Pass the Death

By Cassandra Morphy

To some, it looks like a normal, innocuous, black pebble. It has been smoothed and shined over the years of hiding out in people's pockets, making its surface almost reflective. All the better to see the undead stalking you from behind. Because this stone isn't a normal stone. It is the death stone, and you're just as likely to die from seeing it as from the undead that stalk the world. No one knows where the death stone came from, or how long it's been creating the undead that have ravaged half the world. All they know is that it can't be stopped, it can't be destroyed, and it's only a matter of time before it goes off again, creating more undead, and killing all that were unlucky enough to be close by.

Griffin, Annette, and Julian were set to be the death stone's next victims. When they found the death stone in their nut jar, they immediately took it to the mayor of their small town of Cly Catar, in the hopes that maybe there was a way to get rid of it forever. But the death stone would have none of that. He wasn't done playing with the world, or his newfound toys. After all, these three humans seem way to fun not to play with them.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Cassandra Morphy
• Release date: Sep 10, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215831007

Cassandra Morphy

Cassandra Morphy is a Business Data Analyst, working with numbers by day, but words by night. She grew up escaping the world, into the other realities of books, TV shows, and movies, and now she writes about those same worlds. Her only hope in life is to reach one person with her work, the way so many others had reached her. As a TV addict and avid movie goer, her entire life is just one big research project, focused on generating innovative ideas for worlds that don’t exist anywhere other than in her sick, twisted mind.

Book preview

The Dullahan

Rain fell heavily in the marsh as the lone rider entered it. His eyes were turned backwards just as often as in front of him, though all signs of the battle that he had left behind were long gone. Even the sounds of the dying, dead, and undead were so far behind him that all he could hear besides the falling rain were the hoof beats of his horse and the deep breathing of both of them as they raced forward. As distracted as he was, he didn't notice it when I slipped into his pocket, appearing as if out of nowhere, in the possession of my next victim. Then again, most of my victims don't notice that I'm there until it is too late. I prefer it that way.

The ground beneath the horse's hooves quickly shifted from the more solid, packed dirt of the badlands to the muddy, loose ground of the marsh. There was no proper road through the area, but the rider had no other option. Not if he meant to escape the certain death that he had left behind. The army, both armies, littered the fields around the roads to the north of the marsh. The roads heading for the realm and away from the undead that hunt the badlands. When the rider escaped the battlefield, he was on the southern edge of the fighting. His only options were to head south to the marsh or head back into the fighting. He had no interest in heading back there.

Ever.

Even as he opened the distance between himself and the battle, his fear still ran freely. I drank of it, enjoying every ounce, every drop. It was what I lived for, what I lived off of. That fear was my sustenance, and this world had plenty to spare. Ever since the war started. Ever since my first pets arrived. If I had as much control over them as some of the humans of this world thought, I would have brought them closer. I would have drawn them towards the marsh and this lone soldier, hoping to feast. But even the level of fear flowing off of him was enough for me. Enough to satiate my eternal hunger, if only for a moment. A few precious minutes.

But then, it was gone. With the battle far enough away from him, the rider started to calm himself. He started to feel safe. To feel free of the war, and the death that it brought. However, he didn't rein in his horse, letting him run freely through the marsh. The rider assumed that the horse would figure out a way through better than he could, and gave him his head. Even in the rider's pocket, I could still feel the fear flowing off of the horse. It wasn't the same, it wasn't as rich as from the rider, but it was enough. Enough for the moment. But I had my own plans, once I had my fill. Once I was ready to bring more of my pets into that world.

And the rider would make an excellent pet, once I properly broke him.

As the two of them, the three of us, got deeper into the marsh, even the horse slowed, though his fear didn't abate. I could feel it still, flowing off of him. But the ground only got muddier, more precarious, as the water encroached on their path. There were trees everywhere, closing in around them as they got deeper. As the horse's fear slowly ebbed, the rider's spiked back up as he slowly realized that they were lost. That the road that he had fled from wasn't just there for the steady, solid foot path, but the guide through the wilderness.

The rider wasn't equipped for a long journey overland, with just his leather armor and his empty scabbard. His sword, given to him by his lover before he left him behind, and the shield that had been in his family for generations were both abandoned on the battlefield. But he barely gave them a second thought, just enough for me to read it on his mind. His memory of them, lying on the ground where he had chosen to flee, rather than go up against the undead that surrounded him. All his other supplies had been left behind in the small encampment that the army had set up, just off the road, before it had been overrun. And yet, as the rider went deeper into the marsh, he never once thought to go back there. To try to retrieve what little supplies he could before heading deeper into the marsh.

It wasn't long before the horse came to the end of the path that they were on, coming to the tip of a small peninsula that had formed as the water flowed past it. The horse slowed down, his eyes searching for signs of the other side of the water. Signs of a new path to follow. But as the rain only got heavier, the darkness shrouding everything around them, neither horse nor rider knew where to go from there. And when they got to the water, the horse stopped dead.

It's alright, the rider said. He patted the side of the horse's neck as he looked around them. A shiver ran through him as the cold wetness of the storm seeped in. The fear was replaced by other emotions. Emotions that I could taste, but couldn't drink of. Couldn't use. I wanted to spark the fear in them again, but I knew that it would do little to aid in my ends, given where we were in the marsh. Their concern for their own safety, for their ability to get through the marsh in one piece, would easily trump any little spark that I could stir in them. Long before I could recover the cost of it.

The rider stood up in his saddle, hoping that the added height would help in his search for the other side of the water. But I could feel the far side. I sensed it as some of my pets started to stir in their resting place. If I could smile, I would have, knowing that both rider and horse would soon know fear once more. That they would soon be on the run from my pets once again. Only this time, their path would be uncertain. And the fear that my pets always instilled in the living was more powerful, more palpable, and more filling than anything that I could stir up on my own.

That was, of course, the purpose of my pets. Why I always tried to make more of them when I had a choice in the matter.

Come on, the rider said, as he sat back down in the saddle, nudging the horse to the side. It took me a moment to read his intentions. To feel the thoughts flowing through the rider's mind. To tell that he intended to turn around. To head away from the water and back up the peninsula. Away from my pets. I couldn't have that.

It took just the smallest amount of the fear that I had already consumed, already stored, to send the sense of a snapped twig through the rider's mind. His head snapped around, looking for the source, though there was no one out there. At least, not on that side of the water. It flowed more pointedly through the horse's mind, and he whinnied loudly as he reared up onto his hind legs. When the horse came back down, he was moving forward again, into the water.

The water wasn't deep, but the current was strong. With the right prompting, I could have had the horse heading down the river. I could have drowned the both of them, right there and then. But that would have done me no good. It wouldn't have been enough. I still hadn't recovered the fear that I had used to prod them forward. They were no use to me dead, though I imagine they would have eventually joined my pets. Even if I'm not there when they die, my power finds all eventually. Besides, I wasn't done playing with them.

The horse found solid ground on the far side of the rushing water in just seconds, his hooves thundering on the hard earth once more. My pets stirred at the sound of it, but they stayed in their resting place. They felt me just as much as I felt them, and they were waiting. Waiting for my signal. Waiting for my pleasure. The rider wasn't in the right position just yet, and my pets weren't the ones that got hungry. Once they became one of my pets, things like hunger, thirst, desires, they were all erased. Erased and replaced by a need. A need to satisfy me. To help me. To serve me. In whatever way they can conceive of.

Both the horse and rider calmed when they made it out of the water. The rider was starting to think that he made out better that way. That moving across the river was better than turning around. Only, it wasn't. I knew from my pets that the horse and rider had made it to an island in the middle of the water, and the river on the far side was much wider and stronger than what they had already crossed. They would soon be trapped between my pets and the water, and neither knew it. Neither had any inkling of what was to come. What was in store for them.

What I had planned for them.

I waited patiently, the fear ebbing off of both rider and horse as they grew comfortable. Grew familiar with the marsh around them. Grew complacent, thinking that their escape was complete. That they had escaped my pets. But the realm was still miles away from them, on the far side of the marsh. Neither would live to know that. Neither would live to see safety once more. Neither would live to know freedom. They were mine.

Again, the sound of a snapping twig ran out through the area, only this time it wasn't me. It wasn't just the sense of it. It was my pets. The rider, after having fallen for the trick earlier, paid it little attention as he took a more solid grip on the reins, leading the horse forward.

But then, it wasn't a twig either. It was the sound of bone against bone as my pets slowly made their way out of their resting place, pulling themselves out of the thick mud at the horse's feet. One of their hands escaped the confining mud, reaching up to touch the horse's leg. It could have grabbed hold, trapping both of them there, but I wasn't ready for that. I wanted more. I wanted fear. I wanted panic.

I wanted a feast.

The horse instantly reacted to the boney hand as it touched its leg. It let out another terrified whinny as it rushed forward, easily escaping the hand that wasn't clenched against its flesh. The rider looked behind him, back towards the skeletons as they emerged from the ground one by one. There was a low, almost ethereal light emitted out of each and every bone, making it so that it was impossible for the rider to miss them, even in the complete darkness of the night. A bolt of lightning lanced the sky, as if on my own cue, though that power was far beyond anything that I have ever possessed.

By the goddess, the rider shouted. The words did little for anyone there, and nothing against my pets as they arose from their rest, coming slowly after the rider and horse.

But they weren't close enough to do anything, and the horse was much faster than the skeletons. They wouldn't have been able to catch them, not before they made the water. At least, not physically. They didn't need to. The fear that they instilled in both rider and horse was enough for me to drink my fill. Enough to satiate my hunger and then some.

Enough to claim another pet.

The rider's eyes stayed locked on the skeletons behind him, even as they stayed where they were, their feet still trapped beneath the clinging mud. The horse ran freely, making for the end of the island, meaning to head straight out into the water. He ducked his head as he spotted something off to the side, but paid it no heed as he ran forward. As he made for the water's edge. But the limb of the tree was too low for the rider.

The rider barely noticed it as he ran into the limb. My power radiated out of me at the moment of impact, claiming my new pet.

A low thump came as the rider's head landed in the mud, though no one heard it but me. The horse continued on for another three steps before coming to a dead halt. While the rider had been killed when his head had been severed from his body, the horse took the full brunt of my power. The two of them would haunt that marsh for decades to come. And as I left behind my new pet, my headless rider and his steed, two sides of the same coin, I called my new creation a dullahan.

Not that anyone would know what I call them. They were bound to make their own words for it, if they ever met it and lived to tell of it. So few managed to do that for some of my more... interesting pets.

But I was hungry again. I was always hungry. Always hunting for my next meal. As I teleported away from my new pet, I tried to get as far away from the war as possible. It wasn't just that I wanted to get to the more alive regions of the world, away from where my pets were dense and my prey was few.

I was ready for a challenge.

Chapter Two

The Blight

As usual, my new victim didn't notice it when I arrived. I could almost feel the ache of the muscles that I would have needed to use for teleporting, if I had muscles. The teleport had drained me far more than creating my new pet had. Far more than any teleport I had managed in the past. But that place was exactly where I needed to be.

My new victim's pockets were wide and deep, giving me plenty of space, though space had never been a concern for me. One time, I landed in a person's coin purse as they went to buy a new horse. I changed hands multiple times over the course of that day, with none the wiser of my presence there. No one thought to check for the lone black stone mixed in among the gold, taking the merchants' words that it was all the same. It took me five hours to settle on a target. She died of fright the moment that she started to count the coins and spotted me sitting there on her table.

When the familiar sounds of a market came to me through the thick cloth of the boy's pant leg, I started to think that a similar incident was soon to come. But there were no coins in his pocket. As I drifted into his mind, I got a glimpse of where I was for the first time. Cly Catar was a small village, over a thousand miles away from the front. The place was familiar to me, though it had changed since the last time I had been through there. It was the furthest I've ever managed to go on a single teleport before, which explained why I felt so drained. It soon became clear that he wasn't there to shop. That he was only passing through the market, heading for somewhere else.

Hey, Griffin, someone called out, drawing the boy's attention. It took me a moment to sense his familiarity with the name, to know that it belonged to him. I didn't always get the name of my victims, and it did little to stay my hand. To make me change my mind on making them into my next pet.

Or simply killing them, if that worked better.

Oh, hey, Annette, Griffin said, as he turned around to look back at the girl coming up behind him. I could feel his attraction to her, but I couldn't get a sense of what she looked like. The only snippet that I managed to get from his mind was the thought of red, flowing hair as it swept out behind her.

Unfortunately, the teleportation had drained me more than I had been expecting. My telepathy wasn't as strong as it usually was, even after such movement in the past. I needed to feed, and soon. Fear wasn't plentiful in the area, not that far from the war. I couldn't sense it anywhere around me. But there were other sources of sustenance, just none as pleasant. None as filling.

Care to walk with me? Griffin said. He nodded off to the side, away from where the girl was coming from. Back towards the direction that he had been heading before she interrupted him.

Oh, uh, sure, she said.

I could feel something flowing off of her, but she was too far away for me to sense it properly. When she came up next to him, her hand reaching out to take his, I got more of a taste. The smile on her face was evident in her voice, and waves of attraction started to flow off of her. Attraction, lust, was not an emotion that I could consume, though fortunately it didn't drain me any more than I was already.

Where are we going? she asked, as the two came out the other side of the market. The voices died off behind them, though the village had plenty of other sounds. Sounds that were still familiar to me. People heading in and out of the buildings that surrounded the road. Other young loves out for strolls similar to these two.

The message board, Griffin said. He pointed off into the distance as I got a flash of an image of the board in his mind. It had been a while since I had last been in that village, long enough for them to have moved the board from its old place in the middle of the market. From what I could see in his thoughts, and what I remembered about the area, it seemed like they had moved it next to the mayor's house. I think some of the merchants had brought in news of the war.

They're not on there, Annette said, seeming to answer some question that Griffin hadn't asked. But as they knew each other better than I did, I simply listened in on their discussion, trying to get a sense of how best to play them off each other. While hatred wasn't a pleasant emotion to eat, it would work well enough. And it was always so close to love that a simple tweak here and there was usually enough to conjure it up.

I know, Griffin said, nodding his understanding. Clearly, he knew what she was referring to, the two of them being close enough to have their own shorthand. It was quite sickening. But their battalion might be. If there was word from the front.

I might have smiled if I was capable of doing so as I thought about the possible coincidence. Could this boy have some connection to my new pet? Or at least the man that my pet had once been? It seemed almost poetic to think that he might be joining his father in my service soon enough.

Only I knew that there would be no word of my new pet. Not in that village, so far from the war. Not so soon after the man's death, and undeath. It would be a while before the remnants of the battle could be picked through, if there was anyone left back there to do so. The pets that they were up against were some of my more vicious ones, and they didn't often leave survivors. My dullahan really did get the better end of that deal.

Anyway, are you doing something later? Annette asked, as the two of them came up to the message board. I tried to dig out what Griffin was seeing from the board, but his mind was a fog. Even the source of that fog was a mystery to me, though I imagined it had to do with Annette being by his side. Love had a way of protecting the minds of my victims from my power, especially when I was weak like that.

What did you have in mind? Griffin asked, his own smile joining Annette's. However, Griffin's smile was short-lived as he saw something on the board that he didn't like. There's another draft coming, he said, pointing at the board, where the new posting was placed. The words The Communes flashed through his head when he said it, but nothing beyond that.

Oh, Annette said, simply, her own smile evaporating just as quickly as Griffin's did. I got the sense off of both of them that that was something they had been dreading. That both of them would soon be called up into the war. I had similar plans for them myself, only they would be joining the war on my side, not theirs. Well, maybe it won't be that bad this time, she suggested.

The dread that was flowing off both of them told me everything that I needed to know, even as I started to draw it into me. Clearly, neither of them thought they would be left out of the draft. That they knew that they were doomed to join the army and be sent out to meet my pets in the open battlefield. The dread was enough sustenance for me to flow deeper into Griffin's mind, getting a better picture of the village around me.

The day was brighter and clearer than the night I had left behind me. Teleporting across the continent wasn't an exact thing, and sometimes I lost a few hours in the transition. Never more than a day, though, so I knew it would be the day after. The sun was hanging high above them, seeming to suggest that the day would be warm and happy, though neither of them seemed all that happy as they stared at the message board.

I doubt they'd bother to post it at all if they were only going to be taking a few people from the village, Griffin said, shaking his head as he stared at the announcement in front of him. Look, why don't we try to do something some other day. I'm... I don't think I'll be all that good company for you today.

Griffin's thoughts turned to his parents, both of whom had been drafted into the war, though they hadn't been drafted together. His father had been taken two years ago, with his mother leaving just a year earlier. From the image of his father that I could pull from his mind, it wasn't the same soldier as my dullahan. This disappointed me on a level that I wasn't expecting. But my own emotions, what little I had of them, had no impact on my hunger. If I could eat my own dread, I wouldn't bother playing with the humans.

Sure, Annette said, nodding her head. Her red hair flowed around her, allowing for the sun to fall onto her heavily freckled face. Her green eyes seemed like emeralds, and were clearly the main draw for Griffin. But he barely looked at her as she left him there, their hands staying connected for a moment longer, delaying their separation.

Griffin gave a heavy sigh as his hand fell back to his side, almost slamming into his pants in the process. I could feel the force in his hand as it pressed me into Griffin's leg. But what was far more noticeable was the shock as it played itself through Griffin, when he noticed me there. His eyes went wide as he slowly reached his hand into his pocket, searching for me. But he never took me out, never raised me from the place where I had settled just minutes earlier.

His face went flush and his ears started to burn, but Griffin kept his face pointed towards the message board, his eyes locked on the announcement about the draft. It took him some time to get his emotions under control, all of which I had drank deeply, eagerly. Once he did, he turned back towards the market, keeping his hand, and me, in his pocket. As he went, retracing his steps from earlier, I got more of a feeling of the boy's place in the village. The words that the bullies had used to hurt him, before they were drafted. And of how much the place had changed since I was last there.

The people that he passed were all much younger than I remembered, mostly old teenagers and young adults. What few people that were over thirty were the merchants. Even the mayor was barely turning thirty, and I got the sense that he was one of the oldest who lived in the village.

And Griffin absolutely hated that. He hated that the merchants, many of whom were almost forty, somehow managed to escape the draft. Perhaps it was because they were merchants, or that they never stayed in one town long enough to be pulled into the war, but I wasn't sure. Griffin didn't let that little tidbit out as he made his way towards them. It had been far too long since I was that far out from the front, and most of the villages and towns close to the war had all been abandoned long ago. It seemed that the rest of the world hadn't gone as unscathed as I had thought.

Griffin barely slowed as he made it back into the market, his eyes trained on the far side and the road heading back to his corner of the village. Back to his house. But as he came through the place, he skirted close to the edge of the area, his eyes flicking towards the carts that he passed. It seemed almost at random when Griffin pulled me out of his pocket, never once having let go of me in all the time that he had been walking through the village. He didn't give it a second thought as he dropped me into the back of one of the carts, heading off without missing a step. As my connection to his mind faded, all I felt off of him was relief. It would have made me smile had I been capable of it.

It wasn't long before I started to feel the cart jostling, the merchant heading out of the village already. The day was still young, but as I reached out to the merchant's mind, I got a sense that he wanted to get home before dark. Light or dark, it was all the same to me, but he wasn't aware that I was with him. Not yet, anyway.

The horse started to pick up speed as the merchant left the village behind. I thought little of leaving the village so soon after I arrived, knowing that I would be back soon enough. As much as Griffin would have liked it, he hadn't seen the last of me just yet. I wasn't quite done playing with that one.

The wind started to blow through the wheat fields as I managed to find purchase in the merchant's mind. He breathed deeply, taking in the delightful smell of sun warmed grain, as he thought about the dinner that he would soon be eating, once he returned home. His wife was waiting for him just three towns over, though it would take him much of the afternoon to get there. That is, of course, if he made it there.

I continued to rattle around in the back of the cart, bumping against the wood all over the place. It took almost half an hour for the merchant to notice it, drowned out by the sounds of the horse pulling the cart and the cart itself rattling around on the uneven road. The merchant didn't think much of it at first, and it seemed a common enough thing for him to pick up a pebble or two as he brought his emptied cart across the open countryside. But something was nagging in the back of his head.

I was nagging in the back of his head.

When he turned around in his seat, looking down at me, all he saw was an uninteresting, small, black pebble. I wasn't much bigger than an inch in diameter, rounded and polished from millennia living in people's pockets. And I was dark as midnight. Dark as death. It was only those that knew of me, knew what I looked like, that would expect what was to come from me being there. Me being in their possession.

This merchant seemed as oblivious of me as he was immune to the war that I had started. It stole all the fun that I might have gotten from turning him into one of my pets. So, instead, I simply killed him. Him and his horse. As I teleported away, returning to Cly Catar, I left behind an infection, slowly making its way through the field of wheat, where the body of the merchant and his horse would be discovered later that same day.

Chapter Three

The New Friend

After Griffin so heartlessly gave me away to the unwitting merchant, I was almost expecting him to welcome me back when I returned to him. To celebrate his own hand in the man's death, and the ensuing blight that was already starting to run rampant on the crops just outside of the village. But when I did return to him, he was in bed. And he wasn't alone.

At first, I thought it was Annette. It was clear to me, even in my weakened state, that something was happening between them. However, as I slipped into Griffin's mind, it quickly became clear that it wasn't Annette. That it wasn't a girl at all. Of course, in our world, that wasn't nearly as much of a scandal as in some worlds out there. Worlds that only those like me had any knowledge of. Still, I delighted in the fact that this boy, Griffin, would so nicely tempt fate. That he would make my work so easy, even when it was against him.

As I settled down inside the jar that I found myself in, I reached out from Griffin's mind to find the one belonging to this other boy. Neither were thinking much, or really anything besides the goddess's name. But I managed to pick the name Julian out of one of their heads. It seemed to match the man that Griffin was with. All I had to do was whisper Annette's name a few times in Griffin's head for it to replace his.

Oh, Annette, Griffin moaned, as the feelings swelled in him.

The emotions playing out in Julian's mind were instantaneous. They were delicious. They were intoxicating. They were exactly what I needed after teleporting, refilling me in ways that I hadn't realized that I was empty before. It wasn't enough, though. It was never enough.

What the hell, Julian asked. He pushed himself out of Griffin's arms, out of his bed, and moved over to the chair next to him. The house that we were in was small, barely large enough for the bed, a small table, and a tiny kitchen. I was pretty sure that I was somewhere in the kitchen, but my senses were limited when not relying on others to see for me.

What? Griffin asked. He sat up in bed, keeping the sheets with him as he slid into the far corner. His eyes ran over Julian's still naked body before returning to his light blue, almost gray eyes. What did I say?

You said her name, Julian said. Again. I laughed a little at the thought of that. At the realization that the wound I picked at was still fresh. That I wasn't the first to cause it and Griffin had done it himself before. It made it less likely for either of them to notice my presence.

Not that either of them would dream of me being there.

Julian, I... I'm sorry, Griffin said. He reached out his hand towards Julian, inviting him back into his bed. But I knew that the slim apology would be insufficient for that task.

Julian shook his head, ignoring that inviting hand, as he looked around the floor for his clothes. They were strewn in a pile next to Griffin's bed, but the two boys' clothes were mixed together, making it difficult for him to pull them apart. He seethed in silence as he grabbed each piece away from the mass, one by one.

It's not that you're with her, Julian said, anger still filling his voice as he pulled on his pants. I don't care about all that. You know that. It's that... Well, when you're with me... I just wish that you were only with me.

I know, Griffin said. I know. And I am... most of the time.

Most of the time, Julian scoffed. He shook his head before scooping his shoes off the floor and heading for the door. It's the rest of the time that... Griffin, I love you.

I love you, too, Griffin said. He slipped to the edge of his bed, his legs dangling off of it, but he kept them above the cold, stone floor below. He kept the covers in place, hiding his manhood, as he talked with his boyfriend. It's just...

You love her more, Julian said.

No, Griffin said, shaking his head. I just... I love her differently is all.

Uh huh, Julian mumbled. But he turned away from Griffin, his hand on the doorknob as a wave of thoughts played their way through his head. I couldn't get a sense of any of it, as it was too jumbled and he was too far away from Griffin. In time, I would be able to read both of their minds as easily as my own. But with distance, my connection grew weaker. And with that distance, with that weakening connection, so too did my feast.

I wanted to fix things. To pull Julian back into the room. To do something to get them to fight more. Longer. Righter. But I knew that I couldn't overreach, and pulling Julian back to Griffin's bed would only mend things between them. I'd be extending myself for no return. That just wasn't my way.

So, I just watched from my place in the cupboard as Julian opened the door.

Annette was standing there, her hand raised as if to knock. It surprised me as much as it had Julian, as I hadn't sensed her out there. I would have thought that my earlier interactions with her would have given me something. A sense of her that was stronger than what I was getting from Julian. While my connection with Griffin was the strongest I had felt in ages, it was only after Annette stepped into the room that I could tell that she was smiling. That she had good news to deliver to the two boys.

Hey, guys, Annette said, in a cheery tone that was completely contrary to what I would have expected from her. As she came closer to me, coming into the heart of the small house, I tapped into her mind, searching for the source of her joy. Searching for hints that she knew what was going on there. What she would have walked in on, had she been there just a few minutes earlier. But her mind was filled with positive emotions, and it was almost painful for me to be there.

Oh, uh, hey, Annette, Griffin said. He was only just getting his shirt on, but his pants were still left on the floor at his feet. His face blushed noticeably as he thought of the fact that, while Julian so clearly knew that Griffin and Annette were together, Annette wasn't so aware of the relationship blossoming between the two boys. Nor would she be as open to that fact as Julian so clearly was. While Julian loved passionately, Annette loved possessively.

What-what's going on? Julian asked. He closed the door behind Annette, all thoughts of leaving gone from his mind. There was enough anxiety flowing off of him to wet my whistle, but I longed to feed off the boy's fear. I got the sense that his would be the most delicious fear that I could ever taste in all the world.

Is it the draft? Griffin asked. Did they announce how many they're taking?

No, Annette said, shaking her head, letting her long, red hair fly out behind her in waves. Nothing about that. But... I got a letter from the front. She pulled out the letter, showing it to each of them. While the seal was still on the letter, clearly she thought that whatever it said would be good news. I tried to figure out why she was so sure of that, trying to play off of her insecurities while I was at it, but there was nothing there. It was just a wall of joy that I couldn't punch through.

Your father's seal, Griffin said.