Chapter 42
MADNESS
So, here’s what we’re working with:
Good, now you’re all caught up. Which brings me to spinning around to grab that black king, horror punching a hole through my chest when I realised his sword fell in a deadly trajectory that would slice my lioness’s head from her pretty neck.
I threw myself into a cloud of shadow, racing back to her side, but someone got there first. It was kind of a head fuck to watch Cruelty knock Cat out of the void-sword’s path and throw her arms up, catching the flat of the blade between her palms. She ripped it from the king’s grasp and flipped it in her hand, plunging it all the way through the robed figure.
“Um,” I said, flinging my arms around Cat and pulling her back a few squares, “I think that guy’s already dead.”
They were all dead, and under control of the psycho siblings, but that didn’t stop Cruelty skewering the guy over and over. When she was done, it wasn’t us she pinned with a seething glare, smoke practically coming from her nostrils like an enraged bull. It was Violence.
“Kitty is off limits” she shouted, her voice a strident crack of a whip. “You know that.”
Violence shrugged. “My aim slipped. I meant to harm him.”
When Violence pointed at me, I scoffed. “Bullshit. You were coming for my lioness. Whatsa matter, Violence? Jealous that my girl is your sister’s bestie instead of you? Decided to take out the competition?”
I didn’t really believe that, but the seed planted itself in Cruelty’s mind and she paused, turning over the idea, frowning at her brother.
I caught Death’s attention while he grappled with a Stalker, this one a young guy with massive biceps and a creepy lack of expression on his brown face.
Busy, Death’s answering look insisted. I flicked my stare to where Pain was trapped in a veil of violence.
I expected a nod at least, but Death was a little distracted by a muscular Stalker girl grabbing him from behind.
That was probably why he didn’t warn me about the beefy guy that got me in a headlock.
“Not cool,” I grumbled, throwing my elbow back into the guy’s ribs, spearing madness into his head before I remembered why that was a bad idea.
The agony was so strong my knees gave out and I clutched at my head, unable to contain a wail as the pain only built. I could have sworn Cat snarled in my arms, but I was a little distracted by the fingers that grabbed at my hair, tugging on the strands.
“Hey!” I complained. “Hands off the ‘do. If I go bald, I’m sending you a bill for my hair transplant.”
Cat definitely growled this time, and my chest warmed at her protectiveness of my hair. It was pretty, the colour of burnished flame.
The fingers released my hair abruptly, and I stumbled until I righted myself, grinning at Tor as he drove a sword of torment and death magic through the Stalker’s chest. The guy went down, sprawled over the chess board, but there was no tell-tale feeling of death.
Great, we couldn’t kill these things. Wasn’t that just typical?
“Protect our girl,” I told Tor, bundling my lioness into his arms. I cracked my fingers, assessing the army of Stalkers and chess pieces.
Misery was knocking them off balance long enough to rip out their spines or tear their heads off.
Huh. That was one way to do it. “I’ve got some Stalkers to de-bone like fish. ”
Movement came at the edge of my vision, aiming for Cat and Tor, and I burst into shadow and rage, appearing behind them and grinning when their spinal column came out in one neat piece. The body collapsed to the chessboard in a thud, and I brandished the spine at the next Stalker.1
The girl blinked when the spine slapped her in the face, and I darted forward while she was dazed, shoving my hand, knuckles wrapped in a shadow duster, through her chest to rip out her heart.
“Heads,” I warned, and punted the heart at Violence.
It landed at his shiny feet.2 I would have loved to admire his furious reaction, but we were surrounded, so I became a whirlwind of madness and shadows.
After the third heart surgery, I realised that shoving my hand through their ribs and touching the fragile organ allowed me to infect my signature madness without experiencing agony.
It was downright delightful when they turned on each other, driven to pure insanity.
I stepped out of the path of a massive guy with a neck as thick as a tree trunk and watched him collide with a woman ripped enough to be a bodybuilder. Weird; up close there was an odour of blood and formaldehyde clinging to them. Guess they were still a bit dead, unlike our buddy Orwell.
Speaking of, where the hell was the OG Stalker? He was supposed to back us up in an emergency, and the black-robed bishop who’d taken their hat off and now swung it at Miz definitely qualified as an emergency.
“That is so not pious,” I chided the bishop. “You owe your bestie, God, at least five Hail Marys.”
“Madde!” Death yelled behind me, and I swung around to help him like the superhero vigilante I was. But it wasn’t a call for help, it was a warning.
One of the rooks from the black chess set wrapped its gloved hand around my throat and I croaked as it lifted me off my feet. Violence was behind this; I slid a glare to where the prick sat on his throne, all regal and stuck up.
“I hope the stick rammed up your ass gives you splinters,” I gasped as lights began to dance in the corners of my vision. “Whoa, pretty. Not you,” I told Violence. “The lights.” I fluttered my fingers, tracing the glitter crowding across my vision.
“Madde!” Tor yelled, trying to elbow his way through ten Stalkers, a swell of torment in the air. But our magic had no effect on these super-soldiers, only brute strength.
“I’m fff…”
I meant to say I’m fine, but the rook controlled by Violence grabbed a fistful of my hair, arm still around my throat, and snapped my neck.