It was… shit, was it that man’s life? Sephtis had called it Vitality.
He’d been vague this morning when he’d explained it to me—I realized that now. Had he saved me with another person’s soul?
“You have to understand, the hounds are single-minded. If they sense a broken soul, a human doing something to defy Death? They’ll take them and devour them… They’ll give what’s left to their Master to form something completely new. They don’t just gather up the pieces when someone tries to cheat Death, Cole. They destroy them.” Sephtis didn’t look at me as he spoke. He drew his hands along the man’s chest and upward… and there was a brief, glimmering second where I thought I saw an echo of that face… older, weather worn, cruel…
And then Sephtis ripped his hands apart, and somewhere in the back of my mind I was certain I heard someone scream.
“What did you just do?”
“He didn’t deserve to be born again as he was. Besides…” He stood, backing away from me. “You need to see.”
I didn’t have it in me to fight when he pushed me to the ladder that led up into the abandoned apartments above us. I would usually have told him it wasn’t safe, that there were people living in these dilapidated buildings who would hurt us… but it was obvious that wasn’t something we had to worry about.
I followed him silently on the promise that I’d get some answers. Even after this morning, I still felt like I was completely lost, like there was an ocean of information he’d kept from me. Or maybe he was right… Maybe there were certain things I just had toseeto understand.
He didn’t have to break a window; the glass was already gone. I wondered if the man who’d just tried to mug me—who’d apparently wanted to rape and kill me—had lived here.
I didn’t have time to worry about it. The sound of snarling spilled from around the corner, and Sephtis pushed me through the window before I had a chance to ask him if that was the hounds.
“Don’t speak. Don’t move. Don’t even breathe if you can help it. I’m going to do my best to keep you wrapped in my aura so they don’t notice you here. A Reaper close to a broken soul is nothing new to them… but if they realize their initial quarry isn’t the decoy I left them in the alley, we’re in trouble.”
The decoy…
Had he killed the man for more than one reason? To stop them from hurting me and to keep me safe?
He’d already told me this morning that killing someone or keeping them alive when it was against the natural order was enough to get him in trouble… but he’d done it for me again.
Twice.
That knowledge kept me silent as he stepped forward and wrapped his arms around me. There was something soft and black, like a cloak I’d never seen him wear, that settled over me. Was this where the story of Reapers in dark cloaks had come from? I swallowed the question down, trying to be quiet like he’d said.
That didn’t quell the sound that nearly tore from my lips when the creatures rounded the corner. It was only Sephtis’shand coming up to cover my mouth that stopped me from giving our position away.
When he said hounds, I was expecting dogs. Maybe big dogs, but dogs.
They weren’t dogs—they weren’t like any animal I’d ever seen. They were enormous, the size of fucking horses, and wherever they stepped, white flames licked at the ground behind them, dissolving after a moment into tendrils of smoke.
Their coats were solid black, but they weren’t made of fur… it whipped back and forth, liquid and alive… and I only had to stare for a second to realize why it seemed familiar. The smoke around me was their skin, and the liquid inside them looked the same as the black I’d seen pulsing through Sephtis’s veins just a moment ago.
And their eyes…
Their eyes were hollow, black smoke pulled over a white skull… with the sharpest teeth I’d ever fucking seen.
They paused at the edge of the alley, and the sound of heavywhuffingfilled the air. They were scenting, trying to make sure they were on the right track, maybe?
In a motion almost too quick for me to see, they lunged forward—they tore at my would-be killer, though there wasn’t a mark left behind.
But I could still hear those screams echoing.
The soul Sephtis had torn from his body… it was being devoured.
Becomingnothing.
Fear suddenly slid beneath my skin, terror unlike anything I’d ever felt. All notions of giving myself over to the three beasts beneath us fled with my strength. The only reason I stayed upright was because of Sephtis’s arms around me, his fingers sliding across my chest to press over my thundering heart as Iwatched.
Chapter 14
Sephtis
