Page 61 of All Hallows Trick

“Are you going to use that gun?” Nightmare asked Honey, stepping aside just as I was about to reach her. My breath hitched when she reappeared five feet away, Madde’s freckled throat still pale under her fingers.

“I might,” Honey replied, slowly coming closer until she stood on the edge of the garden.

I felt my pulse in my throat, a mad rhythm that quickened as I turned to Nightmare, scanning Madde’s face. There was avacancy to his eyes that terrified me, and the absence of a smile on his face made cold skitter down my arms.

Madde? Talk to me, love.

No reply.

The laugh that wove through Nightmare’s voice made bile burn my throat. “Do you take requests?”

I didn’t take my eyes off Madde, the empty sheen in his eyes, the pallor of his face, the absence of shadows around him. What had she done? Or was this the Stalker? Had he weakened my Madde? I moved closer, faster, and I was so focused on him that I didn’t see the glance Honey and Nightmare exchanged, didn’t think to protect myself until the gun fired.

I didn’t realise why I staggered back, didn’t understand the gasp that left my mouth until heat detonated in a sudden blaze across my side.

“Applesauce,” Honey muttered. “I missed.”

“What…?” I pressed my hand to my side where the fire was the strongest, burning with relentless fuel. My hand came away red. I staggered another step, a frown tugging my brows together. “Honey, you… shot me?

Honey’s laugh was musical and sweet. “No, Kitty. I’m just borrowing her face. Honey is dead.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

CAT

The pain dropped me to my knees, shock making my thoughts slow to process. My jaguar took over, protecting me with thick velvety fur and claws that dug into the soft earth under my paws. My teeth bared in warning as pain built and built. Why had she… I didn’t understand.

I’m just borrowing her face. Honey is dead.

That wasn’t right. I was with Honey last night; she was fine. She texted me earlier today. She wasfine.This was Nightmare messing with my head. The person borrowing Honey’s face was probably one of her followers. It could even be Phil.

The deep rumble that poured from me was more threatening than painful this time. I lurched automatically, ready to rip Phil to shreds for her betrayal, but pain drove into my side with enough force to knock the breath out of me. My body buckled, packed with sleek, powerful muscle that was completely uselesswith pain making me weak. Was this how my men felt, scratched and bitten and drained of magic?

“Call Death,” Nightmare ordered, watching me with no small amount of satisfaction. “Summon him.”

My eyes flicked to her, narrowed with pain, and a jolt of panic shot into my heart, making the beats erratic when I remembered Madde prone and vulnerable in her grip. Her fingernails had bitten into his neck, little trails of blood dripping down the hearts and flowers inked on his throat. There was a moment of stillness inside me where only those trails of blood existed, then wrath exploded like a bomb blast. I surged to my feet with a guttural snarl.

Pain made my legs shake but rage kept me upright and allowed me to take a step towards my darkness and the bitch making him bleed. I made sure to bare my teeth so she saw what would rip her to shreds. I’d killed a ghost with these teeth; I could kill a woman, even one as wicked and powerful as a goddess.

“Excuse me,” Honey said with a little huff, walking closer, the gun now balanced on the shoulder of her shirt. It was a puffy black blouse with sunflowers all over it, as sunny and optimistic as my friend herself. A tight, compact pain cramped my belly. She wasn’t dead. She wasright here.I was looking at her. Nightmare just made her say that to hurt me. “But this is my moment, not yours, Nightmare.”

The flash of Nightmare’s mismatched eyes chilled my blood, and I froze between one slow step and the next even with my instincts screaming at me to go to Madde, to protect him.

You wouldn’t let anyone hurt me, I know you wouldn’t.

“Yourmoment?” Nightmare scoffed, pressing her nails deeper into Madde’s neck almost absently, the trails thicker, flowing faster. “Since when did you have a single hand in any of this? I’m the one who found Carmilla Poppy when she wasdistraught over her son’s death. I was the one who moulded her into my genius.Iwas the one who encouraged my followers to bring me back on Halloween, to curse my terrors so Death would finally have a weakness to exploit.”

I slunk closer, my jaws locked to trap howls of pain as the hot pain in my side spread, invisible flames licking across my body.

“I was the one who gave Death a bride and set all of this in motion.Iwas the one who found a way for Poppy’s greatest subject to enter this domain, leaving it open for the taking.”

Honey just laughed, high and tinkling and—unfamiliar. Wrong. My stomach cramped, a sharp twist in my chest as I kept low to the ground and slunk closer to Nightmare. Their conversation made my hackles rise and my rage threatened to cave under the pressure of howling loss, but I kept dragging myself across the garden.

“Were you?” The smile in Honey’s voice almost made me turn away, but I kept my eyes on Madde as his lashes fluttered, his darkness touching my soul in a feeble brush. Because I was watching Nightmare, I saw her go still.

“What does that mean?”

I jumped when Honey moved at the edge of my vision, gliding over the ground in a way that was nothing like the usual way she moved. A sharp truth pierced my heart; I ignored it and kept moving, creeping low to the ground, only a few feet away from Nightmare and Madde now.

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