AllFreeNovel
Share Us
She narrowed her eyes. “If you need my help, then —”
“No,” I said, crouching over her, my voice tight with the desperate hope she’d understand. “Juniper, if I can’t kill him, then things are far worse than I thought. If I can’t kill him, you need to get out of Abelaum. Get out of the country. Go as far away as you can.”
She looked away, shaking her head. “I’m not making any promises, Zane.”
It was the best I was going to get. She was smart, and she knew what she was capable of. If it came down to it, she’d know when to run.
Even if it hurt.
Even if it meant leaving me to die.
“Stay hidden, and wait for me,” I said. Crouching low, and moving fast, I made my way out of the trees and toward the house.
It smelled even worse inside.
Black patches of mold had grown on the walls, and the white carpet looked dingy and yellowed. I made my way down the hall, sniffing the air, assessing who all were in the house with me. There were eight humans in the living room, and half of them were deeply intoxicated.
“Tommy never should have gone with him,” someone said, sniffling, a tremble in their voice. “I tried to tell him —”
“Sshh, shutup,” another voice snapped. “Don’t let him hear you talking like that. This is a bad time to start getting all sensitive about this shit, get it? We knew some of us would die. We’ve been told that from the beginning.”
I eagerly licked my lips. Lives would indeed be lost —allof them. I still couldn’t smell Jeremiah. There was just that overbearing stench of mold and rot tickling my nose. Maybe he was out. That at least gave me time to set up a lovely littleWelcome Homepresent for him.
Those eight humans didn’t stand a chance. It was almosttooeasy. When I walked into the living room, their blank faces stared at me with utter confusion, unmoving. Their bodies tensed in their seats, their wide eyes blinking rapidly.
Not a single one of them had their weapons close at hand. And this was supposed to be Jeremiah’s chosen few? What an embarrassment.
Slowly, one of the men stood. “Who the hell are you?”
I stretched my arms, gave a comfortable little groan, and said, “Me? Oh, I’m just a messenger.”
They frowned, looking amongst each other in confusion. Some of them looked nervously at their weapons. More of them were getting to their feet.
“Messenger?” the man said. “What...what’s the message?”
I cleared my throat, hands clasped politely behind my back. “Ah, give me a moment. I’ll have to recite it from memory. Let’s see:To the evil human-sacrificing cunts that call themselves Libiri” — I crossed the room before any of them could react, grabbed a man’s head in my hands, twisted it, and ripped it off his body — “fuck you.”
Chaos erupted. They tried to reach their weapons, but humans were just so pitifullyslow. I caught another, ripped open their throat, and flung their body across the room to crash against another one before he could make it out the door. Blood spattered across the walls, across the window, across the perfectly clean white couches.
There was something really satisfying about fresh blood against white cloth. It was honestly kind of poetic.
Within minutes, eight bodies lay at my feet. I cracked my knuckles and waved out the window toward where I knew Juniper would be watching. I hoped she’d enjoyed the show, because there was more to come.
I got things tidied up. I moved the bodies up on the couch and smeared a little more blood around to make a lovely “Welcome Home, J”message on the wall. Then I took a seat, picking bits of flesh from beneath my claws, and waited for the guest of honor to walk in the door.
I didn’t have to wait long.
Within minutes, I heard tires crunching on the gravel driveway. Tension knotted through my muscles, eager for what was to come. My foot tapped impatiently, the scent of the blood around me making my mouth water. Footsteps approached the front door — Jeremiah wasn’t alone. At least three others were with him.
The door opened, and Jeremiah stepped inside, flanked by three men. The moment he saw me, he froze.
I smiled, wrapping my arm around the decapitated body beside me. “Hey, buddy. Welcome to the party.”
48
Jeremiah’s presence seemed to swell in the space, pressing against the walls. He smelled rotten, vile — his scent wasn’t remotely human anymore. When his eyes moved, they were too quick. They jerked from thing to thing, as if he was unable to take in all the things he was aware of at once.
“You’re looking a little twitchy, Jeremiah,” I said. “Feeling overwhelmed, perhaps?”
