Page 65 of Deadly Maiden

Nothing?

If I cannot kill this, it will report back to whoever sent it. The queen, perhaps.

“Rorsyd?” I scream and spin to see if he’s recovered enough, though I know, I justknowhe won’t be blasting it with dragon fire anytime soon.

He’s vomiting again, coughing up lungs from the terrible noises he makes.

Shit. Crap. Fuck.

What can I do?

An idea barrels in.

Darkthings. They kill dragons. This hawk is far lesser, far weaker than a dragon.

I need Anathema. Even as I think that, I feel him drifting through the shrubbery. He slinks out, catlike, tail swishing—he must love this shape.

“May I? Please?”

He reads my thoughts as I do his. Sort of. This is such an iffy, immoral, maybe evil proposition. He is, as far as I can tell, sentient. I don’t wantallof him, though. Surely that’s a good point?

He approaches me, winds about my feet, then seats himself before me, angles up his head, locks eyes. “Those are overly blue eyes,” I whisper to him.

Heblertsat me. A yes, I’m sure of this.

“Where?” I blink away a tear as he shows me his butt. No, his tail. I kneel and offer the second bullet, encourage the very end of his tail to migrate over. It squeezes in, narrowing, then plopping off as a separate blobby piece.

Impatient at its slow wriggling journey. I place the bullet next to it and command it to wrap the metal.

And so I rise to my feet with a new chunk of bullet metal, black and shiny. It gleams.

Thiswas the end of Anathema’s tail. Frowning, I stuff it into the gun in the place Landos loads the weapon. Though slippery, it fits. I think? I snap it shut and stalk back to the hawk. Rorsyd is on all fours. He’s not watching this, thank the gods.

The blood hawk flaps, noisily, splattering blood in smaller spots. It doesn’t need to fly. It just needs to exist to reveal our whereabouts.

After one last, long and shaky breath, I raise the gun again. I aim and fire.

As with Anathema, I can feel the presence of this dark stuff. It spins through the air, that short flight distance expanded into an impossible length of time. Air washes aside. It plunges in, wrenching apart the substance of the hawk, flings pieces, shreds it, and explodes into a thousand bits of blackness.

The blood hawk smokes with red, the shape of it fuzzes and blurs, then it sizzles and vanishes like mist.

It’s done. The hawk is dead. Relief floods me, weakening my knees.

“Thank you, Anathema.”

My strange cat purrs then sneaks away and into the forest.

There is no doubt in me now. Anathema is a darkthing, but…a nice one?

Chapter 19

Wyntre

The thunder of the gheist pistol echoes in my head, making the trees shiver and blurring the sun where it shines down through swaying greenery.

I rotate the gun, staring at it where I hold it low near my leather belt. It needs a sheath to be easily grabbed in unexpected conflicts, such as just happened. Such enormous power is housed in this small device. I let my arm relax, let the gun dangle.

The power of Death rests in my hand, and all one needs is a source of gheist and enough bullets. As Rorsyd said, we need power to defend ourselves. In combination with necromancy this thing can killanything.

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