Author note: Well then chapter three here we are!
mainnaise: You know... I forgot all about the fact I was supposed to have Castiel somewhere in the woods chasing her down... drat. Hope you have a great break/vacation!
Germandelights: I love your cold hearted ways! It would make for excellent reading, demonic love. Though kinda dangerous. Who knows, I may put in some poisoned and obsessive love in eventually. You'll just have to read to find out!
Rose14799: Wells you voted for her listening to redolphus here... or thats how I viewed it. Sorry if I'm wrong! You want Dimitri in as a love interest too? Should I be worried people want my characters to fall for the guy most likely to kill her?... My poor Nettie. I couldn't handle Grell. He'd wear me out!
Rosiallette: Alrighty your choice was added to the vote. Here's hoping you like the result!
ApocalypticAndrea: Well heres hoping the wait was worth it. Enjoy!
The results!
Choice A- listens to Redolphus (4)
Choice B- call for Dimitri (3)
Lysander-
Castiel-
Disclaimer: Nope, nope, nope.
Chapter start
Nettie forced her protesting lungs to function. She couldn't halt the violent trembles running through her limbs. But she did not call out to her demon as she was aware she could.
Curiosity was biting its vile tentacles through her and made her narrow her eyes at the supernatural creature before her, wondering if she would regret this.
Contrary to what others might have been feeling she didn't regret forming her contract. It might have simply been the fact the full import of just what she had done hadn't infected her yet. Or maybe she just didn't care. She couldn't have told herself the answer.
She was however curious about the thing she had tied herself to. What had been that surge of anger that had flooded her when she asked for his help? Was he even a 'he'? Yes, there were questions.
Redolphus blinked thankfully when he didn't feel any shifts to alert him to the approaching demon.
"So what do you have to tell me," Nettie demanded a little breathlessly.
"That the fate you've bargained yourself over to isn't one you truly want." He kept his tone as gentle as he could. "It can be broken but it must be done by you."
"I don't care about all that!" Nettie snapped. "You said you can tell me about Dimitri?"
Redolphus sighed but bit his tongue. "Yes. You see it was I who dragged him into the dark he now submerges in."
Now that was a… startling thought. "You mean he wasn't born a demon? And you weren't born a… whatever you are?"
"I have always been a reaper for all of my existence. Yet he used to be a simple human, a soul I had ferried across the lines of life and death for far longer than he is even aware."
"You're a… grim reaper," Nettie deadpanned, feeling suddenly like she was in a comic. Of course, he was.
"Yes. As for you Nettie I am the reaper assigned to your soul as well as I once was his. Though Dimitri's is long gone yours is still something I can recover."
Nettie felt her thoughts swim. There was more to this. There had to be.
Her eyes clearly demanded more explanation so he sighed again and clucked his tongue and she flinched when the pigmantless eyes focused on her fully.
"To put it bluntly… there are many reapers but not nearly so many as souls. We have all existed since the beginning of time. It is I and my kind that determines the path a life takes, where the soul rests and when it passes. You were meant to pass four days ago as you have died for long centuries."
"What?"
"There are some souls born only to enrich the lives of other souls. Some souls, such as Castiel's, are more inclined to be terminal. They do not move in the same predictable patterns. In order to bring them to heel we reapers have utilized souls such as yours to force them into submission. It often leads to some souls needing to be brought out only for death.
"This leads us to the demons. They are our other side, the flip of the coin if you would. Where we lead a soul and safeguard it a demon taints it and feeds from it until it is nothing more than a wisp. Dimitri is the only thing that prevented your death four days ago and by doing so fate has been rewritten in paths we can't control."
So she had been born to die an early death? Nettie blinked as she gave him an incredulous look. "So… you want me to break a contract in order to die for you?"
"Yes… but you must understand. There are certain things I can't explain to you. Why we must do these things… it's the balance of this world, this universe. It gives me little satisfaction to see you die before you reach adulthood every time you are reborn yet I must. Please, understand."
"Do the words go to hell mean anything to you?" She asked with a cocked brow.
He blinked. "Does the fact that is exactly where you will go if you remain in Dimitri's company mean anything to you?"
There went that small try at ticking him off. "Why do I have to die though? Can't you just once let me have a long life?"
"I tried to bend the rules once already and the results have haunted me for millennia," Redolphus shook his head slowly.
"Dimitri?"
"Yes. You see it didn't matter what life he was in, what state his soul was in… he faced his deaths with the same unflinching pride and strength. It was an odd thing… most souls vary depending on the deaths… he remained the same. I was intrigued and sought him out, deceiving him to believe I was just as human as he was at the time. The result was he saw my deception as betrayal and when he died it was in no way guarded by a reaper. He chose to allow a demon to drink him down and in turn became demon against his will.
"It was a death he controlled and we did not he craved yet he received an unending life that made him the lowliest of dark matter."
"Will that happen to me… if he eats my soul," she asked.
"It is possible should he choose that. He's old enough now that he can sire a strong enough demonic protégé to survive. It is either he turns you at the end of your contract or he will devour you and there will be no other life. So please… let me break the contract now. Though you will die at least I give you another life again."
"To kill me again!" She muttered it with anger.
"For the good of others, yes."
To his credit he didn't try to deny he would continue to kill her repeatedly in every life. It didn't exactly endear him to her.
Nettie swallowed the questions on her tongue that she burned to ask. There were still so many things she didn't understand about Dimitri. He was evil, which she knew. The idea that he was a simple human, someone who had taken the same path she had was startling and also frightening. If he turned her would she become so evil, able only to hunt?
"So really… you interfered with Dimitri's life a long time ago… and the result is now he has become a demon and he's fucking your existence up by taking my soul?"
Redolphus narrowed his eyes, not liking her way of putting it. She made it sound light and ridiculous when it was anything but. On that fateful day centuries ago, near a millennia, or had it passed even that, he had lost the respect of his fellows and lost his usually cold and indifferent heart to a human. And he had paid the price for altering planned fate, had shifted destiny to the point it continued to haunt him into the future.
Dimitri was his personal sin but it had led to many other useless things. Nettie wasn't the first soul Dimitri had poached from his territory simply to be a pain, to remind Redolphus that he was growing stronger and it was all the reapers fault.
Nettie crossed her arms and forced herself to study the repaper before her. He was… nothing, she supposed. He had no features, he could have been anyone or anything but he was just… nothing. Where Dimitri was everything she longed for.
"My life isn't mine now," she said slowly. "I belong to Dimitri."
"Whatever happiness he can give you won't be real," Redolphus tried to stress this point if nothing else. "He can't give any emotion beyond the darker ones anymore. You'll never be more than an amusement to him, and then you'll simply be a meal."
"Who cares? At least it's my decision! I won't be some puppet for you to use!"
A cold blast of wind hit out and slammed into Nettie, forcing her soaked clothes to plaster even tighter onto her body and she stumbled until she landed on her ass. Fear trickled through her as the icy temperature began to hit pierce her flesh.
Redolphus was livid now, furious that she would dare to resist him. No sane person in their right minds would choose an eternity of suffering! Then again…
Her lives were suffering regardless at his hands. Oh yes, he could clearly see the many forms Nettie had taken over the past centuries, lives where she was poor, where she was filthy rich, where she was a murderess, life where she was male even. And in each incarnation of her he had killed her before her twentieth year. All to force the other souls around her into more malleable obedience.
He was still angry though. He looked at her shivering form and felt pity but also that cold fury. If he didn't stop soon Dimitri would feel her distress and come for blood. Her heart was slowing now as he froze the air around her, her limbs growing dumb, unable to support her weight.
He might have killed her early but she had never, in any of the fates he gave her regretted her life. There had always been a reason for her death. To save a loved one or friend, to stop something from doing great harm to others. She had always died for a purpose, something she had fought for. A truly noble and pure soul even as he had watched her kill others in most of her lives, had watched her break people, always for a reason she could justify.
Now she was again gearing for a fight and it was against not only him but also the wheel of destiny!
He could kill her now in these brief seconds before Dimitri arrived. He could try to freeze her heart. Her soul would be safe in his possession then and he could hold it at bay, he could keep her safe from Dimitri in her next life. She wouldn't remember her life as Nettie and she would go back to falling into the trap of fate.
He could do it… he could…
End chapter
Author note: Ha and done! Sorry for the wait.
THE CHOICES:
Choice A) Choose to try and kill her now
Choice B) Surrender for now and retreat before Dimitri arrives