Lin Fan stood in the corner, his back to everyone. Distant, he was always distant. Bing Mo, the spirit of diseases didn't allow him to socialize unless he was wishing to infect his brothers.
But then, Lin Fan had to be. Bai Long sat across from him. Tanned like the sun god, the warrior didn't look like he belonged on earth, much less in the room. He was busy carving lines into his lower arm as he waited for Yan Lie's answer. Every few seconds, Bai Long winced. That wince became a satisfied smile as blood trickled, forming tiny red rivers over his skin. Pain was the only thing that satisfied him, the only thing that made him feel alive.
Feng Yue had no idea how the man might react to pleasure. He was a master at pleasuring females and he understood that noise so much
Feng Yue was sprawled on the couch beside Bai Long, hands behind his head as he switched his attention between Yan Lie and the movie, his demon probably urging him to watch just a little more of hot scenes. A man with his kind of luck should be blessed. At the very least, he should have no need to struggle to lure a woman into his bed. Instead, he would simply looked at a woman with his handsome face, and she instantly undressed, willing to be taken anywhere, bed or not.
Jiang Lang's woman hadn't, though, Yan Lie recalled. Why?
Luo Chen leaned against the pool table, his horribly scarred face revealing nothing. His arms were crossed over his massive chest, and those unsettling eyes of his watched Yan Lie intently. "Well?" Luo Chen prompted.
He took a breath and let it out. "I've been ordered to kill a group of tourists in Buda. Four humans." He paused, closed his eyes again. Tried not to feel any emotion. Cold. To get through this, he'd have to be cold. "All female."
"Say that again." Feng Yue jolted upright, frowning at him, forgetting the television.
Yan Lie repeated the gods' command.
Paler than usual, Feng Yue shook his head. "I can accept that we're now under new management. I don't like it, I'm completely confused by it, but okay. I accept it. What I don't understand is why the court ordered you, the possessor of Wrath, to kill four human women in town. Why would they do something like that?" He threw his arms up in the air. "That's crazy."
He might be the most promiscuous man ever to walk the Earth, sleeping with partners and forgetting them in the same day, but women of every race, size, and age were Feng Yue's lifeblood. His entire reason for existence. He had never been able to stand seeing even one of them hurt.
"They didn't give me a reason," Yan Lie answered, knowing a reason wouldn't have mattered. He didn't want to harm those women in any way. He knew what it felt like to kill. Oh, yes. He had killed many, many times before, but always because of the undeniable urges of his demon - a demon that chose its victims well. People who beat or abused their children. People who enjoyed the destruction of others. Wrath always knew when a person deserved death, their shameful actions playing through his mind.
When the women had been brought to his attention, the demon had judged them and found them innocent. And yet, he was supposed to murder them.
If that happened, if he was forced to spill the blood of the innocent, Yan Lie would never be the same. He knew it, felt it.
"Did they give you a time frame for when this must be done?" Luo Chen asked, still seemingly unaffected. He was Death, the Soul Reaper he was even called Lucifer, not that the people who had called him by that name were still alive , so Yan Lie's task was probably nothing to him.
"No, they didn't. But..."
Luo Chen raised a dark eyebrow. "But?"
"They did tell me that if I failed to act quickly, blood and death would begin to consume my mind. They said I would kill anything and everything until the day I obeyed. Just like Jiang Lang." They hadn't needed to warn him, though. Wrath had overcome him numerous times. When the spirit decided it was time to act, Yan Lie always tried to resist, but the cravings for destruction grew and grew until finally he would snap. Even in the worst grip of Wrath, however, he had never been compelled to kill an innocent person. "But unlike Jiang Lang, my torment will not end with the dawn."
Seriously, Feng Yue asked, "How are you supposed to do it? Did they at least tell you that?"
His stomach twisted and cramped. "I am to slit their throats," he said. How he would love to refuse to obey these new gods. Only the horror of being ordered to do something even worse had kept him silent.
"Why are they doing this?" Lin Fan demanded, a question they would each ask at least once, it seemed.
He still didn't have an answer.
Feng Yue stared at him. "Are you going to do it?"
Yan Lie looked away. He remained silent, but he knew, deep down, that nothing could save the women now. They had been placed on the spirit's mental kill list, no matter that they were innocent, and they would eventually be crossed off. One by one.
"What can we do to help?" Luo Chen asked, his eyes sharp.
Yan Lie slammed his fist into the couch arm. If he did this terrible deed when he was already on the verge of depravity, he would break. He would completely lose himself to the spirit. "I don't know. We're dealing with new gods, new consequences, and new circumstances. I'm not sure how I'll react once - " say it, just say it" - I've killed the women."
"Is it possible to change their minds?"
"We are not even to try," he answered, dejected. "They again used Jiang Lang as an example, saying we would be cursed as he is if we dared to object."
Feng Yue jumped to his feet and paced from one wall of the spacious room to the other. "I fucking hate this," he grumbled.
"Well, the rest of us love it," Lin Fan said dryly.
"Perhaps you will be doing the women a favor," Feng Yue said, his attention still fixed on his blade as he carved an X in the center of his palm. Red drops trickled onto his thigh.
He was the reason all the furniture was dark red.
"Perhaps I will be ordered to take your life next," Yan Lie replied darkly.
"I need to think about this." Luo Chen rubbed two fingers over his roughly scarred jaw. "There has to be something we can do."
"Maybe Yan Lie can just destroy the entire world," Lin Fan said in that annoyingly sarcastic tone. "That way, all possible future targets will be eliminated, and we'll never have to have this discussion again."
Yan Lie bared his teeth. "Don't make me hurt you, Disease."
Those piercing green eyes glowed with wicked humor, and Lin Fan offered a mockingly wild grin. "Did I hurt your feelings? I'd be happy to kiss you and make you feel better."
Before Yan Lie could leap across the room - not that he could do anything to Lin Fan - Luo Chen said, "Stop. We cannot be divided. We don't know the extent of what we're facing. Now, more than ever, we must stand together. It's been an eventful night, and it's not over yet. Feng Yue, Bai Long, head into town and make sure there are no more Hunters lurking about. Lin Fan - I don't know. Watch the hill or make us some money."
"What are you going to do?" Feng Yue asked.
"Consider our options," he replied gravely.
Feng Yue's eyebrows shot up. "What about Jiang Lang's woman? I'll be better able to find any Hunters if I spend a little time between her - "
"No." Luo Chen stared up at the high ceiling. "Not her. Remember, I promised Jiang Lang she'd return to him untouched."
"Yeah, I remember. Remind me again why you'd promise such a dumb-ass thing."
"Just... leave her alone. She didn't seem to want you anyway."
"Which is even more shocking than the news about the courtiers," Feng Yue muttered. Then he sighed. "Fine. I'll keep my hands to myself, but someone needs to feed her. We told her we would."
"Perhaps we should starve her," Bai Long suggested. "She'll be more likely to talk in the morning if she's weakened by hunger."
Luo Chen nodded. "I agree. She might be more willing to give Jiang Lang the truth if she thinks it will get her a meal."
"I don't like it, but I won't argue. And I guess this means I'm going into town without my vitamin D injection," Feng Yue said with another sigh. "Let's do this, Pain."
Bai Long was on his feet a moment later, and the two strode out of the room, side by side. Lin Fan followed suit, though he gave them a good head start. Yan Lie couldn't imagine the pressure of making sure no part of himself ever touched another person like Li Fan. It had to be hell.
He snorted. Life for all the warriors here was hell.
Luo Chen closed the distance between them and sat down in the leather chair opposite him. The scent of roses drifted from him. Yan Lie had never understood why the soul Reaper smelled like a spring bouquet - surely a curse even worse than Jiang Lang's.
"Thoughts?" he asked, studying his friend. For the first time in many, many years, Luo Chen radiated something other than calm. His forehead was furrowed, and there were stress lines further marring his scarred face.
Those scars slashed from each of his dark eyebrows all the way to his jawline, thick and puckered. Luo Chen never talked about how he had gotten them, and Yan Lie had never asked. While they had lived in the East of Yunnan before, the warrior had simply returned home one day, pain in his eyes and marks on his cheeks.
"This is bad," Luo Chen said. "Really bad. Hunters, Jiang Lang's woman - however she fits into this - and the courtiers, all in one day. That cannot be an accident."
"I know." Yan Lie dragged a hand down his face, his fingertip catching and tugging on his eyebrow piercing. "Do the courtiers want us dead, do you think? Could they have sent the Hunters here?"
"Perhaps. But what would they do with our demons once our bodies were destroyed and the spirits released? And why order you to act for them if they only meant to have you killed?"
Good questions. "I have no answers for you. I don't even know how I'm going to do this deed that's been demanded of me. The women are innocent. Two are young, in their twenties, the third is in her late forties, and the fourth is a grandmother. She probably bakes cookies for the homeless in her spare time."
Curious about them, he had hunted and found them in a hotel in Buda after he had left the Court. Seeing them in person had only made his horror stronger.
"We can't wait. We must act as soon as possible," Luo Chen said. "We can't allow these Courtiers to dictate our actions in this way, or they will try to do so over and over again. Surely we can come up with a solution."
Yan Lie thought they would have a better chance figuring out how to fix the charred, tattered remains of his soul after he killed those women. And even that seemed hopeless.
As it was, they sat in silence for a long time, their minds racing with options. Or rather, the lack of them.
Finally Yanlie gave a shake of his head and felt as if he had just welcomed a new demon inside him. Doom.