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“I wouldn’t do that,” Mormo said, his voice lilting with a strange kind of joy. “Unlessss you want to die right now, insssstead of later.”
Yes, yes I did want to die. Death would mean I no longer had to feel the agony of having the blade inside me. My blood was turning into molten lava, steaming me alive from within. My skin was crawling with bugs.
This was no normal knife.
I’d been hurt before. I’d been stabbed before. Physical violence wasn’t my favorite, but I was no stranger to pain. Clerics weren’t always popular, and my job was rarely easy. Yet in all my years of doing it, I’d never experienced any sensation quite like this.
Tears were streaming down my cheeks, and every breath was more difficult than the last, until I was only able to take the tiniest sips of air, hyperventilating as I tried to fill my lungs.
This all happened so fast Leo hadn’t come into the room yet.
When he emerged, it felt like months had gone by, each heartbeat an agonizing step closer to certain death. Instead it had only been seconds, and he looked as shocked as I felt.
“Tallulah.” His timing was impeccable. He arrived at my side as my knees gave out, and he held me close as he lowered me to the floor. In doing so he jostled the knife, and I let out a scream that was more like the cry of an injured animal than any sound a human should make. “I need to take this out.”
As he reached for the knife handle, I shook my head violently, barely gurgling a “No.”
He froze, hand hovering. “It’s going to hurt but—”
He went silent as Mormo moved in, towering over us. How Leo had missed Mormo’s presence up until that point I don’t know. I guess a knife stuck in me was pretty distracting, but still.
“Hello, sssson of Sssseth.”
Leo blinked a couple times, then grabbed the butcher knife clutched in my hand. I’d totally forgotten I still had it. Funny how blinding amounts of unbearable pain will blot out the little things.
“Who the fuck are you?” Leo was on his feet, standing between me and Mormo. I’d come here to save him, but looking at things now, I had to wonder if I was even needed. The guy was a mountain. He was half-god. What kind of safety could I offer him he couldn’t find for himself?
I wriggled backwards, using my elbows to pull myself farther from Mormo, towards the front door. Being outside wouldn’t be any better, but my instincts were telling me I had to get out of here.
“I am the one who hassss found you.” Mormo smiled, his twisted, inhuman face showing humor in a truly terrifying way that made Badb’s shark teeth seem downright charming.
Badb.
Why did the flickering vision of her face seem so timely now, like there was something I should be remembering? I slumped back down on the floor, my head thumping against the hardwood. Badb’s face disappeared and was replaced with Cade’s.
Brown eyes, thick brows knitted in concern. His broad boxer’s nose and too-serious haircut. What would he look like if he let it grow, gave up that small sliver of control and let the curl come back to his hair?
I smiled.
“I wish you’d gotten here on time,” I whispered.
My memory of Cade didn’t reply, he remained solemn and intense. If I had to die with his face on my mind, at least I’d remember him as he truly was, not some romanticized version.
Dying.
Badb.
Cade looked more intense, and muttered, “You idiot.”
I sat bolt upright with a gasp, then shrieked as the motion drove the knife deeper into me. When I coughed into my hand from the shock of the new pain, my fingers once again came back bloody. If I was coughing up blood, things were much worse than I had thought.
Right in front of my face, dangling from my wrist, was the bracelet Badb had given me. The skeletal hands clasped in together like a macabre game of “Ring Around the Rosie”. Though that nursery rhyme was pretty fucked up if you listened to the lyrics. The links glowed faintly.
I couldn’t be killed as long as I was wearing it, that’s what she’d told me.
No matter how bad it hurt, I wouldn’t die, that was how it was supposed to work. If that was true, the agony was only temporary, and in spite of every sign pointing to my death, this wasn’t the end for me. The blade was enchanted, that much was obvious from the pain. I glanced down at the wound through a film of tears, my hands trembling as I touched the handle of the knife.
The placement was all wrong for a kill, I could see that clearly now that I really looked.
