Page 77 of Villains Never Die

My breath stopped; I forgot the cold in my bones, and a righteous anger ignited in my chest, burning away every other care or want—the killer, the election, my confusion about Rook. The lure of finally destroying Death remained a single, burning obsession.

Soon, I would avenge my mother.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

j-aust13

I found the grimoire. It’s almost time. What sacrifice of love do I need?

I messaged veilknight in case she had additional information about the spell I needed to know before I performed it. Shouldn't my mother have been sacrifice enough? From my translation, the rest seemed straightforward. A few words spoken in Italian, an enchanted circle, and about ten minutes it would hold, during which I needed to stab her with the knife. The knife I didn’t have yet, but would soon. I just needed to try to feel the memory of my mother dying deeply enough to cry about it, which I hadn’t done in more than a decade.

I leaned over my kitchen table the next afternoon with a decorative dagger in my hand, its blade recently sharpened, and recalled the slick slide of her blood between my fingers. My stomach turned over once, nausea sloshing around inside it at the thought, but no tears came. I slapped the dagger on the table and growled. This shouldn’t be so hard!

I can’t fucking cry.

Rook: I could punch you in the face if that would help.

They have to be tears of grief.

Rook: So grieve that pretty face of yours.

This is serious.

Rook: I know. I’m sorry.

I realized what he was doing—trying to lighten my mood. He’d gotten good at that, but this time it didn’t work.

A knock on the door broke my frustration. Since Gray and Rook were the only people with the code and spell to get in, I automatically answered, “Come in!”

Gray strode across the room and placed a Styrofoam container in front of me. I opened it to find a fancy chicken dish dripping with herbs and what smelled like a garlic glaze, accompanied by a heap of roasted vegetables.

“You called off work and you aren’t answering your phone,” he said. “Rook’s car wasn’t here, so I assumed you were alone and hadn’t eaten lunch yet.”

“Thank you,” I sighed. “I just—” I groaned at the knife and Gray gaped at my rare display of frustration.

“What are you working on?”

I unwrapped the fork and napkin that came with my meal and took a bite. I hadn’t realized I was starving.

“A personal project,” I said after I swallowed.

“I assume you aren’t going to tell me what it is,” he drawled, planting himself in the chair across from me.

I glanced up from my food and stared long and hard at the man across from me, the one closest to the only friend I had. I took a deep breath and held it, counting seconds in heartbeats as I decided what to say, then exhaled in a whoosh.

“Death took my mother when I was a child,” I said. “I have been searching for a way to avenge her, and I found it.”

“Shit. That explains all that stuff from Prague. You can’t really…what? Kill Death?” He leaned over the table to examine all the materials in front of me.

“I can, and I will.”

“Do you think this is the best thing to focus on with the killer still out there?” he asked gently.

“Gray, I…I’ve been searching for this my entire adult life. I can’t botch my one chance. I’m not afraid of the killer.” I didn’t know how to explain that my entire life had led to this, that I’d sacrificed it more than once to find this. Nothing was more important than ending her.

He must have seen it, though—that glint of obsession in my eyes as they traveled the book for the hundredth time and I read the spell again in my head, committing every word to memory.

“Just be careful. It sounds dangerous,” he said, and I paused at the concern etched in lines between his eyebrows.