Page 22 of Villains Never Die

OGMagicMindfuck

There’s no such thing as Death. Quit being a pussy.

OriginOfMagic

There are no spells against her, but she might make a deal. She trades in lives though, so decide who you’re going to screw over to get her off your scent.

nofacenoname

People on this forum need to get a life.

I scrolled back up and readOriginOfMagic’sreply two more times. The woman, the creature, whatever she was that I met, absolutely traded in lives. In fact, I think she gave me what she thought was an excellent deal, if the one she’d taken hadn’t been so much more precious than mine.

By the time the ambulance came, my mother’s blood had already dried on the polished floor.

I stared for ten minutes at those two lines of words that felt so close to a breakthrough before I clicked onOriginOfMagic’susername to send them a private message.

I saw your reply on the post about cheating Death. Do you have a source for that information?

I hit send, closed my laptop, and blinked at my empty bedroom. It was probably nothing. People posted made-up rubbish all the time. It had never served me well to get my hopesup about anything, and I wouldn’t for this. I’d leave that message hanging there and wait for a reply. Maybe one wouldn’t even come.

I took a few deep breaths to loosen the knot in my stomach that wanted so desperately to feel like optimism, then curled under the covers and stared into the darkness until my eyes grew too heavy to keep open.

***

“Do you want the easy stuff or the hard stuff first?” Gray asked, reclining on the couch across from where I sat in an armchair with a cup of tea. I’d offered him one, but he was sipping an energy drink, his opposite arm spread across the back of the couch. Gray was the only person who had ever been inside my penthouse, the only person I trusted enough to let into my personal space. We’d agreed to meet up there that morning, since I’d tossed and turned all night and wasn’t quite ready to trudge down to the office.

Pick the easy one! Pick the hard one!

He’s too busy thinking about what he read last night.

I took a slow breath through my nose and blinked, ignoring their voices. I asked Gray, “Which is there more of—hard or easy?”

“Easy.”

I sighed and gestured for him to go on.

“There’s a Council meeting coming up. Graves will be there giving a speech. It’s not public, but I’m sure you know someone who can get you in. You should go.” I nodded along. “Whoever you made an offer to yesterday already reached out and agreed to the price. I coordinated the shipment, but it will take a while since they’re shipping it from Russia.”

I loved a speedy transaction.

“Finally,” he drained his energy drink and crushed the can in his hand. “There’s a guy who is looking for a luck spell, something unique.”

I paused and considered whether I had something like that. “What does he want it for?”

“Wouldn’t say.”

“Is he someone important?”

“No.”

The no-one-importants were my favorite people to do business with. They were usually desperate, powerless, and easy to squeeze favors out of later. The corner of my mouth lifted and I nodded. “Get him a meeting.”

Gray blew out a breath. “So…the hard stuff then?”

I straightened my shoulders, which were leaden with exhaustion, and sipped my tea. Maybe I should take up coffee. Didn’t that have more caffeine in it?

“Teddy, the guy you assigned to collect that money for you, left town.”