Giselle thought again of Ms. Wickman’s many vile transgressions against her. The memories stoked her anger anew.
I am ready to do what you ask.
The god laughed, a sound that echoed like rolling thunder in this place between worlds. I believe that you are. And now…go from here.
His words seemed to shift the fabric of reality around her, lifting her and moving her at astonishing speed through a place of swirling shadows and strange colors. The journey passed in utter silence, but ended with an audible pop that signaled the end of a temporal displacement.
She blinked against a flash of light . The real, human world reconstructed itself around her in the space of that blink. Then she was standing in the empty kitchen of a woman’s apartment. She based this supposition on the general cleanliness and the array of frilly touches and knick-knacks. The sound of a television tuned to a talk show emanated from another room. Giselle felt a strange tingle and lifted her arms to look at her freshly restored hands. She flexed her fingers, marveling for a moment at the ease of movement and the smooth, unblemished flesh connecting her wrists to her hands.
Azaroth had been true to his word. And now it was left to Giselle to fulfill her end of the bargain. She heard voices from that other room, one male and one female. One achingly familiar and one not.
Giselle opened a likely-looking drawer and found a carving knife with a broad, flat blade. A gleaming and very, very sharp blade.
With a final sigh of regret, she walked out of the kitchen toward the source of the voices—trying all the while to block out the underlying hints of contentment and happiness she sensed there.
CHAPTER EIGHT
The ground in the woods was still wet from the recent rains. The topsoil yielded easily to shovel blades. The going got rougher approximately a foot down, but between the two of them they were able to dig a grave of acceptable size in just over an hour.
Marcy tossed her shovel aside and climbed out of the hole. “That’s enough.”
Michael palmed sweat from his forehead and wiped his hand on his dirty jeans. More swollen droplets of sweat gathered at the ends of his eyebrows. “You won’t get any argument from me.” He threw his own shovel aside and followed Marcy out of the hole. He was breathing heavily, unused to such heavy physical exertion. “That’s, what? Maybe four feet deep?”
“It’s enough.” Marcy screwed the top off a water bottle and drank deeply from it. She’d changed into jeans and a Bella Morte T-shirt for the job and they were soaked from her exertions. But she felt good. It was a strange thing. A woman she intended to kill was tied to her bed back at the house. The dead body of one of her friends was in the same room. Her other friends were freaking out. She should be beside herself with panic. But she wasn’t. She was as calm as a monk in the midst of prayers.
Michael straightened and brushed more sweat from his forehead with the back of an arm. He was shirtless. Sweat glistened on his pale torso, the diffused early morning sunlight making him look like a ghost caught in its slanting rays. Marcy watched him and felt a stir of libido. He was slim and reasonably good-looking, at least compared to the rest of them. And he was smarter than the others. Too smart, maybe. Unlike the rest of them, he didn’t just accept her every pronouncement as gospel. But maybe she could bring him more firmly under her thumb if she fuc ked him.
He looked at her and frowned, seeing the glint in her eyes. He shifted his eyes away from her, studied some vague point in the middle distance. Marcy supposed he’d mistaken her expression for something other than ardor. Which was understandable. He was very afraid of her. They all were at this point.
Marcy moved closer to him and laid a hand on his shoulder. “Is there something you want to say to me, Michael? Something that worries you…”
Michael jerked at her touch. She could feel the tension thrumming through his body. “I just think this is a rotten idea.”
She squeezed his shoulder and moved another step closer. “You shouldn’t worry. Everything will be okay, I promise.”
He was shaking now. “No. I really don’t understand why we’re doing this. We should’ve called 911 last night. Or maybe just taken Sonia to the ER our selves.”
Marcy didn’t reply to this right away. She was too enthralled by the live-wire trembling of the boy’s body, which seemed to grow more pronounced by the moment. She moved her hand from his shoulder to the small of his back. Michael drew in a sharp, involuntary breath. Marcy leaned against him and slipped her other arm around his back. A small sound that might have been a whimper emerged from his mouth.
Marcy smiled. “Are you a virgin, Michael?”
The sound he produced this time was louder, somewhere between a moan and a whimper. “I’m…that’s…what’s that got to do with anything?”
He abruptly broke out of her embrace and stalked away to a point several feet away from her. He pointed a shaking finger at her. “We can’t do this. It’s wrong. Sonia deserves better than being buried in the fucking woods. We need to let someone know what happened to her. We don’t even have to tell the truth, Marcy. We’ll get rid of that bitch you had us grab first, dump her in this hole, and everyone will figure Sonia had some kind of hemorrhage.”
He lowered the accusing finger, but his eyes remained bright and glowering.
Marcy put a hand to her face, rubbed at her tired eyes with thumb and forefinger. A dull ache had flared behind her forehead. Her own rage was building, rising up within her like a black storm cloud. She fought to keep a grip on her emotions. Nothing good could come of a fight with Michael. Things were too precarious as they stood. On an objective level, she knew the course of action she’d chosen wasn’t a smart or rational one, but instinct had driven her down this path. This was the way she wanted things to be. The way she needed them to be. It felt like the first step down the road to her ultimate destiny (though she had no clue what that might be).
So fuck it.
Michael would not ruin this for her. No one would.
She lowered her hand and saw Michael still glaring at her. Her own expression hardened, the corners of her mouth curling slightly in a humorless smile. Michael’s brow furrowed. His eyes reflected fear.
Good.
She darted toward him, closing the distance between them before he could even consider retreat. She drove a fist into the softest part of his stomach, making him splutter and double over. She crashed the same fist against the side of his head and he pitched backward onto his ass, landing at the side of the open, empty grave. He instinctively sought to brace himself, but one of his grasping hands reached into the hole and offset his balance. He tumbled into the hole and landed with a thump at the bottom. Marcy picked up one of the shovels and moved to the edge of the hole. She turned the shovel around, holding it like a baseball bat while she waited for the boy to climb back out. She heard him sit up and groan. She tightened her grip on the handle.
Michael exhaled heavily and groaned again. “Jesus, Marcy…that was pretty fucking uncalled for. I’m only trying to make you see some goddamned sense.”
Marcy made her voice soft and placating. “I know. And I’m sorry. I got carried away. Now come up here so we can talk things out. Maybe you’re right about everything. Maybe I’m being overemotional and crazy about things.”
Michael grunted. “Ya think. Jesus, but I’m glad to hear you talking sense for a change. Okay, I’m coming up now.”
She heard him shifting position; then he got to his feet with a groan of effort. He blinked and frowned at the sight of Marcy holding the shovel. He remained perplexed as she lifted her arms and brought the shovel blade around. It was as if he simply couldn’t fathom the idea of Marcy doing this to him. Only at the last possible instant did it occur to him to lunge away from the arc of the blade. He almost made it, but the tip of the shovel blade clipped the side of his face and sent him spinning back down into the hole.