Prologue
Abe Walker
The full moonhung in the starry sky directly above my head, and I sat back on my heels to howl at it. My voice echoed and carried far into the forest-shrouded distance, sending a thrill deep into my stomach. I wanted someone to come find me. An answer to my insanity would be bliss. Twisted bony fingers of branches grasped toward the center of the meadow I presently called home, deep in the woods near Walker Estate. The last of the autumn leaves clung stubbornly as the tree limbs swayed and creaked like ghostly voices I could never quite make out.
“I’m a wolf.” I laughed, and the heat from the fire at my back was a soothing contradiction to the ice-cold dew from the grass on my naked knees. Nearby the small fire flickered in the pit I’d dug for it. Next to the gentle warmth, Ian sobbed. He was a sweetheart, and he tasted sweet, too. I licked my lips and the tang of his blood coated my mouth. The black hair on his forehead was matted with dirt and leaves from when he’d tried to run away from me, and his lightly muscled body was covered in blood and bruises. Even though he wore no clothes, I wouldn’t call him nude. He was clothed in my handiwork, the same as whores in bygone ages who wore veils to tease men closer and hide their shame.
“Please let me go, Abe. Please.”
“Begging is boring.” I tapped the knife on my naked thigh, then let the blade rest on my skin. Cold metal against my flesh always got me excited. “Then what? You’ll tell on me?” We’d graduated high school together last spring, and neither one of us had made it out of Slatelick. We were go-nowhere losers, but at least I had dreams, and I wouldn’t let him squash them. I was going to be a cop. I licked the flat side of the blade and shuddered in pleasure as I got another taste of him.
He shook his head frantically, but I knew hewouldtell.
When I’d ripped out a chunk of his hair to keep, Troy Adley had told on me in the sixth grade, and he’d promised he wouldn’t, too. He’d whispered he wouldn’t tellanyonewhen I said I wanted to bounce his head off the wall in the coat closet until I saw brains. He’d begged for mercy—and then he’d lied. My father and mother had to pay his parents money. Afterward, they’d gone away and left me with Gran. They’d been scared, but she wasn’t.
She was a good woman. The best woman. The only person I loved.
“Fine,” I said with a smile and crawled across the ground to Ian. He shrank away from me, his shocking violet eyes too wide. They were what had drawn me to him. That’s what I’d wanted from him, really—attention. I’d wanted those eyes on me. I wanted them open when I drove my knife into his body. I craved his pain. He was weak because we’d been out here in the forest for days. He’d told his parents he was going camping with his cousins and had snuck away with me instead.
The first night I’d had him until my body wouldn’t pump any more cum. I’d broken his legs the second night. Both of his arms the third night. Destroyed him bit by bit, piece by piece. And tonight was the thirteenth night. The day seemed momentous somehow, even though I hadn’t planned it, especially with the full moon’s beams blessing my good work.
I licked my knife again, tasting old blood mixed with the new and cherishing the unique flavor of Ian—a special metallic tang that would never be in this world again after tonight.
His eyes widened.
I lunged forward and dug the blade into his face near the corner of his nose. He screamed as I meticulously gouged out one precious eye, working with precision so I could remember this occasion forever. I’d never had anything this good. Never been so hard. It almost felt like love as I worked my blade around his eye socket. When I held the squishy orb in my blood-spattered hand, I was fascinated by the jiggle. Ian sobbed weakly on the ground but didn’t try to get up—probably couldn’t.
“Oh, I wondered what I smelled out here,” a deep and terrible voice said, and the words boomed around the meadow. The orange glow of the campfire didn’t reveal anyone as I gazed around wildly.
I jumped to my feet, and laughter rang inside my skull rather than outside it. I stared across the flickering flames toward the shadows of the old trees and stumbled back with a gasp, heart hammering in a terror I’d never felt in my life. Gradually the fear bled away as the creature didn’t attack. The skeletal horror seemed like a ghost. A vicious, wonderful ghost. Muscles were still intact on its abdomen, strung with rotting flesh to bone. The abomination advanced closer, Death himself, and when it was towering over me, it cocked its head to the side.
“You’re fucking foul.” It took a deep sniff.
“Yeah,” I said with a laugh. I couldn’t decide if what I was seeing was real or not, and since it wasn’t hurting me, I shrugged and crept back toward Ian. “I’m going to rip him apart. I’ve never done that. I want to. Wanna tear his arms and legs right off his body.”
Ian sobbed and curled in on himself.
“It’ll be beautiful. I brought my axe.”
Looming over Ian, I tried to decide what part of him I wanted to hack off first. As I dropped to my knees, he rolled and lunged, clawing at my face despite his injuries. I shoved at him, and he screamed while he tried to maul me, digging a ragged fingernail into the skin of my right cheek and dragging it down. The pain had me growling. Punching hard, I slammed his head against the ground and shattered the empty eye socket. He went still and his chest rose and fell far too quickly. Maybe he was dying.
“Fuck.”
“Would you like the strength to do that on your own? Rend him limb from limb? Use your bare hands to make him nothing more than meat?” The masculine voice whispering in my ear was pretty, and my cock stirred in a way it hadn’t, really, for Ian. This thing… thisdemonwas a fucking poet.
“Yes.” I shuddered, and my cock filled and pointed toward my naked abdomen. I let out a ragged breath.
“If you share with me”—I swore I felt a flash of heat caress down my stomach and send tingles over my cockhead—“I’ll lend you my strength.”
“You want to help hack him apart?” I asked hopefully, almost swooning. No one had ever said anything like this to me. I shuddered and nearly came. The fire crackled happily. I still wasn’t sure whether or not I was imagining all this.
“Only if you agree to share with me. I’m electricity, and you’re my tool,” he murmured in my ear, and heat settled firmly onto my shoulders. “Do you swear to allow me use of your body? Thirteen days will be mine. On the thirteenth day, sunset to sunset will be yours. I’ll even grant you the nighttime that follows. Then, we begin anew as the sun crests the horizon. That’s the cycle and bargain I offer.”
“And if I agree… I’ll have the power to rip apart Ian?” A terrible ecstasy settled into my chest and I closed my eyes.
“Your body will have more strength than your sanity can handle,” he whispered, and there was a dry amusement in his tone that pricked at my brain in warning, but excitement surged through me.
“Yes, yes I want that! I want it! I promise. I agree.” I tossed down the knife and spun around to face the fiend.
