Page 16 of Kill the Beast
Alderic upended the contents of the pouch into his hand. The claw was large enough to fill his palm entirely. It was curved, black threaded with a brown that almost looked gold in the parlor’s electric lights. Lyssa stared at it, her mind jolting back to that night. The smell of popcorn mingled with the pine scent ofthe woods where the signs had led them.Kill the unkillable beast! Untold riches could be yours!The rattle of the cloth-covered cage as the monster inside threw its weight against the bars. The screams of the crowd when it got free. The metallic tang of blood as Eddie’s guts spilled out of him onto the dirt like scarves from an illusionist’s sleeve.
Brandy barked, making Lyssa flinch.
“Hush,” she said, but then she heard it. The faint sound of a clang.The gate.“Someone’s coming,” she breathed.
“Who?” Alderic asked as he stuffed the claw back into its pouch.
“How the fuck should I know?” But she would bet good coin that it was Hound-wardens. It was always Hound-wardens, these days. “Where’s the map?” she asked, adrenaline surging through her as her body readied itself for violence.
“Somewhere around here,” he said with a frown. “Give me a minute to find it.”
Shit.“We don’t have a minute.” She looked around wildly; the parlor was too cluttered for a fight, and she couldn’t risk losing the claw—or Alderic, who, as of right now, was the only person who knew where to find the Beast’s lair.
They would have to run.
Alderic knelt to put the claw back in the drawer, but Lyssa grabbed his wrist and hauled him to his feet. “Take it with you.”
“Take it with mewhere?”
“You’re coming with me—somewhere safe,” she added when he looked like he was about to protest. She dragged him over piles of books and stacks of woven baskets, whistling at Brandy to follow, and pulled out her chalk.
“What are you doing to my wallpaper?” Alderic gasped as she drew the rough shape of a door.
“Making an exit.” She drew the knob and knocked three times.
As the chalk lines began to glow, someone burst into the room. The gangly boy from the pub—Birch—on the heels of a woman with golden-red hair and eyes so green they didn’t look real, garbed in the leather armor of a Hound-warden.
“Honoria,” Lyssa spat, trying to keep her voice steady despite the frantic beat of her pulse in her throat. “I thought I smelled something foul.”
Honoria. She had once been Ragnhild’s blacksmith, before Lyssa had stumbled into the Witch’s Wood. Had once been Lyssa’s friend, and then her lover. A killer of faeries to rival the Butcher, until she switched sides and founded the Hound-wardens instead.
Honoria, the only person who truly understood what killing the Beast meant to Lyssa.
Brandy snarled, his lips pulling back to bare his teeth as his fur tufted up along his spine. Lyssa shook her head to dislodge the image of Honoria scratching the bullmastiff’s back in the hot summer months, his leg twitching happily.
“Lyssa Carnifex,” Honoria said with one of those smiles that always used to undo Lyssa. But her eyes were hard as steel and just as cold. Her gaze darted to the glowing Door behind them. “Running away? That’s a new look for you. And here I was hoping to dance with you tonight.”
“Why? Is your faerie whore not enough for you anymore?” Lyssa replied, drawing her pistol.
The Hound-warden’s smile sharpened into something predatory. “I’ve been looking forward to taking this one away from you.” She turned to Alderic and held out her left hand to him, her palm carved with the magical geas that fettered her tongue against spilling faerie secrets. “I know you think the Beast must die. But there are other options. Come with me, and we can discuss the situation thoroughly before you commit to hiring the Butcher.”
“Respectfully, madam, I am afraid I will have to decline,” Alderic said, and a laugh burst from Lyssa’s lips at both his formal tone and the consternated expression on Honoria’s face.
“Actually, I wouldloveto hear the other options,” Lyssa said with a feral smile. “Why don’t you explain them to us right now, Honoria? Do that, and I’ll get down on my knees and surrender.”
“What are you doing?” Alderic hissed.
But the geas would not allow Honoria to speak.
The Hound-warden scowled, struggling to phrase her answer in a way that the magic would permit. After a few seconds of garbled nonsense, she growled in frustration, stamping her foot; it would have been charming, once, but now it filled Lyssa with pleasure of a crueler kind.
“Your faerie mistress keeps you on such a short leash,” she said. “I can’timaginewhy she wouldn’t trust you. It’s not like you’ve ever switched sides before. Oh… oh wait…”
Honoria gave up and drew her sword instead, barking at Birch to stay back before advancing on Lyssa. “Go ahead, flap those pretty lips at me one more time before I cut them off.”
“Time to go,” Lyssa said. She fired a single shot with her pistol, and while Honoria and Birch were busy ducking for cover, she hauled Alderic and Brandy through the Door she had made.
CHAPTER
