Fear the Reaper [malexmale]

Chapter Four

Chapter Four

A fortress.

It wasn't a castle or a mansion or the Holiday Inn.

It was hella cool on the inside, modern kicks and digs that you'd only find in a billionaire's house, or maybe a queen's. But in actuality, the damn place was a fortress. None of the doors that led outside the castle opened, unless Viviana willed them to, except for doors that led out into the courtyards, which somehow didn't seem to get hit by the snowstorm that went on outside the place. Just a couple flurries here and there.

And of course, the courtyards were all full of marble black statuary. Statues bent and twisted in various positions of woe and agony. Inside, I felt the power of souls flickering on and off, screaming out to me to take them home. It was eerie. I felt the magnetic pull to go toward them, to take them to where they belonged, but I couldn't get through the damned stone. It was reinforced with magic. Trapping the souls inside, and keeping me out.

Adding to the creep factor of this 21st century Dracula freak show was the rows and rows of stained glass windows. They encircled the courtyards one after another. They were done beautifully, piece by delicate piece, an array of colors from gold to brilliant red and soft blues. They were huge too, from ceiling to floor. Each one depicted some kind of torture or brutality. Vicious murders, rapes, self-harm. It was a trigger fest of the most horrible things I'd ever seen. Literally, like someone had plucked the images out of my head and plastered them on stained glass.

I wasn't sure how I recognized some of the images. One of a little boy curled up with a razor to his wrist. I could think of hundreds of people I knew who'd experienced that same thing. From Theo to Menoetius. Another image of a male clutching a dead infant while another male stood nearby with a knife. I immediately thought of Blaine, Ambrosius's fae father. Blaine's first born son had been brutally ripped from his body and killed by its own father, in front of Blaine. Another image of a male on his knees, screaming in pain as another male held a heart in his fist. Now that could be any number of people.

So like I said. I'd seen things like this before. I knew hundreds of people who'd suffered in the ways that were depicted in the stained glass.

It was... eerie. Seeing it like that made it seem so much more real. I mean, I knew this shit happened. I had to. I was Death. I hovered over people, watching them end their own lives, watching them end the lives of their tormentors, watched people be slowly killed and weep in fear, in agony. I could do nothing. I was forced to watch and wait as they drew their last breathes, as their body shut down bit by bit until their souls brightened and called out to me.

And I pushed that shit to the back of my mind. Because I couldn't do anything. The Source was a constant breath on the back of my neck. Don't do it. Don't intervene. It is not your place. So I buried it. I didn't bat a lash when I came upon the body of a child laying in ruins. I didn't flinch away from the mother bleeding out at the hands of her husband. I didn't weep over the body of the young girl who lay in a bathroom with her wrists open.

I didn't get that privilege. I didn't get to cry and break down.

I had to wait. I had to take the soul and move onto the next one.

And granted, not all of them were that brutal. Sometimes I came upon an old man laying in his bed, surrounded by his family. Sometimes I came to an elder female, clothed in gold and gems, her head bowed as she drew her last breathes before her next generations. Sometimes, if I was really lucky, I'd come upon an old couple, holding hands, smiling at each other as they drew their last breathes, confident that the afterlife could take them together for eternity.

But death was death.

And I could do nothing, but watch.

And seeing the images of all the worst ways to go was like a wake up call I really didn't want.