Page 138 of Madness Behind the Mask
I standin the back alley ofthe librarywith my brother, Myers no doubt wondering if I’m drunk out of my mind again. I haven’t gone a day without a drink, but it’s been a long time since I’ve been that drunk. I’m chasing the buzz not the emptiness. Just something to take a bit of the edge offthe broken pieces of my heart.
The Shadow Domain has been reduced to only a few hundred members, but although that is a great fall from the thousands it used to be, it’s still a lot higher than the forty-five it fell to after the coup, triggered by Ryo’s death.
The Death Hunthasleft us alone, no doubt thinking wewould kill ourselveswhile they focused on building their empire to be the new fucking Rome. The Blood Fang, oddly, hasignored ustoo.Talk on the streetsays Aleric declared us off limits in October. And now he wants to meet for a parley behind theoldlibrary.He didn’t even protest mebringing anyone.He only asked me to set up a ward to keep us hidden from the humans.
I’ve only brought Myers though. I’m not scared of him. The ward, however, is up.
He phases in right on time. We arrived early to check for traps and saw nothing.
Aleric’s hair is disheveled. His eyes are bagged and red.He doesn’t look like he’s slept any better than I have these last few months.
“You look like shit,”I say.
“At least I’m not drunk and shit.”
We stare at each other, measuring each other,butI am the first to break the silence. I have too many things todo toplay his bullshit games. “What do you want, Aleric?”
“I need help staying in the Plane of Monsters.”
I tense, my sixth sense blaring. “Why?”
His jaw ticks.His lips stay still.
“You want my help, you’ll tell me why.”
“None of my contactsknow much about the place.”
“And you think I do?”
“You married in.” He pauses, stills, his body tight as if I hold his world in the palm of my hand. “Do you not?”
I stare at him, assessing his rigid stance. In all the time we’ve fought each other, in all the stories I’ve heard about him,he’s never been this...serious.
“Why do you want to stay in the Plane of Monsters?” I ask again, my pulse thudding between my ears. I know why...I think. But I want to hear him say it. I want this not to just be a desperate grasp of hope.
He glances away, looks at Myers, then turns his gaze back to me. “Because I thought Sau went back to you after she became Reaper of the Sired.”
My pulse stops.
Everything stops but the movement of his lips.
“But she didn’t. She went into the Plane of Monsters tokill us all...and she hasn’t come back out.”
“She’s alive?” It’s a croak, a whisper, a desperate plea.
My enemy exhales long and hard. “Yes, and I can bring her back if I have your help.”
Forty-Seven
HER
DAYS DO NOT EXIST HERE
The screams echo on all sides of me as the vampires are ripped to shreds – eaten or fucked to death by things I can’t see. Without my sight, all noise is heightened, and I can hear everysquelchof intestines being sucked down, every crack of bones between their teeth. I try to listen for Aleric’s cocky words as he tries to taunt the beasts in his final moment, but I hear nothing other than painful death.
Cupping my hands together as I kneel on hard ground, I call forth my magic, letting the softest light penetrate this place. I don’t feel any better for it, any safer as I see the vampires get eaten in this desolate landscape of dark rocks and no vegetation.
“Help me!” a young woman cries, her arm outstretched in my direction. She’s missing half her face – her left eye hanging free, her ear missing. “Help –” She screams as a fury black four-legged beast with quills in a mohawk up itsback clamps its jaws around her face.
