HELLO, I HAVE RISEN. WHAT IS EVERYONE UP TO?

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            Fear slammed into me. I grabbed for a thick branch on the ground and snapped it in over my thigh, holding up the splintered edge between the Raven Demon and I like a knife. "Don't come any closer," I ground out.

Malphas raised an eyebrow at the branch, and then calmly placed his hands into the silken pockets of his pants. "Fantastic, you've lost your memory. Try to hold onto this projection little better this time, will you? I'm not your 'Spark Notes,' as the teenagers say." Shaking his head, he turned his back to me, gazing at nothing in particular in the forest surrounding us. "Alright, enough hiding. Come out and play."

I looked at him as if he were crazy. He was talking as if he were having a conversation with someone else, but there was nobody but him and I.

"I know you're there," Malphas said, turning back around. A grin lined his straight teeth, which didn't drip with their usual black venom. "I can feel you. Whether you are the demon or not, I feel your magic lingering in the air and it mimics hers. You have my attention. Now answer me. Why here? Why now?"

"Who are you talking to?" I asked.

Instead of answering, Malphas corralled me back a few steps. We both knew the branch was a pencil against him. Tossing it to the side, I raised my fists. My heart was thrashing a mile a minute.

"The entity," Malphas seethed, and then gazed at my fists with amusement dancing in his eyes. "The entity within your pendant. It must become stronger when you are unconscious, and it has insisted on bringing me here twice. Do you really not remember anything since our last encounter here?"

The last thing I wanted to do was stay here with this psycho, but I couldn't help but be curious. "Catch me up to speed."

"You're having an out of body experience," he explained, as if he'd gone over this with me a thousand times before. "Your body remains on Earth. We're in Limbo. The realm of lingering souls and memories. Also, you're transparent and glowing. Now do you remember?"

His words triggered a strong sense of déjà vu, which slowly pieced together until I remembered meeting him here before. I looked down at myself. Sure enough, I was a freaking glow stick. "Great," I muttered. "I'm a lamp on Earth, and I'm a lightening bug here."

"Has Death found a secure portal into the otherworld's yet?" Malphas asked, deep in thought. "To retrieve his sickle majiggy? Or are you just as informative as you were last time and still haven't got a clue?"

"Why the hell would I answer anything you ask?" I snarled, taking a step toward him. His expression turned amused. "All you've done is try to pin Death and I against each other, or screw with my head!"

"I await your point," Malphas sassed.

No DNA test needed. He was one-thousand percent Death's father. "All you're planning to do now is get whatever info out of me to run back to your buddy Ahrimad and get a gold star."

Malphas gazed steadily at me in a way that made me think he was contemplating snapping my head off. Although he was shorter than Death's, one venomous look like the one he was wearing now, and he was frightening as fuck. "Little girl, I must inform you, before you speak so openly again, that mouth of yours won't bode well with me." He tucked his lower lip over his bottom teeth and bit down, pausing before deciding to admit more. "All monsters have a creator, and to Ahrimad's, I am deeply indebted. So, I haven't an alliance with him at all. In fact, I have only seen Ahrimad once since the D&S ball, and it was in brief passing."

"Why do I have trouble believing anything you say?" I asked scathingly.

"Lying about an alliance with Ahrimad would be a waste of energy," he said, matching my nasty tone, "especially considering you would find out the truth on your own." Despite my resentment toward him, he did have a point there. "We simply are not aligned at all, Ahrimad and I. Freeing him from Death's cloak was for my own amusement, and a very successful distraction from me.

"Whether you believe me or not, I couldn't care less."

"To clarify, I don't believe you."

Malphas narrowed his eyes. "Why was your face so red, when you first manifested here earlier?"

I thought back to my make out session with Death and my eyes went slightly wide. "None of your damn business, Polly Wants a Cracker."

He cocked his head. "Have you forgotten how fragile your life is? How skinny and breakable your little mortal neck is. Perhaps I should remind you."

He took one forceful step toward me, and I reeled back.

"That's what I thought, you impertinent brat," Malphas muttered with a scoff. He turned head slightly toward willow tree, and his even expression seethed into frustration. "Now," he said, walking toward the tree, "to figure out why I am brought here again." His black tipped fingers reached out to tear free a blanket of vines surrounding the ancient mirror embedded into the willow tree. His eyes roamed the tree as he stalked a circle around it. Finally, his impatient gaze drilled into me from ten feet away. "You must have an inkling of an idea of why we're here. Why the entity has brought you and I, of all people, together again."

I captured the gem and serpent necklace at my throat. "Are you talking about the Familiar in my pendent?" I felt the urge to explain to him, "The Familiar is subdued. It tried to possess me before, and Death was able to subdue it from effecting me. So it's not the Familiar who is bringing us here."

Malphas looked at me for a long moment. "Again, you're misinformed," he said finally. "Of course you are, you know nothing of the truth. Nobody does. The presence I speak of...the Familiar, as you put it. It can't be subdued. It was awakened by you, Faith. Draped across your neck, you bare what is more modernly known as the Devil's Repent. A necklace that is cursed by the gods to lead ruin to those who wear it."

"How do you know about the Devil's Repent?"

"Hasn't Death told you who the pendant's previous owner was?" Malphas inquired in an exasperated way. When I didn't respond, his expression slowly lost all emotion. "It was his mother's amulet."

We stared at one another for a long, confusing moment, where I could have sworn he was waiting for me to ask my next question. "Did you give it to her?"

"It wasn't a gift." I almost missed the small flare of anger which sparked behind his cold, dead eyes. "It was a price. A consequence."

"A price for what?" Uneasily, I also asked, "Was Death's mother ruined by the necklace, like everyone keeps telling me?"

Malphas' black eyes focused elsewhere as he withheld his next words. He stalked a slow circle around the willow tree, inspecting it again, as if it would divulge something to him. "I have done unspeakable things in this world that have left me entrenched in sin, but my greatest offence is my most painful secret. A secret, which I will take to the grave. You must discover these answers on your own."

The wind thrust up threw his Viking braids to the side. His head tilted heavenward as the air seemed to coil around him. A look of what could only be described as ecstasy crossed over his features as he held his arms slightly out and surrendered to an unseen force. His black eyes darted to the forest around us. And then, finally on a spot behind me. His expression fell away as disbelief settled in the cold slates of his face.

The sensation of someone standing behind me forced me to turn around. When I turned, the willow tree was directly behind me, and the shadow woman stood before it. She appeared as she did before with Death and I, shadows collecting around her in the shape of a blank feminine face, a gown of some kind, and hair like tendrils of darkness piled neatly on her head. The last time I'd seen her, she'd brought me into that strange dream, where she's showed Death and I the Mausoleum and the portal Ahrimad was using to travel between words.

Then she moved forward like a shadowy ghost, becoming more corporeal but still concealed in her darkness. I made the innate decision to step aside, and she swept right past me to stand before Malphas, who was stock-still.

As she continued toward him, Malphas flinched back, a frown bowing between his eyebrows. Cruel lips curled, and his body tensed. "This is a trick," Malphas said. "It can't be..."

Her shadowy fingers lifted with grace of a delicate shadow, as she outstretched her arm toward him, her palm flat and inviting.

Malphas' usually cold and distant expression showed a thousand varying emotions. Staring down at her as if wary something would change if he blinked, he raised an uncertain hand toward hers, until their hands intertwined. His head tilted, as if she'd whispered to him, but I couldn't hear her voice.

"Prove it," he said.

Had I not been staring at Malphas' face, I would have missed the way his sinister face flinched ever so slightly. I saw the exact moment when the unfeeling demon exposed a heart wrenching amount of pain and collapsed to his knees. "Phoebe," he breathed out. "I am willing. Show me what the warlock withheld from them."

Before I could process the warlock part, Malphas released a pained noise, held helplessly in the grasp of the shadow woman. As she gripped Malphas' face in her shadowed hands, I watched in horror as his eyes roll back into his head, until his abnormally large pupils vanished, and the whites of his demonic eyes showed. His jaw clenched, the tendons in his neck straining, and then all at once, he ripped away from her and fell back onto the ground, staring up at her with a battle in his face and fear in his eyes.

"What did she show you?" I asked quietly, not really wanting the answer.

As if forgetting I was there, Malphas snapped his attention to me. He sat up, his eyes searching around as if his brain was trying to keep up with what he was envisioning.

"He's going to be destroyed," Malphas said in a hollow voice, focusing hard on me. And I knew, I knew he was talking about Death. "Unless you jump. The warlock's spell has weakened her and the demon. You must release the spell, so Phoebe can––"

The rest of his words washed away with sharp whistle in the air, and soon Malphas was gone and so was the shadow woman. The world was melting away with the improbability of a dream and coldness washed down my spine. Death. He was close. But I was far away, I was here, in Limbo, and he was on Earth. And I didn't know how to get back.

My breaths came out fast and unfulfilling as I tore my gaze around the shattering world, looking for a way out. It was then I heard clicking noise and whirled around. The creature standing before me had skin that was reflective like a mirror, with no visible features. Gazing at me with its eyeless face, it moved its body like a snake being charmed. All at once, the mold of its face shifted, and it opened a large jaw with teeth and howled with a screech, prowling toward me.

My scalp prickled with fear. I rocked slightly back, and my back hit a warm body. I turned, and violet eyes hit mine.

"Return," Ace commanded.

I awoke with a sharp inhale. 

YEEEEEEEEEEEEEE SCREAM "CUPCAKE" IF THAT WASN'T ENOUGH!!! 

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GOSSIP DEATH

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