CUPACAKES!!!!!!

I AM HERE WITH THE QUAREN-TEA!

PLEASE ENJOY THIS SMALL GIFT TO PASS THE TIME! 

MORE TO COME! STAY SAFE!! *DABS WITH SCYTHE*

XOXO

THE DEVIL

***

            I awoke with my back flat against cold ground, tears leaking from the corners of my eyes. I blinked into full alertness, the memory of how I'd gotten here, where wherever here was, sending me jolting upward.

Ahrimad had taken over Ace and knocked me unconscious.

Ugh. So not cool.

Shadows, and a small amount of light through metal bars, framed the small confined space. With barely enough room to stand, it felt like a large coffin with a jail gate on one side and bars separating me from another confined space beside mine.

Pure dread speared through me as I noticed another person laying between the barrier of metal bars. Edging closer confirmed the horrifying thought that it was indeed Ace. He was so still, his body face down and his head turned away from me. I crawled fast across the space, my body aching with every movement I made.

"Ace?" I whispered, poking his shoulder. I fought not to burst into tears. I pictured his wounds, his tattered clothing, my heart clenching. The thought crossed my mind that he was still Ahrimad, which made me hesitate to touch him again, but the thought that this was Ace and that he needed my help, overrode any other fear. I reached out and shook his shoulder harder. "Ace? Ace, wake up. Please, wake up."

He inhaled a horrible wheezed breath and coughed something out, blowing dust all over the space.

"Oh, thank god––"

"Cauchemar!" he cried. His breaths came out faster, his nails raking against the dirty marble beneath us. He was disorientated, writhing around, like he'd half-woken from a fever dream. "No... C'était un cauchemar... J'en ai marre!"

"Ace it's me, it's me," I said in a hush, consoling him by reaching through the bars between us and rubbing his back. "Everything is okay. You're okay. It's Faith."

Ace rose slowly onto his hands and knees with his head tilted down. "Ma chère," he croaked out. "Where...are we?"

"I don't know," I whispered, but wherever we were, it was so cold that goosebumps spread over my arms. In fact, the change in temperature reminded me of entering a basement. "I think we're underground," I said, when the idea came to me. "We must be underneath the mausoleum."

"You shouldn't have come." Ace dry heaved a few times. "I'm going to...sick." He crawled fast to the far corner of his prison to vomit.

"Ace?" I asked anxiously. "Ace, are you alright?"

He didn't answer as he vomited again. "I am absolutely amazing," he said lightheartedly and out of breath, dragging his body back toward me before slumping against the wall in exhaustion with his arm sprawled over his stomach. "Although, I could really use a power nap, and maybe an ice cream sundae."

"Ace..." I trailed off, incredibly concerned by his casual joking. "Ahrimad, he possessed your body––"

"Oh, I know. Hence the retching and the unbearable headache once he left." He angled his face toward mine and ran his fingers absently over his head. "Don't worry about me and my new military haircut. I'm fine."

We stared at each other for a moment, before he looked away. Neither of us spoke for a length of time, before my hand slid through the bars to clutch his limp fingers.

"I can't say I saw this one coming," Ace murmured.

"You can say that again. I mean, really. What kind of psychopath installs medieval looking cells in a mausoleum?"

Ace managed a small laugh and cleared his throat. He sat up straighter against the wall.

"The wards around my library are shatterproof," he began in a quiet voice. "I didn't even feel it break. Neither of us did. We were collecting herbs in the greenhouse, laughing about some stupid joke..." He shook his head at himself, banging his head back against the wall. "They restrained us...tortured us by drawing blood from us. But I wouldn't concede to serve Ahrimad." His hand tightened almost painfully against mine as his voice grew furious. "They tore her apart in seconds. Like piranhas after a bit of fucking meat." Ace curled his legs into his chest, wiping his hands back and forth over shaved skull. "I couldn't protect her..."

"I wish I could take all this pain away from you," I said softly, feeling the heaviness of his emotions as if it were my own. "Nobody should have to witness what you have tonight." Feeling like I had to take action, I moved toward the bars and looked out into the shadowy space in front of our cells. Angling my head to look thrugh the bars to the left revealed a long hallway with dim light at the end. I pulled away from the bars and looked back at Ace. "We need to get out of here before things get only worse. Without Death, or his reapers, or Malphas, I don't know how far we could get, but it's worth a try."

Ace gaze snapped to me in the dark as if something was slow to register. He sat up abruptly. "Did you say, Malphas? Malphas Cruscellio?"

"Why does everybody have that same reaction when I mention Malphas? It's like he's Voldemort or something."

Ace moved toward the front of his cell to peer out into the hallway with the light at the end. "Where's Death?" he asked, and the seriousness in his expression made unease shimmy down my spine.

"I don't know. Why?" My breaths picked up as the worst case scenerios popped into my head. "Do you think he's...? Did you have another vision?"

"When's the last time you saw him?" Ace pressed.

"We entered together," I said, unable to sit still now as I peered outside the cell. "Me, Death, and Malphas. I don't know where he is, but I'm terrified that something awful has already happened to him. The last time I saw him, we were in a room of sigils. Both Death and Malphas were fevered by empath demons."

Ace seemed unsettled by this. "Empath demons. You weren't effected by their power?"

I shook my head. "Not that I know of. Just Death and Malphas, who were standing within this huge sigil. When the sigil's energy died down, Death was gone. Which left Malphas and I to defend ourselves."

Ace stared at me in silence again.

He urged me to continue in a soft voice. "Then what happened?"

"Chaos. Malphas ripped my sword out of my belt and chopped this bitches head off. He told me to go look for Death, gave me back my sword..." I glanced down at the floor around me. "Which I don't seem to have anymore... And then I left him in the room of sigils with this female empath demon that slayed this little outfit that I wish I had the confidence to wear. Her name was Layla, and she was summoning her evil sisters as I was leaving. We don't like her. Anyway..."

Ace rubbed his hands slowly over his newly shaved head, before wiping his face in an aggravated way.

"What's wrong?" I sat up on my knees, leaning toward the bars. He looked over at me with a conflicted expression, biting on his lip. "If you know something I don't, just tell me. Don't spare me any bad news. You're making me more anxious by not saying anything at all."

"I can't stress enough that this is not your fault in any capacity, Faith," Ace began, as if to soften some sort of massive blow. "I explained with you my past with Death. I've known him since the beginning, really. I worked for Malphas for years, as Alexandru's private healer. Given, people can change. Sometimes, in an instant. But I can tell you this with certainty now. Death would have never asked for his father's help tonight. Which leads me to believe Malphas has influenced Death, and you, tremendously. For how long, I am unsure."

I sat back on my heels, growing absolutely still as an ocean of lies rushed over me.

"Don't blame yourself," Ace repeated, concern in his expression. "It's what he is, Faith. Malphas is a master of mind manipulation."

I pictured the way blackness had webbed out from Malphas' eyes in the sigil room. How much pain and resentment Death held toward his father that was released in that room. I felt so ridiculous to have not seen it as clearly as I did now. In the sigil room, Malphas' hand hadn't just rested on the hilt of my sword from behind his back. It'd rested on the case which concealed the Book of the Dead, before he'd cut my entire belt off of me...

My facial muscles went slack. "Oh my god."

Panic clicked into place as I rapidly felt around for my missing belt, patted down my armor. The full reality of what this meant was too overwhelming, blood whooshing in my ears.

The Book of the Dead was gone.

My mind whirled.

"We are so fucked," I said in a distant, hollowed voice. "I trusted Malphas... I trusted him, when nobody else did." Covering my face with my hands, How could I be so stupid?"

"This is not your fault, ma chère. He's a formidable demi-god. He took advantage of Death's weakened state, he took advantage of your big heart.

But the projection, I thought to myself. Death's mother. The willow tree. Was that really all a lie?

I remembered Ahrimad's surprised reaction when I'd mentioned Malphas was in the mausoleum. I wanted to think there was a possibility Ahrimad had taken the book from me when he'd put me under a spell, that Ace was wrong. But then I remembered the way Ahrimad's slight smile when he glanced down at my waist, where my broken belt remained.

Were Ahrimad and Malphas really working together? Why?

I'd asked Malphas pointblank if he killed Death's mother, and he'd gotten that weird dead look in his eyes. It was like he was incapable of answering himself. Like he had to say what he said. It was the exact his same answer he'd told me in the projection with the willow tre. I thought it was possible he was bound to some sort of deal or spell.

Now I knew the truth. Malphas was just a skilled actor that was evil to the core.

"My biggest concern still lies with the Fates and the consequences of how I've interfered already," Ace said. "The portal between our world and the others opened at an earlier timeline than it was supposed to, and it will close the same."

"Then what do we do now?" I demanded of Ace, of myself, and of nobody in particular. "Ahrimad went out of his way to foreshadow some sort of sick twisted banger he's throwing tonight, and now Malphas is the cohost, so who knows what that will entail for Death and the rest of them. Do we just sit here in this shitty cage and wait to be used again?"

"I'm too depleted of energy from Ahrimad to get us out of here," Ace droned on in the background, as an anger within me fueled a wrathful adrenaline. "I'll need my staff to channel anything significant. You, on the other hand, might be able to quietly––"

I gripped two of the cage bars in front of me, some sort of magic electrified my hand. It twisted around my fingers and dug into the current like thorns, and I cried out as I gripped the bars harder.

Break! I punched my hands forward, my fingers igniting as the entire metal frame and the bars of my cage blew off. The frame clattered against the wall and floor in fragments. Heaving in air, I crawled out of the small space, feeling possessed as I stood before Ace's prison next.

 I held out my hand toward the bars. Light blasted from my hand, destroying a portion of the cell.

Ace was pressed against the corner of his cell with wide eyes. He snapped out of it and crawled out of the space, groaning as if everything hurt as he rose slowly to his full height. His hand gestured weakly toward the pile of metal cage bars. "That was... incredible. But perhaps it would be best to practice subtleness next time?"

"I can't help it," I said, my fingertips still sparking at my sides. "I'm furious. My power is driven by emotion. Just like Death said."

"No, your emotions are your conduit, ma chère. You can use your heart to help heighten your focus, but it is sheer will that drives your light."

* * *

If you could kindly vote and leave feedback on the chapter it would help my writing career and I would so appreciate it!! Your love is my motivation! :) 

Please follow me on social media! My Twitter & Instagram is katrocks247!

Also, if you haven't joined the Death is My BFF Facebook group by now, you MUST go Google it right now and I'll add you!!! <3

***

Hi!

We are living in some crazy times, aren't we???? How is everyone holding up? I've been going through SO many changes in my life during this pandemic, but I'm hanging in there, and I hope you are too!

Stay tuned for more updates! This ending is going to be a DOOZY. ;)

And stay SAFE!!!

xoxo

Hugs and Knives,

Kitty-Kat