Page 14 of Ballad of Nightmares

His chin rose with the challenge, and he held up something she hadn’t noticed in his hand.

Her phone.

Startled, Ana didn’t move as the facial recognition unlocked the screen, and then Sam began typing away.

“What are you—“

He extended it back to her, Ana taking it in a snatch to see that he’d put his phone number in it.

Sam smiled that wicked smile that had her knees nearly giving out. “Whenever you’re ready to run…Ana.”

CHAPTER SIX

THERE WAS A deathhound lying at the bottom of the grand staircase inside Castle Corvus.

A gigantic black, shaggy-haired beast sprawled out and gnawing on what looked to be a rib bone of a deer. Its tall, pointed ears twisted to the front when Sam stepped into the foyer, and hollow icy orbs beneath the half-skeleton face met Sam’s stare as Sam paused, his hands going into his pockets.

Sam’s head tilted as he observed his friend. “Knew you were looking a little grim late last night, Roll,” he said, seeing the beast’s lungs flare beneath the patch of hair and skin missing over his ribcage. “But you know how I feel about you bringing your rotting carcasses inside.”

Rolfe snarled, exposing his fangs with the low growl, and Sam didn’t pass up the opportunity to growl back, baring his teeth, his own guttural purr vibrating the air, eyes a glowing scarlet with the thunder rumbling overhead.

Rolfe let out a great sneeze, his head shaking with it, and he rose to all four paws. Tufts of hair were missing over his ribs, half his face, and one of his hips, all showcasing a cagey grey skeleton and void of black beneath. Sam tossed the bag of breakfast pastries he’d gone out that morning to retrieve onto the foyer table where the grand bouquet of blood-covered white roses sat.

Rolfe’s nose jutted into the air, sniffing out the wafts of the bakery scent, and Sam just smiled smugly as he pulled off his leather jacket and continued to stride forward until he was directly in front of the beast.

The tips of the deathhound’s ears went as tall as Sam’s shoulders. Sam gave him a mocking pat on the head.

“Rolfie, Rolfie,” he teased him, tutting his tongue. “Be a good boy and clean up the mess.”

Rolfe growled again, tempting Sam to snarl back in warning, and the beast backed down. Rolfe shook his body like he was shaking off water, slowly transforming back into his human form, his skin enclosing over the exposed spots last. Sam lifted a challenging brow as Rolfe cracked his neck and ran his hands through his hair.

“Morning, boss,” Rolfe grunted, eyes downcast.

Sam shoved one hand in his pocket, grabbed the bag of pastries, and started down the left hall to the kitchen. “Don’t forget to mop,” he called back.

Sam’s night after leaving Deianira had been busy, as it usually was. It was a surge of strength for him, to have so many under the spell of hallucinogenic drugs in an attempt to fall deep enough into the void to see Death. Sam liked to play along. He would appear to some of them as they thought Death should look: all shadows with red eyes, sometimes with his wings, sometimes in a hood and cape, scythe in his hand…

He fed on the screams and the people who pleasured themselves to that fear, and he held them at the edge until he could feel their consciousness slipping. Then he would send them back to their bodies with the rush of euphoria that only Death could give them.

Sam was already enjoying his cup of black coffee, Luna lying on the table in front of him while reading the morning news, when Rolfe finally joined them. Rolfe and Luna exchanged their morning hiss, a ritual after so many years, and the black feline went back to purring when Sam scratched her beneath her chin.

But Rolfe didn’t go immediately to the counter for his own coffee. Instead, he stopped and sniffed the top of Sam’s head.

Sam flinched, gaze narrowing at the grinning idiot, and then flicked his paper when Rolfe strode away.

“Glad to know one of us got a little action last night,” Rolfe said gruffly as he poured coffee from the carafe into a large mug. “Who is she then?” Rolfe grinned.

Sam flicked the morning paper again, and replied, “Deianira Bronfell,” in a tone so nonchalant that he waited on the demon to catch it.

Rolfe sputtered up his coffee and coughed so hard that he doubled over.

Luna flipped to her feet, back arching with a pronounced hiss, and Sam just continued reading his paper.

“Something wrong?” Sam asked.

“Deian—fuck me,” Rolfe sputtered, grasping his chest. “Shit—what?!”

“The Tower of Chaos and Destruction,” Sam said. “The woman who’s been taking down—“