Page 92 of All Hallows Game

CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

MISERY

When I caught up to Death, it was chaos. I made Honey swear she’d lock the door to her room and stay right there until we came back, but I couldn’t sit there with her and wait for news of Cat, Death, and Tor. I needed to be helping them, fighting alongside them.

I was braced for Phil to put up a fight, but when I finally tracked down Death, he and Tor were fighting huge, bristling creatures, not a deceitful teenager. I froze on the edge of the treeline, watching dark magic stream through the air, pure death spearing creature after creature. For every one they killed, another seemed to emerge from the shadows.

The creatures were all the same size, all around six feet tall and built of powerful muscle, all covered in fur, but their colouring varied between black, grey, maroon, and brown; some had horns, others had spikes down their back and others still had dark, leathery wings. A macabre zoo of arcane animals, not a single one of them natural.

I expected Nightmare’s signature to be all over them, but I couldn’t sense her. It wasn’t much of a relief. There was no coincidence Ford was suddenly overrun with monsters mere weeks after she bragged about launching phase two of her plan.

Magic hung thick in the air as I assessed the chaos and melee, searching for an opening to join the fray, scanning Death and Tor and jolting when I saw a smear of blood on Death’s back. His suit jacket was long gone, his shirt sliced down the back and soaked red. How? Anger burned bright in my chest, incinerating my fear of Nightmare until I could drag in a full breath. She wasn’t here.

But when I looked at that blood on Death’s back, her words echoed through my mind, smug and gloating just minutes after she commanded me to walk into the lake with Rosalind, to drag my sister under the icy water and hold her there until her breathing stopped.

“Call Death,” she’d ordered then, sinking her claws deeper into my mind until my skull howled with pain. But I was still in the water, still clutching Rosalind’s lifeless body to me, still praying she’d wake up and this would all be a trick or illusion—the agony of holding her dead body numbed me to Nightmare’s commands.

“Call him,” she hissed, any beauty she’d had replaced by an ugly sort of hunger. She wanted me to suffer, wanted me to break. They were dead, all of them. Even little Joanna. My eyes burned. I dipped my head, pressing it to the cold skin of Rosalind’s forehead. “Call him or I’ll make you walk under the water until you stop breathing.”

Through the numb, I’d understood this had never been about me, and had always been about Death. She used me to get to him, dripped her slow poison into me until I was hers to command, all for this moment—where I’d deliver Death to her, for whatever end.

“No,” I said in a hollow voice, my tears falling onto Rosalind’s cold face. My sister was dead. My brothers. Konrad and Guinevere. Joanna. All of them, gone. Murdered by this heinous monster standing on the banks of the lake in an embellished red gown like an imperious queen. I wasn’t hers to command. Not anymore. Rosalind’s death broke her hold on me, and whatever remnants were left tore with every broken, jagged sob that left me.

“You can’t hurt him,” I croaked. “He’s Death.”

Nightmare laughed, her voice carrying through the trees, a pealing bell I’d thought was beautiful two days ago. Before I realised it was her killing my family. Before I confronted her and she revealed that I didn’t take a breath or wipe my ass without her permission.

“Even Death himself can be harmed,” Nightmare took great pleasure in telling me. “You just have to find the right balance between life and death, apply the right pressure to the right weakness. If you think he can’t be wiped off the face of every realm, Caishen, I regret to tell you you’re sorely mistaken.”

She didn’t regret to tell me anything. The smile on her face was a mile wide, her eyes sparkling with glee as I stood there, cradling the corpse of Rosalind.

“You’re not going anywhere near Death,” I managed to rasp, taking a step towards the banks of the lake. I didn’t know what I’d do with Rosalind’s body, didn’t know how I was supposed to bury another person I loved.

“Call him,” she growled, her voice deepening, and I found I was wrong, that not even the numbness protected me, because her command snapped through my mind like a whip. My mouth opened without my consent. His name poured out, a summons he couldn’t and would never ignore when it meant I was in jeopardy.

“Don’t,” I tried to choke out, tried to warn him, but then shadows swarmed in the air and there he was, stepping onto the banks far too close to Nightmare. I wouldn’t think of her by the name I’d used these past weeks, wouldn’t acknowledge her as anything but what she was. She wasn’t my friend, wasn’t a kindred spirit, wasn’t a kind, funny, intelligent woman who only craved connection and kinship. She was a scorpion slinking through the sand, pretending to be harmless until it was too late and I’d been stung with her venom. Like a scorpion’s, Nightmare’s sting had shut down my body, crawling slowly through every part of me until I could barely breathe, barely exist.

“Go,” I forced past numb lips, my arms shaking around Rosalind’s cold body, her dress heavy and soaked through. I couldn’t tear my eyes off the tiny scrap of distance between Death and Nightmare. “Trap,” I managed to choke out before Nightmare pounced.

She’d never physically attacked me, had only cast her wickedness into my mind and made me a puppet, but now she threw herself at Death, wanting to do damage with her bare hands. There was hatred on her face, personal and deep.

“Use your misery on him,” she commanded, her voice a whip striking me, making me flinch back.

Rosalind fell from my hands as I raised them, powerless, helpless. Magic streamed from me, colliding with Death, knocking him back a step. His breath hitched, eyes widening as he suffered. Vomit hit the back of my throat.

I trudged through the water, fear closing around my chest as Nightmare locked her hands around Death’s throat while he was weak, his magic having no effect on her. Anyone else would have dropped dead instantly; even the strongest mortal would have collapsed, screaming, in true and total agony. But she didn’t even flinch. No, it was Death who flinched back, a scream of agony torn from him when she plunged her fingernails into his throat.

I jolted forward a step—and staggered back to reality when a snarl tore through the woods too close to me. I blinked the past away and gasped when a giant flew past me, dark grey fur bristling and leathery wings snapping out so far, the tips brushed my arm.

Death’s magic had hit the creature square in the chest; I watched the power spread tendrils across grey fur, watched it sink into skin and find the beast’s heart. The brush of death magic over my skin was reassuring. I leaned into it, finding Death’s eyes across the clearing. He was fine. But he was bleeding, and Nightmare wasn’t even here, but I could still hear her gloating voice.

Even Death himself can be harmed. You just have to find the right balance between life and death, apply the right pressure to the right weakness.

When he was forced to tear his gaze away from me to face another horned, growling creature, I reached for the ring on my pinkie finger, brushing my thumb over the dips and sharp edges. I didn’t remember Cat giving me her ring, but I woke up the day after I took the binding potion and found it there, a permanent fixture I’d rather die than remove.

I straightened my spine, threw my shoulders back, and reached for the scraps of magic I had left. Cobwebs—that was all I had. Not enough to fight two dozen snarling, blood-hungry creatures. Where was Nightmare? She must have been somewhere close, the puppeteer to these toys of hers. I had no doubts this was her work; why else would so many beasts suddenly appear in Cat’s school. In the home I’d lived so long ago, where my family had lived and died.

Grief pierced my chest but anger followed swiftly. She took them from me. She wouldn’t take anyone else. Not Cat, not Death, and not Tor. They were all I had left. They were everything.

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