Five
Gray
I’d turned Hell’s black lake into dust, and now our rotting little boat drifted on a sea of nothingness, our knees touching as we sat across from each other on cold, damp benches.
Minutes passed in deadly silence, time stretching before us like hours. Days. Even the ghostly clouds had drifted away, as if the trapped spirits had grown tired of waiting for Death to explain.
“Jonathan is trapped in your realm,” he finally said. “I chased him through the black forest, but he eluded my capture. Something is very, very wrong with him. He’s no longer part of the natural order, and therefore not subject to its rules. He didn’t seem to recognize where he was, or how he’d gotten there—only that he wanted out.”
“He’s a hybrid now,” I said. “Vampire, shifter, who knows what else? He jum
