by Deanna Chase
He squared his shoulders. “Bubba brought Kem home last night.”
Hearing that was like taking a punch to the gut. My mouth turned down.
“We’re gonna prepare the body and have a funeral.” He gripped my shoulder, then turned and left.
I sank onto my bed and stared with unseeing eyes out the window. I didn’t move. I sat until the sun disappeared behind the thicket of trees.
And as each minute, each hour ticked by I grew more and more upset. It gnawed away at me. Pestilence seemed to like the anger more than Lust. He goaded me, spurred me on.
Go kill her. He told me. Kill her. Look what she did to you. She doesn’t deserve to live.
My breathing grew heavy. I jumped to my feet, got dressed and ported. My booted feet pounded the deserted sidewalk of downtown. And with each step my rage mounted, twisted into an ugly, horrible thing.
I got to 666 Elm and snarled. I should have seen the clues. Trust no one.
I wrapped myself in glamour and ported inside. Silent, I moved up the stairs. The only sounds in the house were the constant tick tock of the wall clock. I maneuvered my way around the maze of boxes lining the upstairs hallway.
There were four doors, all closed. It was cold up here. Freezing. I turned to look at the closed door on my left. The hairs on my arm stood up. When I breathed steam curled from my lips.
Then suddenly it all made sense. Pestilence knew what I had not. The cold I’d felt the first night I’d visited Grace was a portal. A doorway between this realm and Hell. The clue had been under my nose all along, I’d just failed to recognize it.
She’d been the one slipping LCD into downtown. Grace had bought the home, not because she needed a soft bed to sleep on, but because she needed a safeguard for the gateway. Which made me wonder all over again whose eyes had been watching me? What had been watching me? What had she been planning? What was she still planning?
And now because of the presence of Pestilence within me, the proximity of the portal no longer affected me. Did this mean I was more demon than human now? Angrily I shoved that thought away. I’d worry about that some other day. Not now.
I narrowed my eyes. Hanging from one of the doors was a purple and teal mumu.
Pestilence smirked. Blood. Blood. He coo’d.
I licked my lips and pulled a knife out of my pocket. “Everywhere,” I trilled, finishing his song. He wanted blood and tonight I would grant his request.
I opened the door with the mumu and a long slow grin spread across my face. There she lay, in the middle of the bed, one hand flung over eyes, the other clutching a rosary.
I glided to the side of the bed. Blue liquid drops of moonlight kissed her temple and highlighted the gray strands of hair.
“You liar,” I hissed, loud enough that she should have woken up.
A gentle snore fell from parted lips.
“Wake up and face me,” I said through clenched teeth. I wouldn’t kill her like some coward in her sleep. I was going to stick the knife through her heart and make her watch while I did it.
“Wake up,” I yelled it this time, grabbed her shoulders and shook her violently. Her head lolled from side to side, but still her eyes didn’t open.
What was this? She was breathing. She was alive.
A crystalline pulse of power shivered down my spine. I twirled and saw a black blob of dancing shadow shape and form itself until it stood before me.
“Pandora,” the Gray Man said, and I knew what he’d done.
He’d placed her in a catatonic state.
“Why?” I screamed, throwing my knife to the ground. “How dare you steal my revenge?” Tears blinded my eyes, I swiped them away. “You show me that tape and expect me not to come? Stay out of my life.”
I was breathing so heavy I shook with it.
“There is the prophecy to learn. You cannot kill her. Not yet. She has to believe that she’s failed and you know nothing. You must continue to work with her.” The deep timbre of his voice shivered across my flesh.
“I could care less about some stupid prophecy. You think I owe you a thing just because you saved my life?”
He glided forward and as he moved the pressure in the room grew thick and heavy. It crushed me against the wall, so that it felt like unyielding hands pinning me by the waist. Paintings Grace hadn’t yet packed crashed down around us.
“You should care. Don’t delude yourself into thinking that this has nothing to do with you. It has everything to do with you.” His words were vicious barbs.
I tried to fight back, force my will against his. But he was too strong. “I don’t care anymore. She can kill me. I don’t care.”
“No she can’t,” he growled, and again I saw a burning glow of amber burn bright within the hood. “I won’t let her kill you.”
I laughed and the sound was caustic to my ears. “For all I know you’re going to try to kill me too. Oh wait, you already tried once. Who are you?” I balled my hands into fists. “You’re no angel, I know that.”
I could feel his anger; it lifted the fine hairs on my arms and the back of my neck.
After a lengthy pause he finally said, “Who I am doesn’t matter. What I know does.”
“What do you know? Tell me. Did you know she was going to make me turn against one of mine? Did you know the order planned this whole charade? Just what do you know?”
“We must learn about the prophecy. You will help me.”
I chuckled. “Kill me, Gray Man. If you think threats will work, think again. I’m dead inside. I’ve got nothing left to lose.”
He moved closer, so close his faceless body hovered inches from mine. I stared into a yawning chasm of shadow and twin dots of burning light. The power emanating from him rolled through the house like thunder.
“If you think losing that boy is the worst it can get, then you’re sorely mistaken.” The gravel quality of his voice rubbed against my body like sandpaper.
My nostrils flared and what I felt then wasn’t hot anger, but the cold; the kind of cold anger that settles deep and burns brighter. “What do you mean?”
He stepped back and I gasped as the pressure against my body finally eased. I rubbed my aching hips.
“You’re smart. Figure it out.”
I bit the inside of my cheek, suppressing the urge to run over to Grace, straddle her and stab her through the heart until the hurt inside my own stopped.
“Even if I do it, she’ll know. She’ll know I went to Hell and she’ll know I know the truth now. I can’t work with her, everything’s shot.”
“No.” He shook his head. “When you leave I will seal the portal. She’ll have no way of contacting Chaos or Wrath. The truth will remain with us.”
Hissing, I narrowed my eyes. “How do you know about Chaos? Were you there? Did you know she was planning this?”
He was silent so long I thought maybe he’d refuse to answer. “I suspected for a while now that she was working outside of the order’s directives.”
Outside of the order’s… my thoughts took a swift detour. “What a second? Are you saying she’s rogue?”
His silence spoke volumes.
“Dammit!” I snarled, but the fury soon gave way to laughter. And not because this was funny. It so wasn’t. This was irony in its purest form. She’d set me up. Made me track down a rogue neph when all along she was the double agent.
“So the order has no clue what they’re little miss sunshine is up to? How the hell does this happen?”
“That’s what we’re going to find out. But to do it, we have to work together.”
It all sounded so easy. “Yeah, and what do you get out of this? And don’t lie, because we both know this isn’t altruism on your part.”
“I could tell you many things, Pandora. But you’re too smart to believe any of them. You have a partner in this.”
I snorted. “Partner. Yeah. Weren’t you the one telling me to trust no one? You’ve also tried to kill me, so you tell me… why should I tru
st you?”
“Because I can be your greatest ally, or your worst enemy. The choice is yours.”
Shaking my head with disgust I stared at the shadow swathed figure, mentally running through many different scenarios. Why I should and shouldn’t trust him. I barely trusted Luc at times, now here was a creature that I didn’t know, one so powerful I couldn’t afford to make my enemy telling me to pick him.
“So you’re telling me you have my nuts in my vice and if I don’t chose you you’ll chop them off, that it?”
This time there would be no answer from him. The infinite black depths that was the mysterious gray man stared back at me.
“You make me sick.” Swiping up my knife, I walked away, not bothering to look back. To hell with all of them.
There was only one person left in the world who’d I’d die for. And though it was only one, his was a life I would never gamble. It wasn’t worth it. I’d fight with the gray man if that’s what it took to take Grace down, but I was a demon too. If he screwed me, I’d use every weapon in my arsenal to bring him down with her.
I ported back to the carnival. The machines had been taken down already. Aside from a few winking trailer lights, it was dark. A blood red moon hung heavy in the sky.
I kicked at a rock with the toe of my boot and watched it skip across the blades of grass.
I glanced at Luc’s trailer and looked away. I didn’t want to go there. I hugged my arms to my chest, never feeling as alone as I did right then. What was I gonna do?
“Pandora?” Vyxyn’s soft voice cut through my melancholy.
Her hair was powder blue and caught up in a short ponytail. She was dressed in a Hello Kitty tank and shorts sleep set. She looked ready for bed. I wondered if she’d been looking out her window waiting for my return.
“I know I always give you crap,” she said, “but mostly it was because I always thought you too weak.”
I snorted and glanced away. Like that was a shock.
She touched my shoulder. “I never thought you’d kill Kemen.” She said it with respect, and a touch of awe. As if she was seeing me for the first time.
“How dare you?” I slapped her hand away, lashing out at her with all my bottled frustration. “I loved him. I didn’t kill him for fun. Screw you.”
I shoved past her and ran with no destination in mind. In Vyx’s own way she’d tried to show me respect, make an apology and any other time I would have been able to understand that. But not now. Not while my heart still bled and grieved for a man I’d never see, never hold again.
I’d loved Kemen. He’d been family in every sense of the word. Blood or not, I’d loved him. Everybody else had put up with him. But to me, he’d been special. Perfect.
I stopped, suddenly realizing where I was headed. I stood in front of his silver bullet trailer. My hand trembled as I pushed open his door.
His clothes still lay in piles. Video games and equipment scattered all over the place. On the table sat the wire, it didn’t look like he’d even touched it after our talk yesterday.
Had it only been yesterday morning since I’d last seen his smiling face?
Walking over to one of the piles of clothes, I grabbed a t-shirt and pulled it on. It smelled like him. Deep and masculine, I breathed it in.
I still felt him. So alive. In this place. All around. Everywhere I looked, I saw him. It helped.
I moved to his bedroom. Lying on the carpet atop his pile of books was my guitar. I’d forgotten to take it home the other night.
Grabbing it, I sat down cross-legged on the bed and started tuning, tightening the metal strings until they rang clean and pure.
I plucked at the strings, following the melody where it led and I found myself back at the song I’d sang the night I’d first met the priest.
My voice cracked, and many times I had to stop. But I forced myself to finish it, not because I wanted to play the part of the martyr. No, I did this for one reason.
Because I couldn’t go to the funeral and this was my way of saying goodbye.
The last note hung in the air like a delicate strand of spider silk. I hugged the guitar to me and the last tear I would cry for Kemen tracked slowly down my cheek.
Grace had made the biggest mistake of her life screwing with me and someday she’d live to regret it.
“I love you, Sandman. I promise. I’ll make them all pay.”
Finis: The End is just the Beginning
Outside, shadow is slinking. I feel like something is watching me, stalking me… my hand is trembling as I try to jot this down. There are only so many places I can hide, eventually they will find me. I can only hope that it will not happen until I tell the whole story. You see what Grace did, Wrath luring me into Hell… that’s nothing compared to the rest of my story. The zombies… my God, what I found there. What he did to me there, who the Gray Man really is… there is so much more to say, to write, but I think I hear something, it’s closer now. I have to go. But just know this, this story is far from over…
Acknowledgements
To my street team because they’re really awesome and I would be nothing without readers like you guys. But also to my betas, specifically Gaele, Ginger, Joselyn, and Cristina you ladies are really special and awesome and should be given crowns of gold and diamonds. To Leanna the Awesomeness, because I told you I would do it. To my fantastic editor, Judy at Judicious Revisions, so glad I found ya! To the best assistant ever, Grace, you are worth your weight in gold and then some. And to everyone else who’s read the advanced copy and given me reviews on Goodreads already, thank you. Seriously, a writer is nothing without you guys to spread the word about our books.
Finally, to someone who’s meant so much to me and who suffered such a terrible tragedy a few months back… Daryl Dixon, you did the right thing when you killed Merle. I know he was your brother and all, but the whole zombie thing… yeah, he would have definitely eaten your brains. Although the number of times you stabbed him was quite possibly overkill, I still salute you and am looking forward to the next season premier of The Walking Dead and should you need to film an episode where a writer gets it, I’m your gal. Just sayin…
Author’s Note
I wrote this story years ago and decided long ago, I wasn’t going to publish it. It was just supposed to be a book I wrote that broke all the rules. Like breaking down the third wall and having Pandora speak directly to you, the audience. At the time I wrote this, first person narration was very unpopular, so I’m actually quite surprised to be publishing this now. But it felt right to do it. Pandora is as special to me as Danika has become with my Kingdom Series. While I know I explored some themes in here that feel uncomfortable, when I put myself in a demon’s shoes I realized their world was definitely not pretty or even at times palatable. Trying to make sense of a character that definitely has the ability for evil isn’t an easy one to write about, at least not and have the audience still root for them. But that’s what I find so intriguing about all of them. The choices they’ll make, whether for good or bad, is what makes these monsters who they are and I want to tell their story. So this is me, just saying thank you for giving my bad little demon a chance… and I’m super stoked to be writing about zombies in the next book. Seriously, I love me some zombies!
About Marie Hall
Marie loves books that make you think, or feel something. Preferably both. And while she’s a total girly girl and loves glitter and rainbows, she’s just as happy when she’s writing about the dark underbelly of society. Well, if things like zombies, and vampires, and werewolves, and mermaids existed. (Although she has it on good authority that mermaids do in fact exist, because the internet told her so.)
She’s married to the love of her life, a sexy beast of a caveman who likes to refer to himself as Big Hunk. She has two awesome kids, lives in Hawaii, loves cooking and occasionally has been known to crochet. She also really loves talking about herself in the third person.
If you’d like to know more about Mari
e then you can contact her at [email protected] Or, if you’d like to check out her latest offerings go to mariehallwrites.com or mariehallwrites.blogspot.com. If you just want to stop by and say hi, she has a Facebook page and a twitter handle @mariehallwrites, also if you’re interested in really getting to know her and maybe winning some cool prizes from the contests she runs throughout the year, sign up for her newsletter and if you still can’t find ways to contact her then I don’t know what else to do. She does have a pinterest page, but hey… that stuff is kinda boring, just Marie being goofy and posting sexy pics of her couples and nails and food stuff… totally boring.
Also, she reads any and all emails and you’ll get a response from her, so if you don’t want to go public, she’s cool with that. Slip her a note on the low low and she promises not to blast your thang all around the net. And if you liked the book, leave a review. Please, those things are like gold in her world. Helps other readers to know this book might actually be worth reading.
Marie Hall Books
Kingdom Series (Fairytale Romance)
Her Mad Hatter (Free everywhere! Book 1 based on Alice and the Mad Hatter)
Gerard’s Beauty (Book 2 based on Beauty and the Beast)
Red and Her Wolf (Book 3 based on Little Red Riding Hood)
The Kingdom Collection (Books 1-3 with bonus deleted scenes)
Jinni’s Wish (Book 4, based on Arabian Nights)
Hook’s Pan (Book 5, Based on Peter Pan)
Danika’s Surprise (Book 5.5, novelette and first introduction to the upcoming Dark Princess Series)
Moments Series (NA Contemporary Romance)
A Moment, Book 1 (Ryan and Liliana’s Story)
Right Now, Book 2 (Alex and Zoe’s Story) Coming Sept. 15!
Night Series
Crimson Night- Urban Fantasy (Book 1)
All Hallows Eve- Urban Fantasy (Book 2): Coming Soon
Eternal Lover’s Series
Death’s Lover (Book 1) From Grand Central—Forever Yours—Publishing
Previously published under the title The Witching Hour