Page 80 of Grotesque
A pair of yellow leather gloves jutted out of his pocket.
The groundskeeper. The man that had been sent to ready the house for me. The one the librarian had mentioned.
Bile rose from my gut and I hunched forward as I hurled. What I had compared to the scent of off fruit earlier had been the sweet decay of bodies. Quint grabbed the top of my shoulder as another wave of nausea kicked me in the stomach, and I hurled again.
“Come on,” Quint hissed. He pulled me back, but I couldn’t move. Not when I was still taking in just how many bones were scattered around us. How many bodies were there?
Quint tugged me harder and I slapped his hand away.
“Sorcha, what the fuck? We have to go.” Quint rounded in front of me and tried pushing me instead.
My breath was shallow, too shallow. Every time I blinked, I saw a new face, or what was left of one. Another burst of air from my lungs turned white in front of my lips. It was cold. So cold down here in the dark.
I turned.
Where was she?
Quint cursed under his breath. He followed me across the room as I flailed amongst the bodies. Death burrowed its scent up my nostrils. Where was she?
Quint grabbed me and started to pull me back to the light waiting for us at the top of the stairs.
“Let go,” I whispered even as I let him drag me to the steps. Where was she? Where was Macky?
“You’re going into shock, Sorcha. Let me help you. Will you stop fucking fighting me,” he ground out when I twisted in his grip and kicked him in the shin.
“Let her go.”
The voice poured down the stone steps, radiating power. Corban’s tall silhouette dominated the doorway to the ground floor, blocking all but a glimmer of light. He took each stepslowly, deliberately. His feral red gaze slid from Quint to me. He looked my body up, down, and up again as he made his assessment. What must I look like amongst the horror? He had a strange look in his eye I’d never seen before.
Quint’s grip tightened on my arm again, drawing Corban’s attention back to him.
“You’re a fucking monster,” he said.
Corban cocked his head. “You’ve always known that. It’s why you ran away the first time.” Blood was splashed across his face and hands. In the twinkling light of Quint’s phone, I could see it glistening on the black fabric of his clothes.
Quint must have noticed it the same moment I did. “Where are they? Where are my friends?”
“Don’t worry, you’ll be joining them soon.” That look simmering in the crimson light of his eyes, it was cold rage. Icy and lethal, so much more terrifying than the fury that had ruled him the last time he tried to kill Quint. And we all knew it.
Quint audibly swallowed. “Let us go, and I’ll never come back. Let me take her with me. We’ll never speak a word of this.”
“A little late for that, isn’t it? If it wasn’t for yourwords, your little friends wouldn’t have joined you on your, what shall we call this,quest?That’s what this is, isn’t it? You thought you were saving a damsel in distress?” Corban’s teeth flashed. They seemed larger, sharper than I remembered them being. “I hate to break it to you, but the princess likes the monster.”
Quint let go of my arm and dug into his waistband. He pulled a dark wooden hilt from the holster hidden beneath his jeans and held it out. Didn’t he know a knife wasn’t going to do anything? The blade would shatter before Corban did.
“He’s stone,” I said quietly, almost to myself.
Quint turned to look at me, his brows furrowed. His eyes flickered between the two of us before they narrowed in on me.His lip curled, as if he had just realized something, something that disgusted him.
He was shockingly fast for a human. The movement snapped me out of my daze, but I was still too slow to block him. Before I could lift a hand to defend myself Quint had grabbed me by the shoulder and hauled me against him. The blade of his knife pressed against my throat.
He was using me as a literal shield against Corban’s rage.
Somehow that was still less frightening than the creature that stood before us. Corban cocked his head unnaturally, the points of his horns glinting in the dimness. Red light brushed the top of his cheeks where his eyes quite literally glowed. It made the blood splatters on his face shine like rubies.
“You want her, you can have her, but you’re going to let me go first,” Quint said.
“Quint, you fucking–” I made to grab hold of his fist, but it only served to push the blade closer. I felt the sharp sting as it split my skin. “Youfool.”
