Page 17 of All Hallows Trick (Sick and Twisted #3)

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CAT

T he screams of dying spirits were unbearable. No one else reacted to the noise but I heard them like the screech of chalk on a board. For a split second, the roar that exploded from my jaws drowned them out as I threw myself at Poppy, but the second my roar died, the screams returned. They clawed at my ears even as I clawed Poppy’s legs, sending her back towards the steps in a stumble.

“Cat?” she breathed, almost sounding hurt. “What are you doing?”

Another scream made me jump, my hackles raised as I flexed my claws and slashed my paw at the monster who did this to us. It wasn’t the animal forms that were the worst thing; it was the violence, the way the blood pouring from her leg made my mouth water as I thought about sinking my teeth all the way into the meat of her thigh, the way I wanted to rip and tear and crunch and… eat.

A haze descended for a moment, Poppy’s words swimming into an unintelligible blur. Blood filled my mouth, exploding like honey and copper across my taste buds. It tasted good. I gnashed my teeth to draw more into my mouth and…realised I was gnawing on her arm, drinking her blood, and… that shouldn’t have been possible.

She was dead. Poppy was a spirit as much as any of the ghosts who came at Death’s summoning, as dead as Darya was. I didn’t know who’d killed Poppy or if her death was natural, but I didn’t have room for sympathy when half of me couldn’t forget the look in Virgil’s eyes and the rest of me wanted to devour her until there wasn’t a scrap of life or death left in her. I wanted her opaque-eyed like the ghost who’d floated above Madde’s doorstep, wanted her tortured until her mouth hung open in pain.

“Stop, Cat, please,” Poppy cried. “I’m your creator. Why would you do this to me?”

Another shrill scream made me flinch, this one younger, so young the spirit sounded no older than sixteen, and I heard Death grunt in pain. Red descended over my vision. No horror twisted my stomach when I sank my teeth and claws into Poppy this time. She deserved every moment of agony. I hoped her death had hurt the first time. I hoped this second time was agony.

“Children!” Poppy rasped as I took her down to the stone steps. “Help your mother!”

Mother. Creator. The words swam through my ears, incensing the wild, merciless part of me until the creature took over, shoving me into the back of my mind until I couldn’t see, couldn’t hear, couldn’t even smell blood on the air. I felt pain, though—a slash on the back of my leg, heat raked across my back.

I saw flashes through the darkness: blood on pale skin; shaking hands and betrayed eyes; a sleek tiger impaled on my horns; the bared teeth of a bear snapping in my face, followed by another flash of pain across my face; and a window with blood smeared across it in messy letters.

TIME IS RUNNING OUT it said, sending a spike of pure ice through me, but then the world went dark again, only the taste of blood and the solid, thumping ache in my body to keep me company. I was lost to the bloodlust and mindless rage of my jaguar. Until Death’s sharp cry of pain broke through the mindlessness.

Death was hurt. The realm was fading away, unmaking itself on the very edges, and the deaths of these spirits were only harming the domain—and Death himself. Time is running out. How long until it all slipped away? What if it took my men with it?

Anxiety grabbed my throat and choked off my air, throttling my beast back into the cage it lived in when I had the reins for our body. I slammed back into myself in time to feel blood drip down my chin.

Poppy’s open, unseeing eyes stared up at me, opaque white but bleeding, like I’d clawed even her eyeballs. I backed up, my stomach twisting, coiling. Her body was shredded, covered in blood as if she’d been alive. It was so much worse than the sailor spirit left on Madde’s doorstep. I remembered him saying the spirit looked that way because he’d been tortured, and I should have been satisfied that Poppy had experienced the same fate, but I just felt sick. Her eyes were milky, her body mangled, covered in a bright spill of blood, and I couldn’t keep her voice out of my head.

You’re something special. Not like the others. Being the Bride of Death has made you… exceptional.

Sickness roiled through me again, and strength left me all at once. I hit the ground on my knees beside the dead professor, my hands shaking, claws and fangs and fur gone.

I couldn’t look away from the mess I’d made of Poppy even if I wanted to search the courtyard, to find Miz, Death, Tor, Virgil, and Madde, to see if any of them had survived. What if I’d killed them, too? Oh, god. My stomach pitched, and I twisted aside, vomit spraying the ground. I hadn’t just killed Poppy. I’d shredded her, until her body lay in ribbons, even her organs in tatters beneath ghostly skin.

I could taste her blood on my tongue even though ghosts didn’t bleed. How did ghosts die? What kind of monster was I to even kill a spirit? I shook so hard my teeth chattered, a sob forcing its way through when warm hands wrapped around mine. I lifted my head, my eyes dragging reluctantly up a familiar lithe, long-limbed body, tight trousers covered in mud and splashes of blood, the hands that covered mine equally bloody, specks of it mingling with the freckles that lived on his knuckles.

“It’s over,” Misery said hoarsely, pulling me closer until my cheek rested on his chest, lips finding the top of my head. “It’s over.”

My shaking hands ended up pressed to his stomach, his warmth seeping into my body like the slow drip of medicine into my veins, and by the time my stomach stopped twisting, a strange, hollow numbness set in.

“I killed her,” I said, my voice empty.

“Good,” Miz replied fiercely. “She deserved it.” His lips pressed to my head again, firmer this time.

“I killed a ghost,” I tried again, failing to articulate the thoughts that spread hollow cold throughout me. “But I didn’t just kill her, like the others killed the spirits. I mutilated her. I’m evil.”

Rough fingers dug into my chin and lifted my face until I had no choice but to look directly into blazing, wrathful gold eyes. “You’re a fucking miracle, Cat. We could have lost you, and losing you would have killed me, and Death, and Tor. Madde, too, probably. But you fought, and you survived, and you didn’t stop until you got the justice you deserve. Never apologise for killing an evil person like Poppy. The damage she caused, even as a ghost… by wiping the stain of her from this realm, you spared her victims any future suffering. And you prevented her from inflicting this pain on anyone else.”

I swallowed hard, his words stabbing my eyes, cutting off my breath until I felt sobs crawl closer. “I didn’t mean to do that. I wanted to hurt her, but…” I tried to look at the mangled mess of her ghost but Miz kept my eyes on his. I realised there was movement around us, feet scuffing the ground. Cleaning up the mess.

“Never feel shame,” Miz insisted, “for doing whatever it takes to survive. Never.”

I bit the inside of my lip and looked away, my eyes stinging. I knew Poppy was a horrible person, and that she’d hurt so many and didn’t regret it for a minute, but murder stained me every time, deep down where no one could see. I startled when Miz’s lips pressed to mine, even though my chin was covered in blood and gore, even though I must have looked horrific.

“I love every single part of you,” he said quietly, ferociously. “Every single part.”

“Even this one?” I asked in a small voice.

He kissed me again, deeper, rougher. “Especially this one,” he promised huskily. “Come on, my universe, we need to get out of here.”

“Virgil,” I began, lifting my head in a rush. “Is he okay?”

“He’s fine. He did most of the fighting and managed to come out mostly unscathed.”

“Mostly,” I repeated, scrambling to my feet and baulking at the carcasses strewn across the courtyard, guts and blood and organs flung in some twisted Jackson Pollock artwork. Near the gates, a bundle of new spirits bobbed, less corporeal than the ones I was used to seeing.

“New ghosts,” Madde explained, limping down the steps towards us, a sharp, intense look on his face as he scanned me, seeing the blood all over me. Blood matted his red hair to his own head, a smear of it on his cheek and jaw that only enhanced his appeal. “From the creatures we killed. Is any of this blood yours?”

I tested my body, wondering if I’d even be able to feel pain through the creeping numb. But I didn't have any stiffness, and other than the cramp of sickness in my gut, there was no pain. “No,” I answered finally.

“That’s my lioness,” Madde breathed, a flash of pride in his electric eyes. “It was a thing of beauty watching you take down the mad scientist.”

I glanced away, another roil in my stomach. It didn’t improve when I looked over the courtyard full of bodies again. There were only five ghosts and six creatures dead, but the amount of gore could have accounted for twenty corpses. It was a level of butchery I wasn’t used to seeing, and nausea roiled up my throat, but we were safe. The rest of the subjects were gone, chased off or fled when Poppy was…when I slaughtered her.

I shied from the truth but I had to face it. I slaughtered her.

“They’re all gone, right?” I asked Miz in a hollow voice. “We’re safe?”

“We’re safe,” he promised, reaching for me again, and trying to disguise the wince that tightened his features. He froze, nostrils flaring.

“Misery?” I whispered, catching his hands and squeezing hard. “This isn’t just exertion. Tell me the truth.”

His pale jaw clenched, stubbornness chasing through his eyes.

“Please,” I begged.

He rolled his eyes skyward and groaned. “I’ve been getting flashes of pain.”

It was hard to breathe, a lump in my throat making it impossible to swallow. “Since the night you were scratched?”

“Since before,” he admitted, averting his eyes. Madde winced and stepped away, giving us a moment. “I didn’t want any of you to worry so I didn’t say anything. And you can’t tell Death, he’s in a bad enough state as it is.”

I knew Death was weak, and he’d overexerted himself by calling the spirits to defend us, but there was something about the way Miz said it. “How bad a state?” I asked, my voice louder.

“I’m fine,” a warm, gruff voice cut in, and relief strangled me when I lifted my head and saw Death walking out of the doors to the castle, no blood on him, no visible injuries. My body was already moving by the time my brain had caught up to the fact he wasn’t in a coma or passed out on the sofa inside. He was walking. Speaking.

I threw my arms around him, squeezing him tight, my eyes burning. “I thought something bad had happened to you.”

His arms engulfed me in heat and comfort, the scent of melted sugar on my tongue when I sucked in breath after breath, filling my lungs with him. “It just knocked me for six when each spirit was killed. Nothing permanent. When the realm heals, so will I.”

“What if it doesn’t heal?”

“It will,” he argued with a tone of finality.

I wanted to push for true answers, to force him into making a plan for when the worst happened, because it always happened, but I was too exhausted in my bones to fight right now. I just hugged him tightly and refused to let go.