Page 125 of An Invocation of Monsters

“I had aged enough that bearing the child of a monster would be difficult, but keeping you alive proved to be a blessing. Your touch healed me, turned back my clock. You made this possible for me.

“And, within days of arriving, you lured the monsters out. I truly could not have asked for better bait.”

“Then why did you try to kill Kiraxis?” I asked through gritted teeth. “What could that possibly have done for you?”

Mary sneered at me. “Oh, so the thing has a name? The problem is that you were too good of a bait. They were blindly worshipping at your feet, and you healed them, helped them evade my traps. I needed a monster to create my own child and heir, not another one of you damned Marsh sluts lording it over us all.”

Her hands were trembling. She took a deep breath and exhaled, squaring her shoulders.

“It doesn’t matter now,” she said calmly. “You’ve brought the monsters back. When I sacrifice you to the Void, I will summon one who will grant me my desires. He will give me his child, his power.”

“I’m pretty sure that’s not how it works,” I said, keeping my voice soft, but Mary ignored me.

“I have read all the books. I’ve searched for years. An offering of blood… that’s one of the most powerful of all. It cannot ignore my call.”

Ah, so the monologue was finally over. My time was up.

My monsters hadn’t come for me.

In a way I was glad they had stayed away. If they had sense, they would run as far as the Void would take them.

I didn’t want to go to my grave knowing this psychopath would trap them and rape them and force them to impregnate her.

Just go, I thought to them.

My ears popped again, the pain extending into my skull and down my neck. Mary was feeling it, too, hunched over and twisting her head.

“I’ve waited for years for someone who would understand everything I’ve gone through to get here,” she said to me. “Now you know how far I’ve gone.”

She straightened up, flicking the knife. Congealing blood flew from its point and splattered across the circle.

“By the darkness of night, I offer this woman to the Other Side.”

I licked my dry lips, felt my heart begin racing again.

“I offer her blood. I offer her flesh.”

I made one last effort at freeing myself, re-opening the clotted wounds on my wrists. The ropes held fast.

“I offer her bones, and I offer her mind.”

My ears popped, the pressure snapping.

The darkness pressed in. One by the one, the stars winked out.

I tasted copper, watching as the blood pooled on the circle quivered, and droplets began to rise, floating in midair like jewels.

My hair rose with it, twisting upwards in a cloud of crimson around me.

“I offer her soul. This child of the Void is yours in death.”

I realized the stars had not burned out.

They were blocked.

An abyssal blackness rose beyond the cliff. As Mary pressed the edge of the dagger against my throat, beads of blood welling from the sharp line of pain, the blackness shifted.

And opened its blazing, fiery eyes.

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