Page 181 of Jinxes and Drumsticks

He stalks to the other end, sitting in a chair that looks almost identical, if not for its enormous size.

Food materializes in front of me. Fare that looks and smells real. I salivate looking down at the plate. Roasted chicken. Potatoes carved with rivers of butter and garlic. Golden, steaming rolls, soft enough to sleep on. My stomach makes a desirous sound, and I clench the new ache that joins the pangs from my restrictive corset laces.

“Eat it,” the creature demands.

Without any thought, my hand picks up a fork and spears some of the roast chicken. It falls off the bone and burns my mouth as I chew and swallow. My body acts on its own, per his instructions. I wince as the potatoes and melted butter burn the surfaces of my tongue and the roof of my mouth. As they scald my throat on the way down and sit like a rock in my stomach.

“Stop,” he says.

I put the fork down, my body trembling with fear and pain.

He lets out a soft sigh, like he’s a heroin addict, and he just plunged his drug of choice into his veins. “It’s settled in,” he says. “Finally. I’ve been waiting so long for this. I can’t wait to devour every morsel of you like I did your mother. But conversation first, hm? Little Bird?”

My stomach heaves. “Don’t,” I force myself to bite out.

“I recommend saving that little bit of will for later. It won’t do you any good, of course, but you’re going to want it when I start draining you. And I’ll enjoy breaking you far more if you’re fighting me. There’s a sort of thrill in that chase. Perhaps because of His proclivities. Who knows.”

I wish Aemon were here. I wish Bastion were here. Anyone. Even if they can’t do anything, I just wish I wasn’t alone with this thing.

“Ah, yes. Aemon,” he says, the tail end of the familiar’s name rumbling in his throat like a growl. “That little vermin has proven to be quite the problem for me. I was a fool when I struck our bargain. A weaker version of myself that feared his own power and thought he could rid himself of it—thought he could find some humanity to salvage if he gave some of it away. Of course, there’s nothing clearer than hindsight. With any luck, though, he’s doing exactly what I think he’s doing right this moment.”

He stares at me, as if waiting for me to talk, but I have nothing to say. Everything he’s saying sounds like obscure, insane babbling.

“Come now, be a better conversation partner, Lillith,” he commands. “Be polite.”

“What do you mean?” falls out of my mouth, my voice bright and warm, like I’m some kind of fucked up ventriloquist dummy.

“I fear it’s a long and convoluted story,” he sighs, capturing his jaw in the palm of his hand, playacting reticence. “But I will tell it to you, if you really insist.”

“Oh, but I do insist!” I hear myself cheer. “Please tell me. You always tell the best stories.”

Gods, is this the kind of sycophantic bullshit he desires? It makes my skin crawl.

He lets out an indulgent laugh and darkness spills out from behind his huge chair. “Well, think, Little Bird. If we’re both bound to one another, and he frees us of that bond, what does it mean? It means we’re both free, of course. And I will be able to wind my power back into myself with ease, when it’s under the guardianship of such a weak child.”

“I don’t understand what you mean,” I say, this time of my own volition.

“You wouldn’t,” he says, bored. “Because you are a weak child as well. And yet the power in you leaves me bereft of what I need. Such a frustrating hive of pests you humans have turned out to be. Tucking yourselves away in that pocket dimension all for what? A few burned witches? Ridiculous.

“But it doesn’t matter. Because once I devour all the powers of the chosen three, the gates to that place will be wide open, and I will devour every last scrap of magic found there like a man starved.”

He blinks at me, his irises half-moons now. Are they marking the passage of hours?

Something terrifying settles into my bones. A familiar sense of knowing that only comes with years of practice listening to that little intuitive voice in the back of one’s mind.

I stare at his still-gory antlers, the velvet looking almost necrotic where it has sloughed off. My stomach sinks.

The Stag God... and The Lady Moon.

It’s like he’s some perverted version of them combined.

As soon as I think it, he slams his fists down on the table, his face contorting with rage.

“You quiet those blasphemous thoughts, whore,” he snarls, sounding more animal than man. “What you call a perversion is a correction. It’s discernment. It’s BIRTHRIGHT.”

He slams his hands down on the table again, and its vast length shrinks. Or the room shrinks. I can’t tell. He gets closer and closer, but I can’t move. I can’t unglue myself from the chair, because he’s commanded me to stay in it. Before long, the table is gone, and he looms over me, huge hands braced on the wingbacks of my chair as he tilts it back and leans in, mere inches away from my face.

He smells of carrion and rot. I’ve never felt terror so complete in my life, but something prevents me from sliding into a seizure. Like he wants me terrified and aware for every moment of that fear.