Page 64 of All Hallows Trick

“You wanted to face me, to bring me down.” I spread my skeletal arms. “So do it.”

Cat let out a small sound behind me, and my heart clenched at the strength in that sound. She was a mortal fighting the goddess of cruelty, and that tiny whimper meant she waswinning.I straightened as much as I could, the dark silk of my cloak fluttering around my body as I hurled myself at Nightmare, my last scrap of power coiled into a tight ball of darkness I thrust at her chest.

She evaded easily. My last scrap of power, and I’d wasted it. And judging by the soft exhale of laughter that left her, Nightmare knew I had nothing left. She looked no different than she had that day on the lake when I vanquished her—same poisonous beauty, same grace, same flash of delight in her eyes at our suffering. It was the same power that slammed into me at the slightest flick of her pinky finger, sending me staggering back so hard I hit Cat and dropped to the ground.

The castle and garden ripped away, leaving me in a black velvet space I’d only witnessed once, before I gouged her eye and trapped her in a prison I never expected her to escape.

“Have fun getting out this time,” her cool voice echoed all around me, but I couldn’t see her, couldn’t see anything except—a light began in the distance, little more than a pinprick.

It was the voice that reached me first. Not Nightmare’s this time.

“It’s Dalian,” Edelira, my sister hissed. I felt the imprint of her touch even hundreds of years later, burning my forearm where she’d grabbed me when she raced into the back room of our little house in Cubanascnan.

Dalian.The name struck me like a whip and I spun in the darkness, searching its pitch blackness for him, that heartless brute. My mother had stolen from him after a long campaign of tricks and treachery. Now, I’d call her a conwoman. Then, I knew no different. She was our mother, and she provided for us, and that was all that mattered. Until she conned the wrong man. Until he found us where we’d fled to with all his money. Until he brought a mob of friends and bludgeoned us to death, one by one.

My mother was first. Then Kenia, my youngest sister. Dunia, my middle sister. Edelira and her husband and their four-year-old daughter, until I was the only living member of the Casimiro family. And then they killed me, my lungs punctured by the razor edges of a rake in an undignified death, a slow, brutal murder. Our neighbour hadn’t hesitated to answer my scream for help, and he’d died right alongside us. Eight people, slaughtered in less than an hour.

My mouth opened in the darkness, my voice floating out strong, nothing like the papery rasp my voice was now.

“Get Lur and hide under the bed. Dunia, get in the alcove, don’t come out for anything.”

“You have to run, Jermaine,” Dunia whispered, her brown face bleached of all vibrancy. “You’re the fastest. Run and get help.”

“I can’t—”

A scream made us both flinch, and little Lur began to cry in her mother’s arms while Edelira shushed her. Mama—that was Mama screaming.

“Run!Go!”Dunia hissed. I didn’t hesitate this time. I made sure my sister and niece were hidden, Dunia secured where no one would see her, then I ran into the kitchen where the windows were big enough to climb out of. I barely felt the rasp of stone that scratched my stomach through my clothes, scuffing my skin. I could feel it now, in the thick darkness, as if the graze was brand new. I felt the hot slap of the wind, the way it cloyed in my lungs. I felt fear quicken my heart even if my own lay dead and empty in my chest.

Mama screamed again, fainter as I raced as fast as I could for the house next door. The sudden severance of her scream made my feet falter on the ground, stones digging into my bare soles. The silence was louder than any other sound, so deafening it swallowed even my own frantic breaths.

I forgot my body was in the garden, uselessly prone in a last attempt to protect Cat. I forgot even about the velvet darkness Nightmare had thrown me into and left me to be tormented by my past, my memories. My nightmares.

I knew, in the back of my mind, I needed to return to my body, but the pulse of urgency was like a whisper compared to the next scream. Kenia.

It knocked me back into motion, and I ran as fast as I physically could for help, forgetting all about Nightmare, about Cruelty, about the pale-haired, silver-eyed woman I loved.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

CAT

Athroaty hiss shook my lips as I twisted to evade Nightmare’s vicious hands, her fingernails sharp enough that they’d already raked slices in my throat. Every time I leapt at her, she evaded. Every time I snapped my jaws at her thighs, she vanished and reappeared behind me. Every time I thought I’d finally got her, she laughed and taunted me from a safe distance away.

Death had collapsed to his knees behind me, yet another knife of panic driven in my heart. He hadn’t moved since Nightmare and I began fighting, since Cruelty’s command tugged at me, moving my paws, making me dance like the puppet she’d made me.

Fight, Death had told me before he dropped to the ground. It was the word that had helped me slash through the strings tying me up. But where I cut through one, two reformed, tangling me in their threads. As much as I’d love to kill Nightmare, I was theone who’d be killed here. I didn’t have magic. I didn’t stand a chance.

“Well, this has been fun,” Cruelty remarked, “but I’d really better be going. I have a guest room to prepare; I think I’m going to have a friend stay over very, very soon.”

“I don’t think so,” Nightmare spat, her upper lip curled back, forgetting me for the moment as she turned to face the beautiful wraithlike goddess as she headed for the gates. “I’ve had enough of your meddling, whoever the hell you are. Call off your dog.” She slashed a hand at me, and a coil of magic knocked me back, my claws tearing up the dirt underfoot. Memories flashed through my mind, dark magic raking up words that hit like punches to the gut.

Anyone can take one look at you two and see you’re bringing her down. Honey’s beautiful and smart and free, and you’re like a black hole sucking all her happiness away.

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

I gasped, the sound a rattling, furious breath in my jaguar’s throat. I dug my claws into the ground and fought to shake off the magic.Fight.The magic resisted me, spiking pain through the soft matter of my brain, but I banished the memories and focused on Nightmare. It was easier to do in this form, when all my jaguar wanted was to taste blood, when Cruelty’s magic compelled me to kill Nightmare. That was all that mattered—killing her, obeying the cruel mistress who controlled my strings.

I shook out the tension from my body, teeth gritted against the vicious tug twisting me towards Nightmare even as she stormed past me to face a greater threat. Not that Cruelty seemed especially bothered by the smile on Nightmare’s face or the dark magic that throbbed around her like a second heartbeat. I wondered if that meant she was losing, if her magic was on show for the first time because she’d never needed it before. I wondered if that meant I could win and really kill her.

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