Page 115 of World's Okayest Oracle (Reluctantly) Seeks Demon

The Fate’s chair screeched as she pushed it back. Slowly, leaning on a cane, she made her way down the steps from the dais and toward Josiah.

“You can’t—” Josiah managed to protest before Death rendered his speech soundless.

The fae’s struggle to rise, to flee, turned frantic, but all his writhing remained fruitless. When the elderly Fate’s faltering steps finally reached him, he still sat exactly where he’d been placed. And as her hand reached toward him, even his futile wriggling abruptly ceased.

He stared straight ahead, immobile, as her slightly trembling fingers spread apart the jagged rent Eloise had created in his crisp white shirt. The metallic shine of his armor caught the light, the material glimmering and pristine. The Fate lightly traced a blunt fingernail down that armor’s textured surface, and it gaped wide everywhere she touched, revealing the glowing, naked flesh beneath.

Without a word, Eloise held out the stolen knife to the Fate, handle first.

“My thanks to you, sweet girl,” the Fate murmured, and accepted the offering.

In her palsied grip, the chef’s knife seemed to melt, then boil and reshape itself. A breath later, she gripped dully gleaming ironscissors, the handles engraved with drooping flowers. Overblown, showy roses, now hanging limp on their bent stems.

“Be you nigh or far, Fate takes her due.” Her voice crackled with age and power. “Tarry not, lest she take from you.”

As the rest of them bore silent witness, the Fate’s scissors pierced his flesh and sank into his heart, handles deep. He shuddered once, violently, then crumpled into his chair like a marionette with snipped strings.

His fatal wound didn’t bleed. Itsmoked.

And then it entirely disappeared.

34

Josiah straightened in his chair, shock whitening his face as he clapped a hand over the rent in his armor and the grievous injury that no longer existed. Other than his damaged garments and the paleness of his complexion, he looked exactly the same as he had before his second stabbing of the day.

His second stabbing so far, Gwen mentally corrected herself. Who was to say that Josiah wouldn’t be stabbed a third time? Maybe they’d all get a turn before nightfall.

The elderly Fate nudged his hand aside and bent to lay her palm over his chest, her frown of concentration deepening her wrinkles into topography. After a moment, she stepped back and leaned heavily on her cane.

Her pat on his arm contained an entire galaxy of condescension. “All done, former Councilor.”

Josiah tried again to speak, to shout, but no noise emerged from his gaping mouth.

Despite Gwen’s relief that the fae’s threat to her life—to the lives of Supernaturals and humans everywhere—was over, she shrank back into her chair at the sight of such a powerful being rendered so very helpless. At the prospect that she and everyone else at her table might receive his same punishment before leaving this courtroom.

She hadn’t chosen to enter the Realm Below, but she’d done so regardless. Even worse, Hughhaddeliberately trespassed into Death’s restricted territory, and Eloise had knowingly violated the terms of her afterlife assignment.

There was no point in attempting to flee. Josiah’s inability to resist his demise had certainly demonstrated that much.

Hugh’s slim fingers slipped through hers, and he held her hand in a comforting grip as they awaited their fates. Meanwhile, Death sipped from his Starbucks mug, boredom written all over his face, and watched Josiah continue to shout soundlessly.

“I think you’ll find”—Death tossed back a final sip before continuing—“that you’ll speak in our courtroom only when we wish you to do so. Let us begin, shall—wait.” His brow furrowed, and his gaze redirected to Eloise. “Aren’t you supposed to be at work?”

Gwen cringed, but Eloise only smiled cheerfully at Death.

“Dottie said I could take today off.” Eloise raised a hand, palm out, as if forestalling any possible complaints. “She promised me she’d sleep late, not leave the house until my return, and refrain from eating more snakes.”

“Hmmm.” Death eyed her askance, but he eventually turned back to Josiah. “In that case, we shall begin. Welcome to your afterlife trial, Josiah Goodling.”

“You…” When the fae spoke this time, they could actually hear him. “Howdareyou—”

Eloise quietly giggled at his outraged expression when his voice went silent again.

Death conferred wordlessly with the Fates before asking his first question. “Tell us, former Councilor Goodling: Why did you intrude upon the sacred grounds of the Realm Below?”

When the fae didn’t respond immediately, Death sighed, and another, larger Starbucks mug materialized in his hand. “You have no other choice but to speak truthfully, Goodling. You could bite off your tongue, and it wouldn’t matter. You’d still answer me, however incriminating that answer might prove.”

“A…significant…faction…” The words emerged one by one, torn from Josiah’s unwilling mouth, until he finally conceded defeat. “I, along with a significant faction of the fae—those of us most gifted with rightful power and wealth—wish to cease our current cooperation with humans and other Supernaturals. We reject the authority of SERC over our actions.”