Agatha notices my hesitation to walk forward, so she pokes my back with something sharp. “One wrong move and this goes in your arm. I’ll let you piss your pants while you go back to that cottage!”
I inhale sharply and smile.
This is the exact position I needed her to put me in. My wrist wiggles under the leather, swelling up my hand from the pressure.
“I understand,Absinthe.”
I know Sapphire and I silently agreed not to let them know we know their true identities. We can’t be sure how that will affect the future. But the whimpers of the woman I’ve known my entire life seep through the cracks of these old, condemned walls. And this is the only plan I have.
A stillness takes the old woman behind me. As I turn to peer back at her, I see that hunched frame stiffen. Unnatural, like a marionette without strings. Her pinched mouth goes slack the way a bell goes silent after its last toll. And as the air lets out past her lips, so does an appalled hiss.
“What did you just call me, Boy?”
That powdered, preserved face wrinkles in the light from the open basement door.
“Are you deaf or just stupid, Absinthe?” I jerk the chain she holds like a leash, whipping it to knock the syringe out of her hand. “Did you really think I haven’t known who you were this entire time?”
Absinthe shrieks from the snapping of chains across her knuckles, holding her hand to her chest as if she’s just been bit by a dog. She takes three steps away from me. I might as well be waving around a knife.
“Who sent you, Boy?”
I just laugh. “If I tell you, will you show mercy on me?”
“I might.” She lifts that pointed chin.
I smile as I remember she is a highly religious woman. In fact, Aunt Skylenna told us about Sapphire’s father splitting a persecuting alter, based on Absinthe who inflicted religious torture on them.
“Abaddon sent me.”
There’s a dense pause.
“Abaddon,” she repeats in a low whisper.
“Yes.”
Abaddon. The angel of the bottomless pit. King over the locusts. A holy tormentor of God sent to target those left behind in Revelation. He is unleashed during the fifth trumpet to make the unrepentant wish they were dead for five months with his army of entities described as warhorses with human faces, lion’s teeth, and scorpion tails.
And I know Absinthe knows of this part of the Bible.
“God sees all, Absinthe. He sees those who use his name to inflict pain on the innocent.”
The old hag’s eyes dart across the room, searching to explain her horrific ways. And I fight to hide my surprised smile. She’s actually buying it. The pious hag is digesting the possibility of an old, powerful angel sending me to be her undoing.
“I am a loyal servant of God! His right hand!” she justifies with a huff. “Youth need to be punished and treated for their wickedness. Children are born evil, and it’s my divine destiny to beat it out of them!”
I sigh. “And with that logic, youwillgo to hell.”
The peeling of skin is horrendous. I grunt as I pull my right hand the rest of the way through my restraint. A wet trickle lubricates the exit, but still, that flesh curls as it’s skinned from my hand.
Absinthe’s neck is squishy and fragile under my hold as I lift her off her feet. Her penny loafers dangle just above the ground. I grit my teeth and watch her struggle to breathe, swatting at my arm to drop her.
“I’d kill you here if your punishment in the future wasn’t so satisfying,” I growl.
Dessin broke her back and paralyzed her when he saved Aunt Skylenna. Then many years later, Aunt Skylenna hunted her down and burned her at a stake next to her grandson.
The back of Absinthe’s head smacks against the stone wall after throwing her light body away from me. I don’t have time to inflict the pain that would make me feel better after what she did to fuck with my head. I’ve never experienced Mind Phantoms before, but I used to defend their concept as my birth father used them to get ahead in war.
Now, I can’t imagine who could ever sanction something so horrific.
