Page 37 of In Between Death and the Devil

A moment later Death strode past us, her hands glowing. Heat surged down my arms, and my fingers tingled as if in answer.

Fuck. Not here.

I shoved my hands in my armpits to hide them and hunched forward. They weren’t lit up yet, but it was only a matter of time.

Bea produced a cloth from somewhere, and dabbed sweat from my forehead. I winced and pulled away.

“Sorry,” she murmured.

“It’s okay.” I forced the words through my teeth. “Just don’t touch me. It makes it worse.”

She settled at my side, her hands twitching in her lap.

I turned, angling myself away from her, leaning against the wall. My head was pounding, the pain sharpening by the minute. All I wanted was to curl up into a small ball, to collapse in on myself, but I couldn’t take my eyes off the two gods at either end of the bridge.

Death looked as regal and elegant as ever, not a hair out of place. She glared across the bridge at the Devil.

He raised one eyebrow in a silent question.

Death nodded.

In unison, they raised their arms at their sides, palms facing each other.

I felt their power rise, like static in the air, until they released it like a bolt of lightning. Tendrils of light and shadow burst from their hands and raced across the bridge.

My hands heated in response. Don’t burn my clothes. The thought raced through my mind, and I felt a subtle shift in the light streaming through me. My hands cooled, going from hot to warm. I swallowed, resisting the urge to examine them. Was control really that simple? Why had it kicked in now?

Light and shadow met in the middle of the bridge, and my train of thought stuttered to a halt. There was no explosion, but I felt it like a jolt through my entire system. They melded together into something dark and shimmering that spread out, covering everything. It sank into every crack and fissure, knitting stone, wood and glass back together.

The pain in my head faded, and the light running through me sang in response. I felt it resonate with contentment and longing, as if it were a separate entity. It raced through me, begging to be set free, to join what was happening on the bridge. I fisted my hands in my armpits to keep them from reaching out.

This is what it’s for. I flinched, startled by the thought, and immediately rejected it. It didn’t make any sense. I might be able to reduce things to ash, but I couldn’t heal anything. Whatever this was, it wasn’t anything like what Death wielded.

What if it is? What if I can heal things? I shook my head, as if I could dislodge the voice in my head. As if it weren’t mine. I was a human soul. Only gods could do things like heal or create. Or bring fears to life. And there were only two gods in the In Between. Two gods to balance the scales.

Scales that were already out of balance because of the Devil’s power. Panic clawed at my throat. Is that why the bridge had cracked and nearly broken? I shuddered to think what would have happened if it hadn’t been stopped. Would the In Between have come apart? Why now? Had some event caused it, or had we reached a sort of tipping point where things were starting to fall apart?

Dread pressed in on me. We had been taught to believe everything was connected. After all, past lives influenced future ones. I wanted to think it a coincidence that this had happened shortly after I arrived with my curse, but I couldn’t help but wonder if I was the trigger.

I was unraveling. My thoughts spinning out of control. Speculating would get me nowhere. I needed answers. And right now, I needed to pull myself together, so my curse wasn’t discovered.

The shaking subsided as Death and Devil let their hands fall to their sides, their power fading until light and shadow winked out, leaving the bridge whole again, as if no damage had ever occurred.

My shoulders sagged as I felt the light inside me extinguish. The pain in my head was gone. Something tugged at my awareness. I looked across the bridge to find the Devil watching me. Assessing. I felt a trace of satisfaction trickle through our connection.

“If it’s not a curse, what is it?”

“Now you’re asking the right questions.”

Lead settled in my stomach. He knew more than he was letting on. I wanted to march across the bridge, grab him by the collar, and make him tell me what he knew. Or suspected. But there were too many witnesses.

I mentally touched our connecting thread and sent an I-have-questions-you-better-answer feeling across it.

His lips tipped up and I felt amusement through the thread before Daphne asked him something, and he turned away to talk to her.

Our next session was tonight. We’d agreed before I left last night. He wouldn’t be able to escape me then.

“Maeve?” Bea touched my shoulder. “Do you feel better?”