Page 14 of Jackal's Pride

“Tell me what’s going on in the world right now. Is the end finally here?” I tried to read his expression as he spoke.

“I don’t like the way you say finally like you’ve been waiting on it.”

“I have,” he said it so easily that the glass in my hand shattered. He continued like it didn’t faze him. “Orhadso that I could finally be done with what I was made to do. Not all of us want to live eternally.”

I studied the firm line in his expression. The gravity I saw in his eyes was as strong as the stubbornness normally in mine. Suddenly I was curious. I liked living. I always wanted more, and yet I could see that there was nothing tethering him to this life. Jackal was an entity who wanted death. He was a puzzle I wanted to solve. “You won’t die then... Even in the end.” I mumbled with the lift of one brow, already curious as to what his reply would be.

“I’ll dissolve into the flames, the very ones in which I crawled out of when created.”

“That’ll never happen.” I shook my head slowly, locking eyes with him.

“With every second I stand in your presence, the more I understand killing among most species. A moral compass is impossible with certain meetings.” His gaze, the way he exhaled, even his voice carried disdain. “I wouldn’t be surprised if you created enemies every time you opened your mouth.”

It didn’t matter that his words were truth. It was the fact that he said it that riled me. I said something about anger and control and whatnot—I was wrong. We had buttons when it came to emotions, and he was pushing a few of mine.

Anger.

Engage in dispute.

Fight. Fight. Fight.

Piss Maureen off.

Click. Click. Click.

“You really want to talk about a moral compass? You might as well call yourself a mass murderer with all the plagues you unleashed before going into hiding.”

I wanted a reaction, and I got one. I expected him to try to jump me again, but instead he winced and grabbed his chest. The same way I’d seen him do a few times already. “Don’t,” he whispered, and it was no fun because his words were like a plea.

I sought a fight and what I got confused me. He had plagued me all right, plagued me with curiosity. The longer he was in my presence, the more I was interested in him—and I hated it.

“Don’t what?” I placed my hands on my hip.

The pain in his expression was gone again, replaced with dilated luminous orbs pressing against my soul with his hatred. I almost liked it. The way his anger crawled inside me like he was taking up residence. “Don’t let your guard down.” His words were a promise. Ones I didn’t doubt were true if I wasn’t careful.

_____

The next day, I darted across an alleyway in the Underworld. Adrenaline raced through my veins and my heart pounded vigorously. I tended to get a little overly excited when it came to targets who tried to get away from me when I came to deliver their fate.

Octo Nar, a hideous demon with wings and a beak, was the name of my current job. The fiend spent years feasting on other demons roaming the Underworld. This wasn’t a problem until Octo Nar killed newborn males. Yes, there was some truth in human folklore—creatures from the Underworld did horrid things to children, including eating them. For some reason, evil spirits were drawn to the purity of youth. Frankly, some species couldn’t be redeemed. They were too dark, too vile, and too animalistic to learn discipline and morals.

He caught a whiff of me coming through the door of the bar and bolted. I had to slip between alleys and jump onto roofs to catch him only to discover that he was flying. He was proving to be more of a challenge than I anticipated. I could end it quickly if only I used fate’s eyes and cut his lifeline, but that would be too easy. Pride burned a challenge in a gut. One to myself.Never take the easy way.Pride could take on anything.

His wings were huge, but he had a face and a beak like a pelican. Truly an odd-looking creature. Materializing Ben and Jerry, I morphed them into one giant whip. Lifting my arm, I swung, and the whip whistled in the air before it met flesh. There was a hiss as it wrapped around his ankle, then a sizzling sound as it burned into his skin. He squawked and flapped his wings with desperation. Feathers fell in the process of a lame attempt to escape. I pulled, twisting my torso around with both hands on the whip. My biceps and shoulders burned excruciatingly as I used all my strength to throw him down on the rooftop.

He tried to raise up, but my whip was like a living entity, crawling and wrapping all around him. He squawked again as the smell of burnt flesh filled the air. “Why bother, you meddlesome Reaper?”

I sashayed over, flicking my hair off my shoulder. Pressing my boot into his throat, I added pressure until shades of purple and blue crept across his reddened flesh. “Hmm?” I batted my eyes at him.

He laughed. “Why bother anymore? Everyone knows. Everyone’s talking.”

That got me interested. I pressed my boot down harder until he squawked again. “What does everyone know?”

“That Reapers will be gone soon. With that bit of information,” he laughed, “gonna be awfully hard to keep every one of us in check. The closer it gets to the end, the braver others will get. No point in trying to keep evil in check. Evil will soon—” I pressed on his throat until his bones crushed underneath my foot. I breathed in an irritated sigh as I removed my boot and opened the portal to the flames as Octo’s furious soul came barreling out of his chest. As his raging soul was sucked, I rolled my eyes and watched the portal disappear.

His words were foreboding. The level of demonic activity has steadily been on the rise since what happened with Harvest over a month ago. If all the disgusting creatures we kept in check had a mindset like Octo had, then things were only going to get worse from here on out. If demons believed we were dying, they’d think they could get away with anything. I hung my head suddenly worn out after that bit of news.

“Is that true?”