Page 14 of The Girl Who Only Died Once

No.

Stands…something else.

Her mind shies away from it. Sure, there’s a generically handsome face, taller than her, and dark hair, but beneath the face, beneath the skin, something shifts. Something darker, something more sinister, something…

Something much worse than Ambra appeared to be.

Power swirls around them, more than she’s ever seen, incomprehensibly more. Massively more.

She thought she’s seen demon power, what with Ambra and Maison. But this is…utterly more.

There’s a strange magnetism, in the shifting double face, one that immediately draws her eyes up to him. A handsomeness, almost completely obscured by the human form, despite all the terror it should inspire.

If she saw that face first instead of the human one, she might somehow be less afraid.

The brow furrows, and Chloe takes a step back, her feet moving beyond her control, her boots sliding in the dust on the floor.

Because the dust is still in place on her side.

The being’s eyes flicker from the phone in her hand to the lockpick in the other, and then to the gun at her hip.

“No,” they murmur, the voice low. “I don’t think so.”

Between one moment and the next, the demon flickers to in front of her, and she flings her hands in front of her face, some instinctive shield, before—

A finger, real and physical as anything else, presses against her forehead, and all Chloe’s dimly aware of is her knees buckling and her head going light.

5

Chloe blinks her eyes open and the only thing she can see is a skull.

It’s laying on the ground, half propped against the granite wall, the bright light chasing shadows in the eye socket, deepening the orbital lobe. The teeth are all there, near as Chloe could tell, and as she blinks at it, her eyelashes stick together.

What?

With the dark granite, the skull, and the soft, dull ache in Chloe’s head, she should…

She bolts upright, and her head swims, blurring the hallway around her, and for a split second the bright lights slam off, dust coating the ground once more, before Chloe inhales and the lights settle back on.

Right. An illusion spell. That apparently she can see through, but—

The demon.

Chloe stills, her head still aching, but the lights stay on, the dust gone, and there’s nobody else in the narrow hallway.

Her palm stings from the trap, which means it’s been less than four hours since she unraveled it, but there’s no trace of blood flakes on the floor.

But the trap door is still open, and the trace of demon footsteps lead down to it again.

Like the demon popped up, knocked her out, then returned down the ladder.

And left a skull for her to look at.

“Ooookay,” Chloe breathes, and standing up sounds like very much not a good idea, so she scoots until her back can lean against the wall, her heart pounding.

The shadows in the skull's orbital socket seem to follow her movement, another little surveillance.

Chloe squeezes her eyes shut, resting her head against the wall, and her blood fizzes through her body. So whatever demon she encountered left her here, rather untouched besides a small headache, and is almost certainly still in the compound. Probably a floor or so deeper, if her guess is correct about the location.

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