Page 53 of All Hallows Masque

“I bet it’s torture for you, isn’t it?” she crooned, her blue eyes wide with sadness that was every bit as fabricated as any of Nightmare’s emotions. CrueltywasNightmare—in all the ways that counted. Her schemes, her personality, her hunger to see people suffer and scream. “Being unable to defend your bonded one.” Cruelty scraped her fingernails down Pain’s iron maiden, not quite able to hide how much she was enjoying it.

I rushed to my feet and threw myself across the room in the same motion, letting the sleek power of my jaguar override the pain, at least until I collided with Cruelty on my bruised side. Motherfucker, that was a miscalculation. I had to clench my jaws to trap the sound of pain, but it was worth it when I drove Cruelty into the wall beside the hanging corpses.

She gave them a disdainful glance and then looked at me, a sharp laugh brightening her expression. I backed up a step.

“Ah yes, I see you’ve noticed all my other failed best friends. You’ll join them eventually. All my disappointments together.”

“Likehellshe will,” Pain snarled in a cold, rattling hiss that made me shudder and back up another few steps. There wasnothing human in that sound. I flinched when fists drove against the inside of his iron cage, over and over and over.

Cruelty didn’t appear rattled; she simply smirked, rising and brushing her hands down her dress like she could get off whatever grossness the corpses had left on her. I didn’t miss the way she shifted on her feet, putting herself between me and the door. My heart pounded, but a sliver of hope broke through my fear. She wouldn’t block the door unless she thought I had a chance of escaping.

“By all means, Pain, stop me,” she taunted.

Fuck her, and fuck that too-smooth tone. I tucked my shoulder1 and drove myself into her, colliding with her stomach hard enough to send her flying into my iron maiden. It was too much to hope that she’d land inside it and I could simply slam the door shut on her, but she did hit her head hard enough to rattle her.

“You littlecretin,”she spat, unnatural darkness covering her eyes, throbbing around her like a heartbeat. Like the power that day Nightmare rose and killed four people, killedOrwell.My heart quickened, warning like a shiver in my soul. “Where’s your father?”

My—what?

“Tell me,” she demanded so viciously that spittle flew through the air, not a trace of smugness or smooth amusement left in her. No, this was cruelty, pure and simple, “Tell me, and I will spare Pain. Refuse to talk, and I will shred him into so many pieces and scatter them in so many realms that you’ll never find him again. And if you somehow manage to piece him back together, I will hunt you down, and make him watch as I slaughteryou.”

Cold bled through me at the visual, at the threat. But what the fuck was she asking about my dad for? I shook my head, trying to make sense of it.

“Fine,” she hissed, gathering dark, pulsating power in both hands. “Maybe my brother will be able to prise the truth from you.”

“No!” Pain yelled, guttural and deep. “Cruelty, don’t you fucking—”

The power around her discharged like a bomb before I could leap out of the way, and dark magic crashed into my head, carved through my skull, and hit my brain. I was unconscious before I heard the end of Pain’s sentence.

32

Cat

The sharp, sickening scent of lemon and mint dominated my senses until I retched, coming awake all at once. It smelled like someone had poured a gallon of sink cleaner into the room, and I choked on it with every gasping inhale, tasted it on my tongue with every jagged exhale.

I tried to growl a warning and found my voice too soft, too quiet. Too human. Shit. Whatever Cruelty had done, it had knocked me out of my jaguar form. It took three attempts to open my eyes, they were so sore and gritty, and when I finally did, I wished I’d kept them shut.

I was in a much smaller room than my last prison, although I wasn’t locked in an iron maiden. But the dark walls of the room felt too close, crowding around me and the man who loomed in front of me, watching me like I was a bug crawling across the floor. His face was pale and expressionless, but still somehowdisdainful. It was the sheer emptiness in his dark grey eyes that made me struggle, dropping into the core of magic where my shifting magic lived—

I slammed into it so hard my whole body flinched. Pain made every muscle in my body tense. I bit my tongue so hard it bled.

I waited for the man—Violence, it had to be—to laugh, but he just stood there, physically intimidating, unblinking, staring at me.

I tried to grasp my jaguar again, more tentatively this time, but it was like I was cut off from that side of myself. Like—oh. This must be what Tor felt when the Stalker cut him, when his magic was drained anc he was so weak he couldn’t grasp a single shadow. Had Orwell cut me?

I took mental inventory of my body, my brain racing almost as fast as my breathing as Violence stood there andwatchedme. My back and shoulder throbbed, my hip felt badly bruised, and something was off with my leg. When I shifted as much as I could, a twinge went through my knee. Worse—oh, so much worse—was how aware I became of the ropes binding my arms behind my back, securing my ankles to … yep, that was the cold wooden leg of a chair.

Fuck.

“Now that we’ve got that pointless attempt to flee out of the way,” Violence said, taking a step forward, his broad body full of power and control. Not a single muscle seemed to move without his permission, and that only quickened my heart, spreading ice water through my body where there should be warm blood. “My sister would like to know where to find your father.”

This again? What the fuck? I didn’t try to keep my confusion off my face. “I thought this was about Death, and taking over the domain.”

He tilted his head a fraction, drawing my attention to that uncaring expression again. Black hair was cropped close to hisskull, his face made of rough angles and smooth, shaven skin in the same fair complexion as Cruelty’s. There was something about his precise appearance, something about the way he moved, that reminded me of gangsters in old black and white films. It brought to mind deadly threats and turf wars and bodies left strewn across cobbled streets. Torture and pleas unanswered and ambition. I swallowed hard.

“Where,” he repeated, coming closer and flexing the fingers of his right hand. A shadow fitted itself to his knuckle, robbing me of all breath when I saw he’d fashioned himself a knuckle duster.

“I don’t know! I haven’t seen him since I first got to Ford. But he’s got nothing to do with this, he’s human, and completely ordinary, not, not—cursed. Please. Leave him out of this.”

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