grab Patrick and shake him. “What I don’t know is why you were lying on your bed under the Grim bloody Reaper looking like you were having a good old time? I’m telling you here and now, that sight will scar me for life.”
Patrick gave him a dark look. “Don’t you mean will scar you for undeath?”
He folded his arms, fixing Patrick with an equally dark glare. “Ha ha. There you go again with the lame undead jokes, but it’s not going to work this time. You’ve got some explaining to do, little brother. What the hell was going on?”
Patrick didn’t say a word.
“Do I need to give you a kick up the arse?”
Patrick released a harsh sigh and dropped onto the side of the bed, looking up at him, expression unreadable. “I don’t know what’s going on, Ven. I really don’t. I wish I did.”
Ven frowned. “Maybe we should begin with how Death came to be straddling you like a rodeo rider on a prize bull?”
Patrick flashed him a cold grin. “Thanks for the simile. I keep forgetting you were a journalist before becoming a hellish monster.”
“Still am a journalist, brother. Just freelance now, remember? Covering night stories and events when the mood takes me.” He dropped onto the bed beside Patrick. “How else do you think I pay my bills? You don’t become an instant millionaire the second you become a hellish monster, you know. I still have an electricity account, a water account, a phone account, a Netflix account, a Disney Plus account, an Amazon—”
Patrick raised a hand and let out a grunt. “Yeah, yeah. Okay, I get the point.”
“But I’m still missing one. The point about you and Death on your bed?”
“So you’re telling me she really is Death? The Grim Reaper?”
“Yep.”
“You sure?”
“Mate, you don’t forget the creature that rips your soul from your body. She’s Death. Capital D.”
Patrick blinked.
“But she wasn’t trying to rip your soul out,” Ven went on, a tightness in his chest. “That was pretty obvious. So…what was she trying to do?”
With another grunt, Patrick shook his head. “I dunno. I woke up and she was in my room. We argued about Peabody, I grabbed her and suddenly she was naked.”
Ven raised his own hand. “Wait a minute, I’m missing half of that conversation. Who the bloody hell is Peabody?”
Patrick let out another harsh sigh. “A drowning victim today. I’d resuscitated him. Fred touched him. He died.”
Ven shot his eyebrows up. “Fred?”
“Fred. That’s what she calls herself.” Patrick shrugged, raking a hand through his hair. “To be honest, I’m still not convinced this isn’t a dream.”
Ven stiffened. “Dream? What kind of dream?”
Patrick’s eyes closed and he pulled an irritated face. “Fuck. Not this again.”
“You’re still having those nightmares, aren’t you?”
Throwing his hands into the air, Patrick jolted to his feet. “Leave it alone, will you? I’ve had a gutful. Whatever it is you think I am, I’m not.”
Hot anger shot through Ven and he stood, glaring at his brother. “So why was Death here?”
“I don’t know.”
“And how many times have I saved you from dying?”
“Jesus, not this again!”
“How many times did I save your life before my death, brother? How many times did I pull you from the surf after a freak wave dumped you under? Wiped you out? How many times did I grab you from the road after you somehow stumbled off the curb into the pathway of a bus, or a truck? How many freak accidents have I saved you from? How many? It seems to me I’ve kept you alive on more than one occasion when some force has been pulling as many strings as possible to see you dead.”
“And you think that force is the woman who was just here?”
“Death.” He nodded. “Yes.”
Patrick didn’t respond. Ven studied him, struggling to contain his own frustration.
Patrick had spent his life struggling with something inside him, something he didn’t want to acknowledge or release. But it was there. It wasn’t just his denied ability to see events in the future, nor the way he’d moved the television remote control without touching it. It was something Ven couldn’t explain. Like Patrick was important. More than important. On a level of existence Ven couldn’t understand or vocalize. He’d sensed it in Patrick when still human, he’d sensed it, no, felt it even more as vampire.
Whatever Patrick was, he was more than he believed, more than he wanted. He rebelled against its very notion, and quite frankly, Ven had had enough.
His brother needed