Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ My Shinigami, My Hamburger ❯ The Nightmare of Nightmares ( Chapter 7 )

Chapter 7

The Nightmare of Nightmares

The pain was sickening, but Heero knew better than to stumble down and nurse his wounds. Whatever had hunted him down was definitely not subject to human tiring. There was a certain dread in his stomach that assured him that the shadowy predator had only one goal in mind when it gnashed its teeth against his ribs, digging and bloodthirsty for what pounded beneath them. While the sun sizzled quietly overhead, the injured man staggered across the streets, dodging citizens and unholy creatures alike. He ran through the alleyways and thoroughly examined each road before going across for the next alley.

Putting his palm tightly against the skin-deep gash, even though blood trails coursed through his fingers, seemed to soothe some of the throbbing pain. But he knew it was no substitute. It would be pretty sickening to die of blood loss before that thing could come and find him. He wondered if it would laugh at him if he did happen to pass out, before he could find a safe place to hide himself.

Heero didn't want to pick just any place-he knew better than to let the thing chasing him be seen by other people, or worse yet, corner him in a room with other people who could be injured or killed. He'd seen what it had done before and hoped that it wouldn't attack any others. It was sick, to wish for something like that fanged shadow to chase him, but he didn't want anybody else getting hurt.

He sprinted through a particularly grungy alleyway and the walls were crisscrossed with fire escapes and graffiti. Also, the dull ache in his chest was beginning to become sharp stabs and his legs began to slow without his permission. Being in good shape didn't help much. He felt like he was bleeding so much, even though there were only a few red lines on his hand. Heero Yuy didn't feel like he would make it further than a few more before he was forced to collapse and let come what may when he passed the bundle hunched against the wall. He looked over when the movement of a ratty blanket caught his attention. A sleeping vagabond huddled against the brick wall, just below the tangled neon letters A.F.C. and an unfinished caption pointing to it.

Of course. In his hurry, he'd failed to see the makeshift cardboard homes scattered along the walls of the alley. At first, Heero was about to brush off the fact they were there, but the image of a bloodthirsty, inhuman thing jogged his memory. It would no doubt follow him-it was no doubt following him, right now, no telling how far away-and they would be in danger. Luckily, he couldn't see any others.

Just the man snoring against the wall, chest rising and falling beneath a ratty blanket.

Heero slowed and stopped in the middle of the alley, aligned directly with the vagabond. When he stopped, his body forced him to bend over and support himself with one hand on a knee and the other pressed to the bleeding flesh wound on his chest. He was also panting, which surprised him-he was sure he was stronger than that, but the pain seemed to overwhelm him.

He gritted his teeth and managed to snap out at the homeless man, though his chest ached to do so. "Hey...Hey, you!"

The man simply grumbled irritably as he was called to, probably peering out through the hole in the blanket near to his face. If he did, he obviously didn't want the attention of some punk yelling at him while he tried to sleep. And with the way Heero was holding his chest, he wouldn't notice that that same punk was bleeding.

Heero frowned and straightened up. "Listen to me. I'm warning you to get the hell out of here-"

The man finally didn't seem to ignore the Asian man anymore and a grungy, stubbled face popped out of the blanket like a disgruntled gopher and made a sour expression at him, squinting as his nearsighted vision adjusted through the crooked glasses on his nose. There were spider webs of cracks near the rims and duct tape and a shoelace were wrapped over his nose, keeping them barely together. He pulled his arm out of the blanket to gesture at the kid standing in the alley.

"Naw," he said, in a surprisingly civilized tone, "it's you that better get outta here and leave me alone. I don't want no trouble, and if you're looking for it, I'll make sure that you get some. Why don't you leave us in peace, huh? We're just trying to-"

Heero frowned again, and in the middle of the homeless man's words, he glanced up to the sky. As he had run, the menacing clouds had eventually faded off and let sunshine back in, though the rest of the citizens didn't seem to notice that it had ever been gone. Now there were traces of blue-black inching toward the sun. He whipped his head back around and yelled, interrupting the vagabond.

"You're going to get yourself killed if you don't find somewhere to hide!"

"What, are you the murderer?" he mocked unhappily, pulling the blanket over his shoulder. "Just leave me alone."

Heero looked tensely over his shoulder, making sure nothing was entering the other end of the alley, and looked again at the sky, just to make sure. Then spotted a can on the blacktop and kicked it at the man, who had curled up to sleep again. It struck him, and after the vagabond yelled out in surprise and frustration, Heero warned him lowly, "Fine, if you want to end up dead, then that's not my fault."

He growled and began running again, trying in vain to step over a puddle in his way. He realized, with irony, how difficult it was to convince some very stubborn people of what was in their best interest. He knew now what Iria had been dealing with, and made a comment to himself to make sure to piss her off even more if he ever saw her again. He was through with patience for a long time.

===

When Shini reached the base of the hill where the town was located, with the forest looming at the top and looking down darkly, he saw the storm clouds gathering to block out the light of the Earthen sun.

"Animus ultionis," the Angel of Death whispered to himself, gaping up at the dark shadows that were threatening to swallow up the light, at the Darkness that hovered in the sky. A shiver ran through him and his wings fluttered and huddled tightly to his bare back, feathers ruffled. He recognized the sensation in dread as he remembered the death of his sister, the Fifth Daughter of Shinigami.

It had been accidental. He hadn't meant it-he never meant to kill anything. Iria had assured him, after she had found him crying but unharmed in Hades arms. That was after he had first encountered what his mother and the God of the Underworld had called an animus ultionis, or a vengeance spirit.

The Fifth Daughter had never been overly fond of her younger brother Shini while she had been alive, mostly because she had no true emotions or mercy in her beating heart, but also because she was a working Shinigami, one who constantly went about harvesting souls as Hades instructed them to. Naturally, with all the death in the world, it was a very involving task. The only reason his sister had come to see him, while he was still small and living with Iria in Hell, was because she was waiting for Hades to bring her the vile of fleas that would disclose the Bubonic Plague on primitive Europe. But he was happy that she was there, whatever the reason. He had held the vile, pressed his nose to the thick, red-tinged glass, and watched the insects swarm in the thousands in a container no bigger than a harmless rose bud.

Of course, being an Angel of Death, pestilence was one of his favorite playthings and seemed harmless to him. When Shini squealed in delight at the Deathly thing, the Fifth Daughter had smiled as well, if only mimicking his gesture to keep him appeased. Draped in blood red and brown robes, her long black hair had been tied back with a band of wyvern flesh and a necklace of Kappa teeth hung around her neck, still decorated with blood of unsuspecting prehistoric Japanese men. [1]

While Shini admired the bottled plague, with Satan looking curiously over his friend's shoulder, the Fifth Daughter was conversing with the Lord of the Underworld, Hades, about her newest assignment. It was much like a human version of a holiday gathering, where the mischievous children played on the floor while the adults talked amongst them, barely paying the younger ones any mind. Even if the Fifth Daughter had paid attention to her ecstatic younger brother, it wouldn't have prevented her destruction.

Shini stroked the panes of the bottle vile, in awe of the intricate bone carvings shaped as tiny human men clawing as Death seemed to take them, and accidentally pricked his finger on a fang-shaped prong. He whined loudly and let the plague clatter to the ground {luckily not shattering} and immediately began nursing his pricked finger and stuck it in his mouth as violet-colored blood seeped out.

Satan laughed and patted him teasingly on the shoulder.

However, it wasn't a simple cut, as they would soon discover. Hades was the first to sense the initial surge of Darkness, spurred violently by Shini's often uncontrollable emotions and sprung from his untapped well of Deathly power. With his early warning, he was able to twist way from the abrupt explosion of black fire that came from Shini's aura and ended up slicing clean through the Fifth Daughter of Shinigami and leaving her in a bloody mass of Darkness oil and sizzling body parts. Her necklace singed and crumbled into ashes.

And from that pool of blood and Darkness oil-some of the raw material that went into an Angel of Death-came a vengeance spirit.

Vengeance spirits were the raw remains of rage and bitterness that leaked from a soul once it had died. Especially violent or untimely deaths, such as murders or unthinkable accidents, which would often jar the spirit free and send it immediately after the one who had caused the death, or any one close enough to witness it. They took on the intent of the souls' strongest emotion at the moment of death and often sought revenge. For humans, the spirits usually are only strong enough to cause nightmares or transparent ghosts. For Angels of Death, they could rise out of any considerable amount of Darkness oil that was bled or, in Shini's case, cried out. And in the case of Shinigami's accidentally slaughtered sister, this vengeance spirit looked only to kill, looked to finish the unfinished business her corpse now left behind.

Shini was horrified that he had unwittingly let his powers out of control and destroyed his sister, but he was equally terrified by the black shadow that lifted from the sludge and hissed at him, spitting dripping oil away to reveal several rows of teeth. It was immense, on top of that, and more than large enough to swallow the tiny God of Death in a single mouthful. Satan scattered back from Shini and snapped at him to move when the younger one froze in terror.

Before anything could get out of hand, though, it was stopped. Hades stepped in and destroyed the spirit before the shadow could lung and quench its bloodthirsty revenge, and he carried the trembling Angel of Death back to his mother.

Shini swallowed dryly, watching the dark clouds swirl silently around the sun, ready to consume.

===

Heero slowed to a stop in order to catch his breath, once again bent over and supporting himself with his hand on his knee and the other still at his chest, before he noticed the six or seven foot chain-link fence looming in the alleyway ahead. The ache in his chest diminished some, though the pain still wasn't unnoticeable and an acute headache had sunk its teeth into him. Speaking of teeth, the mortal Japanese man thought dreadfully, where was that creature. Still panting from exertion, he slowly twisted his head about and felt his heart fill with ice when the distant scream of one headstrong vagabond echoed down the empty grey streets and solidifying that stake of fear in his heart.

It had been slowly taking shape throughout the past few days, beginning with the sinister dreams of ghostly children, gaining momentum with the debut of the Shinigami, and finally filling him with genuine panic-inducing fear. Heero swallowed dryly, pinpointing the looming shape of the creature down two streets down.

From his standpoint, he couldn't make out what the shadow was doing, but he could imagine it, as the scream came once and was followed by silence. The dark figure shifted and seemingly looked straight through him, examining his spirit, marking him as helpless prey to be cut down. He could almost see the wicked-toothed smile it had given just before happy chewing up the skin on his chest.

The Japanese man clenched a hand into a fist at his hip that had been quivering. With another of his unrelenting frowns, the mortal loped into the alley, pass the rusting hulks of cars. Each hollowed out frame crawled of rust and dilapidated parts scattered about them like rejected organs.

The rusted beams and steel frames were all that were left of a few of them, but at the very back of the alleyway turned junk lot sat a semi-decent silver towncar on blocks where it's wheels were missing, the half-hinged bumper sitting about a foot or so from the fence. He knew he had little time and he knew that the shadow had seen him and that he wanted no one else hurt by something pursuing him, so he stopped behind the car and collapsed down, with his back pressed against the wall, hidden behind the junked car. The bumper dug into his side at his right, while the metal chain-link bit at his left.

Heero allowed himself a moment's time to catch his breath, letting his neck go loose and setting his head against the brick wall with an exhausted thud.

The blood seeping from the gash in the center of his chest, just above a hammering heart, had ebbed a little. Only when he moved unexpectedly did it begin to bleed again. Now that he was momentarily hidden from his hunter, the Japanese man gingerly began examining the wound. The creature's teeth had easily cut through his shirt, leaving a ragged v-cut that extended nearly to his navel, revealing the luckily shallow cuts inflicted. Heero reached up to pull his jacket around him to keep the cold air off his skin when something ran through him.

Like some bass drum of Hell sounding there was a sudden twinge in the air that went through Heero Yuy as well and forced him to focus on the haze of black at the opening of the alley.

Heero froze up, staring at the mist of Darkness the came off the shadowy creature. He wouldn't have even breathed if he thought it could have helped him. He had experienced this thing's unearthly speed before. He knew it was probably only a matter of time.

The creature didn't pounce though. As if it could read his thoughts, the shadow known as a vengeance spirit, unbeknownst to it's victim, inched toward the silver town car behind which sat a mortal Heero Yuy, bleeding and gritting his teeth to muffle his breathing. Sniffing the air, relishing in the fear he exuded unknowingly.

It was possibly the stupidest thing to have noticed at the moment in time, while he was struggling with what to do as a demonic creature slunk closer, but Heero saw the pool of motor oil beneath the engine, killing the sparse grass around it. The junked car's punctured oil tank dripped steadily, leaking motor oil, not the more sinister kind sprung from pure Darkness. It seeped from a corroded hole in the tangle of metal beneath the junked car. Heero clenched his teeth together nervously as his eyes darted back and forth from the puddle of motor oil and the dark shadow creeping closer.

The vengeance spirit sniffed him out effortlessly, Heero could tell. The black mist didn't hesitate with nosing through any of the other junked cars as it came closer, footless, like a hunting ghost. Slowly, deliberately, it drifted closer, drawing out the moments before it would pounce into an agonizing wait.

Heero hissed silently through gritted teeth. Beneath the rusted hulk of the towncar he could see the mist of Darkness hovering just beyond the front left tire, waiting viciously in wait.

He glanced at the motor oil pooled below the engine one last time before he quietly began reaching for his pocket. Buried among lint and crumpled and forgotten receipts lay his old black and red-checkered matchbook, received somewhere in a smoky bar from a smiling smoker in a moment of charity years ago. He remembered it vaguely, watching the man laugh after taking a fresh drag and wondering how long that smile would stay while he stayed on a diet of three packs a day. Still scowling up frequently at the approaching killer, Heero thumbed it open and resisted the urge to curse out loud.

There were only three left.

Growling silently, Heero whipped out the first black-capped match and sharply cut it across the grain.

The vengeance spirit's formless shadow whipped what would have been it's head toward the minute noise of the worn match scratching uselessly. It quickened ever so slightly, curling back Darkness to hungrily bare a fang or two as it stalked carefully around the car. A measly three or four feet separated predator from prey as Heero gritted his teeth, paled, and angrily tossed the obsolete match to the dirt and whipped out the second. Brick dug into his back he was pressing against it so hard, attempting to duck down further to avoid being seen.

The Japanese man glared at the second match, willing it to work as he again cut it against the grain. The tiny scratching noise it created momentarily sparked into a hissing sound of flame, but crackled lifelessly out. There was even a hint of smoke teasing him, mocking him with how easily it disappeared without a hint of flame. Heero had to grit his fist painfully just not to make a noise and prematurely do him in. Wanting to curse, he noticed that the grain had been worn down to a smooth red band.

There was only one left, as the sound of saliva dripping off teeth above a low hissing noise could be heard just around the hulk of the car, accompanied by a haze of black.

Heero again whipped out a match, and gritted his teeth tight enough to nearly burst one of them wide open as he faced his options. Death grinned at him the moment, and it didn't involve a pair of innocent eyes or a one-toothed smile, either.

The vengeance spirit smirked to itself as it began to expose all of its teeth and coiled up in preparation of the last attack. It could practically taste the fear from the mortal solidifying in its mouth, his rib cage crumpling deliciously and his very heart spurting once last, frantic time within its jaws.

Heero Yuy looked up one last time as the Darkness mist began to round the half-jointed back bumper, and growled loudly as he tried desperately to light the match. He struck it violently against the cement block propping the car's rear right tire up as instinct overcame him. For an eternal second, the black cap of the match remained painfully static. His heart sunk dreadfully until that eternity ended and a flame crawled out with a crisp little spark.

The vengeance spirit lunged violently at him as the match was struck and Heero tossed the little flame beneath the car before he would be struck.

When the car's underbelly quickly burst up in flame, the spirit screeched something awful and went wheeling back in brainless fright from the burst of fire the match and motor oil spat out. Lines of flame ran out, hungrily chewing up the dying grass scattered around the junked car in glowing lines and patches. The fire was equally ravenous as the spirit that had hunted him, and began licking at the rubber tires and metal innards of the car-itching to create more mischief, it seemed.

Heero spun to the side quickly, ignoring the pain from jabbing his back into the cement block he had sparked a moment of salvation on, and lashed out at the chain link fence. The interwoven metal was jagged, biting into his skin painfully, but he really didn't care at that point in time. He managed to get his feet into the fence and get up a few feet a frenetic pace before something angrily knocked him down like an abused rag doll.

The hellish screech of the animus ultionis filled his ears while pain filled out his back through his head as he struck the ground. Lying dazed and in pain, Heero was vaguely aware of the killer haze snarling above him and the sensation of saliva dripping on his face. He opened his eyes only to find his vision distorted horribly and filled with only the sight of black. It was like watching a poorly taped home video that wouldn't focus no matter how long you watched and waited.

A heavy, claw-like hand roughly grabbed his face, covering nearly the entire thing in a bitter-tasting, ethereal substance, and ripped his head off the ground. With another screech, the vengeance spirit tightened its grip as it slammed Heero's head violently back to the dirt, rattling his brain.

He moaned, vaguely aware that he was in pain and in practically in Death's jaws as his head ached and spun without his permission. The same, stinging sensation that remained in the skin of face after the spirit removed it's claw-hand pressed on his arms and chest, pinning him down needlessly. He was too dazed to remember he even existed after such a rattling blow to the head. A line of blood leaked from his skin just below his hairline where a claw had caught him. Even the intolerable hissing noise faded into the haze as the spirit made a horrible croaking noise of victory, rearing it's shapeless neck to bite through the mortal's pitifully fragile chest.

However, Shinigami wasn't too happy with that idea.

"Licentia meus maritus unus! Diabolus!" [2] the Angel of Death snapped loudly, the fast-spoken Latin slurring in his fury so that it sounded more like the vile snarls of the animus ultionis than the warm voice of the son of Aphrodite. Gripping the rim of the brick building and snarling downward at the Darkness mist currently attacking the unconscious mortal, Shini's normally affectionate face was abnormally twisted and severe. He growled lowly and his black wings fluttered stiffly, bristling almost, as the spirit turned to glance at the God of Death.

"Stop it!" Shini barked furiously when it turned its head defiantly back and poised itself to finish the man lying below him. Angry lines filled his face and despite the fact he did not have fangs, he bore his teeth anyway. He looked babyish in comparison to the angry rows of teeth and challenging screech he received from the vengeance spirit as it lifted his head away from the prey, obviously angered to be distracted from a kill. Unknowingly, the animus ultionis issued a challenge its creator.

"Stop it!" Shini screamed down from his perch, his anger overtaking him. Like a spark, an unseen aura began burning around him and his long, gnarled hair began to lift around his face.

The shadow hissed up violently at the Shinigami as the anger radiating from the young, overemotional Angel of Death grew so much that it drew the very Darkness from the earth below them. A black mist only a few shades darker than the spirit itself slowly seeped from the dirt and hovered a few inches off the ground. Taking out the Darkness left a ring of pure light glowing beneath the black haze, and it began clawing at the vengeance spirit. It hissed as it began being lifted off the ground, and the dazed body of one Heero Yuy hovered inches off the earth as well, his head lolling limply to the side.

Shini flared out his wings and dove, striking the spirit and clawing his fingers into the Darkness mist it was made off. In the hands of a God, it was solid enough to begin grappling with the animus ultionis, and it screamed and fought back, baring its teeth and lunging its neck at him. The two fighting bodies rolled and struck the ground heavily, still thrashing.

The Darkness summoned from the ground broke like a fine sheet and splashed against the brick walls once before dissipating.

Shini clawed angrily at the shapeless, snarling form as it surged beneath him and thrashed, trying to flip him over. In the dark mist, the teeth bore again and snapped repeated at the God of Death's face as it managed to dissipate through his grip and reform silently above him, sending a claw down to slash at the back of his head. The Shinigami yelped in surprise, but managed to jerk out of the way just a hair's width from being cut. The vengeance spirit lunged mercilessly at him, concerned less with pulling back and calculating an attack than just with quenching the blood-hungry rage that made up its entire existence.

The Shinigami's wings were what hindered him here, while the spirit lunged at him, snapping and flinging beads of saliva as he pounced. They were pinned painfully under him in awkward positions, preventing him from rolling out of the way of those jaws, which gnashed with piranha-like fury.

Shini squinted his eyes shut as he gripped his hands again around the creature's neck and used all of his strength just to keep the teeth from clamping down on him. For an instant, as the monster thrashed violently in his grip, one end whipping back and forth like an aggravated dragon and the fanged end trying to snap his neck in two, he thought about how reckless it was to throw himself into a fight, knowing he could not control hardly any of his Deathly powers yet.

Of course, he would rather be destroyed than stand by and watch another living thing die because of him.

Heero's dazed body had fallen back to the dirt after the two had begun their temperamental tangle and moments later his hazy brain began to struggle to clear itself. The Japanese man let his head loll to the side and blinked blearily at the screeching and snapping flurry of one animus ultionis and one God of Death struggling against each other. Heero groaned as he propped himself up on one arm and rubbed at his blurry eyes.

The vengeance spirit lunged against the fists wrapped around its misty throat, surging forward to nick the bridge of the Shinigami's nose and send a line of blue-violet blood dripping toward his eye. He gasped quietly in surprise, and the creature wasted no time in lunging forward again, hoping to blind him and pushing him into the dirt with even more inhuman force. Shini squealed as the tides shifted and again a fang caught him; this time he instinctively jerked his head back and it sliced a thin scratch down his chin, inches from his throat.

Heero finally managed to regain his sight and his brain stopped ricocheting around the inside of his skull, and witnessed the vengeance spirit snapping at the Shinigami's throat and slowly drawing closer and closer. His fists were wrapped like death around the creature's apparently solid throat, but his arms were shuddering, his wings were fluttering as they were trapped under his body, feathers scattered everywhere, and a look of exhaustion was washing over him.

He blinked again. He hadn't even realized that the black-winged man was his arranged husband for a second, and after the first realization hit his rattle brain, he realized that he was fighting for his sake. That dread seething in his stomach twisted tightly. And for once, he had to admit it. He didn't know what to do.

Shini gritted his teeth tightly and felt an unbidden whimper spill from his mouth as his own blood began to spill into his eye. Despite recently getting plenty of sleep, there was no sidestepping the fact he as unarmed as a human being without any weapons or Deathly powers to defend him. He didn't have the strength to kill something like an animus ultionis with his bare hands, he knew, as the said killer surged forward again.

This time, the wicked teeth smirked at him and from the mist formed a reptilian claw that launched itself at the Shinigami's face and narrowly missed, grabbing a fistful of dirt instead. Shini slowly became so frustrated with the creature snarling at him and dousing him with the saliva dripping from his fangs that he leaned back and sharply kicked both legs beneath the vengeance spirit. His toes caught a solid part of the misty creature and Shini launched it off him with an angry kick, the animus ultionis screeching unhappily.

Heero watched, still panting, as it struck the chain-link fence. And continued through it, in neatly sliced pieces. Whatever had been solid in that toothed black haze of a monster was cut cleanly from the sheer force that it had been hurled at the fence. The mist dissolved quickly with a flurry of sizzling, popping noises, while a stained pile of teeth clattered to the ground. There were a few wet noises as bits of human hearts fell to the ground as well, consumed by the animus ultionis in its brainless thirst for revenge and completely doused in a thick puddle of Darkness oil.

Heero clamped a hand over his mouth while the arm supporting him buckled under him and he collapsed, catching himself only half-heartedly on an elbow. But slowly, he brought himself to stand, though he was slightly unsteady on his feet. The throbbing in his chest had returned, aggravated by adrenaline running through him. He groggily turned his head to see the Shinigami, bleeding from the chin and nose, staring at him silently.

Caked blotches of Darkness oil dotted his silk robes, scratched, nicked, and generally lacking the divine sheen they had displayed before. The same black liquid was matted between his long black feathers and knotted in his hair, gluing to the leaves scattered in it as well. For an instant, he seemed like a distorted Dionysus, with dried maple leaves woven in his hair, but the blood somehow stained that innocent image. The blue-violet blood, leaking down his face and leaving pale blue stains. Shini's eyes never left his face as he crept carefully over to the dazed mortal, almost as if trying not to startle a fawn.

Heero remained silent as the Angel of Death stopped only a few inches away from his face, and those ungodly eyes filled with an undeniable guilt. Shini looked down at the skin-deep teeth marks cut into his skin, just above his heart, and furrowed his eyebrows, biting his lip to choke back a sob. He dug his fingers into what was left of the mortal's shirt and bowed his head in shame, crying quietly into his chest.

Heero, overwhelmed with all that had happened already, simply let the Angel of Death cry and apprehensively put a hand on the back of his head a few seconds later.

As they stood there, bleeding in two different colors, Heero felt a strange, noiseless pulse run through the air, one that somehow sifted down into his bones. He lifted his head only to see a familiar white-robed, white-winged woman frowning down at the carnage, and darkly shaking her head.

"You have a talent for stirring up trouble, Heero Yuy, I'll give you that."

===

[1] Japanese vampire water spirits that would drown their victims before drinking their blood. Beside blood, their favorite food is supposedly cucumbers. Go figure.

[2] "Leave my husband alone! Devil!"

[[[A/N]]]

I officially hate scrounging for translations. At this point, it'd be simpler to take Latin for a year and just learn it myself. See, the only second language I've actually be able to learn is Spanish, but somehow that just doesn't fit Death's personality. Can anyone really see the Grim Reaper going, Yo quiero Taco Bell, and still striking fear into the heart of men? Not anywhere but Family Guy, I'll tell you that. Oh well. I apologize for any of you left waiting, chewing nails down to the quick {don't listen to the author's wishful thinking, if you ignore it, it'll probably go away} but this chapter took longer, and ended up much longer than I expected it to be. If I didn't figure out my Latin adjective use well enough, someone can correct me. Was I too predictable with this chapter? Did you all know he was going to come to the rescue, or were you just hoping it would happen? Aw, I don't care. I'm having fun. I also had fun picking out Shini's blood color. Red was just too human, I thought, because he already has a lot of human qualities.

I always write to music, so here's your first few tracks on the playlist. Hopefully they sort of pertain to the story.

"Shine" Collective Soul

"Voodoo" Godsmack

"My Lover's Box" Garbage

"Come to My Window" Melissa Etheridge

Thanks for waiting, for reading, for dancing in your underware late at night. :p