Page 171 of House of Pain
“Give it back nicely,” Val warned, “or I’ll get it from your dead hands.”
“I greatly doubt that. None of you even know how to kill a demon.” He laughed. “You don’t know shit about demons at all. That’s why it was so easy to trick you.”
Val muttered a chant under her breath and threw her palm towards Rogue, but he slipped away back into the darkness and disappeared out of their sight.
“Get him!” Val shouted, taking off after him.
Blaze followed her. Jolene and Andro went to the left, rounding the ruins from that side, and Alecto moved to the right.
She ran around the walls, going over the spells that would help her deal with Rogue.
She could freeze him, trap him, turn him into stone…
A body emerged in front of her from out of nowhere, and Alecto couldn’t stop herself from hitting the hard chest. Her first thought was that it was Rogue.
But the chest wasn’t covered in a cotton T-shirt but rather a smooth, skin-like material.
And it reeked like death and…rotten flesh. Alecto gagged as she pushed herself away.
When she lifted her eyes up, she was met with white pupilless eyes that froze the blood in her veins.
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Alecto’s scream pierced the night.
Blaze came to a stop abruptly, his heart hammering so hard in his ears, at first he didn’t hear Val shouting at him.
“Blaze, let’s move!” Val screamed, a few steps ahead of him. “Rogue just went into the tower. We have to get the Book!”
“And leave her to whatever happened there?”
Val ran up to him, tugging on his hand as she dragged him forwards. “We don’t have the time. If anyone can survive anything, it’s Alecto fucking Black. The Book!”
Blaze wrenched his arm out of Val’s grip just in time for Andro and Jolene to run up to them from the side.
“Alecto’s not with you?” Blaze asked.
“We thought she went with you,” Andro said. “Do you know where Rogue is?”
“Yes!” Val said, exasperated. “In the tower. We need to go.”
“I’m not leaving Alecto behind!” Jolene snapped.
“Andro, go with Val to get the Book,” Blaze said. “Jolene, we go find Alecto.”
Blaze didn’t wait for Val to bark orders at him. He jogged back towards the ruins, going around the side where he thought the scream came from.
When he rounded the wall, he stopped in his tracks, and Jolene walked in his back.
“What’s…” Jolene trailed off as she walked around him and saw the three creatures backing Alecto into the corner. “What the fuck?”
Blaze shook his head. He didn’t know in the dark. It could have been anyone, anything.
But whatever it was, it wasn’t anything good.
Alecto looked at them, and blinked.
That was enough for the creatures to notice them as well. Their necks turned with loud cracks as if their bones were shifting.
