Page 107 of Madness Behind the Mask
But I’m not, and soon, he stops moving entirely.
I swallow one last time, then release his arm as I yank his head up. He gasps, spitting toilet water, and I stand, my hand still in his hair. Yanking him backwards onto his ass, I whistle “Ole Buttermilk Sky” by Hoagy Carmichaelas Idrag him into mybedroom. I haul him into my special torturing chair, which faces my bed so I can sleep to such sweet dreams,and strap his arms and legs down with bands of leather embedded with small sharp blades that stab through his skin with ease. They’re not tight, so he can struggle if he wants to, can kill himself if he wants to.
But I’ve found people rarely like to take their own life. No...they beg and plead, asking me to do it for them, their cowardice about the underworld they’ll end up in making them desperate to cling to the living. It’s an entertaining tango to watch, them torn between wanting to die and wanting to live. Them trying to convince themselves to do it, to end all their suffering...and then cowering from the pain. The knowledge of what waits for them if they do.
I wonder what kind of man Leon is.
If he’s the optimistic sort who thinks the underworld will be better than here.
Or if he’s able to keep his head even under torture.
I snicker.
Regardless of what he is, he won’t be keeping his head.
Or his hands and feet.
Lifting his head, sweat beading across his pale flesh, Leon spits at me. I catch it in my mouth,swallow, then lean forward and whisper in his ear, “Delicious.”
He jerks from me, and I rock back with a laugh.
“Fuck you,” he seethes.A pathetic smile curls his lips,a little baby seal trying to look fierceunder the shadow of a club. “You think you canblackmail me about telling my father what I did?” He laughsbitterly. “He already fucking knows.”
“Blackmail you? For what?” I shake my head, my eyes laughing. “You want to kill Caden. That alignsfine with me. Hel, I might’ve even been tempted to back your little coup had I known about it before. You’rean absolutewet sod. The Shadow Domain would’vecrumbledunder yourleadership, especially considering you marked the man who is the sole reason it’s still alive.” I laugh out loud, my whole body shaking.
“Delun was strong, but he had too many feelings. If he’d just stayed inside the church and let Antonio take those pot shots, he wouldn’t have died. But he rushed out like a fool, taunted by petty revenge.”
“His father ate Delun’s wife!”
I wave a hand. “Yes, yes, as I said. Petty revenge.”
He tries to swing for me, I assume, given the wild jerk of his left arm that instantly stills beneath the cut of the blades through his wrist. I wait for him to decide if he wants to try again, if he thinks it’s still worth hitting me with the hacked off stump of a hand.
But he just grits his teeth, pain wetting his brow. I sigh. They just don’t make them like they used to.
“But Caden…”I continue. “Caden knowsthe logistics of death.Hel, he sacrificed your siblingsat the portal, didn’t even come for them when I tortured them in front of his scry.”
I lick the tip of a fang, remembering how they tasted, how they screamed for dear old dad to save them.He watched the whole thing, how I butchered them one at a time, how I made them beg for the other one to live. Such close family, the Shadows. All so willing to die for each other. It’s fucking good fun playing with them.
Which brings me to the purpose of dear old Leon.
“No…” I say as I stand from my crouch. “No, I never planned to blackmail you.”
“Then why did you send Chris to me?”
“Because I wanted to know if it was true and not just some wild words of a dying man. You should never trust the desperate,” I say sagely. And Chris was most desperate when he came to me, begging for protection. Only a fool would do so without knowing why, so when I went to killthose he’d asked me to, I had a little chat with them first.
I grab the pruning saw I left on the dresser, then the block of granite beside it.Turning back to him, Iwatch his eyes widenas they latch onto the large sharp teeth of the saw. “So what was she like?” I murmur as I run the blade across the rock, sendingouta chilling screech.
“What?” Leon asks, the word high-pitched and raw. A tremor runs through him. Blooddripsdown his wrists and ankles to pool on the floor.
“What was your mother’s cunt like?” I ask, dragging the saw across the granite again, dulling the teeth so they will drag and tear more than cut.
“I didn’t…”
Anotherscreechhas him jerking on the chair. He tugs an arm, then grits his teeth, the pain of the blades keeping him still.
“I didn’t…”
