“Not to say you wouldn’t serve your purpose without a hand, but Timothy would be less than pleased if I asked him to come clean up after you. He’s already pinched about last night’s massacre.”
“He was inside my head,” Vivien said, cutting off my levity. Her expression was more serious than I’d ever seen it. Eyes solemn, her lips a firm line.
“You aren’t scared, are you?” Even as I said it, I didn’t believe it. This vampire, this woman, wasn’t afraid of me, or anything, except maybe hurting someone else.
“I won’t let him control me.” Her voice was low, and her expression haunted. It made me wonder about her past. Vivien didn’t recall her previous life, but past traumas imprinted on the psyche and body. Someone had likely controlled her before, and she did everything she could to keep it from happening again. She seemed to view even her own instincts and needs as something to fight off.
We were the same in that. Neither of us wanted to let go of control. While I viewed Vivien as complete disorder and chaos, she had her own code that the master had tried to break. Not because she was, herself, a control freak. No, Vivien had decided who she was and acted according to that decision. And she had decided she wasn’t a monster.
A wave of feeling for her came over me. Despite her need to incense me, she made me feel more alive. Her glow drew me in.
I iced against the onslaught of emotion. This was a sekhor. There was no future for her. I could not permit it. Even if I deigned her existence acceptable, the others would never allow it. Vivien was dangerous, and she did not know half of the danger she posed.
The placid expression I wore while making judgements snapped into place. “Then don’t. The more you allow him in your head, the tighter his grip will close around your mind. If he takes you entirely, I’ll kill you on the spot.”
I expected her to jump up and lay into me with scathing remarks about how she’d fight me tooth and nail before letting me kill her. Instead, she looked down at her now-healed palm and closed it into a fist. “Good.”
Uncomfortable with her agreement, I changed the subject. “You haven’t yet asked the question everyone asks when they meet Death.”
“Maybe I don’t want to know.”
“Everyone wants to know.”
“From what you’ve implied, my options are limited.”
“True…” Her lack of curiosity surprised me.
She turned to better face me, as if preparing for some test. “Alright, then, if it bothers you so much. We can run your usual script. So Death,” she said in clipped words, as if she were a reporter conducting an interview. “I’m dead. What happens now? Is there a heaven? Is there a hell?”
My lips twitched. “Yes and no. There is indeed a heavenly, abundant afterlife. But if a person hasn’t lived an ethical life, their soul will be destroyed.”
Her pupils dilated and nostrils flared. I knew she was thinking of what she saw in the antechamber. What I’d done to that woman. I wasn’t sorry for my actions, but I regretted having Vivien witness the judgment.
In her normal voice, Vivien said, “An ethical life? Sounds like a math problem that would give me a headache and make my stomach hurt.”
For a second time, my lips threatened to curve upward. “More or less, that is the sum of it. My reapers often sort the souls to their rightful destination, but like I said, there are many instances where my final judgement is required.”
“So Death,” she said, continuing with her interview voice, but it was softer now. Vivien looked out the window, but not before I caught a vulnerable look. “Seeing as I’m an undead bloodsucker, what has happened to my soul now that I’m a sekhor? Or rather, what happens now that I don’t have a soul and where did it go?”
I studied her a long moment. The way her eyelashes swept down, how she bit the inside of her cheek as she pretended not to care about the answer. Her fingers toyed with her ankle. The urge to reach out and touch the hair that had fallen on her cheek was so strong, I had to curl my fingers into my palm.
“You did not lose your soul,” I said at last.
Those lashes swept back up as she met my gaze. My stomach dropped. What was she doing to me? Was she controlling my mind? No, I knew the answer. She didn’t have hypnotic abilities, that was impossible.
“When you were turned into a sekhor, your soul became trapped inside your body for all eternity.”
“Frozen inside,” she whispered to herself.
“Crystallized. I’m not sure you are aware of the glow you emit. Your soul has undergone incredible pressure and like a diamond you now emit a supernatural shine. And yours is…”Entrancing? Magnetic? Irresistible?I cleared my throat, choosing none of the words that immediately came to mind, and went on. “Being a sekhor has irrevocably changed you and I cannot dislodge your soul from your body to escort it to the glorious afterlife.”
“But you can’t destroy it either?”
I shook my head. “No, but I can destroy the vessel and with it the soul perishes.”
“Huh,” she said, now looking off at a corner of the room.
“What?” Indeed, I wanted to know what she was thinking.
