Grave Visions (Alex Craft, #4)(92)

I pulled the blade free, and it slid out with a sickening slurping sound I knew I’d be hearing in my nightmares for months to come—if I lived that long. Rawhead was dead—again—but I was still full of the drug. I tried not to think as I wiped the blade clean on the dead hallucination’s shirt. Then I clambered to my feet.

I didn’t put the dagger away.

Think happy thoughts, Alex, I told myself. Rainbows. Bunnies. Unicorns.

Ever notice how when you try to make yourself think one thing, your brain rebels and circles back to something else?

The image of Rawhead standing back up, coming at me again, kept trying to claw its way to the front of my mind. I kept banishing it, but my gaze moved to the prone figure, half expecting it to jump to its feet and start swinging at me again. I had to get farther away from the body.

I crossed to the other side of the room. The door hadn’t reappeared. Damn. I sank into the corner, burying my head in my arms and trying to think happy things. Puppies. Fast cars. Ice cream.

“Alex.”

I knew that voice. I knew that deep, masculine voice very, very well.

My head snapped up and I found myself staring into the brilliant hazel eyes of Death.

“Hey,” he said, flashing his perfect teeth in a smile.

I returned the smile. “Hey back at you,” I said, and then stopped. “Wait. I’m in Faerie. You can’t be here. Your plane doesn’t exist here.”

“Are you sure?” He reached out, cupping my face with his hand.

His palm was warm against my skin, gentle. I wanted to sink into the comfort he offered. I was so cold. My clothes were soaked and the sleet kept falling. It was so tempting to embrace the warmth he offered. To let him keep the darkness threatening to spill out of my mind away. To trust he’d guard me from the effects of the drug.

But I wasn’t wrong. He couldn’t be here. As real as my eyes told me he was, as my skin swore he was, he wasn’t real. He was another hallucination. A glamour pulled from my Glitter-addled mind.

Which made him dangerous.

I squeezed my eyes closed. Tried to ignore him.

He made it difficult.

He leaned in, and I could feel his presence along my skin. His breath moved my damp curls. I could even smell the clean fresh-turned earth and dew scent that always clung to him.

“You’re not real.” I told him.

His lips pressed against my forehead. “I love you.”

“No, you don’t. The real Death does. You’re an illusion.”

“I’ll break every natural law to be with you. It will put us both in danger, and I don’t care.”

“You’re a bit of glamour.”

“I love you. And you don’t even know my name.”

My head snapped up. The fake Death was inches from me, those hazel eyes so close. But while the real Death’s eyes typically held a secret smile that couldn’t seem to help but shine through, this one had mocking eyes. Eyes that bore into me.

“It doesn’t matter,” I told him. “I know Death. I don’t need to know his name.”

“Do you?” He asked, scooting back slightly so I could see that the haughty, mocking expression covered his whole face, not just his eyes. “Do you know my favorite color? How about the names of my friends? Or how old I am?”

“None of that matters.”

“Why have I hung around all these years? Are you anything more than a novelty to me? A reminder of what I lost when I ceased being mortal?”

“Shut up. You aren’t real.”

The fake Death stood, dragging me to my feet with him. “When your mother was dying, why did I allow you to decide that her soul shouldn’t be collected? Why did I allow such a young child to watch her mother’s body continue to decay from a disease that should have long since killed her? Collecting her would have been a mercy. Why did I make a five-year-old have to finally ask me to release her soul from the dying prison of her body? Why did I feel that was a lesson that had to be taught just because the same frightened five-year-old had begged me not to take away her mother?”

My blood turned cold, an icy sweat breaking out on my body. “Stop it. Shut up.”

“What is my name, Alex Craft?”

“I don’t know.”

“What is my name?”

“I don’t know!” I shoved the fake Death, and he stepped back, laughing. I wanted to scream. I’d thought maybe my brain had spit out a good hallucination this time, but no. This fake Death may not have been attacking me with clubs, but his words pierced me deeper than a sword. They cut into my fears, my doubts.

He laughed again. “What is my name?”

“Alex?” a new voice asked as hands closed on my upper arms.

I twisted away, wrenching my body from the touch, and spun to face the newcomer.

Falin stood behind me, just inside a door that was now visible. Or at least, it looked like it was visible.

“Are you real?” I asked.

He raised one eyebrow in question, the other dropping and bunching in confusion. Then his gaze moved to the fake Death, a frown cutting across his face. “What is going on?”

I backed up another step. He could be an illusion. Just another glamour inspired by the drug. The door could too. Hell, everything in the room was suspect. I had no idea what was real. What wasn’t. Death kept thrusting questions at me. Questions I had no answer to but had wondered about.