Chapter 61 Faye #2
Ryker saw footage of the car Avi drove off in, heading northeast. He sent out a drone and followed the trail to an old abandoned factory in the middle of the desert.
It’s been vacant for years and forgotten by the public.
It’s about an hour away which makes sense.
It’s right between Cravyn City and Grimstone.
Creed and Ryker probed the place out while we were figuring out what happened to Birdie and Ma in the catacombs.
Sure enough, after five hours of surveillance, he spotted Avi and Vadon driving into the factory and getting out with a woman who seemed to be drugged and held hostage.
I couldn’t see who she was though, they had her hooded and tied.
“Penny. It’s Penelope, we know where she is!” I gasped, relieved. Hope started filling my doubt.
“The plan is to get them all out safely. We get the spell binders, we get these bastards, and we get out,” Jax called out, loading his shotgun.
“You…” He marched up to me. “Please do not try to play the hero and do something stupid, do you understand?” He grabbed my face with both of his rugged hands.
“I—”
“No, Faye! Tell me you will stay out of the way.” Jaxon refused to hear me. He wanted me to make promises that I simply could not keep.
“How are we going to get them out?” Ryker asked, taking me out of the hot seat.
Creed’s shadows materialized into the room suddenly, surprising us. “A fire, that’s how.” Creed’s smile was deranged as he fully emerged from the cloud of his shadows.
“You can’t just start a fire, what if there’s more innocent people in there? They will be left to die.” I was trying to reason with Creed and talk him out of this deranged plan.
“I really don’t care,” Creed said, deadpanned.
Rocky shoved her way in front of him. “What the fuck, Creed, we don’t know how many they have in there planning to sacrifice! You are a disgusting prick, you know that!” Rocky spat and gave Creed the most evil of looks.
“She’s right. We save the women, then we burn the motherfucker to the ground.” Jax placed his large hands on Creed’s broad, tattooed shoulder. Both of them gave each other a brotherly nod, that only they could understand.
Creed slowly walked up to Ryker and placed his forehead against his, both of them closing their eyes. I watched them telepathically communicate to each other. I gazed at this brotherhood in awe of how close and connected they were, all three of them hauntingly beautiful.
My vision suddenly became hazy and tunneled, my breath caught in my throat. My skin was buzzing like a thousand spiders crawling on my skin. I was no longer in control of my body as something foreign infiltrated every crevice of my being.
“Faye!” a voice shouted in the distance, but the ringing in my ears was too deafening to ignore. My heart pounded rapidly in my head like a drum. My blood coursed through my thick veins, as the darkness pulled me in, extending me deeper into its magnetizing depth.
“Mors decet te- (death becomes you),” I chanted in Latin.
A morbid octane vibrated from deep inside of me that I didn’t know existed.
I was conscious, but I wasn’t. My body was a vessel, a puppet for the wicked that lived inside of me.
My body was held captive by the source overpowering me.
The brutal visions splitting my mind and vision.
I was cast out of my own body, hopeless, my bones stiffening—the pain was excruciating.
I was a stranger to my own body. My own limbs betrayed me as I gravitated into the air.
My mind swarmed with visions of death. Tortured screams ascending to the pits of hell.
Chilling whispers swirled around me. All the power in my body succumbed to its substance.
My eyes rolled back into my skull, and my eye sockets filled with pearls of white.
Objects in the room suddenly defied gravity as everything floated in sync with me mid-air.
Time stood still, as my hair whisked majestically against the gravity.
My body dropped along with the floating objects.
Jax caught me in a storm of his shadows, and cradled my exhausted body.
“Are you okay?” Jax asked, holding me and looking disturbed.
“It’s begun,” Ryker said, ascending from a dark corner. “The Seer has spoken—someone will die tonight. Death is knocking at someone’s door.”
Dark clouds rumbled and swarmed the desert sky. Even Mother Nature sensed something was brewing. Jax helped me up slowly, as my surroundings came back to me.
“What did you see?” he asked, and I tried to gather my thoughts.
The visions slashed my psyche briefly before me. As quick as they came, they left. The intrusion was too deep in my memory to forget.
“Fire, death, blood. I don’t know,” I cried out loud, trying to piece together the visions.
“The more visions she has, the more vivid and clear they will become,” Ryker read from the grimoire.
“Someone is going to die tonight.” I shook in Jax’s arms, wishing it was that simple to protect me from this curse that claimed me since birth.
I hadn’t had my mother’s herbal tea in days, and now I’m having visions again, even during the day. It hasn’t been this bad since I was a child. I needed my mother. My heart ached a pain I could never forget.
“Bringers of Death can’t die, you said, right?” I looked at Jax, terrified. I could not lose him, or anyone else for that matter.
“We can’t die, because we’re the Reapers of souls. We are Death. But that doesn’t mean we can’t be punished by the old gods and sent back to Valhalla, where we would live out our days serving Odin in his realm, as slaves.”
I was trying to make sense of what he was saying. “Punished for what, what do you mean?” I asked, standing up slowly, my body sore and achy.
“There are rules, Faye, that we must follow,” Jax said.
Everyone went silent.
“What fucking rules, tell me right now! Stop acting like I’m so fragile, I’m not. Stop protecting me, gods dammit!” I stood in protest, still in his grip.
“The tale is as old as time. All supernatural beings are to stick to their own realm, their own species. They aren’t to procreate, or be together. It can cause mass destruction to the realms. Things are different there, Faye,” he said, trying to explain carefully.
“There! But not here, right?” I prayed to the gods that he would give me an answer I could live with.
“Correct. Why do you think we are here? I guess you could say it’s in our blood to fall for women outside our realm.”
“Bjorn stayed here for Diana?” I asked, shocked. Jax nodded his head to me in confirmation. “Why? Why aren’t they allowed to be together? I need more answers, this isn’t enough. Help me understand, Jax.”
“Reapers and demons have been enemies since the dawn of time. And witches played their hand in neutrality, knowing they were the most powerful realm in Mortis. That left the spell binders to choose for their own—some witches decided to stay out of the war, and others chose their alliances. Like all things, the realms need balance. The Council of the realms consists of some of the most ancient magical beings from each realm. They cast out all Reapers, demons, and witches who were intertwined with one another to the human world, where we are forced to hide who we really are. The realm of Mortis is no place for hybrids or love outside of your realm.”
“Wow,” I huffed, sitting on a pile of hay.
“We’re safe here, as long as the realms don’t discover you three.
It could be dangerous for not just us, but for the humans.
The Council comes from different times, Faye.
Ancient times, where humans were looked down upon, used as slaves and disposable.
A time some demons want to go back to. Look, one battle at a time okay.
We can worry about that battle later.” Jax held my hand and kissed it.
“I love you, not even Hades himself could keep me from you. Plus, staying here with you isn’t the punishment they think it is.
” He winked at me. “You and Birdie, that is my future,” he reassured me, as we locked our foreheads together in unison.
I hoped he was right. “Let’s go, you need rest,” he said gently.