Page 21 of The Devil Knows Her Name

“I’m not a toddler.”

“Are you sure?”

“I know how to share.”

“But not how to take no for an answer.”

I knew instantly I had pushed too far. I glanced up, only to find him there in my space, eyes cold as a flash of lightning.

“Do you want me to be cruel?” he asked. “Sometimes I think you do.”

Had the pond not been almost lapping at my heels, I would’ve reeled back in new terror. I felt his power hovering like the blade of a knife, and I knew that one fell swoop would cut through every strand of the weave I’d built over decades. At his heart, he was like any apex predator; I could build a familiarity with him, accustom him to my presence, learn his habits and his tells, but I could never let my guard down. He pressed closer, angling his head as if it would help him see through the gap in my defenses.

“Why?” he asked. “Is it simply that you’d have the satisfaction of being right? Or if I turned out to be the monster you think I am, would you finally feel as if you’re not alone?”

Even as he said it, I couldn’t stop my gaze from wavering down to his mouth. He was so close I could feel the heat rolling off him, smell his clean salt scent, and he moved even closer now, the subtlest shifting of weight that brought us inches apart.

“I don’t know why you keep fighting me,” he murmured, his eyes mirroring mine—that telltale flicker down and back up again. “I’m trying to help you. You act like I want to steal the sanctuary from you, but we could make it a kingdom. Our borders could stretch for miles and miles, far beyond this valley. We could take what we wanted, and you wouldn’t have to carry the weight anymore; I would carry it for you.”

I was breathing his air, our foreheads nearly touching, my hands closed into fists at my sides to keep from reaching for his body. I wasn’t thinking about the promises he made, the world he would lay at my feet, the fact that it would no longer be my sanctuary but a toy at the mercy of his whim. I just wanted to steal the taste of his mouth, to take some piece of him he could never get back, keep it under my tongue like a secret. The muscles of his neck twitched with the strain, and my teeth ached in response.

“Tess, please,” he whispered, and oh, the thrill of that. To have the devil beg me was breathless, heady intoxication, and it was almost enough. When he raised a hand to tip my chin up, I allowed it, convinced that it was his guard that was down rather than mine.

The devil only serves himself, came my mother’s voice, clear as a bell in my head. No matter what he may say to the contrary.

I jerked my head away, and yes, I saw it there, the hint of triumph in the curve of his mouth. It had all been a ploy, and I shouldn’t even be angry with him, the same way I couldn’t be angry at foxes for eating the rabbits I released; it was simply his nature.

I was angry nonetheless, but I didn’t show it. I swallowed back my furious words like hot coals and slid from his grasp, putting the fawn between us.

“I should get her back and clean her up,” I told him.

“Don’t treat me like you treat them—like you can distract me, like I don’t know what you are. I want a real answer.”

“I’ve already told you no.”

My magic may not have been much to him, but the instant I said the words, my web of wards and charms and spells went taut as razor wire. Thunder rumbled out of a clear sky as the air pressure plummeted, and the light went sickly green. Every plant and pebble in the vicinity was suddenly bristling with hostile energy—thorns sliding out from beneath leaves, round stones revealing bladelike edges in the shifting light, vines dropping from the trees like nooses. The scent of rotting water weeds and fetid mud became so strong I could taste it, settling on the back of my tongue and threatening to clog my throat.

“Why do you—”

“No.”

Even the traitorous pond reacted that time, ripples skittering across the dark surface of the water until they broke as waves behind me. The devil smiled, the cruel gleam of his teeth like the untouchable moon.

“You’re going to need me sometime, Tess,” he said. “Sooner rather than later, I think.”

With that, he turned and melded into the shadow of the trees, and I knew he was truly gone when the sanctuary calmed around me. It was then I felt a tickling sensation on my hand, and I glanced down.

The fawn was eagerly licking up the blood dripping from my fingers, her teeth smeared red.

Chapter

8

I tried to forget what the devil had said about the fawn. It didn’t change anything, or shouldn’t have; no matter what brought her into being, she was a living creature and she was in my care now. It was more likely he simply saw my affection for her and wanted to taint it, because as jealous and as petty as he was, he would balk at creating a thing just to play games with it. That would’ve felt too close to God for his liking.

The fact was, the fawn was just as likely to be a product of nature as the devil; nature was often far weirder and crueler than people assumed, and anomalies like the fawn were less rare than they liked to imagine. Many of the animals that came into my care had deformed limbs, crooked jaws, too-short tails—defects that made them slower, easier to hunt, more prone to disease. Last year, Paul had called me to his farm for a calf with an extra face. It was a wretched, rotten mask of flesh protruding from her shoulder, skin and fur sloughing off the bone, two lidless, nerveless eyeballs dangling from too-shallow sockets. Unwilling to touch it, Paul had used a stick to open the mouth and reveal a strangely thin pink tongue, which writhed like a hooked worm with every ripple of the calf’s skin. Stranger still was that this face held more animation than the one on the calf’s head; she showed no curiosity, no awareness, and her brown eyes were dull.

“Have you ever seen anything like it?” Paul asked. His voice was overloud, an attempt to cover his nerves, but the calf didn’t react to it. “I mean, legs, sure, tails, sure. But a face? With eyes and a tongue? That’s a first for me.”