A group of growlings, who loved the sound of gurgling brooks and running water, rushed over and crouched over the shill to hear his last bloody breaths.
Jagger loomed over me. His skin was still pearly gray from the Furtig. His expression was filled with the same pleasure he always got after killing and watching others kill.
He gripped his obsidian knife beneath his long, large-knuckled fingers and slashed the blade across the side of my neck. The sting burned, and warm, wet blood dripped down my skin.
The hall was still and silent.
Jagger dragged his dull claw over my neck and collected the welling blood in the curved groove of his nail. His gray lips pulled back in a warning grin, and then he sipped my blood.
He let the taste of it linger on his tongue. He let it tell him all my secrets.
A Ward.
A lockpick.
But more . . . a mine.
This was the ritual that always took place when a nine became a mine.
There was a party, a feast, a trial, and then Jagger would taste his mine’s blood. If the nine had made the transition, they would taste “right.”
If the nine hadn’t transitioned properly, they would taste “wrong.”
Perhaps “right” tasted like a vacant house, cleared out and full of evil and wrongdoing.
Perhaps “wrong” tasted like a lived-in home, still full of furniture, photographs, and memories of love.
I don’t know. I don’t know what Jagger tasted when he decided whether to keep or kill.
I only know that after letting my blood linger on his tongue, licking his lips and tilting his head as if he were tasting an aged bottle of Furtig, Jagger smiled cruelly and said in his loud, rockslide voice, “She’s mine.”
There was a violent roaring. I don’t know if it was cheering or if it was a roaring in my ears. A sealing of a bargain struck when I was only four years old. I don’t know.
I only know Jagger nodded to Justice and said with a hint of distaste, “Kill him, if you like. It was a gift. It will make your life easier if he’s dead.”
I nodded, my blood burning, my skin ice-cold. “Perhaps.”
I kept my gaze on Jagger, although I could see Griff behind him, watching with huge, frightened eyes. Was I the boogeyman in his basement now?
Jagger smiled as if he could read my thoughts. “I think you liked hurting him.”
“I did,” I agreed, because Jagger’s blood had made it so I would.
“You’ll like killing him too.”
“I would,” I agreed again, “but . . .” I stared down at the blood covering Justice, and the angry red bruise now purpling and swelling on his head. “As you once said, why kill someone when you can use them? I think . . . I’d rather use him.”
Jagger let out a surprised avalanche laugh. While he laughed, he rifled through me and didn’t find anything but cold, hard resolve.
“He’s mine to use, Mari. Mine to give. Mine to destroy. If you don’t want my gift, I’ll take it back.”
Before I had time to react, Jagger grabbed the knife from me and slammed it into Justice’s chest. The knife struck with a loud, violent thud.
It was a battle. It was a war not to cry out. Not to have any reaction.
Griff screamed. It was the wild howl of his dad. The frightening, ear-splitting shriek of the Jersey Devil. The creatures who’d been watching Jagger with hungry bloodlust went wild.
No one but me, Griff, and Rou had liked Justice. Everyone else feared him, and fear never bred like. They delighted in his death.
