Tangled Webs

He moved toward the front staircase. Could Surreal still be downstairs?

“Surreal?”

He peered over the banister. No sign of light down below.

The gong had sounded twice. One time would have been for the witchfire she needed to create in order to light the candle. The other?

She’d sensed something. Or someone. The second time the gong had sounded. Was that for a weapon or a shield?

Should have shielded when they first realized something was wrong. They had gambled on the degree of danger they were facing—and had underestimated their enemy.

She’d been coming up last, watching their backs. Should have been the safer position, since they’d already checked the kitchen.

Should have been.

What had changed in that moment between the last girl’s starting up the stairs and Surreal’s following her?

The last girl.

Rainier turned toward the opening leading to the back hall. Seven children had come up the stairs with him. But there shouldn’t be seven anymore. The fourth girl. The last one to come up the stairs. She wasn’t one of the children who had come into the house with them.

“Mother Night,” he whispered.

He rushed to the back hallway and stopped at the opening when he saw four children clustered around a closed door that Kester was trying to force open by slamming against it with his shoulder.

No sound. No warning of trouble. The girls had their mouths open and were probably yelling or screaming. The front hallway wasn’t that big. He should have heard Kester trying to break down the door.

As soon as he crossed the threshold, he heard the screams.

Hell’s fire.

“Get back!” Rainier shouted. He kept moving, building momentum with every stride. Kester saw him at the last moment and dove out of the way as Rainier turned the last stride into a leap and kick.

The door crashed open, revealing a room emptied of furnishings…but not empty.

For a moment, he froze at the sight of the burns and scars on the stranger’s young body. An illusion spell must have hidden those injuries, just as it had hidden her ripped, dirty clothes. He felt sickened by what he saw—and even more sickened by what the girl had done.

The stranger wore openwork metal gauntlets, a kind of lethal jewelry witches sometimes wore. The fingers ended in razor-sharp talons. The ones on the girl’s hands dripped with blood.

Her mouth was smeared with blood. It ran down her chin like juice at some kind of primal feast.

She wascildru dyathe now. A demon-dead child—and a deadly predator.

Ginger lay on her back on the dirty wood floor, her neck, chest, and arms ripped to shreds by the talons.

No sound from her.

No hope for her.

Thecildru dyathe sprang to her feet and ran toward the back of the room.

Rainier sprang after her.

She fumbled at the wall, the talons on the metal gauntlets tearing the old wallpaper as she searched for something.

In the moment before he reached her, he was nothing but a Warlord Prince on a battlefield and she was nothing but an enemy. When he swung the poker at her back, it carried all his strength and fury in the blow.

He heard bone break.

She fell, no longer able to use her legs. Sufficiently Blood to becomecildru dyathe , she didn’t have the skill in Craft to use what power she had in order to get up.

He stood over her, looking at wounds that indicated torture. Looking at the madness and hatred in the girl’s eyes.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

“You’re just like him,” she said, her voice harshened by her hatred. “You’re just like him.”

“Who?”

She laughed. “I’ll tell you once you’re dead. I’ll hook my pretty claws into your chest, and you’ll have to carry me. Be my legs since you took mine. Hook my pretty claws into your eyes too. Just for fun.”

Was that madness talking, or was that a reflection of who the girl had been?

He took a step back. Took another. Then he turned and walked back to Ginger.

So much blood, he thought as he knelt beside the dying girl. Too much damage. There were not enough moments left in her to even try a healing. There was not enough he could do for her with the basic skills he had to make a difference.

Her eyes stared at him but didn’t see him.

Did landens have some place like Hell? They didn’t become demon-dead. When their bodies died, they were gone. But did their spirits have a place where they spent some time before they were truly gone?

He didn’t know, had never asked. And right now, he really didn’t want to know.

“Her name was Anax,” Kester said. “She lived at the orphans’ home. She ran away a couple weeks ago.”

Had she run away or had the people in charge of the orphans’ home assumed that because Anax had disappeared? Someone had tortured the girl and killed her, leaving her in here to become one of the predators who hunted the “guests” trapped in this house.

“Did anyone else run away from the orphans’ home recently?” Rainier asked, looking up at the other children.

“Three or four others,” Kester replied, shrugging as if the loss made no difference.

Rainier choked back the urge to roar at the boy for being so cold and unfeeling. In order for Anax to becomecildru dyathe , she had to be Blood. Which meant one of the Blood had been cold and unfeeling toward the girl long before Kester and his friends were.

No life in Ginger’s eyes. No breath when he held a hand above her mouth and nose.

“She’s dead,” he said, getting to his feet.

“What…” Kester swallowed hard. “What do we do with her?”

Rainier waited a beat. “We have to leave her.”

They looked at him.

“Wecan’t just leave her,” Sage said.

“You’re welcome to carry her,” he replied, retrieving the oil lamp. “I won’t.”

“So what are you going to do?” Kester asked.

Rainier tipped his head toward the wall. “Anax was searching for something. I’m going to find it.”

There was water. Not as rusty as she’d expected, which maybe wasn’t a good sign, since it meant someone had been using this bathroom on a regular basis recently. Of course, the Black Widows would have needed it before someone helped them into the first stage of being dead.

Surreal frowned at the toilet. Did the demon-dead need to pee? When they drank yarbarah, was there anything wasted, or did they absorb it all to sustain the dead flesh and their power?

Too bad she’d never thought to ask when she’d known some of them.

And what about Guardians like Uncle Saetan? He used to eat meals with the family, at least some of the time. So did he…?

“No,” she told herself firmly. If the High Lord of Hell did something so mundane as park his ass on a toilet, she did not want to know about it.

Besides, she had more immediate things to think about.

She turned sideways, her back to the bathtub, and studied the bathroom door. Should she close it and turn the lock to avoid a surprise attack from the hallway, or leave it open to give herself a fast way to escape?

“Don’t close yourself in a box,” she muttered, sucking in a breath as she removed her jacket. The shirt came next. She dropped both on the closed toilet seat. Then she braced the front of her thighs against the sink and stood on tiptoes to see her torso in the mirror.

Hell’s fire. The blood was running between her skin and the shield, so she couldn’t actually see the extent of the damage—and couldn’t tell if the bleeding would stop on its own or if the wounds were something she needed to tend.

"Rainier?" she called as she lowered her feet.

No answer.

Dropping the shield would be one use of Craft. Restoring it, another. Calling in her kit of healing supplies, a third. Then another choice: vanish the kit and, therefore, close another exit, or leave it behind and hope she wouldn’t need it again.

She couldn’t reach Rainier. Would he hear the gong that signaled she’d used Craft? How many exits had they closed? How many were left?

If there had been any to start with.

It was ingenious, really. If this had been a story, she would have been intrigued, would have appreciated the struggle to avoid using Craft. Would have argued with Rainier about how and when Craft should have been used.

Since it wasn’t a story, she was going to find the bastard who created this place and skin him, using nothing but a dull paring knife. Then she would crush all his bones into pebbles, leaving the spine and skull for last to be sure he got the benefit of all the pain. Andthat would bebefore Uncle Saetan got hold of him.

“Nice thought, sugar,” she told her reflection, “but you have a few things to do first.”

She called in the kit of healing supplies, swearing silently when she heard the gong. Taking the small pair of scissors from the kit, she cut off both sleeves of her shirt, then cut one sleeve in half. The jacket and shirt were hung on the bathroom doorknob. The healing kit was placed on the toilet lid.

She turned on the water in the sink and soaked one piece of cloth. No hot water, and she wasn’t going to use Craft for an indulgence, so she gritted her teeth against the shock of cold water on her skin as she dropped the protective shield and washed off the blood.

Up on tiptoes again to see the wounds as she cleaned that area.

Not too bad, she decided after a moment. A double swipe along her ribs from the bitch’s nails. Deep enough that the wounds did need to be cleaned and sealed, but…

Dropping down again, Surreal frowned at her reflection. Why a double swipe? Why didn’t the Black Widow hit her with all four nails,especially the ring finger that had the snake tooth and the venom sac under the normal nail?

“Not there,” Surreal whispered, pressing the wet cloth against the wounds.

Last year, when Hekatah had captured Saetan and held him hostage, she had cut off the little finger of his left hand and sent it to Jaenelle.

Funny how the eyes stopped seeing the loss. Saetan no longer wore the Steward’s ring on his left hand, so there was nothing to call attention to the missing finger. If someone asked anyone in the family about it, she’d bet they’d have to think for a minute to remember it was gone.