Page 82 of Devoured
“Won’t I?”The Seamstress tilted her head, studying us with the cold interest of a scientist examining specimens.
“Do you know what I do to the broken ones? The ones who think they’ve found strength in their suffering?”
“I know what you are,”the Executioner spat. “A parasite. A creature that feeds on the last moments of hope before crushing them forever.”
“Such poetry,”she cooed, her voice taking on an almost sexual quality. “But you’re wrong about one thing. I don’t crush hope. I preserve it. Forever. Every victim I take, every soul I stitch into my collection—they remain conscious. Aware. Hopeful that someday, somehow, the pain will end.”
My skin prickled like static before lightning as I understood what she was describing. The faces in her torso weren’t decorations—they were living, thinking people, trapped in eternal agony while their bodies were used as components in her grotesque form.
“Let me take you to the Judge now,”she purred, looking at me. “And I won’t hurt your friends.”
“Stay back,”I warned, surprised by the steadiness of my own voice.
“Oh, she speaks!”The Seamstress clapped her hooks together in delight. “And such fire in her voice. The Judge will enjoy you.”
“Go to hell!”I spat.
Suddenly, thread shot from her body like striking snakes, wrapping around our limbs with burning intensity. The material felt alive, pulsing with its own heartbeat as it tightened around us. Each strand carried a different sensation—some burned like acid, others felt like ice, still others seemed to vibrate with electrical current.
Marion slashed at the threads with a broken blade she’d picked up. “What is this shit?”
“Living thread,”the Executioner replied, cutting through the supernatural restraints with his massive blade. “Made from human nerve endings. Each strand carries the pain of its donor.”
“That’s sick!”Isaac gasped, trying to free himself from threads that were slowly crushing his arms.
“That’s artistry,”the Seamstress corrected, more thread emerging from hidden openings in her body. “Each strand is carefully harvested from a willing donor. Well... willing eventually. Everyone breaks in the end.”
Sela fell as threads tightened around her throat, cutting off her air supply. Her face began to turn blue as she clawed desperately at the supernatural restraints, but the thread only grew tighter with each struggle.
The Executioner’s bladework became frenzied as he tried to cut through the endless threads while keeping the Seamstress at bay. But she seemed to have unlimited resources—more thread emerged from her body to replace whatever he destroyed.
“Such beautiful chaos to organize and arrange,”she purred, her hooks reaching for me around the Executioner’s protective stance and locked her eyes with mine. “I’ll finish your friends properly, then keep their soul forever in my collection. They’ll have eternity to appreciate my craftsmanship.”
The Executioner roared with rage, caught between protecting me and freeing the others from her threads. His blade trembled with indecision as the portal above wavered, its edges becoming less distinct with each passing second.
“Choose quickly,”the Seamstress taunted with obvious glee. “Send her friends through the portal and I’ll let them live. But she stays with me. The Judge has plans for this one. She is his to break, his to reshape, his to judge as he sees fit.”
Thread wrapped around my shoulders, the Seamstress’s hooks piercing my flesh and lifting me into the air. Pain exploded through my body, but I fought against the restraints with everything I had. The hooks weren’t just physical—they seemed to be trying to pierce my soul itself.
I met the Executioner’s burning gaze through his helmet and found my voice despite the agony. “Help them go,”I gasped, blood running down my arms from where the hooks had penetrated. “Get them out of here. Don’t let my choice be meaningless.”
For a moment, there was absolute stillness in the chamber. The Executioner didn’t want to abandon me. I could see the war in his posture, the way his grip tightened on his blade until his knuckles went white.
He turned toward my friends, raising his weapon to clear a path to the portal. “Go!”he shouted, his voice echoing off the distant walls. “All of you! Now!”
That’s when the explosion came.
The doorway exploded as something too big forced through.
It was him—the Judge!
Chunks of rock bounced off my shoulder. The Judge had to duck and twist sideways, but even hunched he scraped the ceiling. Dust and bits of ancient mortar rained down.
The portal above us died instantly—not a slow fade but a violent collapse, like someone had ripped a hole shut. The magical energy dissipated with a sound like drowning.
He straightened inside the chamber. Fifteen feet of wrong. His wings were fucked up, like someone had taken bat wings and let them rot half off. They dragged wet sounds across the floor. One wing had holes in it.
His skull was too long, jaw hanging open with endless rows of teeth. The horns grew straight from his skull, just bone erupting through skin. The left one had cracks running through it. Where eyes should be, there were only pits weeping black tar that never stopped flowing.
