SORRY FOR THE DELAY IN THE DOUBLE UPDATE, IT HAD TO BE PERF.

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Gossip Death

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FAITH

We walked in a comfortable silence down the hallway. I was noticing Leo liked to walk from place to place instead of transporting.

"I've known Death a long time," Leo finally said. "His affect was completely off before."

I knew exactly what he meant. Death was not happy when he'd seen me with Leo and he'd come off as too nonchalant. My guess was he didn't want to make it obvious how jealous he was. "What do you mean?" I asked conversationally.

Leo glanced over at me, amber eyes dimming, and then looked ahead again. "Never mind."

About thirty strangers stared at me as Leo and I slid into the room. The den was much livelier than my Ikea bedroom and sported a massive glossy television; warn down brown leather couches and beanbag chairs, a pool table, a dartboard and a pinball machine. Against the one wall was a long bar with eccentric looking drinks being prepared. Upbeat music played at a decent from all sides of the room. Along another wall was popcorn machine and food a table with various food items. Sandwiches, Doritos, Cheetos, red vine candy, sodas and water...

I stuck out like a sore thumb, still dressed in Death's Chicago Bears jersey and sweatpants. But honestly, I didn't care enough to ask Leo if I could have a change of clothes. I had nobody to impress. Leo led me around the room and introduced me to people. Most of the guests looked human, but when I squinted my eyes a little, I could see their illusions flickering over them. These people weren't as horrifying as the guests at the D & S fundraiser ball.

We came to a group of men who appeared to be waiting for us. I gawked at them. All of them were all strikingly handsome, dressed in all black with different vibrant, alien colored eyes straight out of a Crayola crayon box. Each of those men gave off something tangible in the air that I couldn't quite place. It was cold and chilling, like a finger lightly pressed against my spine. As I tried to focus on it, my thoughts suddenly went to Death. I'd felt the same way around him many times before. It was the feeling of being was inspected by a predator, but not hunted.

"Faith," Leo began, snapping me out of my thoughts, "these are six of Death's seven primary reapers. Seven, including me."

"Seven Reapers of the Seven Deadly Sins." The handsome man with the pink Mohawk took over, raking me with his gaze. "But I'm pretty sure there's an eighth sin just for looking at you, you exquisite little treat."

I scowled at him. "And a ninth for when I wedge my foot up your ass," I said.

"Wowza." Pink Mohawk backed up a few steps, sized me up again, and blew into a birthday noisemaker. "You're a dangerous little thing. I think I'm in heat."

"Faith, meet Romeo," Leo began in an annoyed voice. "His sin is Lust. I won't be letting him within six feet of you. You might catch something with an itch." The reapers chuckled and Leo gently turned me by the shoulders, towards the reaper stuffing sandwiches in his mouth. "That's Gunner."

"Gluttony?" I guessed.

"Yep," Gunner said and waved at me with a red vine candy, which was snatched away from the man next to him.

The thief had tattoos all down his exposed arms and sported gelled back black hair. He ripped at the red vine candy with his teeth and nodded at me. "Call me Wolf," he muttered.

A burly, grey-eyed man with dark ebony skin, a shaved head, and tribal tattoos stepped in front of me. "His sin is Envy. Keep your valuables in plain sight around that one." Just like the rest of the reapers, I could tell how wise this man was from the depth of his eyes. We shook hands. "Rogue," he said in that booming voice. "Pride."

"Nice to meet you, Rogue," I said. "Are you guys a part of a motorcycle club or something?"

Denim chuckled, a deep, amusing sound. "I can see why Death is charmed by you." Denim pointed to the couch, where a reaper lay face down on the couch. "That's Flash. We call him that because unlike The Flash, this bastard needs a crane to carry him around to get anything done quickly."

Flash lifted his head. "Yet I still have better abs than you," he said.

"Go back to sleep." Denim pointed to the tallest guy in the room, who was full on glaring at me and also sharpening a knife. "That's Blade. Anger is his sin, if you couldn't tell."

"Piss off," Blade growled and pushed the cutting edge of his knife down the sharpener.

"Lovely group," I muttered and then rose my voice. "Lust, Gluttony, Pride, Envy, Anger, Sloth." My eyes swept the reapers at each sin and then landed on Leo, who was watching me very peculiarly with amber eyes that were luminous like an owl's. "That must make you Greed."

"Only when something is far too beautiful to leave unaccompanied," Leo replied and gazed down at me until my face grew hot.

"How suave," Romeo commented.

Leo smiled bashfully and turned to the rest of the primary reapers. "Alright, I think that's enough with the introductions. Who else is starving for some tasteless human food?"

The next two hours was the most fun that I'd had in a while. Despite the stressful day, I actually had an appetite, and ate my weight in ham and cheese sandwiches, red vine candy, and Root Beer. I kicked Leo and Romeo's butt in Dance Dance Revolution and got the new high score. And after my victory, there was ice cream cake but no candles.

"We don't really celebrate birthdays anymore," Leo explained. "

"If you want, I can get a lighter, and turn it off right when you blow," Romeo joked. Lower, he added, "Or you can just blow and pretend it's a candle." By the way he winked at me there was definitely some kind of double entendre there.

"Bye," Leo said and shoved Romeo away from me.

Laughing, I finally began to bring the glass towards my lips, when a high-pitched ringing began in my ears. It was unusually loud and rhythmic. I paused to see if anyone else was reacting to it.

"Do you hear that?" I asked Leo.

He frowned. "Hear what?"

"The ringing."

"The ringing? No, I don't hear any ringing." Leo reached out, steadied me, and then steadied my glass, which I'd absently begin to tilt forward. "Are you alright?"

The ringing stopped, leaving me with the overwhelming urge to throw up.

"Yeah, I'm fine," I said, brushing off the strange occurrence. "Could you point me to the bathroom?"

The bathroom was far beyond my comprehension of technology. When I walked in, the lights turned on to a dim and one of my favorite bands began to play over crystal clear speakers. I went straight to the sink and splashed water on my face. I looked at myself in the mirror as I dried my face with a paper towel. Surprisingly I didn't look as tired as I felt, and I wasn't even wearing makeup. I'd gotten splashes of water on the mirror and went to the dispenser and returned to wipe the mirror with a paper towel.

A chill went up my spine.

I was facing the mirror, and yet what I saw in the reflection was the back of my head and my back, as if I were standing facing the wall. My pendant began to burn against my chest and the mirror shattered with a hiss.

I reeled backwards and a scream climbed dup my throat, but cold, strong hand stifled it. In the shattered pieces of the mirror, I could see a fractured image of a beautiful man. He had white hair and black eyes that were too large. He smelled like some kind of herbs and his skin was icy to the touch. Colder than the blade that pressed against my throat. His arm felt like a piece of iron wrapped around my waist.

The demon that had escaped Death in the Quick Check.

"Your friend, Hell's Prince, killed me brother," he hissed into my ear. His accent was bizarre and a tremor went through my body. "Blood for blood, earth walker."

In happened in a blink of an eye. I had no idea how to defend myself, but as soon as he had grabbed me, I could felt a fervor rising up from my chest, building like adrenaline in my veins. This was how I felt when I'd frozen Death's corpse, and when I'd practiced shattering the vase with Death. I honed in on the sensation and looked up at the lights in the bathroom.

The lights began to violently flicker, distracting the demon behind me enough that his blade left my throat. Simultaneously, I knocked my head back into the demon's jaw and a wrath of energy expelled from my body and hit the lights, ricocheting electricity off the bulbs and blasting the demon. He let go of me with a scream, and I smelled burning flesh. I looked back at the demon where he stood hunched over against the wall. Sparks of light flew out from my fingers in a deceiving and deadly dance, and my head tilted down at the demon.

The demon's large black eyes darted to me, and he raised his dagger at me. He looked terrified. "What...are you?"

I had no words.

Suddenly Leo materialized next to me. Leo's eyes were wide and illuminated as he quickly scanned me over, then the demon, which had a gash on his chest that was quickly regenerating. 

The demon let out a roar and charged at Leo. Leo jumped into action, blocking all of the demon's swipes with his blade. He was cut once on the arm, disarmed the demon, and threw the demon like a rag doll into one of the bathroom stalls. Leo inclined his finger towards the demon's knife on the ground and it flew up into his hand. He drove it up into the demon's ribs with a sickening crunch. Instead of crying out in pain, the demon only laughed as his pale skin began to grey.

"I am only one... of many to come," the demon gurgled out, looking right at me. "You...are the one he...needs."

Leo stabbed the demon once more for good measure, and turned over his shoulder, black tribal lines dancing beneath the skin around his eyes. He honed in on my hands, which were trembling, still producing flares of white fiery light.

"I can't stop it," I blew out between my raggedy breaths. I was sweating through Death's jersey and felt myself physically draining, and yet the energy kept coming, forming two massive arms around my hands. The paint on the walls on either side of my hands began to peel back and the lights shut off momentarily, before flickering back on with a buzz. Liquid dripped from my nose to my lips, and I tasted blood. My insides felt like they were swelling and a migraine split my skull. "I can feel it...killing me."

"It's not going to kill you, Faith." Leo slowly stood up, his features shadowed, only lit by the glow of my hands. He remained calm as he approached me, but when one of the sparks from my hands hit him, he staggered back in alarm and looked like he was going to vomit.

"I'm not going to let it kill you," Leo rephrased and swallowed hard. He sounded unsure of himself that time. "Just take a deep breath, and maybe it will die out on its own."

I managed a nod. But little did Leo know that his face was distorting into nonsense. Everything merged together and the room darkened with black twirling stars.

I squeezed my eyes shut. My knees gave out, and I sunk to my knees, a white glow surrounding me. Death. I thought in a panic

A sharp jolt went up my back and I gasped. Pain. White-hot pain down my shoulder blades and then finally, my stomach. Leo moved forward. I gripped his shoulder and he held on to me to prevent me from collapsing. I felt paralyzed in pure agony. My jaw momentarily locked. The room was rotating.

  A cloaked rider and his vicious horse kicked up on two legs. A fair haired woman with a swelled stomach. A little boy. A man hanging limp in chains. A river. A cloudy mirror mostly covered by vines.

I was no longer in the den. I could feel humidity. Grass itching my ankles until it started to downpour. There were ravens...there were ravens everywhere in an endless field. They lay all over the ground like an endless wave of black to the horizon, crying with weak croaks.

At the center of the birds was crouched man with black warrior braids and obsidian eyes to match. Malphas. He was shirtless, pale, and his muscles were tense in agony. At first, he looked confused, wide-eyed as he looked at all the ravens around him. He began to stand and turned his head sharply towards, as if hearing a voice. He became furious, trembling with abhorrence.

His head tilted slightly down. He glared at some focused point behind me, but I knew he couldn't see me. He took a faint stepped forward. His mouth opened and his features tightened against his bones. He lost any similarities to a human as he opened his jaw wider than a man and began to scream with bloodied fangs.

I was torn from the circus of images and became disoriented. My vision was blurry. I saw something move towards me. I hit it with a blast before I could register it was Leo. I missed him by a centimeter and shrieked.

 Another blast sparked from my hand and targeted a pipe under the sink, dispersing water all over the place. The water hit me like ice rain and my power left me as I slammed into the wall to my left.

"Faith, don't move!" Leo demanded. I suddenly gasped into full alertness.

"Something bad is happening to me," I gasped out. I was so afraid I thought I would actually have a heart attack. "Something bad...is happening. I need to go now. I need to go!"

"Faith, don't run," Leo said calmly. There was some sort of compulsion laced in his voice that Death sometimes used, and I almost obeyed him. "Everything's going to be okay. You don't have to run."

He moved towards me.

"Stay back! I'm going to hurt you!" I tore away from him in frenzy and ran out of the bathroom. I crossed the den, trying to find an exit. Everyone stared at me and gasped. I heard Leo's voice behind me. I turned sharply in different direction–

And collided with a statue of muscle and leather jacket. Any sliver of power in me sizzled out.

Everyone went silent.

Gloved hands caught my waist, steady against my trembling body. I locked onto two fuming mint and emerald eyes. Death's nostrils flared as he scanned my face. He said nothing. Even in my weakened state, my body reacted to his closeness. His cologne. His strength.

 Death's eyes were glowing and his pupils were razor thin. He radiated an abnormal amount of heat. There was an added harshness to his features as well and an intensity in his stare that left me with the sensation of a cold lick of a finger sliding up my spine. In that moment, Death closely resembled a poisonous snake, rather than a cynical cat. And he appeared larger, taller than he normally was, an intimidating difference.

Still, I fell into him, depleted. He caught me and held me upright against his concrete frame. And that was when I started uncontrollably sobbing. 

"What happened to her," Death demanded. His voice was low, coarse, and urgent. "Someone speak the fuck up! Now!"

"She was attacked," Leo's voice replied. "She used the bathroom, and a demon rogue must have somehow opened a portal through the mirror in there and attacked her–"

"And where were you?" Death hissed.

"Right outside, waiting for her, my lord," Leo replied quickly. "The demon sealed the room. By the time I got in, she'd already attacked it. She used her power and couldn't stop it. Then she was screaming." He paused. "Her eyes rolled back into her skull. There was...light coming from her hands, preventing me from getting close to her. There was nothing I could do."

"I left you to protect her!"

"Death," I finally said, catching his attention immediately. My voice sounded so weak and fragile. My stomach was rolling, and I was soaked with sweat. Fainting would have been a blessing. "It's not his fault. Please...just take me to my room. And no funny disappearing acts into black mist."

His tight, thin pupils expanded slightly as he stared at me. A muscle flexed in his jaw. He looked up at Leo and the rest of the reapers one last time, and I imagined something silent had been communicated between them. 

"Can you walk?" Death asked.

On a better day, I would have proudly said yes.

Without a word Death bent down, hoisted me into his arms, and carried me back to my room.

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GIRL U KNOW I I I I.... GIRL U KNOW I I I I.... ;)

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