The vines holding my ankles were ripped from the ground, releasing me. I reached out to feel for Ronen, but he wasn’t there. It was his shadows, then. The grunts and hisses to my left more than confirmed that.
Safe within his wispy power, I sank to my knees and felt for my father’s neck. It only took me a couple of tries before I found the cool, unprotected skin. I bowed my head when I felt his pulse—faint, but there.
Fire flashed at the edge of my vision, and I whipped my head up. A mangled face with curling horns appeared. He smiled at me, tilting his head while he held an orange fireball. The toothless, black grin made my skin crawl—evil, lifeless, stretching across his glistening,grotesque scars. My Glory moved beneath the surface of my arms, and my Infernus whispered in my ear.
The male stepped toward me and began humming “London Bridge.” The nursery rhyme crawled down my ears and over-pumped my lungs.
Keeping my eyes on the demonic male, I formed two foot-long icicles in my palms and planted myself in front of my father’s body.
“Get back,” I warned.
He tilted his head the other way and took another step. A low growl rumbled behind him. He raised his ball of flame higher, illuminating the scene, and his humming grew louder.
Then the tune sprang up on either side of me, growing closer with each passing second. He was calling his group—to me.
One of his followers appeared on my right. But she wasn’t humming, nor did she wear that creepy smile. Instead, skin molted off her face in a gory mess of red and black. The horns on her head were crumbling, and I swore I saw pain in her eyes.
She snapped her arm out, trying to wrap it around my throat. I easily sidestepped.
“Don’t kill!” the eerie male rasped.
His follower didn’t listen. She unsheathed a dagger and sliced it toward my chest. I dodged, swept her legs, and followed her to the ground, shoving one icicle into her neck and the other into her chest. They were quick, efficient strikes. My mother would be proud.
Mixed blood spurted out, splattering my gloves. Her skin slid away from the puncture at her neck and plopped to the snow, completely detached from the muscles beneath, just like the skin on her face.
“Burn me,” she gurgled, a haunting clarity in her eyes.
I frowned.
“Burn—” She choked on her blood, and her body relaxed.
A sharp squelch, like a sword piercing flesh, cut off one of the hummers. Then another. And another. Their tune quieted with each of Ronen’s kills.
I stood as the demonic male crept closer, ignoring the predator at his back like he was mindless. The infection veining his neck had stripped him of clarity, unlike the dead female at my feet.
With effort, I wreathed my hands in Glory just as Rune materialized from Ronen’s shadows, her teeth dripping with drool. Still, the robotic male ignored her, focusing only on me.
“Goodbye,” I said sweetly.
Rune’s jaw unhinged, opening wider than I’d ever seen. She snapped her mouth around the male’s torso, crushing bone and severing his spine. His chilling tune ended as, in his dimming flame, half his body folded backward, tearing away from his pelvis.
I would never unsee that. Nor unhear the sound of Rune munching on his leftover remains.
More sickening slaps of a blade slicing through flesh echoed through the clearing, until there was nothing left but blissful silence.
I sidestepped the female and sank next to my father. Ronen’s shadows brushed along my face and tickled up my nose—probably checking if I was physically okay—then cleared.
I blinked against the sudden light and found Ronen lowering his blades. I expected to see bodies at his feet, but there was only snow. Even the male I impaled with an icicle was gone. A blot of black substance dotted the ground where he’d been, the same black oozedripping from Rune’s maw and saturating the snow beneath the female. Except hers was more red than black.
Ronen resheathed one of his swords, then strode toward me. His posture was rigid, his gaze fixed on the dead female. He lifted his blade.
“Wait. I was going to burn her.”
I wasn’t sure why. I shouldn’t care about the female who tried to kill me. But the clarity in her gaze made her seem less demonic, and I couldn’t help myself.
He narrowed his eyes. “We can’t take that risk. We don’t know enough about the disease. The blood-banded could cycle with a demonic soul.” Then he cleaved her head from her body. A second later, she dissolved into ash, and his sword absorbed her. “This way she’ll never cycle.”
I sat straighter. No wonder Theon peed himself.
