“Sounds like something a pedo would say.” Disgust bubbled in my stomach when she pinched the boy’s cheek.
“Children are the best parts of humanity,” she said. “They embody everything you are meant to be.Beforeyou age and sully yourselves. And I don’t relish killing children, but sometimes…” she rested her hand against the kid’s face. Gaudy gold rings glittered on three of her fingers. The ruby jewels on those bands seemed too big to be real. Like costume jewelry.
They glimmered when flames burst from her fingertips.
“No!” I screamed. But it was too late.
The little boy was incinerated. His skin blackened and his eyes melted. Juices seeped from beneath his still-closed lids. He never woke up. And I hoped,prayed, he’d already been too far gone to feel pain. Because, my God, what a horrible way to die.
Bile left a foul, metallic taste in the back of my mouth. “You’re Seruf,” I said. “The Firestarter.”
“Goodness, do they still call me that?‘The Firestarter?’” Seruf emitted a fake, tinny laugh before she opened her arms and dropped the tiny, charred skeleton to the ground.“There. he’ll not have to suffer anymore.”
“You fucking bitch—” I started.
Seruf was suddenly on top of me, one hand stretching toward my face.
“Don’t!” I spat.
But she was too fast. Her (surprisingly cool) fingers brushed my skin in an almost gentle caress. Meanwhile, her other hand grabbed my arm, holding me still with a bruising grip. “The last time I saw you,” her apple-scented breath fanned over my face, “you were barely older than that wretched boy. You were sobeautiful. It’s a pity you had to grow up.”
“Age is a bitch, ain’t it?” My words sounded steady, even as my brain zoomed at warp speed. The last time she’dseen me?I’d never laid eyes on this whacko before.
Seruf cupped my chin. A flash of orange danced at the bottom of my vision as flames erupted from her fingertips again. But the fire did not burn me.
Seruf smiled.“I knew we’d see you again, Adelaide.”
“Seriously, what are you—”
She clamped her hand around my jaw, almost causing me to bite my tongue off when my teeth snapped shut.“Luckily,” she tapped her fingers against my lips, “I saw you dashing through the fire. You would have been killed if I hadn’t been here.”
A movement over her shoulder caught my eye. Another figure slithered through the smoke. It was human-shaped, like the Wraiths, but twice as terrifying. Its neon-yellow eyes radiated through the smog. Greenish skin stretched across its gangly frame. And big ole pointy spikes stuck out from its shoulder blades.
“Isn’t she fortunate, Gabriel?” Seruf turned to beam at the creature.
Gabriel didn’t smile back, thank God. His dagger-sharp pearly whites were freaky enough when hewasn’tsmiling.
“He would’ve slaughtered you,” Seruf continued. “But I stayed his hand.”
Gabriel’s right arm shook. I glanced down as he drew the bleeding appendage behind his back.
There was no hand there.
His left arm had a hand—a gnarled one with long-ass fingernails. The right didn’t.
“You nixed his whole hand?” I blurted.
“It’ll grow back,” Seruf responded brightly. And then she chuckled. “That face… darling, is this the first Fallen you’ve seen?”
Fallen???Fallen from where?Zombieland?
“Oh, it is!” Seruf chirped. “Gabriel, dear, come over here. Let her get a look at you…”
The creature shuffled forward. He looked even fuglier up close. The fluttering light cast dark pools of shadow on the dips in his craggy, pewter-green flesh. He was buck naked too; his junk wobbling lifelessly like a flag on a windless day. And he had a thick layer of angry-looking scars coating his skin.
He was terrifying.
But I pitied the poor bastard.No idea why. Maybe because of the way he walked; hunched over, eyes on the ground. He looked defeated. Depressed.
