Page 228 of Coal Hearts

Bird song, cheetah snarls, elephant trumpets.

“Die.”

“Stop breathing before he steals your breath.”

“Stop bleeding before he steals your life.”

“Die!”

My ears rang.

My heart thundered.

Blackness coated my vision as Henri placed his knife down and held out his hand. With drunk-defying precision, he opened his palm and squeezed the blood-engorged pipette.

Almost in slow motion, ruby droplets rained.

“One,” he murmured.

“Two.” He shuddered.

“Three.” He licked his lips.

“Four.” He pressed his red-spotted hand to his throat.

Not looking away from me, he smeared my blood along the same area of his body where he’d drawn it from mine. “Four droplets. Ninety-eight to go.” He shivered as my blood baptised him just like he’d christened me in his cum on the maypole.

A different sort of ritual.

A perverse little ceremony where he truly became the devil.

Manifestations of my insanity revealed onyx gates of hell swinging wide behind him. Gargoyles flew out of the fog swirling thicker and higher around his legs. Scorpions and salamanders, hell beasts and death hounds...they all stalked and prowled toward me.

I struggled in my binds as one smoke-curled hound sniffed right between my bare legs.

Tears I’d forbidden from falling threatened to rain faster than my blood.

I choked on salt.

I gagged on sorrow.

Victor chuckled as I spiralled down, down, down.

Far worse than before.

More deluded than before.

Instinct overrode everything.

The urge to fight and war and run.

I fought my binds. I yanked my arms and kicked my legs. The clink of my collar on the hook behind me rang out like a church bell.

Peter balled his hands and never looked away, his eyes blazing messages to calm, to accept, to drift.

But it was too late.

I’d fought it for as long as I could.