She brought her right forearm to her mouth. The taste of her own flesh on her tongue made her pause for a moment, anticipation of pain momentarily freezing her resolve. Then she sank her teeth into her arm, driving them deep, shredding flesh and filling her mouth with salty blood. She drank the blood, drawing it down into her stomach as she continued to slurp more of it from the wound. Then she pitched forward and pressed her face against the cold metal bars of the cage floor. She opened her mouth and expelled blood, allowing it to coat the metal. The pain was bad, but she ignored it and initiated the blood ritual by repeating the phrases she’d memorized years earlier. Rhythmic phrases from an alien tongue. A chant. A summoning spell.
Ms. Wickman had removed her ability to wield magic as a weapon, but she had not deprived Giselle of her knowledge. She had one ally among the death gods. A rogue who had aided her efforts to overthrow the Master. He would help her again. If only she could reach him…
She placed the tip of her tongue against the cold metal and tasted her own blood again. Then she focused what psychic engergy she could and sent a message into the wall of darkness and the ether beyond.
Azaroth, I beseech you.
Another taste of blood, metallic and tart.
I offer you my blood. My pain. Please come to my aid.
I will do anything.
Nothing.
Despair again began to encroach on her thoughts, threatening the necessary focus and spiritual purity of the ritual. She tasted her blood yet again, used the feeble power it contained to focus her wavering will one last time.
And the message went out again: Azaroth, I implore you…
Then she felt it, the death god’s presence manifesting at first as a warmth that allowed her temporary respite from the freezing atmosphere of the torture chamber. She drew in a deep breath and exhaled slowly, forcing herself to relax. And as she relaxed, a bright, warm light displaced the darkness of her prison, enveloping her in an ethereal radiance that felt like a loving embrace.
Something dark swirled in the midst of all that brightness, a cloud of energy that became luminescent and began to mold itself into a humanoid shape. The entity was forging a human appearance, one that exactly replicated the form Giselle remembered from her prior experience with this being.
When the process was complete, Azaroth smiled at her with his human mask.
Ah, Giselle. I see you have need of my assistance again.
Tears misted Giselle’s vision. The spark of hope became a flame.
I do. My enemies have taken me. They have maimed me. And I fear what they’ve done to me is only the beginning. They will not rest until they have done the same to all those who rose up against the Master.
Azaroth’s expression changed subtly. His eyes continued to glow with that lovely radiance, but the set of his features shifted to something approximating a frown. You speak of the woman who served the Master and her new set of followers.
Giselle gathered her courage. Here was where things might get tricky. Yes. She chopped my hands off to bluntmy magic and imprisoned me in a dark place. I’ll do anything you ask of me if you can help me.
Azaroth’s features shifted again, displaying a fluid grace that made the god look like something from an animated motion picture. He was smiling again, but there was a hint of something very dark behind the expression.
What you ask will require a sacrifice.
Giselle nodded. Of course. Anything.
Azaroth was silent a moment, his not-quite-real-looking brows knitting in apparent concentration. Then his expression became solemn. I can restore you, Giselle. Make your body whole again so that you may combat your enemy on equal footing. But to justify this I will need you to do something that will wound your soul very deeply.
Giselle suspected what was coming. She held her breath and nodded tensely.
There is a man who is special to you.
Giselle thought, Oh, Eddie…
Azaroth paused for a beat, hearing her thought. Yes, the very one. I will grant you temporary restoration and temporal transport to his current location. You will be there just long enough to kill him.
And though her heart was pierced to the core by the thought of murdering the one person left in the world for whom she felt genuine affection, Giselle knew there was no other choice. She alone possessed even a slim chance of defeating Ms. Wickman. A part of her hated Azaroth for forcing her to make this difficult choice, but the feeling was muted by the knowledge that this was merely the nature of the death gods, this exchange of blood and breath for aid.
And once this has been done…I will be whole again?
The death god’s expression darkened slightly. As Ihave said. You know I keep my bargains. Do what is asked of you and you will be more than whole again. The cast of his features shifted again, projecting a shimmering glow as he smiled. You will be stronger than before. More powerful. You will be a fearsome adversary for the one who took you, her equal in every way.
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.