The darkness sang an angry tune. He kept wasting my time, and yet, I felt another part of the shadow, something that I didn’t even think it noticed within itself: encouragement. I didn’t understand it. Did a small part of it want to be caught?
When my body continued its flight, I knew the answer had to be no.
The skeleton spoke to me, but all I heard was static. The more he tried talking to me, the worse it got. Who didn’t want me to hear his words—the darkness or Julius? And why?
“Izzie…” I paused, stopped to blink. That word was familiar. I heard the skeleton. It had been his word. Why had he given it to me? The sound of his voice was… I stepped forward. I thought it wouldn’t hurt to hear that voice once more. “To me.” I got more words from him before the static grew worse again.
Beneath the hiss, the darkness had a moment of quietness. It too, seemed taken in by the skeleton’s soothing voice.
I think we should touch him, too.
It felt like a good idea.
The darkness thought about it. It moved and eyed him until the thought became an action, and the darkness forced my foot forward.
We shouldn’t.
I could almost feel the unspoken words from the darkness. Although it had no true voice, I felt its emotions—every bit of its turmoil each time the bad one came for me.
It was afraid, of what, I didn’t know.
But, for a fraction of a second, I felt it want him more than the others—a million times more.
Then, the image of Julius flooded my mind, and the darkness screamed, then sighed, and remembered.
And I didn’t get to find what was forgotten because I was never given the chance to remember.
Maybe nothing is all I’ve ever been.
The darkness went silent, and somehow, I knew that was a lie.
But when Julius stepped between the bad one and me, my thoughts dulled, and once more, all that mattered was the last two sins.
Twenty-Nine
Sebastian
“Come to me, Izzie,” I tried coaxing her, and my heart splintered. My patience was leaving me, and in its place, the need to hold her grew ever stronger. Her head tilted toward me, and for a second, the racing, dark lines receded allowing me to see her pale skin. I blinked, and the evil took hold once again.
Her eyes were still white, but that didn’t bother me. Beneath them, I knew Isabella existed, and that was the only thing that mattered.
My bones and essence reached out to her. She didn’t recognize me as Sebastian, and she wouldn’t recognize me as the skeleton I was now, but it wasn’t my appearance that sung to her. My soul reached out and tried to soothe her, bring her back to me because there was no doubt in me that Isabella was my other half.
Yeah, I was a hopeless fool when it came to love just like Joy. Call me whatever the fuck you want. I didn’t care. I just knew the blank-slated-eyed-girl staring back at me was the future I’d been waiting on.
I also knew our fate must be tied to this very moment in time. Whatever happened, I wouldn’t let go of her.
And just like that, she stepped forward. Her body swayed back and forth with each small step. Her head tilted and her blank eyes seared mine. Hope coursed through me, but I didn’t dare make a move toward her.
Then the moment slipped away. Harvest jumped between us, followed by August to attack him. “I won’t let you have her,” Harvest hissed at me, barely missing August’s sword as he dipped his head and lunged at me.
I backed away just as Harvest transformed before me. A red-headed female stood in his place, and recognition smacked me in the face. “Remember me?” he sang to me just as he reached out for me in the body of a woman. A woman. Harvest could fucking become a woman.
Dad stepped in, tossing Harvest across the air. He landed on his feet and laughed. “The kids were right,” Payne muttered as he took in Harvest’s new body. “He can become a female.”
I recalled the moment he had grazed my arm in the street and my essence darkened around me. I couldn’t let him get close to me. Unlike Isabella, he could drain me rapidly. Which meant he could take away all the energy I’d received from Isabella lately. His touch didn’t seem to harm me the last time though, but I had to be careful.
A loud gasp led me to whip my head around to see Isabella’s grip on August as she bound a bracelet on his arm. “One more to go.” Her voice was robotic and slow, so unlike the smooth caress it usually placed upon my skin.
She was lost in there, but I would find her and get her back.
“Shit,” Payne hissed, glancing over at Maureen. “Maureen, it’s you she’ll be after now.”
“Sebastian,” it was Dad that spoke. I looked over at him and would have gasped if I weren’t a skeleton. “I think fate’s wheels are turning.” I took in the silhouette of his body. He was fucking fading in and out.
“What’s happening?” I asked.
“I think… Harvest, Isabella…,” he met my eyes, “All of you are the key to the day of reckoning.” He looked torn as his body faded. “Son, I don’t think I can help you all.” He fell to his knees, and I bent down.
“Grim!” Payne tried to make his way over to us, but the moment he saw Isabella moving in toward Maureen, he moved in next to her.
“Sebastian.” Maureen wasn’t paying attention to her surroundings. She just stared at me as I grabbed Dad’s shoulders. My eyes widened as my hands slipped through him. It was only for a second, but it was enough to put ice in my heart. “What’s wrong?” she asked softly as his form solidified again.
Harvest chuckled and said, “Oh, would you look at that?” He strode my way. “If the mighty Grim Reaper has fallen to his knees, fading fast then it’s already preordained. No one will be able to stop the human world from crumbling.”
Someone as prided as Maureen paled at his words. “You’re starting the beginning—”
“Of the end,” he finished for her. His gaze fell back on Dad. “And what is that sticky rule that comes with being an entity like yourself and your wife and kids?” he asked Dad, and he scowled at him.
“I don’t doubt what my kids can do,” Dad uttered.
“Look around, only two are standing.” He told him. “And once it’s complete, you and your family will disappear from this world like you never existed. There will be no need for Reapers when evil walks the earth permanently.”
Dad smirked. “You made two mistakes. You doubt what I am and what it is I’m here for and second, you doubt the children that I brought into this world.”
I grinned as Barron crept up behind Harvest and buried a sword in his chest. Harvest’s eyes widened as he looked down at his chest, black blood pouring from his wound and mouth. Then, another one—from August—pierced through his chest. My brothers recovered from Isabella’s touch, but they still wore the bracelets on their wrists.
Prudence and Maureen circled around Harvest with predatory gleams on their faces. “We might not be able to kill you, but we can hold you captive,” Maureen informed him.
Gripping my scythe, I scanned the perimeter of the ruined castle in search of Isabella. Even with my Reaper senses, I couldn’t pick up on her or the darkness. My eyebrows slanted. “Where are you, Izzie?”
“Haven’t felt that much pain in a while.” Harvest coughed through blackened blood streaming from his lips.
“Better get used to it,” Barron growled, ripping his blade out of his chest. The bastard never screamed though, he just lowered his head and grinned down at the second one still in his chest cavity.
“It’s no good.” Joy stumbled forward. “Look at him, he’s enjoying the pain.”
August looked furious as he jerked his blade out. “Pin him—”
Isabella’s magic came as a giant shock wave, knocking all of us to the ground. Harvest ported from his spot. I spotted Maureen and wasted no time in getting to her. Maureen was the last target unless she planned to go after Kitty too.
When I saw her floating above them all, I faded to
ward her, but it was Harvest I collided blades with the moment I reached out. He had forced me to morph my weapon into a sword when I felt his presence coming at me. “Go ahead and begin, Isabella,” he instructed her.
Shit.
I had to get to her before—Harvest gripped my blade, his blood coating the steel as he yanked me forward with it and grabbed my neck. I pulled my sword from his hold and jerked away, but my movements were already sluggish, and he made no other moves but to watch as my energy faded. “How does it feel to be normal again? Don’t fool yourself, the two of you only seek each other out because you each get something in return.”
His words slid over me because that was it, they didn’t mean anything. It was the bone-deep fatigue that forced me to drop to the ground. The world tipped for a moment and panic seized my chest. Not yet. I can’t fall asleep. I lost hold of my skeletal form as the fatigue placed me back into my flesh, tendons, and bones.
Steel clashed. Although we were exhausted, we continued fighting Harvest. It was hard going up against another entity. We were different yet the same—nearly unstoppable.
Isabella opened her arms, readying herself for Harvest’s wicked plan. I took a step, then overcome with exhaustion, the tip of my weapon dug into the concrete as I caught myself on the knees instead of tumbling completely over.
Not yet.
Just as I opened my mouth to call her name, the beginning of the end slithered around us in a cold sweep, and when it hit, we knew it. We all felt it, but it was Barron, August, Joy, and Prudence who felt it the most, because once she began, the four of them dropped to their knees, screaming as she pulled their power out of them. This time, I could see the color of their essences being stripped from them and rushed into Isabella.
With her neck and back arched in an awkward angle, both arms stretched as far as they could go, I staggered toward her. My heart lurched to where her feet were dangling from the ground. Seeing her this way was too heartbreaking, too painful to witness. I… failed her.
I failed everyone. My brothers and sisters who were being used as a circuit to start the Apocalypse. And my father who was already disappearing from this world. Everything was tied to fate, something we were so desperately trying to change.
But with every failed attempt to get to Izzie, I also came to understand that maybe we weren’t supposed to win.
Maybe this was truly the end for us and all things good.
“No,” I rasped as I stood back up.
“What are you doing to them?” Maureen hissed at Harvest.
And I felt it. The next worst thing. My Reaper senses picked up the change in the human world. The catastrophes happening, the blips in fate—unexpected deaths popping up all over the map shown inside my head.
One second everything was okay, then everything changed in the human world. Disasters and ruins descended upon the world we, as Reapers, were meant to protect to the very end. Oceans split, lands flooded, holes opened, death arrived, and it was no longer the Grim Reaper that ruled it.
Harvest paved the way for the Devil’s biggest reign—the end of our control on good and evil, but it was just the beginning of his.
Thirty
Sebastian
It was when I caught sight of Maureen and Payne holding their chests that I noticed I was as well. We all felt it happening. “If this was truly the end, why hadn’t I sensed it coming?” I turned to Dad who was trying to stand and couldn’t. I could hardly stay awake myself, but Dad was fading away. He looked up at Maureen and smiled sadly. “If I had known, I wouldn’t have sent your mother away. I didn’t get my eternity with her after all, and now… I don’t even get to tell her goodbye.”
“Stop talking!” Maureen screamed at him with tears in her eyes.
But Dad was onto something. As Reapers, we were meant to understand these things and none of us could. If people had meant to die today, we would have known, but their deaths were popping up all over the place.
Fighting a wave of exhaustion, I hissed. “This isn’t the actual end… not the appropriate one, anyway.”
“Which means…” Dad sucked in a harsh breath.
“It means we can still prevent it!” Payne finished for him as he shot his gun at Harvest.
“Don’t get too delusional.” Harvest rushed toward him, throwing the gun from his hand. It went sailing across the air. “I know you guys are used to winning, but this is a race that you’ll never get to finish. This has been my future since the moment I was created.”
I ran a few steps toward them, but my vision went out. I fought a different battle—my curse. When I found the strength to keep my eyes open and the tunnel vision receded, Harvest was knowingly grinning at me. And that fucking pissed me off.
Payne snorted, sliding his sword from his sheath, but Harvest was quicker, pushing a blade in Payne’s side. Payne sucked in a breath, then groaned. “Just what is it you expect to get out of this new world?”
Harvest never missed anything, but with my dwindling energy, I had missed Maureen sneaking up behind him until he turned, latching onto her wrist. He held the same kind of touch as Isabella. He placed the bracelet on her wrist and looked back at Isabella who was the main source. Her clothes were burning away from the sheer amount of power she was forcing into her body and something began to take form around her. Nothing about any of this was right, and how was she supposed to survive much longer if I didn’t get to her. “She’s all yours, Isabella.” Harvest muttered.
All five of them were down while I rose to my feet over and over, trying to get my brain to function, but black blurred the edges of my vision and the curse called to my body.
Harvest’s eyes were power-hungry as he turned back to answer Payne’s question. “As for the new world, it will be mine.” He pushed Payne back, sliding the sword out before glancing at him one last time. “You won’t fade away like the rest will when it’s complete,” he shook his head and smiled evilly, “but too bad you’re bleeding out.”
Sheer anger had my body obeying my command as I moved toward Harvest.
“Payne!” Joy could speak even though her essence was being channeled. Just like the others, she was on her knees as her essence seeped above her and flowed toward Isabella angrily.
“Vortex,” August gritted out as he caught sight of the huge tunnel forming around Isabella. “You have to destroy it.”
No. “I have to get her out of there first, then I’ll—”
“Sebastian.” I ignored the desperation in Maureen’s voice as I stopped in front of her.
Payne was holding his wound and taking deep gulps of air. “You know none of us want you to make this decision, Sebastian, but it’s the human world and all of you, or her.”
“Killian,” Mom’s frantic voice pierced my chest as she called Dad’s name. I turned around to see her dropping down next to Dad, and tears filled her vision when she tried to touch his face and slipped through him. She must have felt what was happening and came back.
“Love,” he breathed in. “Heal Payne.”
With tears in her eyes, she nodded and ran toward us. “I’m fine,” Payne tried to say, but Mom was already healing him swiftly. “Where’s Harvest?” Payne asked me.
“Above us,” Barron hissed. “He’s waiting for it to complete.”
“He’s actually going to try to take this moment from the Devil,” Maureen whispered in a state of shock. “How does one do that?”
The vortex was a web of colors—each matching my sibling’s essences. Red for Barron, gold for August, pink for Prudence, orange for Maureen, and green for Joy. The maelstrom grew stronger and higher with every second I stood in stony silence. I could no longer see Isabella within it. It masked her and threatened to swallow us all the further it expanded. Up above it, the silhouette of Harvest waited as the gaping hole in our world continued to widen, and once it was complete, the Devil would cross through within reach of the human world. Only as the monster above us waited above the magical current, I realized the mon
ster had every intention of stealing the dark one’s thunder.
I had to prevent that from happening.
“Sebastian,” Mom rose to her feet, clutching her scythe with a determined slant crossing her beautiful features. “We have to destroy the vortex… It’s already affecting your dad, it will be us that follows if…”
Materializing my cloak, I whipped it around my back, placing the hood on my head. “I’m going inside and getting her. Once I have her, then we can destroy it.”
Mom grabbed my shoulder. “She’s mortal, there’s no way she’s still alive in that thing.” I hated the sheer possibility of Mom’s words being true. “I don’t even know if stopping it will prevent anything now. It might not even save us.”
“I don’t want part of a world without the woman I love.” And with those words, I shook off her hands and stepped away.
“Give me five minutes, if I’m not out with her by then destroy it,” I told her.
“I can’t do that with you in it!” Mom cried.
“Let him go,” Dad told her through a raspy voice. “He’s my son, I expect nothing less than for him to protect the one he loves.”
“Go!” Maureen hissed at me, closing her eyes. “If there’s a chance, then go for it.”
I nodded and turned toward the magical maelstrom that was tied to fate as well as doom.
“Fucking love,” August muttered on his knees like the others. “Go on, Sloth, let’s see how far it takes you.”
With his words behind me, I ran into the malevolent barrier that kept me from my witch.
Thirty-One
Sebastian
The vortex pounded my flesh like bullets the moment I entered, tearing an agonizing scream from my throat as the power and strength of magically imbued winds assaulted me. I couldn’t move, let alone breathe for a second as I tried to think through the agony. I couldn’t even feel my curse; the pain was so intense.
I scrambled inside my brain for a reason to move or think.
Isabella.
I took a step, then another. My body burned and tore apart. I glanced down at myself and saw my skin breaking away patches at a time. My clothes couldn’t withstand the intensity of the storm, let alone my body. Soon, I was left in my skeletal form as I fought the urge to fall to my knees every step of the way.
Bewitching Sloth Page 19
