Page 88 of The Deathless One
She wasn’t cruel enough to burst such a bubble of happiness before their lives were about to change forever. Let them laugh.
Elric meandered back to her side, standing behind her as he always did when they cast spells. Though this time, he leaned to murmur in her ear, “Are we finally getting to the bloodbath?”
“I was hoping to avoid it,” she whispered.
He tsked. “You never let me have any fun.”
Jessamine tried very hard not to snort before turning her attention back to the giant men in front of her.
They’d finished laughing and now wore twin expressions of sinister glee. The brown-haired one said, “Oh, I like a funny woman. And I like to show funny women a good time. I think I’ll do that before we rip you apart.”
“Mm, no.” She tapped her lip before nodding. “I think you’re not going to touch me, and you’re going to let me through. That’s your only option, gentlemen.”
She could see their muscles bulging as they both tensed, ready to lunge at her and do whatever it was men like this did. Even Elric stilled behind her, his hand on her shoulder sending power crackling between them.
But then another voice joined theirs in the alley. One filled with so much horror that it snapped through the air like a shock of thunder.
“You?” The voice shook. “It can’t be you. You’redead!”
Jessamine recognized him. He was the one who had wielded the knife in the alleyway, the one who had plunged it into her belly, and she remembered the look of relief in his eyes. It was a strange combination of hatred and the knowledge that once she was gone, he would be safe. She refused to be angry at a man who made choices based on fear, but she could damn well look at him with pity for his folly.
All three of them looked at her now, jaws hanging open and their gazes darting between each other.
“Surprised to see a dead woman walking?” she asked.
One of the brothers nudged the newcomer. “Bones, you must be wrong. This ain’t the girl you killed.”
“It’s definitely the woman I killed,” Bones replied. “I never forget a face, and certainly not one like hers. I remember thinking those hollow eyes had already seen death.”
“Because I have.”
Elric squeezed her shoulder a little too tight. “What is this plan of yours, nightmare?” he whispered.
Her plan? Her plan was to take control. Her entire life, her entire being, had been other people telling her what to do. This was her moment. This was her gripping life by the throat and sayingthis is my beast to ride, and she would ride it. Even if that meant changing who she was and blowing everything to smithereens. It didn’t matter.
Because she was making the choices now, and she would not regret them.
Bones looked at her with those horror-filled eyes and whispered, “How is this possible?”
She met his gaze head-on, without fear. “I am a witch. My patron is the only god left alive. The Deathless One himself. You could stab me a hundred times, a thousand times. You could cut me into tiny pieces and I would come back. My bones are bound to the land of the living. My flesh is seared with violence and revenge. My soul is soaked in blood and haunted by a thousand hallelujahs sung in a church that cries out for their rightful queen. You will not stand in my way.”
To her greatest surprise and pleasure, the man who had killed her stepped aside and barked out an order to the other two.
“Walk the alley of death, then, witch,” he said, quaking with fear. “I will not stand in your way again.”
She didn’t know if it was that she was a queen or a dead woman that made him so afraid, but she knew he would not attack her again. So she walked by him, head held high, as befitted a queen. As she passed, she saw Elric reach out a hand toward the man.
The ghostly shape of his fingers moved through Bones’s face. The man shivered, and she could almost see a small slither of darkness that sank underneath his skin. A warning. Not anything real or powerful or even harmful in any way, but it was very much a warning from a god.
Perhaps it even whispered of a time when the Deathless One would come again. And that this man should run long before that happened.
Jessamine steeled herself for what came next. She had marched into the inner sanctum of a very powerful group of deadly people, but soon enough, they would bow to her.
She still had hope that maybe Callum was an underling like Bones, who had killed for whatever money someone would pay him.
The alley opened up into a central square surrounded by five large buildings. She didn’t think the buildings had originally touched each other, though, but someone had created living spaces in the alleys that had once separated them.
It created a fortress. A tall, five-story fortress built out of metal and wood. Even the sun had a hard time penetrating the labyrinth here. But this central area was still trying to thrive. Plants crumbled to dust under her feet as she walked. Mildew and rot filled her nose, refuse piled high wherever it had been thrown.
