Page 21 of Unleashing Mayhem
“Mm.” Nightmare considered, then stood. “Stay in bed. I’ll call you when he’s subdued, and you may come see if it’s the man you thought you saw.”
Matteo’s hand shot out to grab Nightmare’s wrist, his grip desperately tight. “No!No. Don’t leave me alone. Please.”
“You want to come with me, sweet?”
Matteo nodded frantically. “Yes.”
“I’m going to hurt him,” Nightmare warned.
“Good. If—if it’s him. Thengood.”
Nightmare leaned down to press a kiss to Matteo’s hair, a small reward for them both for this little glimpse of viciousness. Matteo gave him a shy smile—its own reward, that—and Nightmare held out his hand. “Come.”
Matteo jumped up, clinging onto Nightmare’s hand like a lifeline as Nightmare led him down the stairs in the dark. They made their way to the foyer, where they could hear the gentle scratching sound of a man still trying to open the window.
Nightmare let him through.
He did not open the window first.
Glass sprayed, and wood splintered, and Nightmare sheltered Matteo with his shadows, his little darlings whisking away anything sharp that dared head in their direction.
The stranger ended up on the hardwood floor, bloody and groaning. “What the f-fuck?”
He gathered his senses fairly quickly—Nightmare had to give him credit for that—and his eyes gleamed as he caught sight ofMatteo, Nightmare too shrouded in shadow to be visible to the human eye.
“It’s you.” The intruder started laughing, blood gleaming on his teeth. “I knew it. Everyone thought there was no way you were hiding out with Dimitri Kozlov’s boy, but Dominico knew.” His laugh turned into a sneer. “Heknowsyou, Matteo. He’s coming for you. What happened to Luca, huh? Dominico’s going to take it out on your skin, pretty b—”
That was enough of that. This was obviously the man Matteo had thought he’d seen, and Matteo was shaking with fear now.
Nightmare released his shadows, wrapping them over Matteo’s form to warm him. He hadn’t given Matteo enough time to slip on his hoodie over his thin shirt, an error he would not be making again. Matteo’s human body was fragile and in need of more particular care than Nightmare was used to, but he would adapt.
Nightmare stepped into the moonlit patch of floor in front of the stranger, and the man’s eyes widened as he tried to scramble back, his retreat halted by the wall behind him. “What the— Whatare—?”
Nightmare grabbed his skull mask from the ether, pulling it into place with his shadows. He let his limbs thin and stretch.
The man’s face contorted into pure, unadulterated terror. “What thefuck?” he whimpered.
Nightmare crouched, his limbs bending and twisting to accommodate. The man stared, almost seeming to hold his breath, perhaps waiting for Nightmare to say something. He smelled suddenly of urine.
But Nightmare had no speech for him, no message for this unwanted intruder to send back to his master. This man had signed his life away the moment he’d approached this house, disturbing Matteo’s precious slumber.
Nightmare struck, clawing his talons into the man’s chest, letting his venom seep out as the man screamed. He watched the paralysis take over, stilling the human’s clawing hands and freezing his vocal cords, silencing him forever.
Nightmare’s magic allowed only the smallest hint of movement, the barest inflation of the human’s lungs. Just enough to keep the man sufficiently alive to feel the agony of his own slow suffocation.
Nightmare let his shadows enter the man’s mind next. They wriggled into his darkest corners and found every fear, every inner horror, every twisted thought. They brought them out into the light, amplifying and contorting and displaying them back to him.
The man couldn’t scream as he lost his senses, not with the paralysis working through him. The best he managed was a strangled garbling.
But it was a delicious meal all the same, his terror. Full-bodied. He’d seen much to corrupt him, and Nightmare’s shadows had their fill to work with.
Sometime later—when he’d plundered everything there was to take—Nightmare slipped his talons back into the man’s chest and pulled out his heart before dropping the bloody mass onto the floor.
Nightmare stood and turned as his skull mask dropped back into the ether and his demonic visage slipped back into place, his limbs shrinking back to their usual size.
Matteo was there, still draped in Nightmare’s spare shadows, no longer shaking now. He was standing straight-backed and motionless, his eyes locked onto the dead man slumped onto the floor.
“Do you wish me to erase this from your mind, sweet?” Nightmare asked. “You need not live with it.”
