Page 131 of Ballad of Nightmares

“I could strap you down if you’d prefer,” Rolfe growled.

“I would—“

“Enough foreplay,” Sam cut between them. “Roll, get that shit out of her body. If you can’t, call her fucking witch.”

The way Sam spoke told Ana it had been one fuck up of a day. She saw a glimpse of the hurt in Millie’s gaze as Millie and Sam caught one another’s eyes, and she heard Sam sigh heavily.

“I’m sorry,” he said in a breathy voice, and Ana squinted at the pain on his face. “Just get it out. Quickly.” He took one step back and hung his head, regretting his last snap, and then Ana felt as he reached for her hand.

Almost like her touch could calm him down.

Ana didn’t let go.

The shadows relaxed on her arms and swirled around them the rest of the way, through two more halls and then down a set of spiral steps.

The coppery smell of blood mixing with soil and decaying leaves hit her as Sam pushed the door open and let her walk in first.

Three bodies were strung upside down from the rafters at the back of the darkened room.

Ana couldn’t stop her gasp as she followed behind Sam into what looked to be a sunroom, great dirty paned windows lining the wall. The light of the moon trickled in from the outside and cascaded over the tremendous wooden table in the middle, the porcelain tub sink at the opposite end, and the dirty tiled floor.

Dirt, leaves, and dried flowers littered the ground. Sam made no move to the three bodies, and instead, made for the one lying against the wall on the opposite side.

Ana continued to stare at the ones strung up. Their clothes had been shredded, slashes along their bodies like some great animal had mauled them. Groans left their slightly conscious bodies, the rafters creaking every time the ropes they held from shifted.

“Who are they?” Ana asked without turning away.

“People who thought me a fairy tale.”

He was staring at her from a crouched position beside the man on the floor when she jerked in his direction. She noticed the way Sam looked at that man there, so unlike the disdain he held when he glared at the others, and she wondered why this one was different.

Sam looked at the man again, and she heard him whisper, “Almost there, Darion,” as the man drew a jagged breath. He rose back to his feet, pushing past her to the sink.

“What is this?” she managed.

Water rushed over his hands, a solid white bar of soap foamed with every scrub on his skin as he washed them. “My job.”

Ana looked to him, to the haunted man before her that took on this pain alone every night, then turned to the man on the floor.

“What happened to him?” she asked.

Sam turned off the water, using a white towel to dry his hands as he straightened. “Car accident,” he answered.

“And you bring them here… how?” she asked.

“Not all,” he shook his head. “It depends on the being. Darion, here, is still in the hospital in midtown. This is what the darkness will take to the graveyard here. His soul.”

“You show him mercy because he has asked for his end?”

Sam nodded slowly as he reached for the lighter in his pocket and lit the joint. “Mercy would have been taking him the moment that truck struck his car,” he said gruffly. “Mercy would have been not allowing his family to see him as he takes his final breaths.”

“I think you’re wrong,” she said. “I think allowing his family to speak with him a last time is a mercy they did not know they asked for.”

Ana crouched down in front of the man who was slowly relinquishing his last breaths. The rattle constricted the back of his throat, and he jerked every now and then. Sam usually took this moment to ask the victim if they’d prefer their end, or if they wanted to take it on their own. Either way, they would see darkness by the end of the night.

He’d just lit his smoke when he heard it.

Ana was singing.