Page 64 of Devoured

I dove sideways, rolled across the floor. Her mirror claws slashed the wall where my head had been.

My hand closed around the wrench just as her weight crashed down on me.

We rolled, a tangle of limbs and glass. She was stronger than she looked, but I had leverage, and desperation. I slammed the wrench into her chest.

Glass exploded, each shard reflecting a different version of my terrified face.

She screamed, not in my voice this time, but in something inhuman and broken. “You… Can’t kill me!”

I struck her skull next. More glass shattered, and her voice vanished mid-sentence. She kept moving, dragging the top half of her torso toward me with broken fingers, but the mimicry was failing.

The temperature in the hallway spiked suddenly.

I knew he was coming before I saw him.

The Executioner stepped through the wall itself, blade in hand. But he didn’t strike. He watched as I raised the wrench again.

“Finish it,”he ordered.

I crushed what remained of her mirror-shard skull with one final blow. The fragments scattered across the floor, each one reflecting nothing but darkness before going completely black.

I stood there, breathing hard, staring at what I’d done. The Mirror Eater was finally gone. After everything she’d put me through, every stolen word, every twisted reflection, it was over. A grim satisfaction settled in my chest as I dropped the wrench. It hit the floor with a heavy clang.

The Executioner knelt and began gathering the shards, every piece, into a pile. His red eyes caught sight of the bloody shard across the room, the one I’d pulled from my foot. He crossed to it, picked it up, and followed the blood trail back to my injured heel. He added that piece to the pile.

Then he pulled a small vial from his belt and poured something over the gathered shards. Liquid fire that hissed and steamed as it touched the glass. Within seconds, nothing remained but a dark stain.

“Why?”I asked, clutching the sheet to my bleeding shoulder, standing on one foot.

“So the Judge doesn’t know one of his loyal ones is gone,”he replied, focused on his work.

Then he turned to me, and I felt his attention settle like weight on my skin.

“Sit,”he commanded.

The command came before I could speak.

I dropped onto the nearest surface, an overturned crate, still clutching the sheet around me. My shoulder and foot throbbed with pain.

He knelt in front of me without ceremony, massive hands surprisingly gentle as he lifted my injured foot. Blood seeped between my toes, mixing with the grime on the floor.

He stood and pulled a torch from a wall sconce. The wrench still lay where I’d dropped it. He held the metal head in the flame until it glowed orange, then red.

“No—”I tried to pull back. I knew what was coming.

His grip tightened, not painful, just absolute.

“Be still,”he commanded.

The hot metal touched my flesh.

The smell hit first, burning meat. My meat. Then pain screamed through every nerve. I thrashed, couldn’t help it, but his hold never wavered. My scream built in my throat and he shifted, offering his free hand.

I bit down, hard. My teeth sank deep into his palm. He didn’t flinch. Just held steady as he pressed the burning metal to each gash.

Tears streamed down my face. Snot ran freely. Still, I kept biting, white pain swallowing the edges of my vision.

“Done,”he announced.