Death Wish

Chapter 3

Upon instinct Frank steps beside me. "Wherever you're going, I'm going."

Ray frowns. "But I don't know who this guy is. How am I supposed to find him on my own?"

Frank wilts in defeat and turns to me. I sigh. "I'll stay in Death with Ray. I have Auctor Vitae."

"You know what being alive in here risks." Frank says. "Everything here wants to kill you."

It's true. Every undead thing in here wants my blood. They aren't necessarily bad, they just want to use a living being's blood to live again.

But I have to stay in Death, just in case Mikey comes back here.

"I can handle it." I finally say.

Frank nods, looking between me and Ray. "I'll be back."

In that moment, he pulls his sleeve down to reveal the symbol drawn on his hand before and murmurs inaudible verses. The portal from before sparks back open just enough to be seen, and Frank snatches it to wrench it open wider. As he squeezes in, I barely get in a goodbye.

"Be careful - - "

The portal snaps shut. I shake my head at the kid; he never waits to listen. All I can do is hope he still has enough sense to be cautious on his own.

~ ~ ~

I take the lead down the street. It's not dark out yet, but my hand paranoidly remains close to my belt holster.

As Frank mentioned, being alive in a universe full of the dead isn't a choice position. The dead... well... don't want to be dead. With blood from the living, they can conjure a curse to come back to the living realm. I'm sort of at the top of the grocery list with that rule hanging around.

It's not just me they need, though. Not only do they need this blood, they need the book with the curse written down in it; The Book of Curses.

That's not just some book you can pick up in a library. It's always misplaced in Death because it's pesky owners - the Fallen Angels - never keep good track of it. They lend it to whoever promises to wreak havoc.

Which is . . . just about anyone in Death. As you can imagine, finding that book is a scavenger hunt on crack.

Despite the fact most of the dead will never find the other half on their list, they still try to get at least me checked off.

"Would you slow down?" Ray pants.

I look behind. "Oh, my bad." I slow my pace with a nervous smile, "Just in the moment."

He returns the smile tiredly. "Yeah. So where haven't you looked for this guy?"

I frown. "That's a really good question."

"Well, we ought to look everywhere we can before it gets dark." Ray says.

I nod, looking up and down the streets. Okay, where have I already looked?

Every street, every public building, every alley I can think of. I'm starting to feel a little discouraged already, I don't even know where to start this whole mission.

No, no. Don't give up, he's your brother. My eyes sweep the area once more before catching something.

Dark smoke flows up a few miles behind the streets we walk. I squint at it and stop in my tracks. Ray almost moves past me before stopping.

"What?"

I point to the smoke. Ray looks. "Huh. What'cha think that's coming from?"

"Somewhere I haven't looked yet." I say, moving forward.