Page 125 of Devil's Deal

She tries to scratch my face, and I block her with my bundle. It falls apart, hammer and nails tumbling into wheat. I don’t let myself despair, just mark the place.

I’m getting this bitch, and I won’t let Woland save me again.

”Yes, you’re fast,” I grit out, blinking sweat from my eyes. “Come at me.”

When she lurches toward me with a vicious screech, I stand my ground. She aims for my face again, and I drop low at the last moment, barreling head-first into her stomach. Her shriek ends with a gasp, and we both land in the wheat.

But unlike yesterday, she’s face up, and I don’t have time to restrain her hands.

It happens in a blink. Her unhinged maw curves up in a grin, and a red mist clouds her milky eyes.

She jabs her fingers into my wounds.

I howl with pain and collapse to the side, curling into a ball to protect myself. Hot agony stabs into my arm, the heat so searing, it feels like living fire. I’m dying. It’s not just my arm that hurts, it’s everything, like necrosis and rot spreading from the wounds into the rest of me with every heartbeat.

My mind tears open with the pain, my body flames bright, like I’m burning alive. I don’t dare look, don’t dare open my eyes, because I’m convinced I’ll see my skin and muscles disintegrating. It hurts like my meat is tearing off my bones.

The pain is so pure, it makes everything else disappear. I could sink into it and live in this endless agony, forever stuck, all of me burning away until all that’s left is the eternal burn.

But I’m not dead yet. With a force of will I didn’t know I possess, I claw my way out of the mindless suffering back into reality.

It couldn’t have lasted more than a few seconds, yet I’m branded now. That kind of pain must damage the soul.

As I return to consciousness, something hard digs into my cheek. I know there’s no time, so I roll with a moan, barely avoiding another slash of her claws.

But I’m too weak to stand or roll again. And she’s too fast.

She straddles me, panting, pink droplets of hot saliva dripping onto my breasts and burning through my dress. I hiss when they hit, each a tiny burst of excruciating pain. And yet, it has nothing on the rotten, sizzling flame that devours my left arm.

The poludnica raises her hands high, tittering. Helpless rage slams into me, but no matter how hard I try to dislodge her, she stays on. Things look dire.

There is no sign of Woland.

My heart hammers with pain and fury, and I roll to shake her off, but I choose the wrong direction. When I try to roll left, the pain makes my vision go black for a blissful moment. Then I’m back, but much weaker, a constant, low moan coming out through my clenched teeth. The bies sits on top of me, her head tilted. She can’t speak, but I know her meaning.

She’s gloating.

I reach over my head with my right arm, feverishly searching through the wheat. There was that thing, I know. It should be somewhere here.

The poludnica makes as if to attack, her fingers flying at my face. When I flinch away, she titters and raises them again, moving her fingers tauntingly.

The wheat rustles around me. I search and search, reaching farther, as far as my hand will go, but there’s nothing. Only dry, crusty soil and rigid stalks. The poludnica feints another attack, and a sob bursts from my throat.

I can’t find it. Whatever it was, that hard thing under my cheek, I must have rolled too far from it. I can’t save myself. She’ll put her fingers in my eyes and boil my brain.

“Woland,” I choke out.

When I called Chors’ name yesterday, he came at once. This should work. I wait, my heart bursting with hope. He’ll come. Of course, he will. He will save me, because I’m too significant to lose.

The poludnica raises her head slowly, and I swallow with relief, sure she must have seen him. He’ll blast her off me in a second. He’ll heal me.

She turns her head left and right, titters again, and looks down at me, her head tilted to the side. More scalding saliva drips onto me, and she makes another sound, something mockingly pitying, and wipes a bead of wetness from my cheek. A tear.

Her touch burns, and I scream, thrashing, but she’s shockingly strong for such a waif of a girl.

I still brush through the wheat with my right hand, gripping the stalks, digging my fingers into the loose soil. My left arm lies useless by my side. I wish I could cut it off. It would hurt less.

The poludnica shakes her head, and then, her song comes again, clear and loud, sung in a sweet, female voice. Her mouth doesn’t move, her tongue and uvula, which I see when she leans over me, not moving.

---