Page 42 of The Sins That Bleed
“I’m in.”
There’s no hesitation from her even though I’ve been cryptic. I’d berate her for being stupid, for being so trusting, but I don’t need to. I could see her soulful eyes calculating the offer as I spoke, her mind sharp. I need people like her on my team.
And who knows what power is thrumming underneath her skin?
They say curiosity killed the cat, but being immortal affords me more than nine lives so it’s worth the risk.
“We’ll have to sign a contract tonight; do you have any plans?” I’m yet to find out how she ended up out here with the motherfucker at my feet.
“Nope, free as a bird.” She smiles and it’s all teeth.
“I’ll call my driver. He can pick you up and take you to my office.” I move to pull my phone from my pocket, but her words stop me.
“No need, I’ll call a cab.”
She whips out a wallet, the cracked leather visible in the low lighting of the alley and opens it up. Staring back at me is the face of my victim on his drivers ID and I cackle. She was never in trouble tonight.
“As you wish.”
I give her the address to Latrotoxin tower and a passcode to get up to my office. She doesn’t act surprised by this news either. I want to get to know her story more than ever.
Hell, we might even become friends.
“What will you do with him?” She nods in the direction of the pile of human flesh that hasn’t moved.
“Oh, you know, make sure he gets to where he’s going.”Hell.
She quirks an eyebrow, reading the undercurrent in my tone before going to walk past me.
Her whisper stays with me long after she’s left the alley.
“Make him suffer.”
It would be my honour.
I stareat the man before me, bathed in his sins, etched into every line and pore of his flesh.
Louis Aubert, the original snatcher of humans that stole my Sunny, thought he can retire quietly. Not on my watch. I will take my time with him, peeling his skin from his bones and watching hm decay before my eyes.
It took me no time at all to carry him back to my car and stuff him inside, and not one person in the city stopped me. I altered the reality, the memory of me carrying an overweight and unconscious man over my shoulder changing to an illusion of us walking arm in arm as two lovers would.
I’m glad the memory is not mine; it’s enough to make me puke and I have nothing to purge.
I’m growing impatient as I wait for him to wake now that we are back in my concrete lair. I drum my sharp nails on the edgeof the workbench I’m sitting on, keeping myself busy thinking of all the things I’m going to do to this démon tonight.
I’ve prepped the workbench with all my favourite instruments perfect for extracting the evil from a man. Pliers, hack saw, an assortment of knives, hatchet, cable ties, pins—you name it, I’ve got it. My eyes scan his festering body as he hangs from his wrists by a hook and chain embedded in the ceiling.
He looks like a crude, and franklyugly,looking art instalment.
He’s still wearing his clothes, an ill-fitting suit adorned with wrinkles, his shirt half tucked in. It’s coated in stains of alcohol and doused in his wretched body odour; being in close proximity to him makes it immediately clear why Sunny has such an aversion to bad smells.
I’m going to annihilate him.
His groaning starts before his eyes flutter open, the bright lights of my underworld causing him to squint until they adjust. It takes a moment for his situation to register and then he’s thrashing, screaming at the top of his lungs. I grin maniacally at him.
This is the most entertaining part, watching them try so pathetically hard. I’ve considered getting a popcorn machine down here so I can truly revel, but I hate the pesky stuff sticking in my teeth.
I wouldn’t be scary if I had kernels wedged in my fangs.
