20. （Mission）ary #2
Silver exploded, whipping forward in a stream of punishing wind, and the gust was contained to an impossibly small radius: Sibrain’s face.
An odd slurping rip grew in intensity as the magic blasted his facial skin back in endless ripples.
It slowly tore away. Sibrain opened his mouth to scream.
A chunk of bark detached from the tree and flew into it, grotesquely impaling him.
I inhaled greedily, fresh oxygen flooding my starving lungs as Sibrain finally lost control of his magic and fell to his knees, grunting in pain.
Silver boots stepped silently from the shadows, a dark figure looming above an agonized Sibrain. A glowing hand lowered, long elegant fingers clenching.
“Do thou feel . . . satisfaction . . . now?” Tarantula asked casually.
Sibrain stopped struggling.
In a bewildering display, he lowered himself forward, bark still protruding from his lips, and pressed his skinless face to the ground at Tarantula’s feet. He prostrated himself as if pleading for forgiveness, quivering in his presence.
Wind gusted, petals and branches thrashing. With one swift motion, Tarantula grabbed Sibrain by his hair, picked up the dagger in my lap, and decapitated him. He lazily dropped the severed head and wiped the blade on his chiffon pants.
He pointed the hilt down, lips thinning as he turned the full weight of his attention toward me. He pressed the hilt into my palm. It took me a couple tries before I could slide the dagger back into the sheath inside my combat boot. My hand shook violently.
With the knife finally secured, I stared blankly at the floor. A hand with neatly trimmed nails extended down to me. I took the offered palm.
Tarantula hoisted me to my feet.
“Did he . . . do anything?” he asked in a peculiar voice.
“Just kissed my neck,” I said numbly, shivering at the memory of the unwanted advance but glad my plan had worked. Well, kind of. I shook my head, trying to reorder my addled thoughts. “What should we do with the—”
“Stop speaking.” Tarantula held up his hand and cut me off. Silver hissed as it steamed off his palm.
“What’s wrong with you?” I asked.
Tarantula grabbed my shoulders in his steely grip. The sweet scent of fairy wine wafted from his breath. “What is wrong . . . with me?” he asked slowly. “Why did thou allow yourself to be taken by surprise?”
“Uh, no. I was hunting him. I stabbed him three times,” I pointed out. “In case you missed that.”
A vein jumped across his jaw. “I lose thee for five seconds . . . and find thee suffocating and covered in blood with . . .” He trailed off like he couldn’t finish the sentence. He roughly dragged his hands through his curls, leaving pink streaks.
“I had a plan,” I said quietly, unable to articulate that I’d been transported into the Barren Forest. I’ve fully lost my mind. Drugged surrealism mounting, I tried to find reason. “We need to get rid of the body and—”
“Leave the pieces. I’ll handle it later—”
“Southerners will see the body. A dereliction of our duty. I don’t think that’s what the Marshal—”
He laughed loudly, an icy, severe sound. “I shall handle the Southerners too. Do thou really care what she wants of us?”
“The mission is . . .”
“The mission?” he mocked, voice tight with barely constrained violence. “Is that all thou can speak of after he—”
“Stop.” I pushed him back weakly, trying to make space between us. “You’re acting . . . strange,” I whispered. “Is it because Sibrain’s another precious royal elite—”
“Don’t thou dare speak his name.” He flexed his fingers like they ached. “Thou do not know how close I am to . . . killing every single worthless person in this entire Commune.”
“Ah, a massacre. How original.” I was unsure if I was flying, falling, or standing on the ground. “Do you want an award? Perhaps another continent to terrorize—I know that’s a big thing for your people.”
He smiled slowly.
“You’re a tyrant.” I pushed away from him weakly, side-stepping around Sibrain’s body.
Tarantula’s arm shot out, chain taut, as he blocked my retreat. “Thou art not going anywhere, Ravenal.”
I tamped down a wave of trepidation. “You’re running out of moves, spider,” I taunted, feeling odder by the second. It was getting harder to speak normally.
“Oh, I have plenty of moves left. Do not force my hand. Thou will have regrets.”
I stood on my tiptoes. “I—already—regret—you,” I said with intense concentration. In the shine of his platinum mask, my eyes glowed with rage, the usual amber an eerie shade of yellow.
He wet his lips. “So, thou admit it—thou art mine to regret.”
“Not what I said.”
“Careful. Semantics is a slippery slope, Ravenal.”
“Truth is nuanced, spider.”
He clicked his tongue. “And what . . . is the truth?”
I stood taller as he leaned lower, and I pressed our noses together. “The world is in ruin. It’s. All. Your. Fault.”
His smirk dripped with sin. “Exactly—so do not test me, vassal.”
Vassal.
Vassal.
Vassal.
It means nothing.
I had a bad feeling his secrets were far more dangerous than mine.
He reached up and cupped the back of my head. His fingers returned covered in blood. Long seconds passed as he pulled away, looking between his hand and my face.
“Thou art injured.” His tone was glacial.
Fear morphed into something more perilous, and I pushed past him, driving my shoulder roughly into his to make space. Ouch. I might as well have rammed a brick wall.
He must have seen something in my expression, because he slowly stepped aside and he didn’t stop me as I retreated into the buzzing room.
Ignore him.
He doesn’t matter.
I glanced over my shoulder. Tarantula sauntered through the room, stalking after me with a rigid, refined posture.
In slow motion, he brought his thumb to his mouth, the one covered in my blood.
His burning eyes held mine. He licked his thumb wantonly from base to tip.
Eyelashes fluttering, he visibly shivered.
I walked into a hanging root.
Masculine laughter echoed.
Whirling around, I turned to scold him and—What in the damned? Drugged, concussed, confused, I backed away from him through the maze of hanging roots and couches.
Tarantula smiled, and his canines were sharp. Predatory. Curls framed his mask, swirling with falling petals. He was like one of Marge’s oil paintings—the type you stood in front of for hours. His appearance seduced the primordial subconscious.
Wind whispered gently across my neck.
A faint glow illuminated the smoky shadows. Strange silver lines flowed across Tarantula’s exposed skin.
I stumbled, still moving backward.
My senses were betraying me.
This isn’t real.
It can’t be.
Tarantula’s eyes blazed behind his mask.
Every inch of his skin glowed with silver occult lines, as if he’d shattered into a million separate pieces and each shard had been melded back together with molten metal; a spider crawled across his jaw, and a gorgeous butterfly flapped low on his abdomen; opal fangs hung lower than his full bottom lip.
I turned and sprinted away from him.
Wait, are vampires real?