“Get up,” Death said while throwing my new jacket in my face. I’d been lounging on his sofa reading a book while he’d been gone to talk to some person or another.
“Please, my dearest Lilly. Would you get up from the couch? Is what you meant to say, I assume?”
“If that’s what it takes to get you to do it, sure.”
Sighing, I put the book back on his table and put on my jacket. I almost fell when I got up because I hadn’t noticed my legs had fallen asleep. I quickly peeked over at death to see him busy staring at himself through a mirror. At least he didn’t notice.
I walked over to the mirror and stepped in front of him to check myself out. I had bought some makeup and I felt like I finally looked like myself again.
“Where are we going?” I asked when he walked away, making me follow him to his door. I appreciated the fact he had stopped warping us everywhere with the snap of his fingers and chose to walk instead.
“To see someone,” came his simple reply.
“Another friend of yours?” I asked, causing him to scoff.
“No, he’s awful. The absolute worst. Let me do all the talking,”
“Awh, afraid of a little competition?” I cooed while pulling a face.
“Shut up.”
The immature response made me grin and I felt like I had won this time. “Can you tell me more about him, then?”
“I was going to but then you decided to be particularly annoying today so now I’m not going to,” he said stone-faced. I knew for a fact he hadn’t planned to tell me anything so I wouldn’t allow myself to get mad at him.
So instead I smiled at him, “Alright, that’s fine.”
His head whipped around to inspect my face and whatever he was looking for just wasn’t there. I saw him almost say something before changing his mind at the last minute and turning back around to walk away.
Sometimes it was a little hard to keep up with him and his tall legs. I was by no means a short girl but this guy was a small giant. But I didn’t mind walking behind him for two reasons.
One, being that I could stare at his booty freely. And boy was it a sight to behold.
Two, if some demonic entity came out to kill me again they’d get him first, giving me time to run.
Last night I had a nightmare about the day I died. Everything went exactly as it happened except it wasn’t a car that hit me. It was a demon of some kind coming straight at me through the windshield.
Death woke me up just before it got to me.
It was super embarrassing and I didn’t want to go to sleep anymore after that, but at least he didn’t make jokes about it.
Who knew he could be a good sport?
We walked a few blocks until we reached a townhouse. There was nothing special about it, except that it was on a corner and the yard was slightly bigger than the neighbor’s.
Despite knowing the door wasn’t locked, Death rang the doorbell. I wondered if he himself was bound by any rules or if this was just a courtesy. That line of thought got interrupted by the man who opened the door.
His golden-brown hair looked like he’d just came back from the beach and his piercing green eyes made butterflies swell up in my stomach. He looked so different from Death but somehow just as beautiful.
I didn’t even know why I compared him to Death in the first place, he’s nothing to me.
“Lux,” Death acknowledged him before brushing past him without an invitation. The man, Lux, seemed used to it and didn’t say anything about it.
Suddenly, his intense green gaze shifted to me and I had to stop myself from reacting in any kind of way. The smile he gifted me was enough to make my legs turn into jelly and my mind went haywire. He was all I could see and all I wanted to see at that moment.
“Lilly, I take it?” he asked while extending his hand. I silently nodded and took it. The way he moved was so unusual. It was sensual, in a way, but he wasn’t trying to be. When he let go of my hand and gestured for me to get inside a fog lifted off my mind and I suddenly felt like I’d been holding in my breath for too long.
Not wanting to be anywhere near him anymore I scurried inside after Death. I found him in the living room, pouring himself a drink as if he were in his own home. I wondered if his middle name was ‘audacity’.
The place was furnished in a very old fashion. As in, at least from a century ago. But it was cute and stylishly decorated which made up for the fact it smelled a little musty in here.
Lux came to stand beside me while I was busy checking out the furniture and suddenly his arm brushed mine. The world became a little blurry and my heartbeat sped up. I turned to look at Lux but before I even reached those beautifully enchanting green eyes Death yanked on my other arm, causing me to fall into him.
“Stop fucking doing that,” he told the other man. It took me a moment to clear my mind and see everything for what it was again. And I could see that Death was very pissed off.
Lux, however, just lifted up his hands in surrender and walked over to one of the chairs before elegantly sitting down on it. Death didn’t make a move to sit in the other one so neither did I.
“Are you planning on saying anything or are you going to fuck with her head the whole time?”
“I apologize, Death. It’s not often you bring a girl to my doorstep,” he drawled.
“She’s a woman,” “I’m a woman,” we said in unison. I looked at Death before giving him a thumbs-up, making him roll his eyes. I had to admit I felt a little proud of him right then.
“Right, I apologize,” Lux said. I didn’t want to look at him anymore lest he made me feel funny again so I looked at the pictures on his wall. Some were modern, some were from a decade ago, and some were faded and in black and white.
“So what did you want to know?” he asked Death while picking at his fingernails.
“What I want to know,” Death ground out in his barely contained anger, “which one of you little shits is responsible for this,” he said pointing at me.
I frowned at the implication that I was the problem but chose to keep my mouth shut.
“I know it wasn’t you,” he continued, “Because you’re not smart enough to pull it off.”
“That’s n--” Lux started before getting cut off by Death’s voice as he went on. “And I know it wasn’t Ace, since she’s too lazy to put in the effort. And Gula is too fucking nice to try anything so that leaves four of your dumbass siblings that could’ve done it.”
By now Lux was full-on scowling as well but looked nowhere near as deadly as Death. Which, in hindsight, made sense. It took him a moment to come up with his response and when he did his voice was calm and soft.
“You know who,” he said. I could almost detect a trace of sadness behind it and it confused me. Death and I were going to have a nice long chat after this. And if he had the audacity to complain about me asking questions I was going to scream in his face.
“I want to hear it from you,” Death threw back.
“Ira.”
“How?”
“I wish I could tell you, Death. What he did was a sin beyond all sins. It shouldn’t have happened and now you must make sure it never happens again.”
“You,” Death said with this icy cold voice, “don’t get to tell me what to do. Is there anything else you can tell me or are we finished?”
But Lux just shook his head. “Just be careful, you know how he is.”
Death let out a humorless laugh before he turned and pushed me into the direction of the door. Just before I went through, I looked back. I didn’t know why, I just felt like I had to. Something compelled me to look over my shoulder just in time to see Lux silently mouth ‘I’m sorry’.
I wish purgatory had any wind to help me cool down and help me get my mind straight again. But there wasn’t and I had to do it on my own.
While we walked back to where we came from I tried to silently process everything I’d heard in there.
“You didn’t tell me you knew what happened,” I said sadly. Why I was sad, I didn’t really know. Maybe I did start to consider him somewhat of a friend and the fact he didn’t tell me what he knew proved he didn’t consider me the same.
He turned to inspect my face for a little bit before he answered, “I still don’t know what happened, Lilly. And I didn’t know it was Ira. I did have my suspicions but I suspected a lot of people. I didn’t want to tell you until I was sure,” he finished.
Okay, maybe I overreacted a little bit. But he was still an ass.
“So who’s Ira?”
“He’s an angry, bitter person with a heart filled with nothing but hatred. He’s not happy until everyone else is unhappy and frankly, he’s the worst person I’ve ever had the displeasure of meeting.”
“But he’s Lux’s brother? And who were those other people?”
“Luxuria, Gula, Avarita, Acedia, Invidia, Superbia, and Ira. The seven cardinal sins known as lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, envy, pride and wrath. They’re younger than I am but they were created to test the humans in the mortal realm just like Wulf, Carlos, and Felicity. It would make sense for Ira to be the one behind it, but I just can’t figure out why. What does he stand to gain from this?”
He seemed to ask himself that last part more than me. I could only now see that the whole situation weighed on him just as much as it weighed on me. I didn’t know the implications this all had, but I knew it was probably bad. Very bad.
“We’ll figure it out,” I tried to assure him. I knew the words were empty, he knew this too. But he smiled at me nonetheless.
“We will if you manage to keep your head out of the gutter when someone touches you.”
I felt like it was an odd thing to say until it suddenly clicked for me. The seven cardinal sins, the strange emotions that guy evoked in me. I didn’t have to think for too long until I realized it was lust I’d felt, and Death undoubtedly knew this was going to happen.
“You knew,” I said incredulously. I didn’t have to elaborate any further, he knew what I was talking about. The corner of his mouth lifted ever so slightly and I narrowed my eyes at him.
“You better sleep with one eye open, Death, because I will hurt you for this.”
His only reply was a laugh and the shake of his head. He knew I wouldn’t hurt him.
And I wouldn’t.
