She nods, chewing her bottom lip because I just know she’s writing a mental list. Then she absently rubs her stomach like it hurts her. Scythe glances at me. It’s not every day you get to eat a whole human. The Collector was not a big person, but I think it’s the biggest thing my regina has ever eaten. Bones and all.
“Do you need Gaviscon?” I ask. “Tums?”
She waves a hand, but the frown remains, and she rounds us up like sheep back outside. Xander and Lyle are already dressed and Xander’s found our stash of phones, already ordering a bunch of takeaways.
“And Gaviscon!” I shout at him as Aurelia tries to yank a T-shirt over my head the wrong way around. Unfortunately, she gets it in her brain that I also need socks and a scarf for my fake illness.I hatesocks, but I let her tug on the white ones she chooses for me anyway, ignoring Xander’s smirk as I wiggle my toes.
After what seems like forever, we gather in the living room, fresh and clean, with our pizza laid out in front of us and Shrek on the TV.
We all need something harmless tonight.
Chapter 37
Ghoul
The air over The Collector’s property feels…odd.
Aurelia’s friends, their mates and surrogate-mates, gather with the infirm and traumatised captives. Those who aren’t dead or ill are setting the place on fire and destroying it. A mound of guards lies outside the wire gate, their bodies bloodied and marked with hyena witchcraft. If I hadn’t seen it for myself, I wouldn’t have believed the carnage.
There’s a portion of the riverbank blackened and still smoking. Aurelia and her mates are gone, but her scent still lingers in the air along with that strange smell. Some of Aurelia’s friends remain. The powerful tigress Minnie, who sits with the lioness Stacey in her lap. The girl has a bandage over what looks like a gunshot wound to the upper arm. She is staring at someone—the sole remaining guard, chained to a chair with Sabrina watching him closely. She, too, has a bandaged forearm.
The hyena matriarch is also sitting on a chair bound in black chains. There are two Dabu pack hyenas watching over her, but they wander forwards to speak with their regina. I take the chance to dive down and whisper in the old woman’s ear. “I’ve never seen you sotied up.”
She scowls at waist level, determined not to crane her neck to look at me. “I knew you’d be the first to arrive. Are you going to stop them?”
“No.”
“Thought as much.”
“They turned the place upside down, didn’t they?” I muse, watching two ex-slaves throw their silver collars into the river with a cheer. Someone has brought out fire crackers and two go off, reverberating into the night as the freed beasts jump and cackle with glee.
“You meanshedid,” the old woman says. “Aurelia Boneweaver killed Katerina Crocodylus. Gobbled her upwhole.”
“She actually did it, huh,” I deadpan. “She’s become quite the little monster.”
The hyena actually glances at me then, a tiny smirk on her mouth. “You all underestimated her.Mace Naga’sdaughter? Bah! Lot of idiots.”
A feeling like fireworks resounds in my own stomach, and all I can do is sniff the air to feel the residue of her bloodthirsty presence. I take my leave of the ex-queen of hyenas, noting down Hyacinth Dabu, the queen apparent, commanding the area. My shadows are twitchy as we get back into the air, and I open myself up to the plane of things-better-left-untouched. More than a few spirits hover in this area. Some will find the light, but others…
A whisper of menace slides around me, a low moan of discomfort. The Collector’s soul slinks through the air as if looking for a way back to the world of the living. “I’m glad you’re dead,” I say cheerfully. “Feeling alright?” Of course, she has no body with which to feel, so the question is just to pour salt. “You’d better continue on to where you’re called.”
Katerina’s spirit hovers before me, suspicious till the end.“There are screams in there.”
“Yeah.” I shrug. “They do that sometimes.” All the time actually, but I’m not telling her that. She carries on, obsessed with her old property for the moment. She has no body to mourn, so it might take her a while to move on, and Hyacinth Dabu and her mates have made markings all around the property, warding it against malevolent spirits. I’ve got to give her credit; she knows what she’s doing and moves fast.
Exiting the shadow realm, I survey the twin rivers running on either side of the property. There are still crocs in there. It’s likely Katerina’s rex still resides in there with his other animas. I wonder how much he knows. What he’d seen and who’d done it.
I fly lower, wanting to get a look at the rabid croc, rumoured to be a completely changed beast. No one had seen him in his human form for decades. It’s then that I see the mounds of ash dotting the bank like miniature funeral pyres, and what is left of my old, rotten heart quivers.
Chapter 38
Aurelia
Apart of me knows I’m nuts. The other part of me doesn’t care.
It makes me sort of feel better knowing what a treasure haze is like. That Xander was actually aware when he was under it. How much he struggled with control during, I’m not sure, but I sure as hell am giving in to it completely. My soul needs this. And from the way my mates preen under my care, I know they need it too.
I brush Lyle’s dried hair with a specially made lion’s detangling brush. There are knots all through it, and fixing it takes time. She hadn’t even tried being a real regina. She’d just wanted to play at it. Just wanted the power and satisfaction and control of it. Katerina Crocodylus’ flesh churns in my stomach as I sit on the pillows before the TV. I’m going to enjoy every second of digesting her. Destroying her so completely that there is literally nothing left of her existence except her head, which is presently in a plastic bag in a closet where I don’t have to look at it.
