Page 63 of All Hallows Game

Oh, god. I was so bad at lying. I scrambled for a response, my chest tighter and tighter. “Well, he couldn’t go before now; they had patients to see to.”

Tannie made a sound of agreement. “Fair point. But that guy’s acting sus as hell. Get him to call me when he comes back.”

“I will,” I lied, grateful to be done with the lies. “Love you, Tannie.”

“Love you too, darling sister. No dropping out or taking sabbaticals for you, okay?”

“Okay,” I rasped, tears stinging the backs of my eyes.

“You got this,” he told me, hearing the tears but misinterpreting their cause. “Even if there’s a bog monster or flesh eating snails, you got this.”

“I got this,” I repeated in a whisper.

“Do you need me to text you a slew of inspirational memes?” he asked seriously.

“Yes,” I replied in a small voice.

“Consider it done. Don’t worry too hard. I’ll get everything sorted out with Virgil.”

I had no reply to that. I ended the call, barely holding back the gasping, desperate breaths until I hit that red button. I clutched my chest, bowing over on the bed as I went to war with my own breathing.

I needed to get it together, needed to find control. I had a bunker to search for and a brother to find. But as usual the anxiety won.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

CAT

It took me all night to uncover a map of the pipes under Ford’s End, comparing it with a map of the island itself. Most pipelines connected to Ford or the village, others linking up isolated farm houses or small manor houses dotted around the winding trails of the island. There were five random offshoots that made no sense with the present-day layout of the island. I took screenshots of the pipe schematics, pinned each location in my map app, and hurriedly got dressed.

I was out of Ford and driving down a steep, winding road long before the sun rose. I debated stopping in at Ford’s End for coffee to fuel my search before I remembered the nice woman who ran the coffee shop had been mauled by the monster. Creature. Whatever it was. The image of the florist being eaten formed in my mind, so clear that I flinched and my hands jerked on the wheel.

I didn’t crash, didn’t even swerve, but I became hyper aware of how easily a distraction could kill me. I’d found Caroline Beaumont murdered and seen another woman torn to shreds in less than a week; my mind was full of nothing but distractions. Would Nightmare set that creature on my brother if I wasn’t fast enough to find him? I knew it answered to her. There was no way a mysterious monster started killing people weeks after she warned the next phase of her plan would happen.

If you find the monster and rip out its throat, it can never hurt anyone else. You won’t ever have to witness another death. You’ll live happily ever after.

I shook my head, staring at the road ahead of me. “Not today. Today, I’m finding my brother.”

I glanced briefly at my phone on the dashboard, following the little pin around a bend in the road I’d never driven before, taking me to the opposite side to Ford. Here, the grass grew higher and the trees thinned, the ground dropping away to a rocky cliff beside the road. If Nightmare wanted me dead, driving me off this road would be a good way to do it. The sea frothed below, eager to swallow me whole.

“It’s just ahead,” I whispered to myself, gripping the wheel in sweaty hands. “It’s just ahead.”

The red pin was my lifeline, promising salvation from the treacherous drop to my left, the lonely stretch of moors to my right. There was no one to witness my murder if someone decided to kill me.

They wouldn’t dare, the darkness seethed. You’d sear every malicious thought from their brain with twelve volts of fatal electricity.

“Where would I even find electricity out here?” I muttered, colder with every minute I drove through this abandoned road.

Car battery, my darkness supplied.

“Oh good,” I muttered. “You’ve given it thought.”

It surged against me, eager for violence, aching to feel the splash of blood on my skin, and I shuddered. I didn’t like how much the dark side of me was growing, taking on a mind of its own, seducing me to violence and murder. The idea of spilling blood before anyone could hurt me was too appealing. I had the knife Tor gifted me in the pocket of my thick winter coat, tucked away in a little leather cover that had shown up overnight. Like he’d noticed it sitting out when he came to see me.1

“I’m not electrocuting anyone with a car battery,” I said, my eyes darting between the little red pin and the road as it straightened into a wider arc. Whatever the first anomaly of pipes connected to was just ahead on the right. With the vicious cliffs still threatening on my left. Great. I’d hoped to leave them behind.

The darkness didn’t say anything as I parked on the side of the road and climbed out, my phone in hand. Probably because I was too nervous and afraid for my subconscious to come up with something to say. It was hard to feel bloodthirsty when you were hyper-aware of a two hundred metre drop studded with razor sharp rocks all the way to the bottom.

I was relieved to follow the red pin across the moors and away from the edge of the cliff, but when a curl of snow drifted through the air the first hope of relief turned to dread. It had been snowing the day I found Caroline murdered. I gripped my phone tighter, breathing slowly through the dread.

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