TWENTY-ONE
It was like last time—she felt the sweeping gusts of the wind, the grit of sand in her hair, the raw newness of the world and—
She is fourteen, home for Christmas break from her first semester at Brannigan. Her father is screaming, about how shit their life is, how he was cheated, and she goes outside and sits in the yard, lets the freezing rain lash at her face and hands, sits beneath the oak tree and waits for her parents to fall asleep—
Dee shook. Frantic little trembles ran through her. Her hands were clenched so hard that her nails had broken skin. Blood stained her left hand.
She is five and she cannot understand why her mother won’t stop crying—
This must be why the demon took their hearts. Because it was the only way a human might survive this—by hollowing themselves out.
“I chose this,” she said, and the wind whipped the words from her mouth.
She forced herself to look up, to wrench herself away from the memories.
It was lighter here—as if this new world hadn’t quite figured out what night was. Illumination played off the world’s edges, off the half-formed trees and lines of the field.
She blinked through the haze of sand and light and saw James and Cora struggling ahead. James had his arm braced against the wind, and Cora was squinting, struggling along in her heels. Dee hastened after them, forcing herself to concentrate on the rhythm of her own ragged breath. If she could just focus on the moment, she wouldn’t see those terrible memories.
Cora stumbled, caught off guard by either her own memories or the uneven terrain. Anger flashed across her face, and then she kicked off her shoes and continued on, barefoot. Dee reached down to pick up the shoes, holding them against her own chest; it was the only thing she could do.
This void was wrong—it was too solid, too bright, too real. The winds were stronger, the taste of metal sharper. The driving gusts pushed against her every step and she found herself panting, sucking mouthfuls of dry, hot air and grit. Every stride felt too slow, as if time had sped up and left her behind, but she knew it was probably all in her head.
When James tripped over an unseen crack in the ground, Dee rushed forward to help. She darted around to the front, taking hold of the duffel bag’s strap and heaving it upward. It was heavier than it looked—but then again, explosives would be heavy. Dee walked backward a few steps, until James could catch his footing. She was the only one of them facing the mouth of the void.
And that is how she saw the nightmare behind them.
For the second time that evening, she was glad she did not have a heart. Because she was pretty sure it would have stopped beating.
When it stood, the thing must have been twenty feet tall. For now it was sprawled on the ground, its body canted toward the center of the void.
It looked… human.
Unsettlingly, disturbingly human.
Because it was made of mismatched human parts.
Its ribs were clearly visible, slivers of bone nestled within desiccated flesh, a white cage that was utterly hollow; the flesh hadn’t decayed—it had simply dried out, like flowers left to wither and curl in on themselves. The thing’s legs were like thick tree trunks, the flesh of many legs bound together, cords of muscle and tendon. But some of it looked as if it had been crafted by the hands of a deranged artist—there were teeth embedded in the thing’s hands, jagged little spikes of discolored bone.
Her stomach threatened to crawl up her throat; hot bile flooded her mouth.
This was what the demons did with the body parts. They stitched them together into… these things. Enormous, humanoid things.
It moved with the grace of a toy robot—all jerky twitches as it tried to right itself. It was attempting to stand, but it could not rise. She saw why at once; one of its too-thick legs had been severed at the knee. The thing’s head moved. There was no neck to twist; the creature turned its entire torso to look at her with eyes that were mismatched.
And it had no mouth.
Dee felt the dread spread through her body like poison. It paralyzed her, made her freeze in place.Jack, she thought,being sighted by the giant.
It was a revelation—but it fit. If magic was real, then so were monsters.
Her gaze fell upon something in the creature’s hand. It gripped a leg—but not a human leg, not like the leg of any animal Dee could recognize. It was hinged backward, tipped with claws, and there was nothing mammalian about it.
Just like what she had seen in the hospital void.
The leg dripped black ichor, as if it had been freshly torn from its owner.
Breath caught in her throat, Dee glanced at James. He was staggering to his feet, and Cora had her arm braced against the wind; they clearly hadn’t noticed the monstrous thing that had collapsed near the mouth of the void. They were blinded by wind and sand, wholly focused on the goal before them.
