Hiiiiiiii!

Will thou be my Valentine???

HALF GOD, HALF DEEEVILLLLLLLLL. You should 1000000% listen to the attached song repeatedly during this chapter. I listened to it writing the entire thing. LMAO. It's so #FADE

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Love,

Kat

     The lights were on in the mausoleum and it became clear that this place was used for other purposes for quite some time. Condom wrappers, crack pipes, and other paraphernalia littered the ground. In-between that garbage, rot and decay filled the cracks of once elaborate tiles. Graffiti and symbols arched wildly across the marble walls like scars of pandemonium.

Mausoleums were notorious for their meticulously clean appearance. The fact that this place was so ruined felt wrong on an astronomical level. I imagined the thousands of bodies crammed like sardines throughout this castle-like structure and became furious that this was what had become of the dead's sanctuary.

I kicked something on the ground, and it shattered against the wall. "At least these losers who destroyed this mausoleum are wearing protection, so they won't procreate."

Death's laugh came out in a short grunt, and I couldn't help but think he was mocking me. Aw, does the big bad Death think he's too good for condoms?  I glanced up at him narrowed eyes aimed at the assumed sexually irresponsible Angel of Pull Out. He gave me a 'WTF are you looking at?' face, before touching my back and guided me to walk in front of him.

"Walk ahead of me," he said.

Now I was sandwiched between Death and Malphas, Malphas having put distance between us and walking in front of me a good ten feet. Nothing says uncomfortable quite like an estranged demi-god father and his hybrid supernatural son coming together impromptu.

"So," I began, in an attempt to break the incredibly uncomfortable and undeniably awkward silence between the three of us. "This probably isn't the time, but I've always wondered... Do you guys ever, like, pee?"

Neither of them responded. Rude!

"Because I haven't seen a single immortal drink a whole glass of water," I continued. "Seriously, not one. Dehydration is a silent killer."

Behind me, Death slowly inhaled and exhaled through his nose, as if he wanted to duct tape my mouth shut and bind my hands together, before tossing me helplessly into an ocean. Either that, or he'd gotten bored with being undead and desired to take a random mortal-like breath.

I shuffled a little faster to catch up to Malphas.

"Hey," I said with a head nod, but he didn't acknowledge me. "Does it ever get weird that you could pass for your son's older brother?"

His lifeless black eyes glanced over at me, and his eyebrows dipped inward in puzzlement.

"Faith," Death growled in warning from behind us.

"We don't need water to nourish our bodies," Malphas said, answering my previous question. "But if we do, for whatever reason, consume water or mortal food, then yes, we'd have to use the bathroom afterward."

"Interesting," I said, tapping my chin. "Very interesting... Even number two?"

Death hooked a finger into the back pocket of my pants and yanked me back to walk next to him again. Cut it out, he mouthed, his eyes beseeching me to stop.

Malphas held up a hand, and stop we did.

"At least seven," Death said, as if answering a question Malphas hadn't asked.

Malphas turned his head over his shoulder and nodded to Death.

Death stalked forward as if he were a killer summoned and shifted into predator mode. He slid two swords out from sheaths at his back, his powerful muscles tensed as he slinked past Malphas and glided into the shadows. He pressed up against the wall besides an archway, his brilliant mismatched green eyes the only indication that he was there, before he closed them, and blended perfectly against the dark like an assassin in the night.

Two vampires rounded the hallway, rowdily arguing about something involving an 'Edward' and 'Jacob.'

By the time they spotted Malphas and I, Death's skilled hands were already twisting each blade around his fingers in a mirrored motion, his arms coming down fast and hard to flawlessly severed each vampire by the neck.

Another vampire launched out from behind him, when Death spun his one blade backwards in his palm and brought his arm upwards, stabbing the vampire through the throat. Death turned toward the creature and ripped the blade through the rest of the tendons of the newborn's neck, its head dropping amongst the growing pile.

"Adequate," Malphas commented.

Death tilted his head, his lip lifting in a snarl. "Adequate?"

Shadows collected from the darkest corners of the room, crawling toward Death like creatures on all fours as the white and green of his eyes consumed with a villain black. Darkness curled up his frame and formed an aura around his frame.

Death dropped his swords and pivoted, sprinting toward the entryway and launching himself at four more vampires that had just reached the scene. His talons lashed out, slicing through an enemy's torso. When his fist drove through the chest of another, he walked forward with the vampire in his clutches and stalked somewhere out of our view. Screams were heard. Some sort of chunk of flesh or an organ flew across the archway and smacked a vampire right in the face.

The two leftover vampires came sprinting through the archway toward Malphas and I, as if they were running away from the massive T-Rex in Jurassic Park. They were mangled, covered in blood, grabbing at injured body parts. Death gripped the archway from behind them and swung back into the hallway, landing on both of the vampires before they could reach us with his fangs bared. He crushed the back of their skulls into the ground with his bare hands.

When Death collected his fallen swords and rose to his full height, he flipped a strand of curly wavy black hair from his forehead that had escaped and stared icily at his father. Malphas "hmm'd" and strolled past his son without a word.

Once his father was out of sight, Death waggled his eyebrows at me, communicating the successful vanquishing of Malphas' criticism.

Shaking my head in distain, I stepped over a detached head. "Can't you at least try and act like you didn't tremendously enjoy that murdering spree?"

Moments later, Death and I reunited with Malphas, as the passageway opened up to a wider space with high ceilings. My eyes widened as I took in our surroundings. Shapes like pentagrams and hexagrams with symbols and languages I didn't understand covered almost every surface. The air was thicker in here, electric, in a way that made the hairs on my arms stand on end. Like rubbing a balloon vigorously against your skin and creating static, except the source of this static was undefined. It was an eerie sensation that clung to me from all directions, like the walls had eyes.

"This room is giving me the heebie jeebies," I said, pulling at the collar of my jacket as my anxiety spiked. "Is it hard to breathe, or is it just me?"

"Just you, chicken," Death said with a slight, devious grin.

"She must sense the remnants of magic," Malphas said, deep in thought as he surveyed the room. He paused and lowered to the ground, his hand hovering just beyond the intricate lines of the pentagram in front of him. His pale fingers tensed, the blackness along his fingertips crawling down the back of his hands. Smoke levitated from the lines engraved into the marble floor, and when Malphas turned over his shoulder, black branches webbing from his eyes and extending across his pale features like veins. "This one is recent."

"What is it?" I asked, coming to stand by the pentagram.

"The Seal of Solomon," Death answered from beside me. "Someone has been very busy summoning and enslaving demons." He sounded unruffled in a way that insinuated he was anything but. Moving away from the seal, Death began circling the room, methodically examining each and every marking on the ground. "Not just any demons, too. High energy demons."

Malphas stretched his neck as rose to his feet, firing a wrathful look at Death. "You said Ahrimad was weakened."

"Because he is," Death bit out. "He's not fully corporeal, unlike you or I."

Death and Malphas exchanged a lengthy look, as if they were silently communicating something. And that something didn't seem good and dandy by any means. My pulse picked up a notch.

"Can someone explain to me what's going on?" I pressed. "High energy demons sounds a little bit more daunting than beating up a few bigheaded vampire newborns."

Malphas' attention remained honed in on Death. "There are fifteen different pentagrams on the floor. We've only entered one room. Corporeal or not, he is anything but weak. Consider the graveyard a smokescreen because it was. We'll need more men."

"I'm not leaving here without Ace," I jumped in. "And Death needs his scythe back as soon as possible, or else––"

"Faith," Death said, his jaw ticking. His mismatched green eyes flashed in warning, and I realized just how little he had divulged to Malphas about this situation. "We're here already. There is no turning back."

When Death started to stalk away toward another doorway, when Malphas vanished in a blur and blocked his path. "The vast knowledge and reach of Ahrimad's power are unfathomable. Him weakened was a different story. I can see now we are hardly prepared for what forebodes in this room alone."

"I know that," Death snarled. "He's the first and only pureblood of his kind."

"Which would make him a Prime," Malphas continued, becoming aggravated, as if he thought Death wasn't grasping what he was saying. "A fully charged Prime of his species." Malphas suddenly gazed at me, as if he realized I had the answer he was looking for, before switching his attention back at Death. "I knew when you came to me that you were desperate beyond belief, but this is worse than I imagined. You're weak. Weaker than you've ever been. Your control over your other half is dwindling, and tonight is your last opportunity to get back to your full power."

"Get out of her head," Death grated out. 

Malphas laughed. "I'm not in her head. I can sense this in other ways. You're my son."

"Hardly." The way Death's whole body trembled afterward sent me on edge, and I realized the air had thickened with that electrical charge already present when we entered it.

"Guys..." I trailed off, looking around the room. "Did you feel that?"

Thunder crashed above us, the stained-glass ceiling flashing with light. The sigil beneath Malphas and Death glowed red, plumes of red spiraling in the air around them. Both of their heads snapped back, their eyes matching the inflamed bloodlust color of the sigil.

"Ohhhhh shit," I said, holding my palms up to protect my face from the heat of the sigil as it burst outward with a hiss. "Ohshitshitshitshit!"

"None of this would have fucking happened if you hadn't cast my soul to Limbo!" Death suddenly exploded.

"I wanted you to feel what I felt," Malphas hissed, his control slipping away as fast as Death's. "My own son, casting me away to the Underworld!"

This was bad. This was really, really bad. As their anger rose, wind hurled around the space around. I gripped onto a marble structure, my mind frantically raced to find a way to free them from whatever spell they were under.

"We just can't get a break!" I panted out, my gloves nearly losing the grip on the marble structure.

"If you weren't so hellbent on defying me as a child," Malphas continued to roar in a fiery rage, "with your obsession of befriending the very mortals that ostracize our kind, you would have never become tangled in Ahrimad's web to begin with! How many times did I tell you not to go into those woods alone? How many times!"

"I went into those woods in the first place to get away from you!" Death thundered, and the sigil flickered angrily around the edges. "So I could cling to the sliver of normalcy that you left for me as a child! The only thing that kept me alive after what you did to my family was the immortality Ahrimad gave me."

Malphas flinched at this, the red glow to his eyes illuminating stronger as if it were fueled by his emotion. "You have no idea the sacrifices I made for you, Alex. For four-hundred years, I was trapped in solitude in the Underworld, while you paraded around with Lucifer, acting like a celebrity amongst the mortals. Where is that Devil now, I wonder? At least I show up."

Death's expression morphed into pure venom. "You should have stayed dead."

The two charged at each other, the sigil walls distorting their forms into shadows as the flames rose higher and surged outward again.

"Damnit!" I shouted, reeling back before the flames burned me.

They would fight to the death like this, if I snap them out of it. And something told me my own power would have absorb into this sigil like a sponge, but I had to try to put out this fiery blaze of magic. Crawling on the ground, I found a fallen vase amongst the rubble on the floor. I wrapped a fist around the base and managed to climb up to my feet, the wind hurling around me slowing enough for an opening for me leap to my feet and chuck the vase it at the sigil. Energy surged from my hand to the vase as it pitched from my palm, forming a grenade of sorts. The vase shattered into a million pieces on impact and exploded against the sigil. I had to shield my eyes as a roar of energy ricocheted back at me again, slamming me into the wall.

I blinked away black splotches, the storm calming before me. Malphas came into horrific focus at the center of the sigil. He stood in a wide stance, his black eyes wide and edging crazed, his face sporting three brutal talon marks sliced across half of his pale features. Black oil-like blood dripped down his neck, his features tight and otherworldly.

Death was nowhere to be seen.

"Where is he?" I demanded, panic laced in my voice.

Malphas coal black eyes darted around the room in confusion, as if he'd just woken up from a dream, and he had no idea where he was. "Fuck!" He crossed the sigil in a quick stride and dragged his dress shoe across the marking, smearing the lines as he lifted his hand out in front of him and commanded, "Revelare!"

My eyes widened at the sight of a woman––a feminine creature with bat like wings, who appeared from nothing between Malphas and I. White hair framed a small feminine face half-covered by a silky scarf, drawing attention to her lustful gaze. Her body was pale and ballerina-like, and almost completely nude besides a few pieces of golden cloth over her private parts. And, well, the enormous pink sword strapped to her hip.

"Oh, okay," I said, uncomfortable by her lack of clothing. "Hello?"

"Don't talk to it," Malphas hissed, his livid gaze unwavering against the demon's.

"Good-bye," I said quickly.

"Good-bye, blue-eyed bimbo," the creature hissed back at me in a thick accent, sounding as if it had just learned the English phrase.

Before she could catch these hands, Malphas slinked toward me in my peripheral and stopped me by grabbing onto my hood and yanking me back. "Give me your sword," he demanded.

I wrenched my hood out of his grasp, touching the hilt of my blade protectively. The weapon I realized I hadn't reached for once that night. "Why? So you can make me disappear too? Where the fuck is Death, Houdini?"

"Know when to shoot first and ask questions later," Malphas seethed, his gaze honed in on the creature, who was cocking its head at our conversation as if were speaking gibberish. "This is a high level empath demon," Malphas continued tentatively, when it appeared the demon wasn't making any move to attack us yet. "Death and I were fevered by her power. He must have sifted elsewhere in the mausoleum. I assume he is taking longer to shake off the empath's power because he's weakened. He could be delusional. More the reason to give me your sword––"

The beautiful woman-creature thing abruptly lunged forward and hissed out a language that sounded quite rude, like she was cursing us out. The fabric over half her face shuffled around oddly as she screamed, and I started to get the sick feeling in my stomach the scarf was hiding something I did not want to see.

"I see what you mean about shooting first," I mumbled.

Another she-demon jumped down from the ceiling and crawled down the side of the room like a spider, their long fingers anchoring into the marble like it were made of paper mache. Malphas grabbed the back of my hood again and yanked me behind him as the she-demon flipped upright onto the floor beside us, bloodred eyes flickering like red flame. She appeared more confident than the first she-demon, the leader. She wore a matching outfit to the other, except hers was gold.

"Malphas," the golden she-demon drawled, her accent matching the other more deranged looking demon. "Magna Praeses Inferos. Do my eyes deceive me?"

"Salve, Layla," Malphas responded, appearing a little uneased. Something that was very rare for him to display. "I should have known this was your doing. Your empath fever is unlike any other."

"Oh, Malphas, your flattery is unlike any other. But what is it a female mortal would say after getting to truly know you?" She tapped her chin with a long golden nail. "'Immortal men ain't shit?'"

"Yikes," I said. "Ex-girlfriend?"

"Silence, you frumpy turd," Layla snarled at me, her voice vibrating the magic in the air in a way that suddenly made me sick to my stomach. "Stupid blue-eyed bimbo!"

The nameless she-demon with the cloth over her mouth cackled with ugly laughter.

"Frumpy...turd?" I fisted my hands, heat centering my palm. But Malphas stood guardedly half in front of me, which communicated now was not the time to release my controlled chaos. I had no idea what these creatures were capable of.

The empath demon Leyla strut closer to Malphas, her hips rocking side to side seductively as she walked. The fabric over her groin barely covering what it was supposed to, if it was even supposed to.

"The last time I saw your handsome face, you were trapped in the Underworld," she purred, stopping a good five feet in front of him. "Powerless. So much sadness behind that cold, stoic face. Oh, how I could feel your pain in the Underworld. It was so much louder than the rest of us trapped souls. And then one day, I couldn't feel you at all. Everyone wondered if you were summoned to earth, or if you escaped. Word traveled fast. How you walked the earthly realm without a summoner. Why would you, out of all the rest in the Underworld, no longer be forced to be enslaved to a summoner?"

"I'm a walking enigma," Malphas jested, clearly wanting to tap out of this conversation.

Layla's grin was wide and fang-less, but still unsettling. "Needless to say, I am enslaved to the master in which you came to kill tonight. He ordered me to destroy whomever crosses into this room. It's nothing personal." She put her hands on her narrow waist. "How about, I promise to make your demise as painless as possible, for an old friend..." That wide grin of hers fell. "If, you