Page 65 of All Hallows Masque

“Yes,” I said, “when I first made contact, I felt—”

Something strong ripped me from the sky and a rattling hiss left my skeletal throat as I careened at the ground. The impact shouldn’t have hurt, but this was still a physical form despite being grotesque and chilling. I slammed into stone paving slabs so hard a groan escaped, pain ripping across the back of my skull.

For a moment I laid there, dazed. I couldn’t believe one of them had dragged me from the sky. The fucker had ripped my cloak.

“Hey!” Madde yelled, magic carrying his voice so far they probably heard it across the valley. “That’s my brother-husband, you dick!”

I groaned, rolling onto my front. “That’s really fucking untrue.”

I pushed onto my hands and knees—and snarled when harsh fingers grabbed my hair, ripping my head back. I glared up into the leaf-covered face of a man in a jaunty pirate hat. Bastard.

“This is only hot when Tor or Death does it,” I snarled, and reached up, grabbing my hair and ripping it out of their grip. I had to sacrifice a few strands to get free, andfuckit hurt as they tore free. Tears lined my eyes and—oh, for fuck’s sake. The fallhad ripped me out of death god form. No wonder the impact hurt so badly.

“Get away from him!” Madde screamed and body-slammed the topiary in the pirate hat. He drove fist after fist into the man, breaking branches and opening cuts on his own fists in the process.

“Madde.” I caught his shoulder. “That’s enough. It won’t keep him down.”

There was a bright gleam of instability in his blue eyes. His nostrils flared. There was a moment when he considered ignoring me to keep beating the topiary man. Instead, he sagged with a soft growl and—and ripped the tricorn hat from his head.

“Madde, don’t—” I began. Pointlessly, because he’d already wedged it onto his own head. I sighed, but a smile tugged at the edges of my mouth. Life was certainly never dull with Madness around. “Be careful; that thing could come to life, too.”

“What if it pokes branches through your skull and into your brain?” Wrath shouted from across the garden where she wrestled with a plant woman in a ballgown made of leaves. “Imagine if you’re controlled by a plant hat, that would be so fucked up.”

“Nope,” Madde blurted, ripping it off his head and tossing it across the lawn. “Nope.”

I couldn’t help but laugh, even with Tor and Death working their way into the manor, even with Cat being tortured. Although … it had been long, long minutes since the last spike of pain. I wasn’t sure that was a good thing. What if she—

“Guys!” Wrath shouted with enough alarm that I focused on her and grabbed Madde’s arm to keep him close. “What the fuck are they doing?”

I crossed the paved square to reach her, and Hunger joined us, all of us rumpled and beaten. There was a darkness in hiseyes that I didn’t recognise, but it was wiped away by surprise when he looked towards the manor.

“Fuck,” I spat when I saw what had gained their attention. All the topiaries had gathered near the back of the manor, and when I say gathered I mean they weremerging.

“I really hate surprises,” Wrath muttered. “Have I told you guys that lately? Just a real surprise hater. Big fan of things being mundane and precedented.”

The mangled topiaries we’d fought stretched out their branches and crumpled leaves and joined together, until they were three times the size and neither male nor female, neither elegantly dressed or naked. I couldn’t tell where the ones I’d fought ended up, especially when six merged, then ten, then all of them.

“This is bad,” Madde said with a wince, edging closer to me. “If we couldn’t kill them when they were small, how are we supposed to kill a monster topiary? That thing ishuge.”

A shiver of apprehension skittered across my skin. I was so used to calling on my magic to handle any situation that I didn’t know how to fight this. It was almost as big as the manor, and it waskneeling.When the green man rose to its feet… Cold gripped me until I shuddered. It was taller than the manor, as high as the glass conservatory we could just make out from this side of Darkmore.

“What do we do?” Madde demanded, the whites of his eyes showing as he threw a panicked look at me, then Hunger and Wrath.

“Run!” Hunger roared, his deep voice crackling through the garden like thunder. Like he’d summoned it, like his low voice shook it from the clouds above, rain poured in a sudden deluge. The sharp scent of it filled my lungs, clearing my panic for a split second until the green man shook its limbs, leaves raining downaround us, and it took a mighty step. The ground quaked with the force of it.

I finally took Hunger’s advice and fled, spearing into the core of my magic. There was so much power buzzing in the air around this place that the change came easily, and then I was racing through the air as nothing more than shadow and bones. Madde jumped off the ground too, shadows veiling him for a moment. When they faded, a face of smooth, featureless bone stared back at me. No mouth, no eyes, not even two slits for a nose. It was damned unsettling, even for a death god.

“What’s the plan?” Wrath demanded, streaking through the sky on my left, her cloak flying behind her. Like mine, her face was hidden by the deep cover of a black hood. I was sure we looked like four wraiths flying through the sky, pursued by a not-so-jolly green giant. This was a new low. Hunted by a walking garden centre. “How do we kill it?”

“You don’t.”

The reply came from the ground as we flew over the long grass—and a lone figure standing perfectly still in the rain-streaked, wind-battled garden.

I landed in a rush, rage hitting my system.

“I wouldn’t if I were you,” the Stalker said with a mean smirk. The dark coat and hat was exactly as Cat described, but she’d always said his face was hidden in shadow and now it was pale and tense and on display. There was a harshness to his features, anger pressed in the flat line of his mouth, but panic blazed in his eyes. When I reached out to him with my death magic, I found two things—so much misery that it should have killed him, and no pulse beating in his chest. He was dead.

“Why not?” Madde demanded, shifting back to his red-haired, freckled, scowling form mid-flight. He skidded through the grass and slammed into the Stalker with his hands wrappedaround the man’s throat. Althoughmanwas a stretch. He couldn’t have been older than twenty.

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