Page 52 of An Amateur Witch's Guide to Murder
He steps across the threshold, breath held.
Nothing happens—except Christopher backs up another step. Whatever parameters the ward is protecting against, Mateo doesn’t trigger them. No time for wondering why. He’s bad cop.
“You can’t,” Christopher says like a spoiled child with their golden Hot Wheels truck taken away for the first time ever. It’s a statement of general outrage that either has to do with the wards allowing Mateo in or the fact that no one’s ever dared do anything other than exactly what he wants.
It’s not proper fear,though, and that’s what Mateo wants.
Trembling. Begging. The understanding in his hateful face that his bag of blood and bone only has a few breaths left.With the next step, Mateo reaches up and pulls off the mask and glasses. “I said we need to talk.”
The little color in Christopher drains away, reminiscent of his transparent son. The man nearly slips on his ugly polished entryway as he tries to put space between them. Mateo doesn’t allow it, matching every backward step easily with his long legs.
Behind him, the door closes and locks, followed by the gentle slaps of Ophelia’s girl shoes. “You shouldn’t run from him,” she says mildly.
“You can’t come in here,” Christopher declares uselessly.
The calm sitting in Mateo’s chest is like one of those fancy melting ball desserts he’s seen online that look super impressiveuntil you pour molten chocolate on top, and they reach a moment of total structural failure and violently collapse. He means to say something to defuse his feelings, lob a passive aggressive starter at Christopher about him leaving Topher in jail, but what pours out is vitriol and shadow, in a powdery voice that usually exists only inside his head:“Christopher Nystrom, why have you forsaken your blood?”
CHAPTER THIRTY
Christopher’s pink mouth opens and closes like a damp-lipped carp dragged to land, trying to reply and flee while too scared to turn away from Mateo. A strangled gasp is all he manages as the back of calves hit the low couch and Christopher sits down hard.
Mateo doesn’t stop advancing until their legs are touching, and then he peels his gloves off, revealing claws made for rending flesh from bone. He’d had vague plans to put on a show, act up the demonic appearance, but he needs no pretending. It’s taking all of his concentration not to test if his claws slice through meat as easily as they do in his dreams.
“I’d tell him what he wants to know,” Ophelia says serenely, staying behind and to one side of Mateo. “He’s been in a mood about you leaving Topher in jail all day.”
The thought that she’s clarifying his absolutely derangedforsaken bloodword choice flits through his mind, but he can’t hold onto it; is confused by it. How else could he have said that?Christopher is a traitor to his blood, a flesh pest that tried to own something he should not, and he’s due suffering for the impertinence.
“I th-thought he’d b-be s-safer there,” Christopher stammers, scooched back as far as the stiff cushion will allow.
But it doesn’t matter because Mateo presses closer still, the raw, senseless rage spilling out of his mouth in tendrils of darkness as he whispers against the man’s ear.“Pretense.”
It isn’t loud, but Christopher does a full-body flinch, then slurs out a series of frantic words. “It’s Linnéa it’s Linnéa’s fault you need to talk to her I don’t know what she did, but this is her fault—it’s always her fault!”
“It’s her fault for dying?” Ophelia asks in an unimpressed tone.
“She’s not dead,” Christopher snaps, like he’s annoyed at Ophelia’s tone and can’t remember to be scared because a tiny woman said something he didn’t like.
Which Mateo extremely doesn’t like.
He has hold of Christopher’s face with no memory of reaching for it, the large square chin solidly between too-long fingers, the needle-tips of claws threatening over bloodless lips.“Speak with reverence, or I will take pieces until you can do nothing but scream.”
“She—she’s not actually dead,” Christopher mumbles, Mateo’s grip too dangerous for him to move his jaw much. “I mean, maybe she is. Maybe by now. I don’t know. Someone’s trying to—to flush her out.” A sheen of sour sweat sits on his brow and his skin trembles like the film on pudding left out.Easy to puncture, reach in, and scoop out what’s inside.
Ophelia drops onto the couch beside Christopher, herstunning corpse-eyeswatching Mateo briefly before saying, “Who’ssomeone?”
The tremor intensifies, the frantic pulse beneath Mateo’s touch ratcheting up. “I don’t know,” Christopher whimpers. “Afew months ago, she started ranting about someone looking for her. Wouldn’t say who. Wouldn’t tell me anything. Demanded a—” Hesitation. Word correction. “A divorce.”
Ophelia leans in, not missing the pause. “What did she actually want?”
The skin under Mateo’s fingers is slick, not just with sweat but with the black ichor dripping from his eyes. Christopher’s trying not to let it get in his mouth, trying to look at Ophelia but also finding it hard to not look at Mateo—but also unable to keep focused on his nightmare visage. His trembling intensifies, and he asks in a high tone, “You’ve bound him?”
“Yes,” Ophelia says. Lying to shitty men is her specialty, so it costs her nothing to do so now.
But whatever terrible thingboundmeans triggers a bone-deep shudder in Mateo that fragments his thoughts, half hateful at the word and half soaring at Ophelia’s thin expression.He needs only her approval to slit this mealymouthed rodent from belly to throat.
“C-call him off …” Christopher stammers, the whites of his eyes visible around the entirety of his quivering irises. Something Topher got from him.That Mateo could take. An easy press, the flesh of an eye begging for rupture.“And I’ll tell you anything you want to know.”
“Tell me now,” Ophelia says. “Or I’ll have him smear you all over the room.” Merciless delivery that makes Mateo squeeze tighter, small pearls of blood bead up where claws dig into pink skin,hoping Christopher won’t answer, hoping he’ll say something cruel so Mateo can keep squeezing.
