Chapter 34

34

MINA

"Let me clean up, and then I'll be back in murder-buddy mode," I said to a seemingly empty room, retreating to the theoretical sanctity of my bedroom.

It'd never occurred to me that Sylas wouldn't enjoy our encounter in the traditional sense, and I absolutely felt like an asshole now.

He'd consented, but—I guessed I'd just wanted the whole thing to feel magical? I had no idea why it should've though, or what I was thinking.

There'd always been just two pathways for me, for The First Time after My Assault, because it felt like moving back twenty spaces on the Life board, and becoming a virgin again.

Either it was going to be something sacred and life affirming—shit with candles lit everywhere and sheer silks blowing in a gentle wind—the kind of sex that people had on TV shows—or it was going to be something I never, ever mentioned after.

Like a box I checked, or a corner I turned: Operation Mina Gets Sex Done .

But what that'd meant was that I'd been so up in my head about my own stuff, I hadn't even considered him—even though there were still dents on my thighs from where his claws had held me. I put a fist to my lower belly, where I felt a little good-sore from bouncing on him—he'd been the perfect size. And then I let my fingers sink to the outside of my underwear, which were so wet I could've wrung them out—I didn't know what he'd done with his form at the end there, but oh, God had it felt good.

So I couldn't complain about it being my last time before dying...but I guess it just made me sad that it might be his, for the next century or three, and it hadn't made him happy.

Good thing I knew what would, though—I cleaned myself up, then grabbed all of my notes about Nolan and took them out to my living room, to plan a murder-night.

"And so he does the same thing every evening after practice?" Sylas asked, after I explained my new plan—wait in the bar where I was sure Nolan would wind up, slow down time, kidnap him, and take him someplace quiet for torturing.

"Yeah, like clockwork," I said with a nod. In my pre-Sylas world I was going to shoot Nolan from a safe distance in the bar's parking lot, but now we needed to keep him alive some, to figure out what the fuck was going on with Ella.

"That's not very wise of him."

I snorted. "He's never had to fear anything, ever before. And he's—huge," I said, with a wince .

Sylas considered this, with a nod. "And is there nothing about the other boy? The handsome one?" The way he said it, I knew he was making fun of me, so I rolled my eyes as I pulled out my phone, scrolling through the most likely webpages.

There was finally something online about Logan. "A car accident?" I snarled—but there was a picture of Logan's huge truck, totally gutted out by fire.

"What?" Sylas snapped, looming over my shoulder at once.

"When you exploded him, Sylas—what'd you do with his belongings? His keys?"

Sylas flowed up at once to start pacing, which for him meant zooming back and forth in my small living room. "I do not recall."

I made a sound of pure frustration. "You probably flung them three blocks over, then someone found them, took his stupid truck for a joyride, crashed it, and now they've—I don't know. Got the wrong body or something." I couldn't very well hop onto a public forum and tell them to try to match dental records—or to go to his tutor's house to pick human flesh out of her lawn. "Fuck!" I shouted, and then I looked up.

If I thought I was pissed—Sylas was very, very much more so. He was glowering in a way, like if I saw him in a store, I would not only run out of the store, I would leave the goddamned state.

"Tonight's death will have to be ten times more memorable," he said, sinking back down to be beside me. "Show me what structures are nearby," he said, and I switched to street view on a map.

Three hours later, we were in my Fiat, driving out to Nolan's favorite bar to scope out the parking lot.

"This vehicle doesn't leave a lot of room for company," Sylas said, looking around inside.

"Usually renting a van to do murders is a bad idea, but yeah, you have a point." The sun had fallen, Nolan's practice would be done soon, and I didn't have a back-up plan for snagging him—he was the RRP I had the least amount of information on, because he scared me the most.

"You have me," Sylas said, like he was reading my mind. I glared at him, then noticed how tense I was, my hands white-knuckle wrapped around the steering wheel.

I didn't see any other familiar cars present, just the normal mishmash of rides, some too nice to be believed—kids who'd gotten Teslas from their parents for their sixteenth birthdays—and other beater cars that had pieces of them zip-tied on. Alcohol was the great equalizer in the current equation—Swords and Daggers was the bar closest to campus. Their logo was the three of swords from a tarot deck, and the rumor was the owner had an in with the state so they didn't closely card.

"What did he do to you?" Sylas asked.

"Yelled at my grandma."

"I thought you didn't have a grandmother?"

"I thought I told you not to ask." I kept my gaze straight at the parking lot's only entrance, but I could still feel Sylas's gaze.

"But what if I need to know? To break Ella's curse?"

I whirled on him. "You don't. Trust me. Things overlap, but they're not directly correlated, okay? I'm certain of it. "

"Mina," he said, darker than the growing shadows inside my car.

"Goddammit it, Sylas! I thought you had to do what I said? And I said not to ask!" I shouted, as he went terrifically still in front of me.

"Do not turn around."

Of course after he said it, I had to—and Nolan was there, all six-four of him, grabbing his crotch and shaking it with his hand.

I heard the sound of him unzipping in my nightmares—closely followed by the memory of my squeals of agony.

"Couldn't get enough?" he asked, giving me a shit-eating grin, right before spitting his dark chew on my window's glass.

I wanted to run, hide, or spontaneously combust.

"Sylas—Sylas please, do your thing," I said, feeling my throat start to close shut.

"I need more time," he said, and the bottom dropped out of my stomach. "He is warded, with the same magic that controls your friend. I need to perceive all of the magic surrounding him, before I may act."

Nolan leaned over and made my whole small car rock with his hands, before kicking the door and making me shriek. I could feel Sylas seething, but I just wanted to collapse into a shuddering heap.

And then Nolan leaned over, putting his hands on my window, on either side of his dripping chaw. "You know I still jerk off sometimes, thinking about the way we—" he said, but then he didn't finish his words.

"I know enough," Sylas hissed, sweeping by me in a rush—and a second later, Nolan's eyes were wide.

He was screaming, but his mouth was sewn shut .

I had no idea when it'd happened, Sylas must've slowed time without me noticing, but there were precise, almost surgical stitches, all across Nolan's lips, like embroidery—and I realized the thread was the same color as my hair.

Nolan dropped to his knees, suddenly, cupping his crotch again. "He seems particularly vulnerable there, no?" my Nightmare asked of me. "Open your passenger door, my queen."

I lunged across the car to do as I was told, and a struggling Nolan was transported into my car almost immediately, covered in a swirl of smoke and shadow, like a cocoon he couldn't break free from. He twitched and twisted, and he was still screaming, but Sylas had him contained.

He couldn't hurt me again.

"Please drive to the football field, like we had planned," Sylas suggested, like we were going on a picnic, and I didn't question a thing—I started my car and threw it into drive.

Fifteen minutes later, I was walking besides an immobilized Nolan, who was...floating was probably the best verb for it, although he kept spasming in a herky-jerky fashion inside a blanket of fog, as Sylas propelled him along. I didn't know if he was still fighting, or if Sylas was doing something to him, but he'd stopped shouting at least, and Sylas put him down beside the cushioned bottom of a field goal.

"As for what comes next," Sylas said, forming his body separately again, standing in front of me. "You don't have to listen to this, my queen. In fact, I think I'd prefer it if you went back inside your car. "

I hugged myself. I wanted that too—but Sylas didn't know this time period like I did, or have any background on the RRP. "I'm staying."

"As you wish," Sylas said, then reached forward and ripped the binding across Nolan's mouth open with a claw.

"HELP!" Nolan screamed. "HELP ME!"

His shouts reverberated over the field and went unanswered.

"I'm going to ask you several questions now, human," Sylas said, conversationally. "And now is the time to be honest, because while I can guarantee you will not survive the night, you still have many paths to get to your doom."

"THEY'LL KNOW YOU TOOK ME!" Nolan shouted at us both, with full force. He was bleeding from the many holes on his lips, and he pissed himself, a wet stain leaking out around the same region he'd grabbed less than an hour ago.

"Who?" Sylas asked, with eternal-seeming calmness.

Nolan finally came back into himself again then to realize his situation. He was panting, and his eyes were wide. "I'm not telling you shit!"

Sylas looked to me. "My queen, which of his arms is the one he used earlier to gesture rudely?"

I blinked and thought back. "His right."

Sylas nodded, and made a circle in the air, on Nolan's right-hand side. "I'm going to put your arm into that hole there," he announced, and I tilted my head so I could see through it, a dinner plate's worth of darkness hovering in space. "On the other side is a cadre of ravenous beasts that will eat anything I give to them. The problem for you is that their mouths are very small and their teeth aren't very sharp. It will probably take them a thousand bites to get up to your elbow. I promise you will feel each and every one, and then when they shit your essence out the other side I will gather it up and feed it to you. Or, you may choose to answer me."

Sylas said everything so matter-of-factly it made my jaw drop.

"I'm protected!" Nolan shouted—which was an answer, of sorts.

Sylas moved an arm, just to telegraph what was coming, I realized, because he could've done it invisibly too, and Nolan's right arm rose like it had puppet-strings attached to it.

"Are you so certain?" Sylas taunted him, and I realized he would be taking his time with Nolan, just because he could—he didn't feel the need to act as purely as I did.

"What the fuck did you do to Ella!" I shrieked, rushing up to shove Nolan's hand higher, putting his fingers into the interdimensional hole.

Nolan started screaming right after, and I yanked his hand back, finding all of his fingertips bitten down into stumps.

"No—NO!" he howled—and I remembered asking for help, too, when I had needed it, and not getting any, and it helped to harden my heart.

"Fuck you!" I shouted back at him, and spit on his bleeding fingers. "What did you do to Ella!"

"We needed her!" he said, his knees buckling, as he faded into snotty sobs. "Okay? It's why Trent was with you. We needed someone pure—and you sure as fuck weren't."

I planted a boot into his chest, knocking him backwards. "How do we stop it?"

"You can't," he said, and his sobs turned into harsh laughter. "There's powers at large here—the golden wolf—you came as close as it'd been to being stopped in a century—but we were still stronger."

Sylas came to my side. "He's going into shock."

"That hardly seems fair."

"I have ways of regaining his attention," he said, creating another circle with his hand, showing off another darkened disc. "Shall I press this one against your genitals?"

Nolan's eyes went wider still, as he dredged fresh adrenaline up from somewhere. "No!"

"Then tell me everything about your magic that you know. Now," he demanded.

Nolan looked at me, his mouth opened—and then the two of them disappeared.

"What—the—" I sputtered—then I clenched my fists at my side and shouted, "Fuck!"

My anger echoed down the empty field—then I heard the screeching of revved engines nearing, closely followed by braking tires.

My mouth went dry. "Sylas?"

More tires, and now doors slamming, and men shouting to one another.

I felt how a fox must feel during a foxhunt, and I had already felt that way once before.

I bit back a scream and turned to run.