Page 107 of The Girl Who Inherits the Dead

His eyes snap up to hers, blue and brilliant, before he screams.

Screams, like the sound is torn out of him, and all the hair on the back of Delina’s neck raises. Screams like a child, like the very air is stolen from his lungs.

The skin flakes off like sheafs of paper, black spiraling up his arm, revealing muscle and sinew, before that crumples to dust.

Delina staggers back, and Maison grabs her, steadying her, pulling her away from Korhonen, away from the terror and pain.

The black reaches his shoulder, and completely silently, caves in his chest, and the lungs crumble into nothing, and Korhonen slumps back, dead before he hits the floor.

Then it’s just a few small twists, and the black flakes over the rest of his body, until all that’s left is a body shaped pile of dust.

And then.

Stillness.

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Tremors wind through Delina’s body, and she’s shaking. She’s shaking, her hands are shaking, her teeth are shaking.

Maison drags her back a few more steps, like the dust could reach out to her and catch her in it, too.

“Oh my god,” whispers Chloe, and she’s in pain, all but forgotten with a stab wound through her shoulder. She climbs to her feet, her face pale, clutching the wall for support.

The demon’s eyes are wide, staring down at what’s left of Korhonen, before she recoils in horror from Delina.

“We need to get out of here,” Gurlien says, breaking the silence, absentmindedly reaching down to help the demon up. She clutches at his arm, then shoves away from him, her eyes red.

“What did you do?” the demon spits out, and Delina can taste her terror mixed in with the pain. “What did you—”

With a jerk, the leash tightens around her throat, yanking her back. She claws at her throat, her nails drawing lines of black blood, before she abruptly disappears.

Disappears, and going with her all possibility of helping her. Of getting rid of the control.

Delina swallows and, still shaking, turns to Maison.

He’s pale, so pale, the blood on his cheek brilliant.

“We need to go,” he says, his voice strangled.

“I should bring him back,” Delina says, pointing to the bartender with a shaking hand. “He died, he didn’t need to, I should—”

Maison steps in close, even though she can taste his fear. “If you try one more thing you’re going to die,” he says, voice dipping low. “We need to get you out of here.”

They bandagetheir wounds back at the cabin, and Delina all but falls onto the couch, her head thudding.

“How did we see the demon?” Gurlien asks, after a few long moments of cleaning out splinters from Chloe’s shoulder in silence. “I can’t wrap my mind around it.”

“That’s what you can’t wrap your mind around?” Maison shoots over, holding a wet paper towel to the cut on his cheek.

Gurlien looks up enough to give him a glare. “The other things have explanations. She went offensive, you tried to sell yourself out at the first opportunity, but I do not understand the demon.”

“She said she was trapped,” Delina says dully, as Maison squares his shoulders at Gurlien. “We were about to be able to help her.”

“Ow,” Chloe mutters, as Gurlien pulls another bloody shard of wood out of her shoulder. “We wouldn’t have been able to.”

“I was…I was bluffing,” Delina says, and her hands still shake, no matter how hard she stares at them. “I was trying to get her to stop—could you guys hear what I was saying?”

“Enough of it,” Maison mutters, ducking his chin down.

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