Page 20 of All Hallows Fate

“You’re undead, and you should know better.”

“I couldn’t help it.” My bottom lip pushed out. “I missed my wife so much, and she tastes so good.” I flicked my tongue at him. “Want to see for yourself?”

Death’s eyes narrowed, a warning I was dancing close to his temper. The chill that rippled through me was enough of a distraction that I didn’t see Miz stomp across the long grasses until he grabbed a fistful of my hair, wrenched my face away from Cat’s, and thrust his tongue down my throat.

It lasted a second, two at the most, but when he released me, my knees had jellied and Cat had to catch me to stop me face planting the ground.

“Mm,” I said, swirling my tongue around my mouth, coming out of the shock. “Tastes like blood and rosewater. Who’s next?” I looked hopefully at Tor, then Pain.

“We’re not kissing you,” Tor huffed, surly as he crossed his arms over his chest. I blew him a kiss because I didn’t want him to get too jealous, which he’d better appreciate because I had to lift a hand off my lioness to do it.

“Guys,” Pain said sharply. “We have a problem. They heard us.”

Colour splashed over Cat’s cheeks as she realised us meant her. She’d been so wonderfully loud, her moans so hypnotic I wanted to feel them on my skin, fill my senses with them, drown out every other noise in the world with the sinful sound of my lioness climaxing over and over and—

“Madde,” Tor snapped.

I lifted my head and found them all several steps ahead, shielding behind a grassy mound to inspect the field and tower below. “Hm? What? Sorry, I was thinking about how pretty our wife sounds when she comes.”

“Do you have any wild ideas about how to handle that?” Miz asked, a little snippy but that was to be expected. You couldn’t survive on one taste of madness. It was an addiction, and he’d already be craving more.1

“Handle…” I peered over the hill and winced. “Right. That.”

The twenty vauns now trudged their way up the hill towards us and the spirits that fixed their milky eyes upon where we hid.

“Let our lioness devour them?” I suggested.

Death gave me an unimpressed look, eyebrows lifted. “Any serious suggestions. We might be able to find a way around to the back of the tower, but that only handles the vauns. The spirits encircle it completely.”

I grinned, a thought striking like a bolt. “Ding!” I said, holding my hand above my head in the place of a lightning bolt. Only Pain snickered, but that’s because everyone else was grumpy and old. Pretty Boy was like me; cool, youthful, exceptionally handsome and dripping with power.

“You have an idea?” Misery asked, not taking his eyes off the vauns as they ascended the hill.

“Fear not, my darling Misery—”

“Not your darling—”

“I created a special army for just this moment.”

Well, I didn’t know it would be this moment, but I knew we’d need them. I sank into my magic, the shudder of insanity blended with the slow coil of death, and crooked a finger. Summoning them. Calling them to me.

Come, come, my beauties.

“A poltergeist army?” Death asked, hope softening the edges of his voice.

“The undead?” Tor guessed, giving me an appreciative glance.

“Better.” I grinned, sweeping out my arm as they burst into the prairie, flowing over the hills and down into the field to unleash themselves upon the encroaching vauns with all the ferocious, ankle-biting energy of goblins. “My babies,” I said proudly.

“Dachshunds,” Cat breathed, her eyes so wide I saw flecks of silver and moon-white in her eyes. “Ghost dachshunds.”

15

Cat

I’d never met anyone so accurately named as Madness. He’d made an army of deceased dachshunds, with long sausage bodies glowing spectrally in the fading light, tiny legs eating up the distance, floating even as they threatened to disappear in the grass. Their mouths were parted with a feral, bottomless hunger I’d only ever seen for a pup cup, but instead of devouring cream, they sank teeth into the antlered vauns who’d turned their attention to us, throats glowing with fire.

“Admit it,” Madde said, nudging Pain. “You’re impressed, all of you.”