Not that it had done me any good.
My sneakers made that god-awful noise against the clean tiles as I rounded the nurse's desk and hurried past the other patientrooms until I found myself staring down the same sterile door with the same taunting number.
Room 13.
Why thirteen? I couldn’t be sure, but every day spent here grated against my nerves.He’dpicked it to screw with me. It had been years since an incident, and as he enjoyed pointing out…
I was due.
I know what my mother would have said. She would have warned me against giving Death too much credit. I was only five when she told me off for chasing frogs in the creek near our house,“Don’t trouble the spirits, Devlin. You never know who might answer.”
She said it on more than one occasion and even though she wasn’t religious—frogs, like many other things, fell into her category of superstitions. Thus I was forbade from them, as I was from anything she felt would somehow drag us into ruin.As if we weren’t already there.
But I was just as wild as her, it was that Tempest blood hot in my veins.“You’re mad from the curse,”I would sass back with my hands on my hips, then take off running. If I had known the truth then, it might have saved me a century of heartache.
Even still, Death was a figure I couldn’t escape, no matter how hard I tried. And I had known him far more intimately than my mother. There wasn’t enough salt nor sage to cleanse his spirit from mine. I recognized his calling card as well as I knew my own flesh. His number on the door was only the beginning.
I stumbled my way through the dark room, cringing as my phone vibrated loudly inside my bag. Casting a quick glance to the small form in the hospital bed, I let out a sigh of relief as Ishani kept sleeping peacefully, her breathing shallow and even by tell of the monitor beside her.
Setting the coffee down on the table, I hung my coat and bag by the door. The room was silent. Piper was most likely pacingthe halls on the phone with Sanjay who had taken the day shift and gone home to shower and rest.
A darkness pulled my attention toward the windows, the curtains obscuring the light from the street down below. I should have known, if only from the weight on my chest all day. Or perhaps the slight chill in the air.
A shadowed form sat on the bench beneath the window, silent and unmoving as I fumbled for the lamp on the side table.
“Aren’t you going to offer me a coffee?” the voice asked, startling me as I clicked the light on.
“What are you doing here?” My tone was bitter and demanding as I stalked toward the window. Reaching for his shadow, he disappeared beneath my grasp, like mist carried on the wind.
Death’s heady laugh then came in a warm breath against my neck, causing panic to rise in my chest as my skin pebbled to gooseflesh.
In the span of seconds my mind had taken me back to that street, holding my daughter’s broken body as I witnessed the impossible. I was frightened then, when the stranger emerged from shadows and ash. Now, I was just angry.
Stepping away, his boots echoed off the tile, met only by the dull tone of the machines hooked up to Ishani. “Thanks for the coffee, Tempest,” he taunted.
I wasn’t afraid of him, not anymore, but there was something in the way he held himself that dug up that seed of fear inside me. He had planted it long ago, and for all my running, I never managed to dig it out. His presence was powerful and intoxicating, but in the way of a great and terrible danger. It was a snare that you couldn’t help but get caught in.
I looked him over in the dim light, unsurprised to see he hadn’t changed. Not in the hundred or so years I had known him. Grim glanced down at me with a lazy smirk, his darkfeatures concealed by the hood he wore. He didn’t need to pull it back to reveal himself. His ink-stained, sorrowful presence was enough.
“Or what is it this time? Shall I guess?”
I didn’t have time for his games, or his riddles and jests. There was only one reason he would come, and I wasn’t going to let it happen. “Leave,” I commanded.
“As much as I am enjoying this reunion, I’m not here for you.” His gaze fell to Ishani who slept in the bed, her face turned away from us. Only the consistent noise of her monitors brought me peace as I stared down Death.
“Elizabeth…” he spoke my name with a bite of dissatisfaction, his nose pinching as if he had tasted something sour. “It doesn’t suit you,” he said, tossing the lid from the coffee I had bought for Piper. He took a long sip, as if he wanted to wash the name I had chosen for myself from his mouth.
“It’s perfectly suitable.”
He laughed, raising a brow over the rim of the paper cup he held to his lips. “Pledged to God? You and I both know you are no such thing.”
Stealing the cup from him, I slammed it down on the nearest surface, spilling hot coffee over my hands. The liquid burned, and I wanted to curse but made no move for the sink, as I was too distracted by the monster watching me. Enchantment swirled in his dark gaze as he studied the way my pink and swollen skin returned to its original state. The burn disappearing, thanks to my curse.
“As I said, you cannot hide your true nature behind angelic names and goodwill.” Striding toward the bed, he reached out to touch Ishani, running a long finger down the side of her cheek. His thin lips pursed, and his expression grew guarded.
After a hundred and forty-seven years of practice, I prided myself on calculating a person’s thoughts, motivation, andbehavior with only a few seconds of observance. But trying to make sense of Death was akin to attempting to catch a shadow.Impossible.
“Attempting to understand me is a futile venture, Astoria.”
