33. Helsa
HELSA
I gagged against his palm. He didn't move it. Didn't even register it.
He had me off the ground, one arm locked around my waist. He was holding me at eye level like he wanted to take his time. The patches along his jaw shifted color in the moonlight. Blue. Green. Something that had no business being either.
He looked at me the way the others hadn't. Not with hunger. With satisfaction. Like finding me was the victory, and everything after was just detail.
"What a delicious little morsel," he said. “And you come so willingly.”
I bit down on his hand as hard as I could, gagging against the taste.
He smiled.
Then the ground started shaking.
The Controller. Full speed. I felt him before I saw him, the vibration of all that mass accelerating, building. The monster turned toward the sound and something in his face went very still and focused .
He yanked me back toward the rock face.
"Don’t move," he said. "I'll only be a moment, my dear."
He took position at the entrance, waiting, listening to those heavy footfalls. Then he swung his leg around.
The movement was almost elegant. The leg came around low and the Controller's own momentum destroyed him. All that unstoppable weight suddenly with nowhere to go. He hit the rock so hard I felt it in my teeth.
The hulking beast was on top of him before the ground stopped shaking.
It wasn't a fight. The same way the Controller’s earlier victory over the Withholder hadn’t been one either.
The Controller bellowed and thrashed, attempting to roll and pull away, but couldn't. He was strong. Demonic strong. I had watched him knock the Withholder across the platform one-handed. He clawed and bit and fought with everything he had.
It made no difference.
The beast’s claws came down. Again and again and again. Each impact drawing more and more lifeblood from the hapless creature underneath him.
Even he could only take so much.
The final blow landed on the neck.
A bloodcurdling gurgle followed, forcing me to looked away.
The silence after was enormous.
When I looked back, the blood was spreading across the rock in a slow dark pool and the Controller was still. Then was nothing, fading at the edges, dissolving back to whatever pod was waiting for him. Reset. Restored.
Lucky him.
The monster stood .
He wiped the blood from his teeth with the back of one claw. Unhurried. Like he’d just finished his dinner.
Then he turned and looked at me.
"Now," he said pleasantly. "Where were we?"
I turned and ran, and knew with cold certainty that eventually there would only be one of these creatures left.
And then there would be none to stop it from claiming me.
Fate was a ticking clock.