Page 30 of Villains Never Die

And then I died.

For maybe thirty minutes before I opened my eyes and the gash that had opened my throat had sealed itself. That was the first time I understood what Death had said to me when I was ten years old.

The laws are not mine to change. You must learn to live without her, perhaps love again. I will give you thirteen chances.

Thirteen lives to learn to let my mother go. Little did that cold, soul-reaping bitch know that I’d spend them hunting her instead.

I never claimed to be someone who didn’t hold a grudge. I’d burned through a few of those lives, but I’d use every one of them to stay in power and hunt down Death.

Whatever it took, whatever evil, depraved magic I had to use to accomplish my goal, I would kill her someday.

***

Rook was berating someone when I crept into his club the same way I had before. Magic crashed against the sides of the cage, rattling the metal links. I stepped close enough to see inside.

Rook stood in front of a man much larger than him with a scarred face and shaved head. A few spectators stood nearby in the corner of the cage. They were training, I realized. This must be the fighter set to replace the one I killed. He dodged a spell Rook threw at him, but the second hit him in his gut and took him to the ground.

Offensive magic. A rarity. Elemental magic was at the core of all magicians’ training, but many of us specialized in other things. Those who practiced dark magic—blood spells and curses—frequently succumbed to their addiction and destroyed themselves in their quest for power. Some things were more instinctual, more primal.

Like a connection to death.

I had seldom seen magic like Rook’s. His execution was practiced and precise, nothing like the rough, haphazard magic I expected of his ilk.

“How the fuck are you supposed to win in the cage if you can’t stay on your fucking feet?” he shouted at the man, who was still on the ground. Rook’s shirt was soaked through with sweat and a vein throbbed in his temple. I admired the line of his spine and his shifting shoulder muscles as he raged. When his fighter failed to get to his feet, he hit him with another jolt of magic that knocked him out.

“I’m surrounded by fucking idiots!” he yelled before throwing something across the cage, where it clanged, metal on metal.

Perfect. I had just the thing to cool him off.

I retreated toward the side door I’d entered through and held my hand toward the ceiling, producing a flame that licked the sprinkler system, sending water spraying throughout the building.

“What the fuck?” I heard Rook scream before I laughed to myself and slid away.

It took him two days to text me, which meant it had taken him that long to figure out it was me.

Rook: Thinking about you too, baby. If you wanted to know what I look like wet, you could have just asked.

Rook: My security feeds catch cloaking spells, btw.

We’re even now.

Rook: If you say so.

The next day, a bouquet of flowers was delivered to the penthouse. I had just reached for the card attached to it when a small, undetectable spell exploded, spraying glitter into every inch of my lounge and halfway into the kitchen. It took four hours of mundane and magical cleaning to get most of it up, and I still kept finding tiny, gilded shards of it stuck to everything. The card said,Now you’ll think of me every time you find one of these shiny fuckers hiding somewhere in your house.

That was close to bodily harm. What if it had gotten in my eye?

Rook: I would never do anything to ruin your pretty eyes.

You’re insufferable.

The feud between us grew exponentially ridiculous.

A singing telegram with an ode to what a prick Rook was sent to his club at the height of the Friday night matches.

The tires of my usual vehicle flattened while I was at Avalon.

A barista bribed to put a harmless, but stimulating laxative in Rook’s morning coffee.