Page 114 of Demon's Bane

“Jealous?” Tyvar sneers, rounding on me. “Of what? Of him wallowing around the village in his misery, giving up the life he made for himself, for what? Idiot. He never should have come back.”

He jerks me forward again and lays his hand on the stone archway. David follows just behind, silent, eyes locked on the shifting light that darkens and swirls at Tyvar’s touch.

“And now he just has to involve himself in all of this like some kind of damned hero,” Tyvar mutters to himself. “Ruin anyone else’s chances of making a little money and getting out of here themselves.”

With both their attention on the Veil, and with Tyvar lost to whatever bitterness he’s spewing, I know I’m at my moment.

Deep breath in, and out.

I’ve got one chance. Just one to make this work.

A last twist of my wrists, and even though my skin burns with the drag of the rope digging into me, it loosens the knot enough for me to free my hands.

The Veil shimmers from deep red to a mottled mix of colors as it calibrates to form a portal back to the human realm, and Iwrench away from Tyvar with all I’m worth. It throws him off-balance, enough for me to reach out and shove him with every bit of desperate strength I can muster.

The next few seconds seem to happen in slow motion.

Tyvar, still a little shaky from the effort of portalling us here, tilts and stumbles, trips over his own feet and goes careening into the Veil.

The light isn’t green, for the human realm, or red, or white, or any one color I can pick out in the roiling mix. But as he falls in, it pulses an unmistakable black for half a heartbeat before it swallows him completely.

“Tyvar!” David shouts, slack-jawed and wide-eyed as he watches the demon disappear.

The rope falls to my feet, and I turn to run, but I only make it a couple of steps before David’s hand closes around my shoulder.

“Where do you think you’re going?”

Wild, driven by adrenaline and fear and anger, I throw back an elbow and pain blooms through my entire arm, right alongside the sickening, satisfying crunch of bone.

David cries out, drops his hand from me to clutch at his broken nose, and I take off sprinting.

I don’t know where I’m going, but I can’t think about that now. All I have to do is get away from here, keep running until I find a village where someone can help me, get away from the Veil before—

“Not so fucking fast, Joan.”

I glance over my shoulder just in time to see a flash of silver in the moonlight. David has the knife drawn from his bag, in his hand, and sailing through the air toward me before I have time to duck or dodge or do anything to get myself out of its path.

The pain is immediate, blinding.

It spreads from the spot the knife embedded itself in my shoulder, pulsing outwards in waves of stomach-turning agony.

Reaching up with a clumsy, shaking hand, I grab for the knife to pull it out, only to miss it, then miss it again.

But I have to keep moving.

I have to get away from here.

Abandoning my attempts to remove the knife, I stumble forward. A harsh curse rips from David’s chest when he sees I’m still on my feet.

Only, my body isn’t working so great anymore. My limbs won’t cooperate, and with each ragged breath, it gets harder and harder to draw air into my lungs.

From where the knife’s still in me, fire seeps through my veins.

No.No. I need to keep going. Have to keep moving.

The first slice of bone-deep, wretched pain hits me at the same time a new sound does. A shout, followed by another, voices that are hazy and indistinct as another wave of pain hits.

Not from the knife this time, fromeverywhere. Searing, horrid, world-ending.