Page 7 of All Hallows Trick (Sick and Twisted #3)

CHAPTER SIX

CAT

I braced myself as Tor led me through the vibrant, gothic hallways of Madde’s castle, his hand warm and dry in mine, a comfort I desperately clung to. The others were right behind me, another level of comfort. I might lose control of my volatile jaguar but they were here, and they would bring me back. If I didn’t hurt them again, that was…

Guilt and fear caught between my ribs until it hurt to breathe, but Tor’s hand squeezed around mine, and I looked up just as we reached the foyer where I’d once appeared when I was being chased by a monster. By Virgil. The sight of his eyes, monstrous and threatening and afraid, haunted me. Would I look at the people I loved like that as I hunted them?

“I think our shadow man might be responsible for this,” Madde said seriously, nudging his shoulder into mine. I didn’t know what this he was talking about for a moment, then I saw it through the glass on the front doors: a spirit bobbing in place, see-through but solid enough for me to make out the sailor’s hat and uniform he wore.

“A ghost…?” I asked, slowing my pace, unable to explain the sudden uptick in my pulse.

“Not just any ghost,” Madde said with a little more relish as he opened the door.

Death’s hand settled on the small of my back, Miz standing close by my left as Madness opened the door so we could see the ghost fully and— I swallowed. I didn’t want to entertain the idea that this ghost was left by the same man in the long coat and top hat I saw watching us last night.

“Anyone could have done this,” I said, swallowing.

“Nah, it’s probably the shadow man,” Madde disagreed, far too chipper. “He’s stalking us. Ooh, that’s a better name. The Stalker. Let’s call him that.”

“What are we talking about?” Death asked, his hand flexing on my back. My shoulders tensed at his tone, but I pushed down my initial panic that he would suddenly change his mind about wanting me and see all the flaws that lurked just beneath my surface.

“Last night, I couldn’t sleep,” I answered, my stomach winding into a tight knot in anticipation of their reactions. “I went onto the balcony and saw a man in a black coat and a top hat watching us from the town.”

“I was there too,” Madde put in helpfully, framing his chin with both hands, annoyingly cute.

“Yes, thank you,” I huffed, and forced myself to look at Tor, Death, and Miz. I couldn’t read their reactions other than a baseline of worry and annoyance. At me? Or at the spirit? “He’s my darkness, so we have a… a bond. We talked on the balcony.” I shrugged, turning back to the ghost because that was more important right now.

I startled when I realised the ghost had floated closer, facing us fully, his face visible now, mouth hanging open in a rictus scream. Opaque white eyes stared unseeingly, and my blood chilled when I realised the jacket he wore was unbuttoned to show the word SURPRISE carved into his chest. It bled, vibrant, living red. How could ghosts bleed?

“I swear to fucking god, Madness,” Tor began, squeezing my hand and edging closer to me. “Leave our girl alone.”

“Our girl,” Madde replied in a low purr. “I like the sound of that. We could have so much fun sharing her, don’t you think? I have a book full of ideas.”

“How can a ghost bleed?” I cut in, ignoring the tight band around my chest, the fear creeping closer. “The ghost is bleeding. That’s not normal, right?”

I jumped back when the sailor floated closer, swaying on the top step of Madde’s castle. There was no scent of decay around him, no low moaning coming from his pained mouth, but it was eerie. Unsettling. And that word— surprise.

“No,” Miz was the one to answer me, stroking down my arm. “Ghosts can’t usually bleed. Blood is for the living. And us, I suppose. The half-alive.”

I bit my lip so hard the skin threatened to break, keeping the words trapped on the top of my tongue, not wanting Miz to be as scared as I was. Three words. This is her. Nightmare. She’d done this. She was taunting us. She couldn’t enter Death’s domain, so she’d used the ghosts to send us a message. My hands began to shake, my breathing coming faster, shorter.

“Cat,” Misery said gently, catching my hand and bringing my knuckles to his lips. I barely felt it; I was starting to go numb. “It’s okay. The ghost can’t hurt you.”

“What did this? What could make a ghost look like this?” I asked, something in my recoiling at the ghost’s milky eyes, the pain and horror stretched across his face.

“Torture,” Death sighed, dropping a kiss on my head before he brushed past Tor, approaching the dead sailor man. “Extreme pain and stress. Someone brutalised this ghost and sent them as a message for Madness.”

“Oh, don’t look at me,” Madde laughed. “I’ve lived here for a hundred years and I’ve never had a ghost like this before. This is a message for you three.”

Misery jolted like he’d been struck. “So this is a message from Nightmare. Surprise. Surprise what?”

“She knows where we are,” I suggested, still not brave enough to look any of them in the eye.

Tor stroked his thumb across my knuckles. “She watched Madde take us away, so of course she’d know where we went. But she can’t get to us here.”

“Our little Stalker clearly can,” Madde pointed out, pursing his lips as he looked at the ghost, Death observing the dead man, too. “Oh, good news! They couldn’t get inside the castle. We’re completely, utterly safe in here. Love that for us.”

“So, if we leave the castle, the Stalker will find us?” I asked, my voice faint. I couldn’t shake the image of him watching us from the rooftop. My panic compounded until I trembled all over.

“Cat,” Tor said, his gravelly voice calm as he turned me towards him. “Look at me.” I did but I had to drag my eyes to him, not sure what I’d find in his face. Rejection or disappointment or sadness. My fear projected onto him, my chest tightening more, but there was only steady, patient love in his brown eyes. “I need you to breathe for me. Can you do that, beautiful?”

“Madde kissed me,” I blurted, wheezed, rasped. I couldn’t breathe.

Tor shot a dirty look over my shoulder, but he folded me into his arms and squeezed tight. “That’s not important right now. Breathe with me, beautiful. Take a breath every time I do, exhale when I do. I’ve got you, okay? Nothing bad will ever happen to you. I won’t let it.”

But something bad had happened. Lots of somethings bad. Nightmare forced me to lie that I didn’t want them, forced me to kill Darya, to carry horrible secrets, to jump at her every whim, and now something had changed deep down in my make-up. My temper was a short fuse, rage lived in my blood, and at the first spark my eyes turned black and claws tipped my fingers. I was changing. No, I’d already changed. And I didn’t think even Tor could change me back.

“Cat,” Tor warned. “Look at me. Breathe.”

I swallowed, grasping a thin breath, choking it into my lungs. Everything that had happened fell on me all at once and I broke. The ghost was forgotten in an instant as I suffocated on sobs, gasping for air, trembling from my knees to my hands to my shoulders. My men surrounded me in an instant. Cold spread through my insides but there was only warmth wrapped around me, unconditional and unwavering, holding the pieces of me together. Darkness brushed against me like an affectionate cat, but… tentative in a way it had never been.

When my cries finally died, words and voices broke through.

Misery’s was first. “—don’t care how afraid Nightmare makes me, if she comes anywhere near you, I’ll gouge out her good eye with my bare hands, rip the heart from her chest, and stamp out whatever twisted bit of magic is keeping her alive. She won’t hurt you, Cat. I promise.”

But they’d tried to fight on the road at Ford’s End and come nowhere close to winning. Because they were vulnerable. Because the subjects made in the tunnels of that cottage in the woods could make them weak.

For the first time, the fact that I was one too didn’t make me want to scream; I straightened my back, reaching my arms up to hug my husbands. Nightmare had made the creatures capable of hurting my death gods, but even though she had kept my blood in that place, she hadn’t planned on me becoming one of her monsters last night. I could hurt my gods, too, I had that power in my teeth and claws, but maybe I could hurt the other monsters. Maybe Virgil could, too. And if there was even a shred of hope, I’d be damned before I let them hurt my husbands.

I was a hard thing to redirect my thoughts, to turn the sharp edge of loathing and fear into determination and grit, but maybe I’d become this for a reason.

“If you want me to beat the shit out of Madness, just say the word, beautiful,” Tor offered, his lips to my ear. “If he took advantage of you or kissed you without your permission, I’m happy to kick his prick so hard it falls off his body and sails back into the mortal realm—”

“I’m fine,” I interrupted, my voice surprisingly hoarse, like I’d been screaming. I cleared my throat, looking up at him, Miz, and Death. “I’ll be okay. I just got overwhelmed by everything.”

“Because Madde kissed you,” Death clarified, something low and dangerous in his voice. I reached out and squeezed his arm, feeling strength coiled in his bicep, the power a reassurance I’d never take for granted.

“Because Honey went missing last night, and a friend I trusted attacked me, and I found my brother locked in a tunnel cell, and I… I transformed, and you were all hurt. I hurt Tor. And yeah, Madde kissed me, but that’s at the bottom of my list of stressors right now.”

“I’m not sure whether to be relieved or insulted,” Madness muttered, leaning against the doorjamb with his back to us, his profile exceptionally calm as he watched the ghost bob above the front doorstep.

I raked my teeth over my bottom lip, pulling my gaze from him to my husbands. “Are you angry?” I asked quietly, barely more than a whisper. I might have found new determination, but that didn’t magically unlock bravery where my men were concerned. Old insecurities reared their head, their words ugly and loud.

Warm hands framed my face, Death suddenly in front of me, his grey eyes filling my whole vision. “He kissed you, little one. We’d never be mad.”

“And if… if I kissed him? Not that I’m planning to, but if I did, would that change things?”

Before Death could reply, Tor heaved a put-upon sight. “That would be pretty fucking unfortunate.”

I dropped my gaze to the floor, staring at the tiles under my socked feet. A sick, squirmy feeling made me want to throw up.

“If you kiss him, that probably means you want to keep the bastard, and I won’t be allowed to break his face. I’d really like to break his face, beautiful.”

My head snapped up in surprise.

“Just because you’re jealous I’m prettier than you,” Madde muttered, but there was more life to his voice now, and the darkness ebbed and flowed inside me again, almost stroking my soul. A weight fell off my shoulders I wasn’t aware I’d been carrying.

“So you—you’d just accept that I want him?” I asked, looking at Tor because I wasn’t brave enough to meet the stare I felt lingering from Death, or look at whatever expression had darkened Miz’s face. “Just like that?”

“No,” Death disagreed. “Miz, Tor, and I have always been a closed circle. We loved each other and only each other.” He tilted my face up until I had to look at him, but I screwed my eyes shut, taking the coward’s path. “Then you happened, and we all loved you. I selfishly hoped you’d only ever love us, but I should have known your heart was too big.”

“I don’t love him,” I whispered. “I barely know him. And what I do know is mostly him encouraging me to murder people.”

“Literally never a bad idea,” Madde remarked.

“That is incredibly inaccurate,” Misery drawled, pressing closer on my side. “I suppose I’ll try not to kill him if Tor’s not. He’s an ally, after all, even if he’s a smug motherfucker.”

“I’ve never once fucked anyone’s mother,” Madde gasped, affronted, making a laugh snort from me.

It wasn’t as easy as that; Death was right. But knowing they weren’t angry at me, weren’t filing for divorce quite yet, took a weight off my shoulders. I sighed and opened my eyes, finding them all watching me.

“Madde’s right that I’ve known him longer than I’ve known you.”

“Only by a few weeks in Death’s case,” Madde input. “He was there the night you killed that pompous asshole, too. We were both enthralled by you.”

My eyes shot between them, widening. “I… have too much in my head to even begin to think about that. So I’m not going to. My point is, I don’t want to cut him out of my life, even if he’s now a man and not just the darkness that lives inside me.”

“Don’t,” Death growled, lifting a finger in warning. I glanced at Madde to find he’d opened his mouth to speak. He laughed instead.

If you want me inside you, my lioness, that can be arranged.

The voice was low, sinuous, and full of dark promise. I shot him a sharp look to which he returned an unabashed grin and fluttered his lashes. I pretended not to see him adjust his cock in his trousers.

“I don’t cheat,” I blurted. “And I won’t, not even for a kiss. So—it’s purely platonic.”

“Can you pretty pretty please tell my dick that?” Madde asked.

“Um.” It took me a moment to reply. “I’m gonna keep my distance from it for now. Since I don’t cheat. I did just say that.”

“I know.” His smile warmed, softened. “I was listening. What are we going to do about the ghost?”

“Ghost?” A shrill voice made us all jump. Shit, I’d somehow forgotten we weren’t alone in the castle.

“It’s completely okay,” I promised Honey as she rushed down the staircase and across the foyer, grinding to a halt when she spotted the hovering ghost with his white eyes and the word surprise carved in his chest.

She staggered back with a gasp and my heart sank. “That is not completely okay.”

I left my husbands and crossed the floor to pull her into a hug. “It doesn’t have anything to do with us, don’t worry. Someone just left Madde a message. For all we know it’s a surprise birthday present.”

I silently begged none of them to disagree and to my relief they didn’t contradict me. Honey had been through enough stress without worrying about ghosts, too. And it wasn’t a lie; we didn’t know for sure this was a message from Nightmare.

“It’s freaking me out,” Honey whispered, squeezing me tight, her hands trembling at my back. “It’s like the curse all over again.”

“The curse will never happen again,” I promised firmly, drawing back to look at her, a deeper relief settling in my soul at the sight of my best friend. “We made it out; we’re not going back. Even if you did look really cute with the ears.”

She laughed, shaking her head. “Just because I can rock the look doesn’t mean I want to be furry again.”

I squeezed her once and let go. “You were never furry. Or were you…?” I raised an eyebrow. “If you had a furry ass and never told me, I’m going to disown you as my best friend.”

Honey nudged me with a smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes. Yeah, I knew that feeling. “You could never disown me. You’d be lost without me; we’re besties for life. No takebacks.”

“Come on,” I said, feeling better with her by my side. Another panic attack wasn’t far away, but it wasn’t nipping at my heels, so I’d take what I could get. “Let’s go raid Madde’s kitchen for breakfast.”

“I should go fetch Pain,” Madde said to the guys behind me. “I bet he knows all about what happened to this spirit. Given pain’s his thing. And it looks like the ghost was in so much pain…”

“You didn’t have to explain it to us like we’re toddlers,” Miz muttered, footsteps sounding as he followed me and Honey. “We’re all older than you.”

“Exactly,” Madde agreed with sharp glee. “Senile in your old age.”

Death sighed. Heavily. “Go speak to pain. Take the ghost with you.”

Honey shot me a sidelong glance. “Who the hell is that guy?”

There was no way I could explain my dark, violent inner voice so I just shook my head. “I think it’s physically impossible to explain what and who Madde is.”

A curl of satisfaction moved through the darkness lurking inside me. He liked that. And I was absolutely not thinking about that. Or the fact that it pleased me. I squeezed Honey’s hand and focused on breakfast.

Not ghosts, not warnings carved into incorporeal skin, not dark figures stalking us. Not the toy I was aware of with every fucking step I took, disrupting my stress with a flare of arousal and panic. When would he turn it on? My heart quickened at the thought, nerves flickering through my belly.

One thing at a time. Breakfast, then tortured ghosts, existential dread, and the threat of a vibrator inside me.