243 HOW LONG?

The night was tranquil and the moon shone brightly. This dirty and crammy place was better than the noisy sounds from all the music inside the building. He favored this kind of serenity more.

Once Chaos was in the empty alley and the sound of loud music faded away into the background, he pulled out a cigarette and put it between his lips. The other end of the stick lit with a small fire and crackled before white, soft smoke floated into the air.

He closed his eyes, basking himself under the cool light of the moon when someone greeted him.

historical

“Smoking now, huh?” A man suddenly appeared in front of Chaos, leaning lazily against the wall behind him, while staring at him through his yellow eyes. “Just because you can’t die, it doesn’t mean you can smoke all you want.”

However, Hades cringed when the tip of his shoes was set on fire. He shook his legs and the fire disappeared.

“Geez, your temper is still so bad. You need to work on that,” he complained. “How could you want to burn me when all I did was greet you?”

“Stay away from me.”

“Stay away from you, but can I stay close to that girl?” Hades nodded at the closed doors of the bar, inside where Zuri was still eating her meal. “All right, I am just kidding,” he said hurriedly when Chaos shot him a dagger look.

Hades had been warned to stay away from Zuri and it had been years since the last time he showed up in front of her, since Chaos’ reaction was not funny at all to say the least once he was too close to that girl.

.....

“What do you want?” Chaos tasted the cigarette and felt it was so bitter, but this was the only thing that could distract his mind from placing his lips on somewhere, someone else. This cigarette was a reminder for him.

“You know that you have released many dark creatures into this world, right?” Hades said in the most slow manner, as if he wanted to drag a simple sentence for a few unnecessary minutes. “Right?” he emphasized again when Chaos didn’t give him any response.

Chaos then glared at him sharply as his reaction to his annoying attitude, only then did he continue to talk.

“And you know that I will not help you at all to get them, but you should know that it is necessary for you to get them all, besides, it is obligatory for you to find all of your shattered souls, right?” Hades went far and beyond to annoy Chaos. If he was a mortal, he would have died by now. “But, to find those dark creatures is an obligation too.”

At this point, Chaos only wanted to get rid of this man from his sight and just tell him to go to hell.

“But, you don’t want to find them, even though you know that it is your responsibility, since you had been the one, who had released them into this world.”

Chaos always had a short temper and even shorter patience, thus to play this stupid game with Hades was something that he didn’t want to do, since it would never have a good outcome.

“What do you want to say?” Chaos said as he appeared in front of the God of the underworld all of a sudden. His dark blue eyes glared sharply at him and his fingers wrapped around his neck. One reckless move, he would snap his head easily.

It was a pity that none of them could die and they both knew that ironic fact.

“You don’t need to threaten me like this,” Hades protested. He blinked and he was no longer within Chaos’ clutches, as he appeared behind him. “All I want to say is; your favorite person is in danger now.”

Chaos turned around to see Hades standing a few meters away from him to prevent himself from being strangled again. It hurt his pride a little bit to be treated that way.

“I don’t like you, but I do like your cute companion, though you did not allow me to be close to her to warn her by myself. Therefore, with all the generosity that is still left in my heart, I came to you and warned you.” Hades made a dramatic and theatrical bow to Chaos. “She is in danger now. Aaron decided to come and play in this realm.”

Hades stood up and straightened himself. He smirked upon seeing the faint change of emotions flickering past Chaos’ eyes.

“He is very interested in your little companion apparently.” Hades shrugged. “All the dark creatures will take interest in someone, who is able to get your attention. You can’t blame them. You are a very interesting creature after all, so it extends to her as well.”

It didn’t take a long time before Hades could see how his words worked on Chaos and he was ecstatic to see what would happen next.

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July had been in a very bad mood, she became easily irritated and she had become more quiet than usual. Her bad mood could be felt by the rest of the people in this McKeltar Manor, especially by those non-human beings, who had a sharp sense of feelings.

“You spread a dark aura more than those dark witches,” Sebastian came and joined her by sitting next to her on this balcony, staring at the dark sky, where the moon was covered by the gloomy clouds.

July glanced at Sebastian. This man had been more like a brother to her ever since Knox’s disappearance, helping her with whatever he could to get her to her position right now and she would be forever thankful for that.

She wouldn’t have been able to gather all of those ferocious people from their lines of businesses in the black market, if it was not because of him.

None of them would respect an ex actress as their leader. A woman on top of that. But Sebastian managed to get her to this position. Of course, it was a hard earned place for July. There was a lot of blood, tears and silent screams on her part to be able to do what she had to do.

“I will trade everything if I can be a witch,” July said, tilting her head and looking into the distance in a daze. “At least they can live forever,” she mumbled softly, but Sebastian was so close to her, it was not a problem for him to hear that complaint.

“You want to be an immortal?” Sebastian asked. He looked at the woman beside him, his brows creasing upon hearing her words. July would always voice out what she thought, but recently, she had been unusually quiet.

“I didn’t mean so,” she mumbled again. She turned her head, so Sebastian couldn’t see her expression.

At first, Sebastian thought this was only one of her nonsensical raving, but as it turned out, July was serious about what she just said.

“At the very least, those creatures will live long enough to have a young appearance.” This time, July spoke through her gritted teeth, while still hiding her expression from him.

But Sebastian could easily say that she was pissed.

“People grow old, July, there is nothing wrong with that,” Sebastian said gently, trying to understand what was going on in her mind.

“It is unfair.” July didn’t want to sound like her father or her twin sister when she spoke about this, but there was no better way to explain what she was feeling right now. “We, humans, have a short lifespan, but those creatures have a long lifespan. Where is the fairness in that?”

That was one of the main reasons why The Hound despised non-human beings. They thought the universe was not fair to them by bestowing them with this kind of fate.

It would create imbalance in this world, therefore, they had to kill those creatures to create the balance again. To get the fairness back.

July hated to have these kinds of thoughts, despite the fact that she didn’t have the same resolution like her family.

On the other hand, Sebastian couldn’t understand her line of thinking, but then something clicked in his mind and he realized what all of this was about.

“You still have a lot of time with Knox, July,” Sebastian said. “You will have years with him.”

“How long?” July snapped at him, this time she turned around and glared at Sebastian with teary eyes. “Ten years, twenty years? How long? How long until I look like a grandmother figure for him?” July flinched at her last words.

However, Anne’s death had taken a toll on her. She came to a realization that there was a time in the past, when Anne looked like a daughter for the McKeltars and then a young sister and then a friend and as time went by, she looked like a grandmother for all of them. She withered and died, while the rest of the McKeltars didn’t grow old.

“Tell me, Sebastian,” July spoke through her gritted teeth. She was very upset and she couldn’t contain the sadness and fear that gnawed in her heart. “Tell me how long before I will be like Anne?”

Sebastian didn’t have an answer to that.

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Zuri was about to pay for her meal when someone sat down on the couch across from her, grinning.

“Hi, Blue,” he said in a warm greeting. “Can we chat for a bit?”

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