Page 4 of All Hallows Trick (Sick and Twisted #3)

CHAPTER THREE

CAT

I tried to sleep for hours but I couldn’t switch off, even with Tor beside me, safe and wrapped in bandages, Miz curled up on Tor’s other side, and Death behind me, his arms coiled like bands of iron muscle around my middle. I couldn’t sleep, couldn’t let myself sleep. I had to listen to their breathing. What if it changed while they slept? What if it stopped?

A dozen different places hurt on my body, each one revealing itself to me as I laid in bed for hours, but it was my husbands’ pain that tortured me more.

Rain continued to pound Madness’s castle. Madde’s castle. The castle where I’d ended up that day I fled the monster from the village of Ford’s End. I didn’t want to think about the familiar eyes in the creature’s face, or the way Virgil had looked in the tunnel when he’d shifted. I ran from my brother that day. I watched him murder an innocent woman. He devoured her blood and skin and bones.

My stomach twisted, bile crawling up my throat, but I choked it down, focusing on the warmth of Death’s arm nestled in the dip of my waist. I listened attentively. Was his breathing weaker, or was that just paranoia? Misery’s breath was even with sleep, a soft puff every two seconds, followed by a slow inhale. Tor’s breathing was deeper, slower, but steady. They were all breathing. All alive.

Virgil was safe, Honey was safe, both of them given a guest room each on the opposite wing of the castle. Sleeping. Alive. But Virgil… the empty look in his eyes was only replaced by hardness and a level of brutality that was a stranger to his expression. His face and body were covered in bruises and injections and scars and bite marks, his movements stiff and abrupt. He was alive but scarred by his captivity.

And god, I wished it was just captivity. I wished he’d only been locked up in that cell, but it was more than that, so much worse than that. He’d been experimented on, his body twisted and morphed into something new. The dead look in his eye when he said he’d tried to fight Nightmare’s control haunted me. That would be me soon. Well. I choked down a laugh, not wanting to wake my husbands. That was already me. Wasn’t my mind scarred by killing Leo Windlow on the lawn behind my house? Wasn’t I haunted by killing Darya, even if she was a traitor, even if she deserved it? I drove the knife into her, felt her blood spill warm over my hand.

How many more people would I kill? My hand shook when I rested it on Death’s arm, tears spilling freely down my cheeks. I didn’t want to kill anyone else. I didn’t want to be a monster.

I saw it behind my eyelids, the lab where I’d ripped the vial of blood bearing my name from the rack, stupidly thinking I could destroy it by smashing it on the floor. I should have pocketed it instead. If I hadn’t shattered it, that smoke would never have risen from the blood, would never have seeped into me, infected me, contaminated me.

I hadn’t seen myself since, didn’t know what I looked like as that creature, but I’d been there, a tiny screaming voice inside a monstrosity of a jaguar while it attacked the people I loved. Tiny flashes had made it through—

The sight of Virgil’s face paling as he yelled at someone to stop, the flashing green lights making my beast’s eyes sting.

Tor’s face, warm with a smile.

Where do you think you’re going, pussy cat? Get over here, and let’s see if this beautiful new jaguar of yours can purr.

You’re cute even when you’re biting me.

That voice of love and rich, gravelly tenderness jarred a memory loose, one that had been lost to the darkness and pain of becoming that creature. Fabric and tattooed gold skin breaking under vicious teeth that belonged to me even if they weren’t mine, weren’t mine. Blood spilling over a tongue too big, drenching my taste buds until the beast hungered for more.

I ripped my eyes open, choking on a gasp, and scrambled out of bed as carefully as I could. I laid Death’s arm over Tor with a hand beginning to shake and fled into the dim hallway outside, choking on attempts to breathe. I bit him. The puncture wounds on Tor’s shoulder that leaked blood and black ichor—they came from me. I did that.

I buried my face in my hands as my shoulders shook with silent sobs. I didn’t allow myself to make a noise or I’d wake them. I needed my husbands to sleep, to heal, to recover from wounds they got because of me. I might not have hurt Miz and Death directly, but the only reason they were at Ford that night was because I needed emotional support for the memorial.

My breath hitched as sob after sob wrecked me, tears hot on my cheeks, and I desperately wanted Death’s arms around me, but I couldn’t handle that right now. I couldn’t look him in the eye. Guilt cinched like arms around my chest instead, squeezing so tight, too tight. I could go to Virgil, but… the band of guilt squeezed tighter. He was only taken by Nightmare so she could use him against me and use me against Death.

I needed air, I needed to breathe—

I jumped hard when something brushed against my ankles. In a split second, my mind conjured images of monsters and claws and creeping tentacles, but when I ripped my hands off my face it was a small black cat winding around my ankle. A jaunty pink and black plaid collar circled his dark throat, complete with a little bow and a bell.

A sudden lump rose into my throat, my bottom lip wobbling. I tried to catch my breath, to pull in enough air to speak. “You’re f-fooling no one,” I gasped.

The cat just stroked his face against my calf, coiling his tail around my leg as he purred like a car engine. His ink fur was the colour of night, as pure black as a void, his eyes electric blue when he blinked up at me. I might have been hyperventilating, might have been falling apart, but I still raised an eyebrow.

In response, the cat nudged my leg and walked down the dim hallway, his tail a question mark when he turned back to look at me after a few steps.

I hesitated, my entire soul railing against the thought of walking away from this bedroom door. The cat paused, sitting in the middle of the hall to watch me.

“If I leave them, they’ll stop breathing,” I whispered, my throat tightening. “I can’t.”

The cat watched me for an unsettling amount of time. If I’d believed it was an ordinary cat, my heart might have quickened, fear prickling the back of my neck, but I wasn’t an idiot. This was Madness in feline form.

He let out a soft trill and trotted back to me, stroking the length of his body against my leg before he nudged open the door where my men slept, glancing back to make sure I followed. This time, I didn’t hesitate. He’d been with me for three years, my constant companion. Even if he encouraged me to maim, brutalise, and murder at any chance he got, the darkness had become a comforting presence, especially since Halloween. It had given me the strength to face Alastor, to fight Nightmare, to defend the people I loved. He had given me that. Madness. Madde.

I didn’t fully understand why, or why he’d taken an interest in me to begin with, but I couldn’t ignore the comfort the darkness offered. So, I carefully closed the bedroom door and followed the black cat across the room to the French doors. He nudged them open with his head, and if I wasn’t mistaken, a tendril of shadow.

Miz let out a soft sound at the cool air that filtered into the room, but I leaned over him and kissed the knot on his brow. “I’m here. You’re safe.”

I brushed a strand of pale hair from his face, stroking down his cheek, a knot unwinding from my chest. Safe, breathing, alive. All three of them. Still breathing. Still breathing.

It gave me the strength to walk through the glass doors, closing them quietly and blinking at the large balcony I found myself on. It was big enough for a wrought iron table and five chairs on one side, a planter on my right full of ghostly flowers, their petals delicate silk in shades of silver, ice blue, and moonlight white. A sort of ivy crawled up the dark wall of the castle, curving around the double doors, its petals black veined with red.

“I’ve never seen ivy like this before,” I murmured, the curiosity of it taking me out of my guilt and panic for a moment. When I didn’t get a reply, I turned to face the cat as he jumped onto the iron table with a sweet tinkle of the bell on his collar. “Not talking to me anymore? Has the novelty worn off now I’m here in your castle?”

Big blue eyes blinked at me in obvious surprise.

How did you know it was me?

“I have eyes,” I replied dryly, wrapping my arms around myself as a chill settled into my bones. I faltered for a moment when a blanket of transparent shadow draped over me like a fleece. Something tugged on my heart and I was too worn down to fight the emotion, not sure if I even wanted to.

I sank into one of the chairs, looking at the charming town at the bottom of the hill where I’d seen Tor fighting in the streets what felt like months ago. Was it really only last week? I rubbed my face, too many memories crowding my head for it to settle, too many emotions crushing my chest for me to breathe.

The black cat jumped off the table, drawing my attention, and I startled when its lithe, furred body extended into the man I’d met earlier. My darkness made flesh. He was different in the moonlight. It suited him, made him more real than the exuberant madman from earlier. The man who dropped into a seat opposite me was quiet and solemn and dangerous, a loose black silk shirt draped over his shoulders, only half buttoned, and black jeans moulding to his long legs like ink. His freckles were barely visible, his features carved of silver and shadow. The strangest thing was I didn’t feel any danger despite sitting across from a stranger. I should have felt afraid.

“You can’t sleep,” he observed, finishing a similar perusal of me as a knot tugged his brows together.

“No,” I agreed, not wanting to elaborate.

“Do you think decapitating someone might help?”

The very serious question made a soft laugh huff from me, and I shook my head. “Hurting people is what got me in this mess in the first place.”

“Oh.” He tilted his head, contemplative. “So, no dismemberment.” He looked at me as if to double check. I shook my head. “Right. What about bloodletting?”

“I’d rather not.”

“Even if they really deserve it? I have some enemies you could take your stress out on.” His eyes darkened to cashmere blue. “Or you can take it out on me.”

“I don’t think that would help me sleep,” I said, choosing my words carefully. I didn’t want to reject him. Selfishly, I didn’t want to lose the comfort of the darkness, even if I wasn’t sure what to do with the man.

“Nah.” Madde shook his head. His hair was a strange shade of silver-peach like this, his tanned skin luminous like a painting. “That’s where you’re wrong, honey. Half a dozen orgasms and you’d be out like a light.”

My eyes widened until they almost bugged out of my head. “Half a dozen…”

“You’re right.” Madde frowned, the V cutting deeper into his forehead. “That’s not nearly enough. A lioness like you deserves a whole dozen.”

“Um.” I lifted my hand to interrupt. “I have three husbands. I’m not sure—”

“I found you first,” he cut in quickly, staring at me with an intensity that made my stomach squirm in the iron chair. “I saw you first, felt your soul first, heard your blood rush first, watched you kill first. I loved you before any of them, so those bastards can get in line.”

“I’m not… currently looking for another husband,” I said awkwardly.

“Good.” He nodded, a debonair lock of hair falling over his forehead. “Four is more than enough.”

“Three,” I corrected, very aware of the blanket of shadows keeping me warm.

“No, you had me first, then collected the other three when Nightmare cursed you. One plus three is four. You’re very bad at maths, my lioness.”

I didn’t know whether to laugh or flee into the bedroom. Madde was completely and utterly mad if he believed him encouraging my violence meant we were married. Even if he’d been with me through my darkest times and given me strength by supporting me the whole way… that did not a marriage make.

“Madness, you’re really kind, and I’m genuinely so thankful that you’ve watched over me for years, but—”

Soft lips cut off my words and I released a sharp sound of surprise at the taste of honey on his breath. My hands fluttered up to push him away, a sense of betrayal for my men souring my stomach, but Madde was already sitting back, his glossy eyes fixed on my face as I flushed and panicked.

“No, thank you. I don’t want rejection; it doesn’t suit me.”

“I…”

“Your lips are lovely,” he told me, those intense eyes softening. “I’ve thought about them for so long. They’re even softer than I imagined. Do you want my darkness to put you to sleep?”

Talking to Madde was like getting whiplash. From compliment, to disarming remark, to a question that was alarming as it promised comfort.

“What?” I asked, dragging my stare from the confusing god to the dark town spread at the base of the castle. Distraction—that’s what I needed. And a cold shower.

The rooftops were dark, barely visible against the sprawl of the night sky, but lights shone in some of the Windows’s like silvered gauze. Was the doctor I scared down there living his afterlife? I still thought it was strange that the afterlife looked exactly like a lot of European cities I’d visited with my family.

I trailed my stare over the sleeping city, wondering if ghosts even slept or if they were stuck in habits from when they’d been alive, and jolted when I saw a figure standing on a flat rooftop at the edge of the city. I couldn’t make out more than a wall-like physique, a black coat covering him from neck to ankle, and the sharp silhouette of a top hat, but the prickling unease sweeping over me swore he was watching us.

“My shadows can—”

“Madde, there’s someone watching us,” I interrupted, my voice a whisper. The panic came back with a vengeance, forcing me to accept that Madness had interrupted the loop of fear I’d got myself into, distracting me until I could breathe again. Now my chest cinched until all air expelled in a gasp, and a rock sank into my stomach.

There was a man stood on a roof and I couldn’t shake the feeling that he was staring right at me.

Madness changed in an instinct, shifting from relaxed and seductive to sharp, lethal danger as fast as a whip strike. My heart skipped at the dangerous expression on his face, at the writhing shadows that swept in around him as he stood. “Stay here. Wake Death if I don’t come back in two minutes.”

“What? Madde—” Panic made me breathless. He was a stranger and a madman but he was my darkness. Fear for him made my hand snap out. I grasped his arm just as the shadows rushed in to consume him.

I fell so fast, my head spun. My knees should have hit the balcony but I kept falling, tumbling through velvety darkness that was hot and cold at the same time. I couldn’t see anything but the void, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t stop shaking and—

A warm arm curved around my back, grounding me, and I reached up, shaky hands settling on Madde’s chest. I twisted my fingers in the sleek fabric of his shirt as I tried and failed to see anything around us. Warmth pressed against me on all sides, oddly spiked with currents of ice, his presence as eerie and comforting as the darkness had always been.

The warmth blasted apart all at once, the darkness ripped away, but the arm tightened across my back, not letting me fall. I swallowed hard as moonlight illuminated Madde’s face in cold rage.

I got the sense I was moving but I couldn’t quite remember how my body worked, the sensation of falling still gripping every one of my limbs even if I felt steady ground beneath my feet. Madde pushed me behind him, bristling, his shoulders suddenly broader than they’d seemed like rage had made him bigger.

“Gone,” he hissed, making me jump. A dark laugh vibrated his back against my front. “You can run, little prey, but you can’t hide from—oh,” he muttered, his shoulders falling. “Well, that’s annoying.”

My head was still spinning, the world strange around me, like my mind couldn’t work out how we’d got from the balcony, through the void, to here. We weren’t on the ground I realised with a squeak, but on the edge of the rooftop where I’d seen the man in the long, black coat and top hat watching us. What were the chances he was a magician, and not the ghost of Jack the Ripper? A shudder knocked my teeth together.

“He’s gone, lioness,” Madde said, turning to face me with that chilling expression on his face that said he’d happily slaughter anyone in his path. I reacted with automatic fear, but my instincts remained calm, not howling at me to run like they had with Nightmare. Or with the cottage lab in the middle of the wood.

“Look at me,” he ordered softly, fingers finding my chin to lift my face before I could decide whether to follow the instruction. His thumb stroked a line of heat across my jaw, shocking whatever I’d been about to say into silence. “I’ve never seen eyes like these.”

“They’ve been this way since the curse,” I said, still trying to process the fact I was standing on a rooftop surrounded by dark rooftops and sleeping streets. “My real eyes are amber, but they’ve been silver for months now, like…”

“Like the mask?” He tilted his head, observing me. “It’s well concealed, but I can see where the skull lays.” He traced a circle around my eyes, following the hollows of my cheeks. I stayed exceptionally still, but his touch felt good and that knocked me back into myself.

“You shouldn’t touch me like that.” I caught his wrist and pulled his hand away, ignoring the velvet warmth of his skin. “I have three husbands, and I don’t like this feeling. I don’t cheat, that’s not who I am.”

Madde let me push his hand away, but he didn’t take his eyes off my face, staring into my eyes with an intensity that made my soul quail. “I was yours before they were yours, lioness.”

I didn’t have the nerve to hold eye contact, staring instead at the city spread below us, fear gripping my chest once again at how high up we were. It was only three storeys but the fall would kill me. Or break me so badly that I’d wish I were dead. I searched the dark, slanted roofs for the man I’d seen watching us, but like Madde said, he was gone.

“Can you track him? With your shadows?”

“The bastard left no trace,” Madde replied, a roughness entering his voice. Along with the curse, it made my gut tighten, a tiny tremor going across my shoulder blades. Not fear exactly, but awareness of how dangerous this god was. “That was the first thing I tried, but there’s not even an echo of him. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“Theme of the night,” I muttered, thinking of his comment about my eyes. They were grey but not especially unique. It was just another piece of his flattery and seduction puzzle, and I wish I knew how I felt about it, but my head was full of cotton wool. “Do you know who he was?”

“Not a clue,” he replied far too cheerfully. His moods were confusing as fuck. Whiplash was definitely the word for them. “But I’m happy it bought me some quality time with you, lioness.”

“Why do you call me that?” I asked, not looking at him, my stare tracing the network of roads in the town, searching for anything out of place, any lurking shadow. Paranoia told me he was one of Nightmare’s followers watching me, but how would they get into Death’s domain? This was the only place I was safe; I wouldn’t wreck the peace I found here by letting fear win.

“It’s what you are,” Madde replied and did not elaborate. “Do you like statues?”

“I—what?”

His hands fell on my shoulders, twin spots of warmth blooming in the cold night. “Statues? Do you like them.”

“As long as they’re not coming to life and trying to murder me,” I hedged, struggling to follow his train of thought. 1

He nodded decisively, the moonlight lovingly bathing his freckled face and bright eyes in silver beauty. “Then I’ll get you one. Are you cold? You’re shivering. Let’s go back.”

“Wait,” I rushed out when shadows began to gather around us, their heat seeping into my muscles. The darkness paused, Madde’s head tilting as he watched me, waiting for me to speak. “Don’t drop me, okay?”

“Cactus,” he murmured, taking my hand and lifting it. My heart catapulted itself at my ribs when I saw my fingers were tipped with small, ivory claws. Oh, god. Oh, fuck no. I couldn’t shift here. I didn’t want to change ever. I didn’t want to be a—

My thoughts ground to a halt when Madde kissed my clawed fingers one after another. Betrayal squirmed through my stomach like sickness but I couldn’t help the way the soft brush of his mouth soothed my rush of panic, slowing its flow.

“I would rather cut out my rib and fashion it into a crown for you to wear than relax my grip even a fraction.”

Um. What did you say to a declaration like that?

“Okay.”

His answering smiled filled his whole face, any danger to him hidden by joy. “I’m happy you trust me, lioness. Those really are pretty eyes. Are they usually black?”

“Are they…” My heart tripped into my ribs. “No? Not usually?”

“Magical,” he sighed. “Put your hands on my chest again. Hold on tight.”

There was no chance to reply to any of the madness he murmured; I gripped his shirt and closed my eyes as hot-cold darkness swallowed us.

“I’ll see you at breakfast, honey,” he said when his shadows set me on the balcony with reverent care. I lifted my head, opening my mouth to reply, the warm fabric of his shirt slipping out of my fingers. But when I opened my eyes, I was alone on the balcony, shaken and… conflicted.