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The voices chimed all around her amid the giggles and whispered in her ear as if someone invisible had suddenly passed close behind her.
MaryAnne jumped away, whipping her head around. “Yes… yes that’s me. Please… do you know my kids? Are they there with you?”
The little boy’s smile slipped, and he frowned. With his face made of strange layers of shadows, she couldn’t tell if his expression was one of confusion or anger. She hoped it wasn’t the latter.
“Do you know Andy? He’s a little older than you. Or what about Sally or Christa?”
His smile returned and he giggled again, his little hand covering his mouth like he had a secret that he wasn’t going to tell, and he was laughing as she grew a little more desperate and afraid as the laughter picked up around her and she could hear the faint, echoing patter of feet through the fog.
“What about Michael or Hugh? Tommy or Ralph? Sabrina? Agatha?” she rattled out the names desperately as the laughter grew louder.
Something yanked hard on her hair, and she shrieked and spun around to find nothing behind her, meeting only the riotous echo of laughter. It felt as if it were closing in. Her eyes jumped among the shadows and returned to the boy only to find that he had gotten closer, his monstrous smile widening.
A glimmer of numerous colorful lights danced in a hazy ring, and he cocked his head as the haunting melody of the carousel carried over the air. A look of delight crossed his face, and the laughter of the children turned to peals of merriment as the fog rolled with the sense of them rushing by her. She stared, fixated as the boy gave her one last smile, this one full of merriment, before his foggy form exploded with a puff and his shadow slipped away.
She stared numbly into the distance toward the brilliant flash of spinning lights. She could no longer hear the children, only the faint music of the carousel. The fog was still thick, but it was quiet and empty like natural fog. Her lips thinned as she peered around, the tension slowly bleeding out of her. Now if only she could find her way back to the drya twins’ tent. She wasn’t even sure now what direction she’d come from, but she was suddenly no longer eager to venture any further into the carnival in search of Raskyuil.
Wiping her sweaty palms against her thighs, she picked a direction and started walking. Wooden structures reared up from the fog, and she turned toward one, her heart sinking a little. That didn’t look like a tent. She crept closer, cautiously placing one foot in front of the other. Gradually, a waist-high surface came into view as the fog grew thinner the closer she came. She squinted at it, her eyes slowly lifting along the fog shrouded interior of the backdrop.
She took another step forward, and spinning lights burst to life, startling her hard enough that she jumped back, her eyes widening as a mechanical voice laughed with a sort of gleeful wickedness and invited her to step closer and try her luck.
Try her luck?
MaryAnne blinked and crept closer as she tugged at her bottom lip with her front teeth. Suddenly some sort of rifles came into view with a number of lit up targets running back and forth through the fog so that they appeared to be dancing. The mechanical voice laughed again, and her eyes snapped to a sort of cowboy figure barely visible in the corner through the fog. His eyes lit up with his laughter, however, giving him away.
She laughed weakly. “It’s a game. Just a fucking game.”
“That is a game, but this is not,” a deep, familiar voice growled softly behind her.
MaryAnne whirled around, her hip bumping sharply against the counter ledge as she turned to face the figure looming as it slowly broke through the fog. Tendrils of long hair stirred around powerful shoulders as Raskyuil’s bulk emerged, tiny wisps of fog still clinging to him as they gradually dissipated. His dark eyes narrowed on her, his jaw clenched, and she had the sinking feeling that he was furious.
“Do you think for a moment this is all a game?” he continued.
Her mouth gaped open, but she snapped it shut and shook her head. “No, of course not. If this were a game, it would be a pretty sick and sadistic one. The children…”
A hard smile curled the corner of his mouth. “They are not here at the moment.” He tipped his head in the direction she’d come. “I suspect that they are that way. The carnival has come to life, you see. And I suspect that everyone here is in on it. The flow of magic through the human machinery is not accidental.”
MaryAnne blew out an exasperated breath. “That’s what I was coming to tell you. They do know—about the children, that is. I found it out from the drya sisters. And it’s not just my children but has been happening for years. Every year before your Hallow Night, the children are here and then gone!”
His smile disappeared. “And yet you came out here. Do you not comprehend danger?”
“Of course I do,” she snapped in return. “I think it would be safe to say I’ve been living and breathing the terror of it for nearly half of my life. But I can’t afford to be afraid. My kids need me, and I’m worried that they don’t have much time left. The Hallow Night is getting closer.”
He loomed closer, his dark eyes glittering with anger. “And how would you help them if something happened to you?”
His eyelids lowered as his eyes skimmed over her, bringing a hot torment to life within her belly. His nostrils flared, and he took another step closer so that he was within reaching distance. She was aware of just how easy it would be for him to grab her and take her at that moment, and her nipples tightened to stiff points at the thought.
“Anything and anyone could come out from the fog,” he rasped, “and you wouldn’t even see them until it was too late.”
He lifted his hand, his fingertips and claws lightly grazing her cheek. His thumb rested for a moment on her chin as an almost thoughtful expression crossed his face. MaryAnne trembled, her every sense wide open as she waited, scarcely daring to breathe. His thumb traced a line from her chin down her throat, and his fingers closed in a gentle but firm grip. She felt entirely under his fierce control and subject to his mercy but also incredibly protected as his sheer presence shut out the rest of the world.
One corner of his mouth tipped, and he rumbled with approval. “You bend so perfectly to my hand. Perhaps you need a reminder as to why it is best to follow my lead. I know this world better than you, but I’m also equipped to take care of you.” He bent lower, his nose brushing her cheek as he inhaled and groaned. “Let me protect you. Yield to me.”
MaryAnne’s breath hitched. His warm hand smoothed over her belly, his fingers brushing the button of her pants. With a flick of his fingers it came undone, and Raskyuil’s hand slipped down into her pants and cupped her sex, his thick fingers sliding between her slick folds.
He grunted and growled in approval. “So wet for me.”
His hand slipped out of her pants just long enough to get a hold of them and tug them down with one hand, his other hand keeping steady pressure around her neck. The air cooled her heated flesh, and his hand pushed between her thighs once more.
