I stared at the crumpled piece of paper in my hand, Mark's number a bright, solid link back to a world that felt like it was slipping away from me faster than Kevin dodged work. A world where guys like Mark, who smelled like disinfectant and dad jokes, offered their numbers instead of unbreakable contracts and death visions. A world where people didn't freeze mid-blink, and husbands didn't eat conjured fries.
My gaze snapped up as Azrael moved. He glided towards me from his spot at the counter, his empty coffee cup vanishing from his hand as he approached. His void eyes were locked onto the paper in my hand, a silent, intense focus that felt… possessive. Like he was already cataloging this mundane little slip of paper as a potential complication.
He stopped in front of me, taking up too much space, radiating that unnerving calm power that still sent shivers down my spine. He didn't say anything, just held out a pale, elegant hand, palm up. Waiting. For the number.
"No," I said, snatching the paper from the counter and shoving it deep into my uniform pocket. My heart hammered against my ribs. It was a defiant, probably stupid gesture, but I wasn't giving him this. Not yet. This was mine. A small piece of a life he'd stolen.
His expression didn't change, but the air around him seemed to thicken. "Sera. Your shift is concluded."
"No, it's not," I argued, glancing at the clock on the wall. 3:03 pm. "I'm scheduled until six. I can't just leave. Mrs. Liu would kill me. Probably literally."
"You will accompany me," he stated, ignoring my very real fear of my terrifyingly harsh manager. "Your presence here is no longer required."
"Required by who?" I retorted, glaring at him. "You? I have a job, Azrael! A job you made me get! To anchor myself! Remember?!"
"The anchor is sufficient," he replied smoothly. "Your presence here, however, has served its purpose for this interval. And your… companion… is on the verge of… significant distress."
He glanced towards Cam, who was still sitting at her table, phone clutched in her hand, watching us with wide, anxious eyes. Right. Cam. Still reeling from the whole 'frozen time and Death husband' thing.
"Okay, fine," I conceded, realizing Cam's mental well-being probably took priority over my minimum-wage job. "But I have to tell Mrs. Liu I'm leaving. It's basic courtesy. And you owe me for… you know… the entire existential crisis."
I turned towards Mrs. Liu, who was now dealing with a bewildered customer whose coffee had apparently gone cold mid-pour. "Mrs. Liu, I need to—"
Before I could finish my sentence, Azrael's hand closed around my arm. His grip was firm, not painful, but utterly inescapable. He didn't yank, but he moved with a swift, silent grace, pulling me away from the counter, towards the door.
"My wife does not require permission from anyone," he stated, his voice low but carrying an unmistakable note of finality that cut through the cafe's ambient noise. It wasn't directed at Mrs. Liu, but it hung in the air, a silent command.
Mrs. Liu stopped mid-sentence again, her eyes snapping towards us. She looked flustered, angry, and perhaps a little intimidated. Good. Maybe Azrael was useful for something other than causing chaos and existential dread.
"Hey!" I protested, stumbling slightly as he guided me forward. "I walk myself, thanks! You can't just drag me out of my job!"
He ignored me, his focus solely on moving us towards the exit. I twisted my head back, catching Cam's eye. I mouthed, Follow!
Cam didn't hesitate. She sprang up from her seat, shoving her phone into her pocket, and hurried after us. As she passed Azrael, I heard her mutter, her voice low and furious, "You let go of her, you creepy suit-wearing… if you hurt her, I swear—"
Azrael didn't react, didn't slow down. He just kept moving, pulling me through the cafe, past the now-re-animated customers, towards the street.
We exited the cafe, the bell jingling behind us. The familiar black car, the Death-mobile, was waiting silently at the curb. Azrael opened the passenger door for me.
"Get in," he ordered, his voice calm but firm.
I hesitated, looking from him to the impossibly sleek car. Cam reached us, panting slightly, her eyes blazing as she glared at Azrael. "What is this thing?! Where are you taking her?!"
"Just… get in, Cam," I said, feeling overwhelmed but also needing her with me. I slid into the passenger seat. The interior was just as unsettlingly cold and luxurious as I remembered.
Cam glared at Azrael for another second, then, clearly deciding being with me was better than being left behind to explain frozen time to a bewildered Mrs. Liu, she scrambled into the back seat.
Azrael closed my door, walked around the front of the car with that silent glide, and got into the driver's seat. The car hummed to life around us.
He put his hand on the control panel – still no visible steering wheel – and the car pulled away from the curb, silent and smooth, phasing through the street traffic like it wasn't there. As he navigated the impossible vehicle, I found myself watching him. He drove with one hand, calm and focused, those void eyes occasionally flicking to the blurring reality outside the windows. The embodiment of Death, navigating rush hour in a phantom car. It was bizarrely mesmerizing. And yes, okay, curse my traitorous hormones again, kind of… cool.
The ride was fast, disorienting. The world outside warped and compressed, blurring past like a speed-lapsed nightmare. Then, just as abruptly as it started, we stopped. I looked out the window. My apartment building. We were here. Back at the upgraded version of my life.
Azrael exited the car, silent as a shadow, and opened my door. Cam practically fell out of the back seat, looking pale and shaky.
"Inside," Azrael commanded, gesturing towards the building entrance.
I didn't argue. I grabbed Cam's arm. "Come on. We need to talk. Inside. Now." I dragged her towards the entrance, needing the relative safety of the apartment, needing to process whatever the hell had just happened and try to explain something to my best friend before she spontaneously combusted from suppressed panic.
We got inside the apartment – which was just as disconcertingly clean and modern as I'd left it – and I immediately pulled Cam towards the bedroom. I needed a contained space. Somewhere private to have the inevitable, completely insane conversation that was about to happen.
I dragged her into the bedroom and shut the door firmly behind us. Cam rounded on me, her eyes wide, her chest heaving. She opened her mouth to unleash what I knew would be a torrent of panicked questions.
But before she could, the bedroom door opened silently. Azrael was standing there, in the doorway, his presence filling the room. He didn't enter, just stood there, watching us with those unnerving void eyes.
Cam saw him and froze, mid-breath. The anger in her expression warred with a fresh wave of fear.
Azrael's gaze swept over Cam, then settled on me. He spoke, his voice calm, measured, dropping another cosmic bomb into the already chaotic situation.
"Her perception of the temporal manipulation has created a link," he stated, referring to Cam as if she wasn't standing right there, practically vibrating with suppressed panic. "A resonance. She is now… connected. To the Pact. To this realm."
Cam stared at him, her mouth opening and closing soundlessly. "Connected?!" she finally choked out, her voice raw. "What do you mean, connected?! What did you do to me?!"
Azrael's gaze didn't soften. "You witnessed that which you should not have. It has altered your… threads. You are now visible to… elements… that previously could not perceive you. You are, in essence… a target."
A target. Because she saw time freeze. Because she saw him. Because she was friends with me.
Rage, hot and protective, surged through me. "You made her a target?!" I whirled on Azrael, stepping in front of Cam. "Just by being here?! By seeing you?!"
"It is a consequence of exposure," he stated, utterly unfazed by my fury. "To the boundaries between realms. And to the power of the Pact."
Cam was shaking her head, her hands coming up to cover her ears. "No. No, no, no. This isn't real. This isn't happening." She stumbled backwards, her eyes wide with horror. Her hand knocked against my dresser. Her gaze fell on something leaning against it. A mop. A standard, mundane cleaning mop that somehow looked wildly out of place in this upgraded room.
She snatched it up like it was Excalibur.
"Stay away from her!" Cam yelled at Azrael, brandishing the mop like a weapon. "What did you do to Sera?! Explain the ring, you… you vampire emo goblin!"
Vampire emo goblin. I actually had to bite back a laugh. Only Cam. Even in the face of a cosmic entity, her snark was legendary.
Azrael's eyes narrowed slightly. That minute twitch from the cafe returned. "I am not a vampire. Nor a goblin. And the ring is… a symbol. Of the Pact."
"The Pact?! What Pact?! You married him, Sera?! Is that what this is?! The ring?! Did you actually marry this… this death god?!" Cam was practically vibrating, mop held ready.
"Accidentally!" I blurted out, the absurdity of the situation finally overwhelming the terror. "Yes! Accidentally! I signed a contract! I thought it was for modeling! I was hungry!"
Cam stared at me, then at Azrael, then back at me. Her face was a portrait of utter disbelief. "You MARRIED him?! Because you were hungry?!"
"It's complicated!" I repeated, throwing my hands up.
Azrael chose that moment to step fully into the room, closing the door behind him. My heart sank. He wasn't leaving.
"It is precisely as she stated," Azrael said calmly, his void eyes fixed on Cam, then me. "A binding. Unbreakable. She is my wife. And you, Camille Torres, are now inextricably linked to her… and thus, to me. Due to your unexpected… sight."
Linked. Target. Wife. The words swirled in my head, a terrifying vortex. Cam, my best friend, dragged into this nightmare because she dared to see. My loyalty was fiercely with Cam, her fear tearing at me. I wanted to protect her, to get her out of this.
But a small, dark part of me, buried deep beneath the panic and rage, felt a twisted sense of… relief. Someone else knew. Someone else believed. I wasn't alone in this impossible reality. And that was almost as terrifying as Azrael himself.
He walked further into the room, ignoring Cam's brandished mop. He looked around the upgraded bedroom, then back at me. "This dwelling is… adequate. We can begin… marital bonding exercises here."
Marital bonding exercises? My stomach lurched. This was it. The consummation. With Cam in the room?
"Marital bonding?!" Cam shrieked, brandishing the mop. "You are not doing any 'marital bonding' with my best friend, you… you pale-faced creep! Get out! Get out now before I call… before I call the Ghostbusters!"
Azrael paused, a flicker of that unsettling amusement touching his lips. "Ghostbusters. An intriguing, if ultimately ineffectual, threat."
He turned his full attention to me. "The process must commence, wife. For stability. For the Pact."
My body tensed. I didn't want this. I was terrified. But the words 'stability' and 'Pact' echoed the terrifying truth I'd read in the tome. My fading body. The unstable connection.
He reached out, his pale hand lifting my left hand. His fingers brushed the black ring on my finger. The coldness of his touch sent a jolt through me, but this time, it was different. It wasn't just a jolt of energy. It was a pull.
A sudden, violent tug, not just on my body, but on my very being. The room blurred, the walls seeming to twist and dissolve. Cam cried out beside me. The familiar feeling of being yanked between realms, of reality tearing, overwhelmed me.
But this time, I wasn't alone. I felt Cam's hand still gripping the mop, her presence a terrified anchor beside me. We were both being pulled.
Pulled from the upgraded apartment. Pulled from the mortal realm.
Into the swirling, inky darkness of The In-Between.
And Cam was coming with me.
This was bad. This was so, so bad.