmare-inducing movies.”
He chuckled behind me. “It is pretty messed up.” He let the DVD fall back into my much smaller hands.
“Most of the world is,” I bit out, rambling without meaning to.
“That’s not entirely true,” he countered back. “You’ve just been exposed to the uglier side. I see the worst, but I know there are good things in life.”
I turned my head quickly, a breath away from him. His nose was a mere inch from mine. He was even dreamier up close, not one imperfection. “The Underworld is a terrible place. As a Reaper, how can you think there’s good when you’ve seen what goes on in the darkest of places?”
“The Underworld is a terrible place, that’s true.” He nodded. “But that doesn’t make every living creature in it bad. Same applies to the human world. The world is ugly, but people don’t live for the cruelty in the world.” His blue eyes traced the edges of my lips before going back to my eyes. “They live to love.”
I snorted in his face, then quickly covered my mouth with my hand. “Oh God, you’re a hopeless romantic, aren’t you?”
His gaze was severe despite his growing grin. “Love is beautiful, witch, don’t laugh about it. Love is strength. It’s the very thing we all need that makes life a little easier.”
I arched an eyebrow, pulling back some, so that I wasn’t so close to his face. “Then where’s your lady, huh?”
“Is this your way of asking if I’m single?” The darkness simmered just below the surface of his nearness, but it seemed to get worse when my stomach heated with an awareness of him.
“Would you stop?” Slightly uncomfortable with myself for enjoying his company, I found myself laughing. I feared him, myself, and the darkness I harnessed that wanted him as much as I wanted to stay away from his touch. Run, get out of here, I thought, but I
couldn’t find it in me to leave. I wanted to understand this Reaper as much as I should get away from him.
He kept studying me, my body, as his gaze drifted down over me. “There’s more than one kind of love, Izzie. Just because I haven’t found my one and only doesn’t mean that I don’t experience what it means to love someone every single day.” He must have seen my confused expression because he shook his head at me and smiled. “You got any family?”
At the mention of family, I frowned. “Not anymore, not that I care,” I lied, images of their death haunting me as I remembered the night that was the turning point on how I saw Julius. “They’re the ones that handed me over to Julius.”
“Harvest?” Sebastian’s eyes darkened. “Why would they do that?”
“You don’t understand. The Wen family are ancient; our bloodline goes way back.”
“I am aware of how powerful you are,” he corrected me with a smile, but I didn’t return it.
“Then you should understand why he sought out our bloodline. With the right training, we’re capable of a lot of things…” I trailed off, self-conscious that he could reach out and touch me. I didn’t want to hurt anyone, just because my touch didn’t hurt him the first few times didn’t mean he would keep being so lucky. I placed my hands in my lap after putting the DVD back. “I showed the least potential as a kid, but it was me that Julius wanted, and my parents gave me away without a second thought.”
“How old were you?”
“Ten.”
“That’s fucked up.”
I nodded, turning my head, and looking back toward his collection of DVD’s. “He has a pull about him… It took a bit to wake me up from the hold he had on me and not without a lot of guilt.”
“What do you mean?” He shifted his weight behind me. The heat of his nearness slipped beneath my skin and made it warm.
“I mean, he made me into something that he could use for his own wants and I allowed it to happen. That’s why he’s never going to stop looking for me.”
He raised up, and I lifted my head, following his movements. “Are you okay with telling me this?”
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