Page 63 of All Hallows Trick

“Drop Madness,” the woman commanded, her sweet voice like poison because I could hear the thrill and glee in it.

My jaws opened, depositing him on the ground. I swore my heart fell out of my chest with him.

“How are you doing that?” Nightmare hissed, asking the question I was desperate to know.

“Wouldn’t you like to know,” the other woman purred. The other goddess? What was she the goddess of, fakes and trickery? “Ah, you made it,” she said, looking at something over my shoulder.

“We’re here, little bride. We’re here.”

I couldn’t even sob at the relief of hearing Death’s voice, couldn’t screw my eyes shut at the papery rasp of it.

“Come here, beautiful.”

I would have gasped if I could at the crunch of boots on ground, Tor’s amber and sandalwood scent hitting my sensitive nose, blending with blood and violets. He wasn’t unconscious. He’d gone for help.

“Cat,” Tor said, his voice shifting. “Come here.”

“She can’t,” the psycho in the lace hood said with a glittering laugh. “She can’t do anything unless I say, can you, Kitty? Are you watching? This is my favourite part of my plan for this evening, the pièce de résistance if you will.”

“Let her go, Cruelty,” Death ordered, his voice so faint it didn’t carry its usual weight. My blood ran ice cold.

Cruelty?That was who’d snared me in her control?

“No, I don’t think I will,” she replied. “Kitty, be a dear and kill Nightmare.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

DEATH

My mind worked at rapid speed even if my magic was sluggish and my body moved like the air was quicksand, I had to force my way through. I’d lost count of how many spirits had died tonight, each one taking a bite out of my strength until I was breathless and drained. Even taking three rushed steps across my destroyed garden towards Cat in her bristling jaguar form sapped my magic until I felt my mortal visage flicker, like a television losing signal.

“I’ll handle this,” Tor growled, pushing me back as if he wasn’t feeling the effects of the five pricks made in the back of his neck—each one from a fingernail. Tiny, inconsequential cuts that should have only been a nuisance. Instead, they took down a death god. He’d crawled into the living room at Madde’s castle.Crawled.He was lucky to be standing now.

“You’ll handle nothing,” I argued, startling at the thunderous rumble of my voice. It was a voice of primal danger and menace, a voice that inspired so much fear that hearts would stop,bladders would empty, and voices would break from screaming as they fled the sight of me. A voice made of true, unending darkness.Shit.

I’d lost so much strength I couldn’t even hold onto my appearance. I knew what Tor saw when he looked at me—a dark cowl hiding every part of my face except glowing white eyes and a hint of the bleached, hollow skull that had replaced my face, my body no longer muscular and strong but skeletal, the bones of my fingers visible at the sleeves of the cloak that draped me, hovering a few inches above the floor.

This was the true face of Death; everything else was just an illusion.

I was usually at my strongest in this form, my power palpable and petrifying, but now it was barely enough to call a single newly-departed spirit to my domain, let alone the thousands I should have called every minute. Fuck. The dead would linger in the mortal realm. Hauntings would increase. Poltergeists would roam free, causing havoc and threat to life. More humans would die, creating more spirits. It was a vicious cycle that chilled my blood, but it turned to pure ice when Cat let out a fierce feline roar and leapt across a shattered flower pot to Nightmare.

“Stop being stubborn,” I snapped at Tor as he kept pushing me back, both of us racing across the garden, footsteps pounding the path.

“You’re one to talk about stubbornness,” he snarled back.

It was an admission of weakness on both our parts, that running. We should have cloaked ourselves in a cloud of magic and reappeared at Cat’s side, but Nightmare and Poppy’s creatures had done too good a job weakening us. Cruelty clearly noticed it because she smiled where she watched us at the edge of the garden, looking like an ethereal ghost in the moonlight.

“Those monsters did a number on you, didn’t they?” she asked with that little smile that mocked us.

“I’ll take her,” Tor said out the corner of his mouth.

“Be careful,” I warned. I already had one love so hurt he’d passed out hours ago and hadn’t woken up even when Tor rushed in to tell us Cat was in danger. Virgil was with him, but with the antidote in his system there was little he could do if Nightmare sent her followers there.

“Oh, she’sfighting,”Cruelty said, her eyes bright as she fixated on Cat who had stopped five feet from Nightmare, both of them sizing each other up. I rushed faster across the garden, ignoring the way breath rasped through me until after a single rattling breath, it cut off entirely. That was fine. I didn’t need to breathe. It took me a moment to understand Cruelty’s meaning—Cat wasn’t fighting Nightmare, she was fighting the magic controlling her.

“Keep fighting, little bride,” I rasped, skidding along a stretch of mud to her side. “You can break through the compulsion, Cat, just keep fighting.”

I’d sent a panicked cry for help to every other death god, but until they got here, if they came at all, I was on my own. I trusted Tor to distract Cruelty—and didn’t allow myself to think about what it might cost him—but I was the lone person between my girl and Nightmare. I’d been here once before, on the banks of the lake at Ford, standing between her and Misery. I thought I’d won that fight, thought I’d banished her so far from any realm that there was no hope of a singlescrapof her remaining. I didn’t realise it had been only a stepping stone in her long game. But I looked directly in her mismatched eyes now and vowed it was over.

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