Page 23 of Veil of Blood and Bone

Now I use both arms to choke its life away.

When it lands, still, I relinquish my grip, and there’s the man. The horrifying giant of a man, a weapon locked in his grip. He kicks the creature onto its side and over, sprawling on its stomach. The axe makes no sound—Is it somehow worse? Or better? —and I gasp when it plunges into the creature’s spine. Thick rivulets of blood gush from the wound, and metal screeches through skin and bone now.

Gore spatters us both, and I’m wild-eyed and breathing like bellows when the man laughs.

He fucking laughs.

He drives his weapon home again, and the world shifts on its axis. An odd, rippling sensation parts what life I used to know and the one I exist in now.

Is this why Mom told us to run?

What she prepared us…me…to handle?

I slap a hand against my bruised abdomen and pain rushes everywhere with the movement, eager to show me exactly where I’ve hurt myself.

I’ve spilled this thing’s blood on the grass, leaking all the way to the Heath. And I know if I look up at this strange man, I won’t see what I expect.

“Is it dead?”

My throat croaks around the words and adrenaline, the electric cattle prod up my ass that got me into this mess, slowly leaks free. The second it does, the pit in my stomach goes hollow, cold. My muscles lock up, and I’m stuck in the same spot, swallowing down the little moans wanting to twist out of me.

And another part, a far more stubborn piece, is fucking proud.

I’m standing on my own two feet with my limbs intact.

The stranger, his hair still a violent reddish color and not the same hue as when I ran him over earlier, shakes his head. “Not yet.”

A few more swings and finally the beast’s head pulls free and spins so both empty eye sockets are now staring at me, the thing unmoving.

I can’t speak.

I can’t make my body move one way or another and suddenly I’m sick to my stomach. The field, dotted with gore and trampled tents, abandoned carts and cider dripping somewhere near, spins and goes liquid.

Oh, god. What’s happened?

He laughs again, louder, alive and well when my insides have turned into a wasp’s nest. Sweat plasters the stupid polyester costume to places it doesn’t need to touch and I have no idea how I’ve survived any of this.

The stranger swings the ax over his shoulder and kicks at the head until it circles between ruined tents like they’re goalposts.

My arms stick to my sides, and spots dance in front of my vision.

Staying conscious takes more energy than I’ve got. It’s a miracle I’m here when everything in me is screaming.

I stumble away from him with a groan. Air refuses to make it to the bottom of my lungs, and the sun at last completes its descent.

Rather than the Longship Festival roaring to life, an eerie silence falls over the grounds, casing the destruction in a final reddish orange glow.

“Are you okay?”

I glance up in time to watch the strike of his hand in the space between us, a lifeline, or an anchor damning me further.

Okay? No. A thousand whispered curses come to mind, plentiful excuses as to why I am the exact opposite of okay.

I don’t take his hand.

Not when my muscles contract and an odd tingling sensation creeps up my spine.

This world is upside down.