Page 92 of Kill the Beast
A bell clanged the hour in the distance, and both of them looked up at what slivers of sky they could see through the leaves. Dawn was reaching tentative fingers of soft gray light over the forest. Soon the sun would rise, bringing the equinox with it—and the return of the Beast.
“You know what?” Honoria said. “I don’t have time for this, and neither do you.” Her crooked smile was tinged with a sadness that surprised Lyssa. “So, I guess this is it, then. I’d say ‘see you around,’ but I think we both know that’s not true.”
“Lady willing,” Lyssa said, and Honoria snorted.
“Goodbye, Lyssa,” she said.
“Goodbye, Honey.”
After one last lingering look, Honoria left the path and vanished into the undergrowth. Lyssa waited until she could no longer hear the twigs snapping beneath the Hound-warden’s boots before continuing down the dirt path toward Alderic’s manor, her chest tight with the bittersweet ache of endings.
By the time Lyssa got to the manor, her hands were clammy and her heart beat a frantic pulse in her throat. It was almost time.
This was almost over.
She flexed her fingers and tried the outer gate. It was open. She crunched up the gravel drive to the front door, whispering a prayer to Ungharad for strength.
There was an envelope with her name on it waiting for her on the doorstep. She stooped to pick it up, slicing through the thick paper with one of her knives. There was a bank note inside for three times the agreed-upon payment, and behind it…
Lyssa’s breath caught in her throat as she slid the paper out of the envelope. It was the deed to the house in Sunnyside, with her name on it.
Alderic had bought her childhood home for her.
Her heart was hammering hard now, her hands trembling asshe slipped the final piece of paper from the envelope. It was a note, in Alderic’s handwriting, the strokes of his pen shakier than when he had first written to her asking for her services. As if his hands had also been trembling when he wrote it.
Go down the hall and take the last door on the right. I will be waiting for you downstairs.
The front door was unlocked, the electric lights cold and dark. Lyssa made her way down the hall, climbing over boxes that looked like they had been dragged out of the parlor and half organized before being abandoned. As though Alderic had begun going through the things he had collected throughout his long life and had been overwhelmed by the task.
Stop it,she scolded herself.Stop thinking about him. It’ll only make your job harder. Think of the Beast and what it did to Eddie, instead.
Shove the rest down deep.
You can break later.
The last door on the right opened onto an iron staircase that spiraled down into darkness. Lyssa felt her way carefully down the steps, gripping the cold railing so tightly that when she reached the bottom, it took a moment to convince her hand to uncurl. She stood now before another door, this one made of reinforced metal. It, too, was unlocked, and opened onto another door, another layer of protection against the Beast’s escape. Lyssa thought of the manor’s outer walls, taller than any living thing could jump, the tops lined with spikes just in case. The forest full of thorned trees to ward away trespassers. As if Alderic wanted to ensure that he would never kill anyone again.
If only he had done that sooner,she thought bitterly.
The second door opened onto what looked like a dungeon—complete with shackles on the walls and drains in the floor, just as Alderic had said all those weeks ago.
He was fiddling with one of the shackles, his back to her. He flinched at the screech of the door being opened, and when he turned and saw Lyssa, his face brightened. She was surprised byhow much it hurt, the slash of his smile cutting deeper than any blade.
Then his face fell, the smile dying on his lips. “You’re early,” he said. “I was hoping you wouldn’t have to watch me transform.”
Her traitorous heart ached to see how awful he looked, with dark bruises beneath his bloodshot eyes, as if he hadn’t slept since they’d parted.
“The timing isn’t exact,” she reminded him stiffly. But she had hoped the same thing—it was harder, seeing him like this, knowing what was about to happen. What she was about to do to him.
He won’t look like Alderic when you do it,she told herself.He’ll be the Beast, and there will be no more doubt in your mind.
“I know you said not to make it easy on you,” Alderic told her, gesturing to the shackles on the wall. “But I want to die knowing I did no harm to my savior. Hate me for that, if you want. You already hate me plenty, so what’s one more item added to the list of my transgressions?” He laughed weakly, and she realized with a start that he was nervous. “They’re magic,” he said in a breathless rush. “It took me centuries to find someone capable of forging something that could contain the Beast. A man with faerie blood in his veins made them for me, down in Dansk. At least, hesaidhe had faerie blood. I don’t know if it’s true. But what does it matter? It’s partly because of him that I haven’t killed anyone since Buxton Fields. I…” He shook his head, as though he realized that he was rambling, then nodded at the sword strapped to her back. “Is that it, then?”
“Yes.”
“May I… see it?”
Wordlessly, she unsheathed the sword and held it out on the palms of her hands for him to inspect.
