Page 24 of All Hallows Trick (Sick and Twisted #3)

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

CAT

T or shot to his feet, darkness crashing down in a wall around us. Madde drew me close as he stood, rare anger tightening his features. Because Nightmare stood on the path that led to the gates, as if she’d strolled right into the realm. But that wasn’t possible. She couldn’t enter. We’d been safe here; we’d always been safe.

And the spirits who followed us up the road… they’d never been luring me to the meeting. They’d been herding us for Nightmare. They stood behind her in a silvery army, broken only by… by the subjects we’d fought in the courtyard only days ago. Well, that answered that question. I was going to be sick.

“Oh darling,” Nightmare chuckled, giving Tor a little smile. “Did you think a little ward kept me out all these years?”

“Go,” I said, scrambling to push Tor and Madde behind me. “Get out of here. The subjects can’t hurt me.”

“Very gallant,” Nightmare remarked, strolling closer, looking as put-together and stately as always, not a hair out of place. She was only a few metres away, too fucking close. My heart galloped, a shivery alertness coursing through me. “You can run if you like,” she told my men. “I’ll be generous and give you this chance.”

“Get the fuck out of my realm,” Tor snarled, his voice deeper, a crackle of lethal intent making me shudder.

“Our realm, Torment,” Nightmare replied with a smile, pausing when only a metre separated us, Death’s garden an eerily beautiful backdrop for what was about to be a bloodbath. There were three of us against… I tallied quickly. Ten subjects, over twenty spirits, and Nightmare. Fuck. We were screwed.

“Please,” I tried, regardless of the hopeless odds, pushing against Tor’s shoulder, Madde’s chest. “Go. Get help. I can hold her off.”

“Ah, on the subject of help,” Nightmare said, feathering a hand through her long red hair, looking far too at ease in a long wine-red dress, matching gloves all the way up to her elbows, like she was a socialite at a Christmas ball or an actress on the red carpet of the latest premiere. Not here to threaten us. “Pay very close attention.”

“To what?” I breathed, wishing my voice was stronger, wishing I was stronger.

“This,” she answered, her smile such a lie that it made me want to scream. My emotions were a wreck, my fear still too prevalent, its grip on me making my knees shake.

Madde’s hand wrapped around my elbow, and I felt his shadows near, ready to rip me away at the slightest shift of Nightmare’s body. But it was the subjects who moved, a sudden and violent explosion of movement that made me jump so hard I felt it through my whole body. The screams made my hackles rise.

I would have lunged forward if Madde didn’t have hold of me. The bottom dropped out of my stomach, and I fought against his hold when the creatures turned on the spirits who’d stood at their sides. In the seconds I fought to get free, to stop them, to do something they shredded six ghosts. I didn’t know how Nightmare controlled them, but clearly Poppy had designed them—designed us —to answer to her every whim. That thought sent a rush of ice through my system.

“You’ve proven your point,” I snapped at the goddess. “Enough.”

“Call Death,” Nightmare replied, not looking at the carnage behind her as wild animals tore through ghosts until their eyes turned white and their mouths hung with screams that raked across my ears, bunching my shoulders.

My anger mounted when the screams began to peter out. Madde didn’t release me, didn’t let me run at Nightmare, but I didn’t know what I would have done anyway. And all the time we stood here, Miz was dying.

I waited for Tor to tell Nightmare she was out of her damn mind if she thought we’d bring Death here, where he could be hurt, when every one of those spirits’ deaths weakened him but—silence.

I know you want to kill her, Madde said, eerily serious, and I want to let you, but we need to get away from here.

The subjects were prowling towards us, every ghost that Nightmare had rallied slaughtered. My breath caught.

“Tor,” I said in a small voice, my eyes burning. I was so afraid to turn, to see why he wasn’t shouting at Nightmare, why he wasn’t trying to push me behind him like he always did, protective to a fault.

I knew it was bad when Madde sucked in a sharp breath and let go of me, turning so quickly he must have been dizzy. I moved slowly, my heart in my throat, beating in triple time.

I expected to see Poppy somehow returned from true death, or the bride goddess who’d come back to force me into a bargain, but it was worse. Tor was limp in the white-knuckled grip of a tall man in an austere black coat and a stern top hat. The Stalker.

“Tor,” I breathed, half expecting him to move at the sound of my voice. But his eyes were closed like the Stalker had knocked him out, and my whole world slowed, dragging around me.

The rough shaking of my hands broke my moment of horror, and I lunged towards him.

“Ah ah,” Nightmare stopped me, clearly enjoying herself. “A single cut rendered him unconscious. Think what a second could do.”

A single…? I stopped inches away from Tor, frantic as I scanned him, my heart beating strangely at the sight of claws on the Stalker’s death-pale fingers. Claws like I had when I lost control. He was one of us, a subject like me and Virgil.

“Please don’t,” I whispered, talking to him instead of Nightmare. My heart clattered my ribcage, my blood jittery in my veins, burning with the intensity of my panic as I inched closer, scanning Tor’s slack face, finding the tiny slice of blood on his throat where a claw had clearly punctured him. “I know she has you in a chokehold, and I know what it’s like, but please don’t hurt my husband.” I lowered my voice to a breath. “I can help. We can get you away, where she can’t hurt you.”

Lioness, Madde warned in a tight voice. I’d heard it once before, when I was in the cottage searching for Virgil. Hairs rose down my arms at the memory but Tor needed me to focus. Misery’s life was dwindling, but Tor’s life was in immediate danger and I could hardly breathe.

Do something, I begged Madde. Please.

He didn’t hesitate. I fell for Madness the moment he leapt across the garden path, exploding into a cyclone of dark, writhing shadows and—wings. They beat the air, cutting the sudden silence so harshly that I jumped back with a cry, scanning the darkness for the Stalker and Tor.

I caught a split-second glimpse of Tor’s face, his golden skin drained of its usual colour, his tattoos standing out starkly against his throat. I jumped through the shadows, trusting Madde to never hurt me even if there were definitely wings and warm bodies and low, menacing cawing within the dark, almost like laughter.

“You,” Nightmare snarled, making me jump. But I was so close to Tor now that I could reach him, pulling him into my arms and gripping so tightly I would leave marks on his arms. The Stalker surrendered him far too easily.

“Wake up,” I pleaded, scanning the cloud of dark, dark smoke for the Stalker, knowing he was in here with us. “Please wake up, Tor.”

He didn’t. I choked down air, jumping when feathers brushed my face as a crow beat its wings, sailing out of the dark towards Nightmare. The others attacked too, like Madde had summoned a swarm of attack crows. My mind was reeling so much that it took me a moment to remember all the times I’d seen these birds before. Watching me when I found Caroline, when I dug up the box with the beating heart, when I walked alone. All the times I’d thought Nightmare was stalking me, threatening me, it had been Madde.

“Tor,” I breathed, shaking him, my eyes wide on the darkness, flinching at every movement. If a single cut had made him faint, what would another do? I couldn’t let the Stalker get close enough.

“Come out of the darkness, my terror,” Nightmare called.

I backed up further, my arms shaky, warning like a trickle of cold down the back of my neck. I couldn’t let her get to Tor either. She’d kill him. She’d already weakened Death, and driven Miz to such a panic that he’d bound his magic.

“You’re not taking Tor, too,” I hissed, my breathing so ragged my head swam a little. I backed up another step, scanning the darkness, the garden beyond it visible in shades of greyscale. Madde strode among the crows, and hope made me breathless for a different reason when Nightmare stumbled. It was the only sign of weakness I’d ever seen.

Stay in the shadows, Madde ordered, his voice steely enough to make me gasp. I felt it—the power gathering outside the cloud of darkness, the insanity rife in the air. Nightmare cackled, her eyes flashing, mouth pulling into a smile, blood dripping from her eye over her lip. Don’t come out for anything.

“He took him,” Nightmare laughed with a gaping lack of sanity. “Did you know that? Death took him and refused to give him back, even when I begged.”

“People die,” Madde replied with no mercy. “You scared my lioness, so you’ll die too. That’s what you really want isn’t it?” he laughed, the sound bright, sharp, a little shattered. “Beneath all the revenge and suffering you dole out, what you really want is to die so you can be reunited with whoever you’re ranting and raving about.”

A wave of power struck me with enough force that my breath left my lungs, and my knees buckled. I staggered backwards, only my grip on Tor keeping me upright with sheer panic. I couldn’t drop him. I couldn’t let go.

Relief escaped in a puff of breath when I stabilised, but air died in my lungs when my next stumble knocked me into something solid. Hairs rose on the back of my neck. I tore away, hoping, praying it was a wall even though I knew better. Walls weren’t ice cold and packed with muscle.

“Stay back,” I warned, squinting through the billowing dark at the tall, imposing form of the Stalker. “I’ll rip you apart, don’t fucking test me.”

The threat of him, the panic, the rage, it all combined until my fingertips stung with claws, and I knew my eyes must be black. The low, rippling noise of his laughter chilled my blood.

“So much for helping me,” he said in a dead rasp, a voice I didn’t recognise.

“I will help you,” I rushed out, scrambling for a way out that didn’t end in death for either Tor or I. Madde said to stay in the shadows, but with the Stalker here, that would only get us killed. “Just walk away from Nightmare, stop killing spirits, and I’ll help you. I swear it. You don’t have to do what she says.”

This laugh was lower, vicious. “You’re na?ve.”

“Hopeful,” I countered breathlessly, backing up through the darkness. “I mean it. I’ll help you. Just please, don’t hurt us.”

His head tilted, top hat and all, his face hidden. “You have no idea what’s going on here, do you?”

I never did. I never knew anything. I was so far in the dark I should be a death god with my own damn shadows. “You need a way out, an escape from Nightmare and whatever control she has over you? Done.”

I couldn’t see his features, only the hint of a weak chin, but I sensed the smile, the condescension. My heart thrummed; I backed up another step. He didn’t follow, but I felt the menace, the threat. He’d been watching me and Madde for days, watching all of us probably. He’d left that spirit on the doorstep as a message.

“Nightmare doesn’t control me,” the Stalker said in an unsettling rasp, like his vocal cords had been cut. “I’m Poppy’s greatest child.”

Jesus. My blood ran cold as I took another step back, inhaling sharply when he matched it this time, pursuing me. “Poppy’s gone now. She can’t hurt you.”

It was the wrong thing to say; I knew it instantly, read it in the sudden shift of his body language. It was like watching a panther shift from laziness to pure, lethal hunt.

“What do you mean she’s gone?” he demanded.

I scrambled back three steps this time, my hands trembling where I held onto Tor, my arms growing weak. He was heavier than I’d ever imagined. And he wasn’t waking up.

“What did you do to my husband?” I asked, reaching through the darkness inside me for Madde, not sure if I was asking for help or if he was hurt.

“Did you kill her?” the Stalker hissed, pale hands curling into fists at his side, his claws silvered in the darkness.

I shook my head, words deserting me, my breathing too loud in the silence that followed.

There was no sign of his movement this time. In an instant he looked over me, ripping Tor from my arms and throwing him aside like he was nothing. I cried out, fear and anger clashing until I could only tremble, but fear was winning. The Stalker grabbed my coat and wrenched me so close I smelled the rot and death on his breath.

“Did you kill her?”

“She wanted to kill me,” I blurted, struggling against him, trying to find my jaguar, my anger. I needed strength right now, not shivery fear. “She made me into a monster.”

The Stalker sucked in a hissed breath through his teeth. “She made you exceptional and you don’t even know it. You don’t know the gift you were given. Pathetic.”

Gift? A laugh bubbled up my throat, utterly twisted when it erupted. “Was it a gift to make my husband bleed? Is it a gift to be terrified to kill someone at the slightest little slip, to know that when the antidotes run out, I’ll murder anyone and everyone in sight? Is that a fucking gift?” I was screaming now, anger beating through my blood.

The Stalker shook me and let go, pushing me off balance. I fell at his feet. The impact went up my tailbone, making me cry out, tears springing to my ears.

“Yes,” he spat, and warning bleated through my instincts when he leaned over me, menace like a wave rippling from him. I couldn’t see his face and that only made him scarier. “That is a gift, you ungrateful wretch. I suggest you learn to appreciate it or you’ll never survive in the palace.”

There was something about the way he spoke, the entitlement, the crispness of his accent. He came from money, and a serious amount of it. He sounded like the bastards I went to Ford with.

I tried to get up, but his boot drove into my chest, pushing me back into the dirt. “What palace?” I panted, heaving against his foot, gritting my teeth at the force it took to remove it. My rage was growing, my jaguar baying for blood, and I didn’t shy from it, letting that lethal force sink my claws into the meat of the Stalker’s calf. He’d made my Tor bleed, so he too would bleed.

I should have known he wouldn’t cry out in pain, wouldn’t stumble. He just ripped his leg from my claws and scoffed, low and rasping, as he shook his head.

“It’s too late to escape,” he told me, sneering. “Can’t you feel it?”

I scrambled to my feet, scanning the darkness around my legs for Tor, a sickly sensation in my belly when I couldn’t find his unconscious body anywhere. “Feel what?”

I lifted my hands in a rush when the Stalker moved forward, but he wasn’t looking at me. His attention was on something outside the cloud of darkness. I remembered Nightmare and Madde all at once, and panic made me spin so fast I went dizzy, staring out at the garden cast in shades of grey, plants and flowers and the castle all draped in a desaturated haze.

My breathing came quicker, a tight knot in my chest when the garden swam at the edges. I couldn’t afford to be weak. I needed to find Tor before the Stalker hurt him. I needed to find a way to save Miz. I needed to—

“Honey?” I breathed, panicked eyes stalling on the sight of my best friend rushing through the gates to Death’s castle, the shotgun she’d used to wound Nightmare propped on her shoulder as she aimed it into the courtyard where the goddess and Madde—

“Stop,” I growled, my voice deeper and richer than I expected. My heartbeat jumped, beats clattering together. The goddess of nightmares had her hand around my Madde’s throat, and while he was smirking like it was all a huge game, there was a gash in his shirt, his ribs spilling blood. His left side was grazed, his arm raw. But her hand on his throat made it hard to breathe. “Don’t you touch him.”

“Yeah,” Honey agreed, cocking the gun. “What she said.”

It was baffling to see my best friend, daughter of a vicar, habitual good girl, pointing a gun at someone, but the relief that smacked me in the gut was enough for me to pull myself together. And I guess after everything that had happened since Halloween, neither of us were good girls anymore. We were what Nightmare had made us.

“You shouldn’t be here,” Nightmare said, tilting her head, crimson hair tumbling over her shoulder like a spill of blood.

“I got bored, and this looks fun.” Honey shrugged, lining up the shotgun with Nightmare’s torso. I glanced around myself for the Stalker, not sure whether to be relieved or terrified that I couldn’t find him. I had to hope Tor was still in the shadow, that he was safe, because right now my best friend was pointing a gun at a psychotic goddess and I couldn’t let her die because she came to help us. I crept out of the bubble of Madde’s darkness.

“Let him go, Nightmare,” I ordered, edging closer, the sight of her hand around his throat spiking my blood with ice. The fact that Honey was pointing a gun dangerously close to him didn’t help, but I knew she’d never shoot him. But Nightmare? There was nothing she wouldn’t do. And I couldn’t forget the way Madde looked at me, the softness of his voice when he said I’d keep him safe.

Can you use your shadows? I asked, approaching steadily, stepping over broken flowerpots and trees ripped out, roots and all—signs of their fight. I’d missed it all inside the darkness with the Stalker.

I don’t feel too good, my lion. His reply was slurred and slow.

Lioness, I correctly gently.

He didn’t reply.

I was going to be sick. But I drew myself taller, the responsibility of keeping him and Tor safe settling over me like a cloak of iron.

“Why are you wasting your time with him?” I asked Nightmare, approaching swifter, trampling grass and plants, not taking my eyes off her as she turned to face me. “It’s me you really want. All this has been about using me to hurt Death.”

“Oh, I’m just stalling until the man himself arrives. But you’re right,” she said with an eerily genuine smile. “This is about hurting Death, and Madness is useless.”

I lunged forward on legs like jelly, her sly tone making sweat prick the back of my neck, panic a live wire inside me. I couldn’t do this. I couldn’t be the only person to keep them alive. I was just Cat, no matter what serums ran in my blood, and I was afraid.

“Are you going to use that gun?” Nightmare asked Honey, stepping aside just as I was about to reach her. My breath hitched when she reappeared five feet away, Madde’s freckled throat still pale under her fingers.

“I might,” Honey replied, slowly coming closer until she stood on the edge of the garden.

I felt my pulse in my throat, a mad rhythm that quickened as I turned to Nightmare, scanning Madde’s face. There was a vacancy to his eyes that terrified me, and the absence of a smile on his face made cold skitter down my arms.

Madde? Talk to me, love.

No reply.

The laugh that wove through Nightmare’s voice made bile burn my throat. “Do you take requests?”

I didn’t take my eyes off Madde, the empty sheen in his eyes, the pallor of his face, the absence of shadows around him. What had she done? Or was this the Stalker? Had he weakened my Madde? I moved closer, faster, and I was so focused on him that I didn’t see the glance Honey and Nightmare exchanged, didn’t think to protect myself until the gun fired.

I didn’t realise why I staggered back, didn’t understand the gasp that left my mouth until heat detonated in a sudden blaze across my side.

“Applesauce,” Honey muttered. “I missed.”

“What…?” I pressed my hand to my side where the fire was the strongest, burning with relentless fuel. My hand came away red. I staggered another step, a frown tugging my brows together. “Honey, you… shot me?

Honey’s laugh was musical and sweet. “No, Kitty. I’m just borrowing her face. Honey is dead.”