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I furrowed my brows and shook my head. “For real? You work at Grim Reaper Academy.”
“That’s different. You don’t actually kill people and collect bodies. Oh my God! Did some serial killer collect bodies down there?”
“Calm down, it’s not like that,” Francis snapped.
“Err… it kind of is, though,” I said. That earned me an exasperated look from Francis and a scared glance from Patty. “Why don’t you just tell them? I’m sure they’ll understand.” Tone down the sarcasm, Mila. This is serious. But how else could I have dealt with the terrible truth if not with the help of dark humor?
“No one will understand,” Francis mumbled. “No one ever does.”
“Okay, mate, now you have to tell us,” GC said. He pulled me against him, and I was grateful. He felt warm and safe.
Francis leaned against the door, arms crossed over his chest. I could see how tense his whole body was.
“I’m immortal,” he started.
“Big whoop! Who isn’t around here?” Joel laughed.
“Wait, what? I’m not immortal, and you are?! What the fuck?” Pazuzu was revolted.
Francis ignored them both. “My immortality is not natural, though. I wasn’t born this way, like GC, nor was I made, like Delacroix.” He was talking about the only vampire in the Violent Death Cabal. “To become immortal, I died first.”
“There are many kinds of undead supernaturals,” Klaus said. “What’s the big deal?”
“The big deal is…” He hesitated. “Ugh.” He pinched the bridge of his nose, then took in a deep breath. “The way I was revived is the big deal. And the One who did it.”
“The One?”
“The Great Old One.”
Silence. No one knew what the fuck he was talking about. Apparently, no one had read Mr. Lovecraft’s short stories. I would have expected GC, Paz, or Klaus to know about the Great Old Ones. They’d been on this Earth for so long… Even if the cults worshipping these terrible gods were super good at keeping their secrets, word always got out, right? Wrong.
“You’ve never heard of the Great Old Ones?” I asked. When they shook their heads, I sighed. “I’m human. How do I know more than you? Okay, so these Great Old Ones are like gods. Not like gods, they are gods. Not like God and Satan, and not like false gods, either. They are actual gods. All-powerful, all-knowing, immortal, and indestructible.”
> “No one is indestructible,” Patty murmured.
“These guys are.” I rolled my eyes at my own choice of words. “Not guys. Monsters. If I were to describe them in one word, that would be it: monsters. They cannot be killed because they were never born, or at least that’s what I heard. They don’t come from this dimension, so they can’t be killed by beings from this dimension. They come from a place where life and death don’t exist, where duality doesn’t exist. So, they just are. And if they just are, they cannot not be.”
“That doesn’t make any sense,” Joel giggled. How could he be so damn positive all the time?
“What does this whole story have to do with Francis?” Paz asked, more confused by the second.
“Aren’t you paying attention?” Francis snapped again. “One of these beings, one of these monsters, as Mila calls them, made me. I was dead, and it gave me life. As long as the being lives, I live. And it’s…” He lowered his voice. “It’s under the Academy, inside a deep, dark well, sleeping.”
I waited for everyone’s reaction. Klaus and Joel were frozen in place, trying to make sense of what they’d just learned. Patty had started shaking subtly, and I could bet the story had given her chills, too. GC was silent, and Paz looked like his brain was glitching. He was probably still hung up on the fact that Francis was immortal and he wasn’t.
“Guys, we’re telling you there’s a monster under the Academy. If we’re going down in the caves to hold our meetings, you have to be aware of the thing’s existence.”
“I don’t get it,” Paz said. “What makes the… thing evil?” He looked at Francis. “You were dead, and it gave you back your life. Isn’t that a good thing?”
“No, because there’s a price. And I keep paying it every three months.”
Every three months?! Francis took a girl down in that cavern every three months? Okay, it was my own fault I’d never asked him before.
“What’s the price?” Patty asked gravely. She was starting to put two and two together.
“A life. A life every three months. Human, supernatural, it doesn’t matter.” He sounded tired. It had taken all he had to come clean about who he was and how he was still here, among the living.
“Sacrifice. You’re talking about blood sacrifice,” said Klaus in a trembling voice.
