Page 25 of All Hallows Trick (Sick and Twisted #3)

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

CAT

T he pain dropped me to my knees, shock making my thoughts slow to process. My jaguar took over, protecting me with thick velvety fur and claws that dug into the soft earth under my paws. My teeth bared in warning as pain built and built. Why had she… I didn’t understand.

I’m just borrowing her face. Honey is dead.

That wasn’t right. I was with Honey last night; she was fine. She texted me earlier today. She was fine. This was Nightmare messing with my head. The person borrowing Honey’s face was probably one of her followers. It could even be Phil.

The deep rumble that poured from me was more threatening than painful this time. I lurched automatically, ready to rip Phil to shreds for her betrayal, but pain drove into my side with enough force to knock the breath out of me. My body buckled, packed with sleek, powerful muscle that was completely useless with pain making me weak. Was this how my men felt, scratched and bitten and drained of magic?

“Call Death,” Nightmare ordered, watching me with no small amount of satisfaction. “Summon him.”

My eyes flicked to her, narrowed with pain, and a jolt of panic shot into my heart, making the beats erratic when I remembered Madde prone and vulnerable in her grip. Her fingernails had bitten into his neck, little trails of blood dripping down the hearts and flowers inked on his throat. There was a moment of stillness inside me where only those trails of blood existed, then wrath exploded like a bomb blast. I surged to my feet with a guttural snarl.

Pain made my legs shake but rage kept me upright and allowed me to take a step towards my darkness and the bitch making him bleed. I made sure to bare my teeth so she saw what would rip her to shreds. I’d killed a ghost with these teeth; I could kill a woman, even one as wicked and powerful as a goddess.

“Excuse me,” Honey said with a little huff, walking closer, the gun now balanced on the shoulder of her shirt. It was a puffy black blouse with sunflowers all over it, as sunny and optimistic as my friend herself. A tight, compact pain cramped my belly. She wasn’t dead. She was right here. I was looking at her. Nightmare just made her say that to hurt me. “But this is my moment, not yours, Nightmare.”

The flash of Nightmare’s mismatched eyes chilled my blood, and I froze between one slow step and the next even with my instincts screaming at me to go to Madde, to protect him.

You wouldn’t let anyone hurt me, I know you wouldn’t.

“Your moment?” Nightmare scoffed, pressing her nails deeper into Madde’s neck almost absently, the trails thicker, flowing faster. “Since when did you have a single hand in any of this? I’m the one who found Carmilla Poppy when she was distraught over her son’s death. I was the one who moulded her into my genius. I was the one who encouraged my followers to bring me back on Halloween, to curse my terrors so Death would finally have a weakness to exploit.”

I slunk closer, my jaws locked to trap howls of pain as the hot pain in my side spread, invisible flames licking across my body.

“I was the one who gave Death a bride and set all of this in motion. I was the one who found a way for Poppy’s greatest subject to enter this domain, leaving it open for the taking.”

Honey just laughed, high and tinkling and—unfamiliar. Wrong. My stomach cramped, a sharp twist in my chest as I kept low to the ground and slunk closer to Nightmare. Their conversation made my hackles rise and my rage threatened to cave under the pressure of howling loss, but I kept dragging myself across the garden.

“Were you?” The smile in Honey’s voice almost made me turn away, but I kept my eyes on Madde as his lashes fluttered, his darkness touching my soul in a feeble brush. Because I was watching Nightmare, I saw her go still.

“What does that mean?”

I jumped when Honey moved at the edge of my vision, gliding over the ground in a way that was nothing like the usual way she moved. A sharp truth pierced my heart; I ignored it and kept moving, creeping low to the ground, only a few feet away from Nightmare and Madde now.

“Like I was saying,” Honey said, sharp with annoyance, “this is my moment. You may have done all those things, but you didn’t trick Cat into thinking I was her best friend. That was me.”

My paws faltered. It was harder to push away the words she’d spoken and the fact there was a hole blast through my shoulder by my best friend.

I’m just borrowing her face. Honey is dead.

“It was so easy to kill her,” Honey said, her voice too high, too clear. A sweet, tinkling voice that made my skin itch. “Are you listening, Cat? Did you know your sweet, innocent best friend murdered a professor? It was eating her up inside, day after day. The roses I sent her probably didn’t help. Did you know red roses are the flower of Lancashire?”

Lancashire. Professor Lancashire… God. Honey had killed him, had been suffering with that all this time, and she hadn’t told me. No, this was Phil lying. I shook my head, fur trembling, and kept moving, ignoring the hot drip of blood across my fur. I was leaving a trail of it, but I ignored that, too.

“Honey was glad when I killed her. I saw it in her eyes—the gratitude.”

The abrupt shift in her voice, clearer, higher, pealing like a bell, made my head whip around to her. The bottom crashed out of my stomach. It wasn’t Honey holding the gun; it was the woman who left the message, who told me to meet her here. She was wearing the same lace gown and hood she did an hour ago. Why did she come back—because of Nightmare? It didn’t matter. It wasn’t Honey, wasn’t even Phil. Honey had never been here at all. She must be safe back at Ford, far away from this woman and Nightmare. That was good. She should stay there, safe.

“Aren’t you wondering when it happened?” She asked, the train of her gown whispering over the ground. “Aren’t you wondering how long I’ve been impersonating your friend?”

I shook my head like I could dislodge her words but they burrowed, locking in my mind. Honey wasn’t dead. I hadn’t lost her like I lost Byron. She was fine. I gulped down air, the scent of violets from the trampled flowers overpowering everything for a moment.

“I was watching you all the night you found Virgil—you included, Nightmare. I watched you a lot.”

“Just hurry up your monologue,” Nightmare snapped, tossing Madde aside like she was bored of him. “I have things to do here.”

“Oh, I know,” the woman who’d pretended to be Honey purred. “Where do you think you got all your ideas?”

I jumped across the path when Madde fell to the dirt, a soft grunt his only response. I nudged him with my nose, choking back a gasp at a fiery arrow of pain across my ribs. I shouldn’t have moved so fast. Fuck. The world spun at the edges of my vision.

Madde, open your eyes. Look at me. You said you’d deny me nothing, so open your eyes.

The wounds in his throat had slowed bleeding but the fact he was unconscious, just like Tor, had cold clashing with the flames of pain tearing through me. He’d wake up; they’d both wake up. They had to. I couldn’t lose them like I’d lost Byron, like this psycho bride wanted me to think I’d lost Honey.

“It was me since Nightmare confronted you on that moors road,” she said, noticing my attention on her, a slow smile softening her porcelain face. “I was the one with the gun.” She lifted the shotgun for emphasis, waving it at Nightmare, then me on the ground beside Madde. “I came to Madness’s castle with you. Honey has been dead for over a week.” She laughed at the expression on my face, my horror visible even in jaguar features. She had to be lying, but… what if a tiny voice whispered. What if she was telling the truth?

Tiny little things came to me. Honey shooting Nightmare when she’d never known how to shoot. The way her laugh had been louder this week, completely different to her subdued laugh since Halloween.

Just because I can rock the look doesn’t mean I want to be furry again.

You were never furry.

I shook my head and nudged Madde. I needed him to wake up. I needed us to find Tor and go home where none of this could touch me.

“It was my idea,” Nightmare informed me smugly.

The other woman laughed. “It’s charming that you think so.”

Something was happening, a shift of power, and it turned my blood to ice. We had to get out of here. Madde was unconscious and I’d promised to keep him safe. I wouldn’t let him down.

Nightmare turned her back to us, and I seized the chance, dragging a breath through my nose, the scent of blood and mud and violets thick in my throat as I carefully picked up Madde in my teeth. I kept low to the ground as I backed towards the castle, no plan except panic driving me to get inside and hide.

My leg buckled when Madde’s limp legs hit the bleeding hole in my side, and a whimper escaped before I could trap it. The back of my neck tingled, fur standing on end. I staggered faster, my legs unsteady, pain hammering at me in a hot, insistent beat. I choked down breath after breath, aware the voices behind me had fallen silent. My heart threw itself against my ribs.

“Oh, Kitty?” the woman called, her voice singsong.

I broke into a run, the pain debilitating. I crashed to the ground, hauled myself up, and kept running. I was too hot. The pain crested a wave that kept cresting.

“Stop there, won’t you, dear?”

My legs slammed to a halt, my whole body freezing like someone had grabbed me and held me still. No. Not this again. I couldn’t take it, not after Nightmare controlled me and made me deliver Darya to her death.

I heaved on my paws, begging them to lift from the ground, threw myself sideways and silently growled when I didn’t budge. If Nightmare had held me in wicked claws, digging sharp tips into my soul, these bindings were like the elaborate strings of a puppet master. No matter which way I ran or shifted or threw myself against the cage of my body, she held me still.

“Drop Madness,” the woman commanded, her sweet voice like poison because I could hear the thrill and glee in it.

My jaws opened, depositing him on the ground. I swore my heart fell out of my chest with him.

“How are you doing that?” Nightmare hissed, asking the question I was desperate to know.

“Wouldn’t you like to know,” the other woman purred. The other goddess? What was she the goddess of, fakes and trickery? “Ah, you made it,” she said, looking at something over my shoulder.

“We’re here, little bride. We’re here.”

I couldn’t even sob at the relief of hearing Death’s voice, couldn’t screw my eyes shut at the papery rasp of it.

“Come here, beautiful.”

I would have gasped if I could at the crunch of boots on ground, Tor’s amber and sandalwood scent hitting my sensitive nose, blending with blood and violets. He wasn’t unconscious. He’d gone for help.

“Cat,” Tor said, his voice shifting. “Come here.”

“She can’t,” the psycho in the lace hood said with a glittering laugh. “She can’t do anything unless I say, can you, Kitty? Are you watching? This is my favourite part of my plan for this evening, the pièce de résistance if you will.”

“Let her go, Cruelty,” Death ordered, his voice so faint it didn’t carry its usual weight. My blood ran ice cold.

Cruelty? That was who’d snared me in her control?

“No, I don’t think I will,” she replied. “Kitty, be a dear and kill Nightmare.”