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𝐒𝐄𝐕𝐄𝐍 : 𝐀 𝐖𝐀𝐑𝐍𝐈𝐍𝐆

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Mike Ronaldo was playing hard to get.

I sat inside the morgue for well over thirty minutes after the service had ended and still not a thing. Macabre had told me he was headed home fifteen minutes ago and even instructed me to be safe and take the back door when I left but I was beginning to wish he'd stayed and kept me company.

I had pulled over one of the chairs to sit by the casket, waiting to push it into the freezer and I could feel the icy cold air leaking from the opening. The air shivered and wavered over my skin, flushing my cheeks but still, no sign of my ghoul. I thought of trying to channel him like I'd seen in paranormal films but I didn't really know what to do.

I rested a hand on the lid of the casket and closed my eyes. "Mike," I said in a sing-songy voice, "I know you're here somewhere." I waited a moment, now drumming my fingers over the smooth wood. "Come out, come out, wherever you are."

When it didn't work, like I knew it wouldn't, I opened my eyes and stood with a heavy sigh. "When you're ready to come out of hiding," I announced, "feel free to meet me at home, okay?"

I eased the casket into the freezer and shut the door, locking it with the thick latch. There was an unsettling feeling in my stomach thinking of how I'd feel if I came down here to find one of these doors unlatched.

Leaving the basement and heading up the stairs, I closed the door carefully behind me and the skin on the back of my neck began to crawl. It wasn't because I was in the church so late at night and the hallway lights were off and not even the moon could shine through the opaque windows or because there was strangely not a sound but because I wasn't alone. There was someone there, right by the doorway to the kitchen and near the only exit not sealed shut.

I carefully took a step towards the left, knowing if I could just hid within the pews this person would give up. Maybe they hadn't even seen me yet, maybe I could still run free–

A shadow moved, dark and predatory, taking up nearly half the doorway. This man was large and even I could see the knife in his hand by his side.

"Shame we're meeting like this," came the deep voice, booming in the silence, "under such dangerous circumstances and all."

I straightened my shoulders but still took another protective step back. Be strong. Be brave. "I'm sorry," I said with striking confidence for once. "I don't seem to recognize the voice, do I know you?"

He took another step forward and my shoulders tensed. Even through the dark I could tell her was strong, he would be able to wrap one hand against my face and slam my head in. "Oh, come on," he chuckled. "I know you've seen pictures of me from your father's ridiculous file."

"Doesn't ring any bells."

"You've killed some of my previous coworkers," he snarled now, taking another frightening step forward. "That must ring something in that pretty little head of yours."

"I think I need a little more," I said, stepping back further. I could make it to the pews if I turned abruptly but I had a sick feeling he'd be able to catch me pretty fast.

"How about this," he purred and it felt like he was right on me even when he was still ten feet away. "I was the one who summoned Ace and John to the barn to kill that friend of yours."

My heart skipped an awful beat but I swallowed thickly and said, "Who?"

I knew who this man was, only because I knew who had defected from the Morticianers. I made sense, especially with his build and height and the spiked ends of his hair. I knew who this man was exactly and it didn't make me feel any better knowing we were stuck together in the narrow hallway.

"I think it's time we stop playing games," he snarled and stalked down the hallway.

My back hit the wall in my attempt to run because he was big, much bigger than any photograph of him would ever allude to. Once I was turned around and fully sprinting towards the church, I could feel him nearly upon me. He was like a great big shadow on my shoulders and when one of his hands clamped down on said shoulder, I let out a scream far greater than I could've imagined.

Maybe my reaction was because I'd been in the morgue alone for so long, and maybe it was because a police officer had been killed, or maybe I was just on edge and a little depressed with recent news.

Prophecy was real and I was scheduled to die and fight.

And now Jonathan Blood was in Clandestine, pulling me to the ground just inside the church and my back was hitting the wood floorboards with an awful crack. Looking up into his awful face as he straddled my body with his feet, I forced a nervous smile and muttered, "Oh, would you look at that. I do know you!"

When his head tilted to the side, sizing me up with a faint smirk crawling up to his mouth, I sent my knee into his groin. He groaned instantly, nearly falling on top of me as I shoved him to the side. He was useless for the time being and it gave me enough time to get to my feet and take off running. But demons were special and they could heal, not as well as Crow but well enough because Blood was on his feet and howling after me.

"I didn't come here to kill you, bitch!" he hissed as I did a little stutter step in the aisle between the pews because I didn't know where I was going. When I turned to face him, he had both hands up and he placed the knife down on the ground, which only eased my nerves slightly. "See? John doesn't want me going that, yet."

"Doesn't mean I trust you," I hissed back with the same venom he first gave me. I took a cautious step forward, trying to keep him at an equal distance away but also getting me closer to the only weapon sharp enough to kill with a jab.

"I won't kill you, Blaire."

"No matter how many times you say that," I snarled, "I still won't believe you!"

He kept his hands up. He was wearing his signature leather jacket and I could see him more easily in the strange dim lights reflecting into the room from the stained glass windows. The street lamps were casting eerie colors over him and the pews. Red and blue and gray. "John sent me with...instructions." When I frowned, he added, "With a warning."

"You think I'm going to believe a word that comes out of your mouth?" I asked with a scoff. "Especially ones sent straight from the devil's mouth? You're a moron–"

"In five days," he snapped, interrupting me, "which is this coming Friday, you will receive a package. There will be a set of instructions with the package that you must follow as written. If you don't do what you're supposed to, someone will die."

"I don't fucking believe you."

"When this package comes," he continued, lowering his hands to burrow them into fists by his side. "It is pertinent that you follow the instructions. John will know if you don't, I'll know if you don't. If they aren't followed, John will make sure to start killing your friends," he smiled, "starting with the pretty blonde."

My jaw clenched. Did all of these assholes really think I took to threats well? Hadn't I shown them exactly what I'd do to them if they continued to taunt me? I'd killed four of them already. "Kill one of mine and I'll kill one of yours," I murmured, tilting my head to the side like he had, "is that what you really want?"

"I'm not going to listen to pathetic threats given from a child."

I smiled. "Then I guess I'll do the same."

I was upon the knife quicker than I had anticipated myself to be as Blood launched himself forward to grab me. My knees slid against the floorboards and my fingers curled themselves around the wooden hilt of the steak knife. This knife was meant to tear through flesh, hardened and leathery. Once the knife was firmly in my grip and Blood had his hands gripping my arm, ready to toss me aside, I sliced with a backhanded swing of my arm.

The knife tore through the exposed skin on his wrist and black blood spurted free from the jagged wound. The knife didn't slice or glide through his flesh, it tore and left messy remains. He cursed through clenched teeth, holding his wrist tightly but I could still see the blood threatening to spill through his fingers.

"You're dead," he snarled but he didn't advance on me. Instead, he retreated a few steps to let me stand.

I didn't wait to see if he'd attack, instead, I took off running towards the back exit, gripping the pews with my free hand to catapult me forward. I expected him to follow me but I heard nothing on the floors behind me, even as I tore out the back door and went sprinting down the gravel path and across the street. There was no fight in him but as I unlocked my car, my breath stuck in my wheezing throat, I could see his shadowed figure in one of the windows closest to the front doors.

It only furthered me to move even quicker than before. I didn't look back, even as I drove away, because I knew he'd be watching. I could only wonder how long he'd been watching me all this time.

~

My excitement for the night didn't end when I returned to the dark cabin. I was blasted by the gray when I opened the front door and I felt a strange sadness build up in my chest as I regarded the man sitting at the kitchen island as if waiting for me this entire evening.

"They got you," I murmured as I shut the door with a sigh, "didn't they?"

He gave me a small smile over his shoulder as I entered the room to face him across the island. He had his hands folded on the counter, his shoulders and body void of any tension. "I always knew they would but I didn't think the devil would be standing on my doorstep when they did."

I rested my elbows on the counter only to bury my hands in my hands.

"It's not your fault," he said, as if reading my mind, "they were always going to take me out. They knew I was Archer's mole, not theirs."

I peered through my fingers at him. "You were what?"

"I was a mole," he said and I let my hands fall from my face. "But not one for John, although he does have others but I was never introduced to them. There are a dozen of them working within the department, like Hex from the hospital."

"John killed him, though."

"He was a shitty mole, what else can I say?" A small smile came to Michael Ronaldo's face. "Hex was too involved with the Morticianers, he was always going to be loyal to Archer and Victor. John took him out because he was a loose cannon who knew too much."

"And were you the same?" A loose cannon. Untrustworthy.

Ronaldo nodded. "As loose as they come."

"You know," I murmured, "I waited for your ass to show at the church, care to explain why you were holding out on me that whole time?"

"Someone was waiting for you," he told me with a light shiver. "I couldn't interfere, felt too important–"

"And dangerous," I said. "Where was my police officer when I needed 'em?"

"Can't do much to fight off a demon when you're the only one who can see me."

"Could've just frozen time," I muttered with my brows furrowing as I added, "You do know how all this works, right?" He gave me a blank stare. "You come to me, I see you, world freezes–"

A smile broke out on his face and my face, no doubt, grew red. He was screwing with me. He chuckled softly and sat back in his chair. "So, necromancer, why is it that you were waiting for me to show tonight?"

I pressed my palms flat against the counter. "I gotta know everything that happened when you died because you wouldn't still be here unless there was something you wanted to tell me, too."

"You want the good or the bad first?"

"Bad, always."

When he told me his story, a frown pulled itself to my face and it took everything in me not to interrupt until he was finished.

"So, you opened your front door three nights ago and there he was? Just standing there?"

He nodded. "Had two other demons with him. Eric Conner and that kid, Ace Dolion."

"And he just stood there?" I murmured. "As they killed you?"

He nodded for a second time and repeated the part that made me sick to my stomach. "Now here's the good...he killed me with your knife." He rubbed the back of his neck as the smile that had gone to his face dissolved. "Conner took the final blow but he let Ace get me a few times with a regular knife, like one straight from the kitchen. I only knew it was your knife they were using because it looked different, bigger and worse."

"I didn't know demons could come back after being killed with Spiorad," I murmured with my frown still stuck on my mouth and it felt like it would always be there. "You sure it was her they used?"

"Killed me before it even drew blood."

"How did you even know about her? About Spiorad?"

"Friend of Archer's," he said with a smile and it never did sit right with me when someone called Crow by his first name, it was so personal, so intimate, it belonged to me, "remember? He basically gave me the rundown on you."

"Before or after you were the lead detective on my mom's case?"

"Before."

That information settled uncomfortably in my stomach. It meant Ronaldo knew who I was before he'd ever set eyes on me. He'd known who Louise was and what to expect when he entered the house.

"Don't mind me asking," he said, "but I'm curious. How are you going to get your knife back?"

I shrugged. "I doubt John will just give it up, but that brings me back to you," I eased the weight off either foot as I swayed in my spot, "you said John just stood there and watched?"

Ronaldo nodded, his lips thinning into a line as he pressed them together tightly. "Just stood back and let his dogs go to work. He told me if I saw you on the other side to tell you he was coming and to expect a gift by Friday."

"That's what his other henchman told me earlier tonight, too," I murmured. It made sense to me that John didn't want to get his hands dirty but it made me sick to my stomach to picture John Walker standing there and watching, probably with a smile, as his nearest and dearest slaughtered a cop.

"Do you think you could make a new demon blade?" asked Ronaldo, shaking me from my thoughts. "If Spiorad was created, surely there must be a way to make a new one?"

I shrugged but I didn't let the idea past me. I made a mental note to check the journals with Blondie, there had to be something in them and if not the first few than the grimoire she had been working on. I slapped my hands gently on the counter, leaning back. "What's one of your biggest life regrets?"

"Why are you asking me that." It wasn't even a question, just a demand.

"You're about to pass on," I sighed, "don't you think you should cross without anything weighing you down?"

He rolled his eyes but his expression softened. "Not getting married."

"Why didn't you?"

He fought back a smile, wiping his mouth as he said, "It was the job. I was too afraid to bring someone into my life when I was away the majority of the time arresting wife beaters and killers."

"And I bet being a demon didn't help either."

"No," he said with a shake of his head, "it didn't."

"Can I ask you what you are?" I asked and he gave me a puzzled look. "A floater or an inborn?"

"Ah," he said, nodding. "I'm an inborn."

I nodded back, slowly as I gnawed on the inside of my cheek before asking, "Is that what John was before the devil took up host?"

Ronaldo nodded. "Most of us an inborn, being a floater is almost rare in some cases." His eyes narrowed. "Why? Have you ever met one?"

I nodded with a scowl. "Eric Conner."

"Should've known," he said, wiping his mouth. "The most ruthless of them always are." He shifted in his seat before pushing back from the island to stand. "I'm sorry there isn't much else I can tell you."

I leaned myself away from the counter to meet his strong gaze and shrugged. "Sometimes things aren't as complicated as we might've wanted."

"Isn't that supposed to be a good thing?"

"To you, maybe."

He chuckled deeply from his chest. "So, great necromancer, how does this next part work? How do you..." He waved his hands in the air.

"Send you into the great beyond?" I laughed and he nodded. "It's easy."

Just will it be.

I stepped around the counter to meet him on the other side. I held out my hands to him and he looked at them and took a big breath before clasping his in mine. We stood there for a moment and I smiled softly before whispering, "Thanks for being nice to me, when my mom died."

"Thank you for not being a bratty teen I have to pull over for drunk driving," he said back with another chuckle.

I tightened my grip in his cold hands and willed it in my chest. He would not go to hell, he would be set free into the golden lights I had seen capture so many people who didn't deserve to die so early or so soon.

"May you find peace," I said in Latin, the words flowing from my lips as warmth began to build up between our locked grip.

He smiled as the golden light took hold and said back to me, in the same tongue, "And may you kill the devil."

Michael Ronaldo was gone in a flash of light and I was now alone in the kitchen, the world colorful and lonely. A silence stretched between me and the other world I had been in and I almost wished Ronaldo would come back and give me some company. Being in the cabin alone wasn't something I'd bargained for when Crow first allowed me to stay here.

Yes, he told me he wouldn't bother me and we'd basically be roommates who never saw one another or went into each other's spaces but that quickly went out the window. He was gone and all I was wishing for was him to crawl into his bed and be here. To be known again. To just be present and there.

But the end was coming and he wasn't home and I was left waiting for John to come knocking down my door. The end was coming in the matter of weeks or months or even days and there was nothing I could do to stop it or even prepare fully. No amount of training with Macabre would prepare me for getting my throat ripped out or whatever the devil wanted to do to me.

All I knew was that it'd be soon. The end was coming soon.

Going to the fridge, I retrieved something I could make quickly for a very, very late snack and ate silently and yet again, alone. I feel the need to reiterate the fact that I'm alone only because I was and there was nothing I could do about it. I wasn't going to call Blondie or Winker and beg them to come over because didn't we just have a conversation about that? Needing to be normal and with our families instead of cooped up inside this cabin?

So, I ate my snack alone and when I was done, I didn't wash my plate. Instead, I entered the living room. It was chilly this evening so I went to the fireplace and inspected what I needed to do to get it working. It was a gas fireplace and I wondered how much that cost him to be put in because I'd expected a wood fireplace only because we were in a cabin and in the woods, it seemed essential. I pulled the corn hanging off the wall to the right of the fireplace and just like magic, fire sparked alive inside. It was strange, watching the glowing red and yellow fire dance around the fake wood designed not to burn but to act like a real fireplace would've. It was something I expected this from Crow, especially with his leather couch and lounge chairs, the artistic art on the walls, the plush pillows and blankets in the bedroom. He liked luxury.

The fire began to warm the room and I gathered my mother's journals and sat down on the couch with one of the nice throw blankets covering my legs. It made me nervous to have my back to the front door but I felt just slightly at ease knowing I was still facing an exit to the backyard.

There was a deep rooted fear still curling up inside my chest that John, that anyone, could come into the cabin and take me. They could hurt me, drag me out by my ankles kicking and screaming. Made more sense now than ever that they'd come for me. John wanted me dead and he would get his wish once he finally chose his perfect date to tear me limb from limb. If I hadn't been the only necromancer left, maybe things would've been different. I would've had help, would've had more guidance than a few journals detailing Louise Lake's love life and spiritual journey.

I wished the cabin had televisions so I could fill the quiet void lurking in every crevice. I didn't like that I couldn't hear anything, only the soft hum of the air conditioning unit and the shift and sway of the trees outdoors. I could hear the journal's spine cracking as the pages scratched against one another and I had to dip my head to focus on them instead of the raging little noises that were building up to my boiling point.

It made me happy to know these journals were my special little things. Born of my family's secrets, created to help me even though I thought otherwise from time to time and ignoring how I'd just thought of how pointless they were moments before. As I flipped through the pages of the journals, I realized something strange about the last one, the fourth one that had been so secretly placed under the floorboards.

It was somewhat heavier than before, thicker, too.

A smile crept to my face and I murmured a familiar sentiment to when I had first discovered the journal months ago. "Louise, you sneaky bitch."

I flipped to where the fresher pagers were in the journal, stopping when I got to them and my heart pulled on the invisible string within my chest. A warning. Excitement. Scrawled at the top of the first page were little words.

To be seen after knowledge of the prophecy is confessed.

The rest of the page was blank so I flipped to the next and watched as the magic took hold of this new bundle of pages. Louise's handwriting appeared slowly, as if I was watching her write it herself. The ink was different, no long pencil or black pen scrawl. It was red and I had a sickening feeling it was blood.

My husband works with dangerous men. He is hardworking and does his job fairly well but he knows these men are bad. There's a bad seed, a snake in the hen house or whatever the saying is. But Cage understands what is coming and what he must do. He knows he has to die.

It's all coming so soon and nothing will be able to prepare me for what he must do and what I know I must do to follow. Archer explained that he'll help us, he'll do anything he can to ease this suffering for us and I know he means well because I've seen it. I've seen what he will do for my daughter and how he will be a protector, like he had always been fated to be but it still won't prepare me for what must be done and completed. It will ruin me but I can only hope it doesn't ruin her.

Emotion swelled in my chest, like it always did when I read her writing. It was the closest I could come to having her right beside me. I wanted to close the journal and beg her to show herself but I had a feeling this was the best she could do for now.

My daughter, my beautiful baby girl, you are here for a reason; one you've come to realize by now. It was something I hoped would never come about because this wasn't the life I envisioned for you and I'm sure it wasn't the one you saw for yourself either. I saw you graduating, getting married, and having a family and I did see all those things for you but I wasn't sure if it was just dreams getting in the way of the things I had been seeing.

I saw your fate, sweetheart, and it can only be as grave as you allow it to be.

You can trust Victor. You can trust Archer. They are your allies, okay? They are the ones I trust the most out of that awful group (okay, they aren't awful but I'm only saying that because they can get themselves into the worst situations and still not even bat an eye at how wrong it is). Your father and I have put our lives and our trust in these two men for decades and what they do for you, just know it was all meant to be.

I wiped absentmindedly at my cheeks. It was funny, thinking that Louise hadn't thought I'd be allies with them quite so soon. I'd practically fallen right into Crow's arms and trusted him in a heartbeat, so what did that say about me? Really? Was I easy? Or did I see a future much like the ones mom had?

You are my daughter, Elizabeth Blaire Lake, and you will continue to be long after I'm gone and I'm sorry for what will become of me. I'm sorry that you will find me and I'm sorry it had to be this way. Some things are meant to be known, not even by me. I didn't have to do what I did but I couldn't take that chance. I'd seen a ghost, only twice, and I couldn't allow myself to even think for a moment that it was only a dream or even just a fleeting moment. If I could see them, that meant somewhere along my line of ancestors, there had been a necromancer. Maybe this was why you've grown so strong over the years. Even as a baby, you could see them so brightly and I'd hear you giggling in your crib and I'd feel sick. But you were meant for this mission and for this life and

She'd scratched out the next line.

And I'm sorry this was how it had to end. I just couldn't take the chance, even how small it could've been. I saw your father after he died, standing in his office amongst the gray and he was gone before I even had the chance to speak to him. I saw my own mother, a month after she'd passed. She was in our kitchen at home, knife in hand and slicing cucumbers and tomatoes by the sink. It was like she'd never left but in a blink, she was gone. Those two encounters, rather small and short, you can understand that I had to do what I did.

And I'm sorry, Blaire. I'm so sorry.

By now, Victor has gotten everything in order for you. The house, unfortunately, will be left for Victor once you graduate high school. He can decide whether or not to sell, but I'm sure you'll be involved in the decision too. I just didn't want the house weighing you down once you finally get free from this life (and I'm praying you do, honey. all my bets are on you).

I wanted to close the journal but I kept reading. My mother had taken her own life, she had wrapped the noose around her neck and did the only thing she thought she could.

I do have to say again that I'm sorry that you'll find me. When you find me, just know this was what I chose to do. I wasn't forced, I wasn't convinced or coerced or any type of nonsense you probably thought of already. I did this. I died the way my sister's did, decades and centuries before me. While some witches were burned, most were hanged. My sisters, my mothers from all before, they will be waiting for me just as your father will be, too.

I love you, Blaire. I know you will do what is necessary and I hope (even against the prophecy) that you live longer than I did.

I curled up on the couch, pressing myself tightly together as I shuddered and sobbed. I clutched the journal to my chest and cried until my throat was sore and my eyes were swollen because for tonight, that was all I could do.

short-ish chap w/filler moments but rip michael ronaldo </3

realizations from louise's journal and a new danger coming up in 5 days...sorry blaire u wont catch a break ever !!! 

pls pls vote/comment it keeps me so motivated!!!!!