“We don’t have any way to dispose of the skeletons here.” Rök belted his sword, not that it’d inflict lasting damage against these foes. “We’ve got to run. Rain check?”
She glared. “Undecided.”
Fantastic. He’d said too much. He’d let his thwarted need and the memory of all those crazed nights away from her goad his temper.
When skeletons emerged from the shadows, scythes raised, he said, “Witch, we are leaving,” and grabbed her hand. With another glare, she allowed it. They hurried to the exit, and he opened the door.
A flood of black flew at them.
“Down!” He snagged her and hit the ground, shielding her from a swarm of vampire bats. “Those yours?”
Above their screeches, she said, “Mine. It wouldn’t be—”
“Halloween without them. Yeah, yeah.”
The flying rats blotted the air, wings flapping, bodies colliding. But once the skeletons drew closer, the swarm vanished as if it’d never been.
Pulling her to her feet, Rök led her through the doorway and down the creaking steps. “Let’s lose them—” Wood crumbled beneath his boots.
“Rök!” She snatched him back, and they watched the rotted step fall. All the ones below it looked unstable. Rusted nails squeaked under their weight.
Rattle rattle rattle . . . sliiice.
“We’ve still got to head down. Stay close to the side.” Hastening as much as they dared, they made it down one rickety flight.
Above them skeletons plowed into each other and plummeted through that missing step. Bones rained over Rök and Poppy. A skull bounced atop her shoulder, still snapping at her!
Rök swatted it away, then caught a scythe right over Poppy’s head. He flung it back at their pursuers as he led her down . . . down . . . down . . . a never-ending stairway. “Hate this place!”
When they’d gained a small lead, Poppy asked, “How did you stay away from me?”
He glanced back at her as they charged on. “We doing this now?”
“Might not get another chance. Let me guess, you buried yourself in other women to forget about your mate. Racking up the swimbos!” Her eyes glowed from more than a power outlay.
In any other circumstance, he would’ve relished her jealousy. “I haven’t been with anyone since before our date.”
“Celibate for years? Tell me another whopper, smoke and mirrors.”
“I let every summoner know I thought I was mated, which was as awkward as you can imagine.”
In a stunned tone, she said, “I believe you. Should I be astounded or insulted that you’re the only Lorean who avoided his fated female?”
“You didn’t want to be near me! Not exactly encouraging.”
“Other males get crazed, and you just held back. I hear about these guys all the time.”
“I hear about them too! But I know you. You wouldn’t have put up with that shit for a nanosecond. Am I a crazed smoke demon who’s obsessed with you? Yeah. Did you need to see that? No.”
“You’re . . . obsessed with me?”
With weary acceptance, he said, “The definition of it.”
“Oh, gods, that’s why you keep booking deadly jobs. For a distraction! How long would you have waited?”
“You were dating that warlock, remember. I thought you needed to be with him to unlock your powers. No male wants to be the reason his mate doesn’t thrive. I wanted what’s best for you. Even if that’s not me.”
Her expression softened at his words, yet then her eyes widened. “Lea got to you!”
He raised his chin a notch. Unwilling concession.
“When?” Poppy demanded, planning to throttle her oldest sister.
“Lea’s my sister by fate. I don’t want to throw her under the bus.”
“She had no right to interfere with my life!”
“Doesn’t she have a point though? One of the reasons I stayed away is because I thought you wanted a relationship like your parents have.”
The storybook Wiccans. “I tried it their way.”
And while Poppy had been burying her feelings for this demon, Rök had been risking his life on jobs. Suffering. Trying to do right by her.
Rattle rattle rattle . . . sliiice. Another contingent of skeletons charged up the steps to meet them. He kicked the closest one in the sternum, sending it stumbling back to knock the others down. “Come on!” He pulled Poppy into his arms to wend around bones, dodging the chomping skulls around his boots.
When he’d cleared the worst, he kept her in his arms—and she kept questioning him. “Why come here tonight?” Despite the danger, she wanted answers. “What changed?”
“Your breaking up with the warlock was like a crack in the dam for me. I realized that where you’re concerned, maybe I’ve grown greedy and selfish and as far from decent as a demon can be. If I’m to be denied, it should be because you say no. Not because I do.”
His confessions would’ve made her heart stutter if their lives hadn’t been on the line. Feelings had blindsided this poor, bewildered male.
“A split second after I realized I wasn’t strong enough to stay away from you any longer, I heard your sister threatening Desh.”
What was that saying? Sometimes fate doesn’t bother being subtle. Poppy tightened her arms around Rök’s neck.
A different kind of nightmare, a goblin with a pumpkin head and green-stalk body, lumbered up the stairs carrying an ax.
“Jack O’Lantern.” Poppy itched for a pouch to wipe that weird leer off its gourd. “Watch out for its—”
Stalk tentacles whipped out, coiling around Rök’s legs.
“—stalk tentacles.”
Rök dodged an ax blow, then swung his sword to sever the stalks. They grew back in a flash, lashing out at him.
With Poppy tucked against him, Rök evaded another ax strike, then slashed the pumpkin head. Two orange halves thudded to the stairs, seeds oozing out like brain matter. The misshapen body and stalks collapsed and withered. Rök kicked free and sidled past the remains, sheathing his sword.
Poppy, dogged, kept at him. “How could I have a say in this—denying you or not—if I don’t know my options?”
Cradling her in his arms, he vaulted over a series of missing steps. “I’m laying everything on the line now. I want you. For all time.” Never slowing their flight, he held her gaze. “Is my entire life’s objective—the most important mission of them all—doomed to failure?”
He ran down the steps. They stared at each other. He ran.
“Well, Red? Don’t leave me hanging.”
Her chin tilted up a notch.
“Hell, yeah!” he exclaimed. “Let’s survive this night and then sort our shit out.”
“It’s a lot of shit to sort. You left me hanging for years! What were you thinking? When did acting noble ever work out for mercs like us?”
He’d given her time. The one thing she hadn’t wanted from him. Now she felt out of time.
“Noble won’t happen again, love.”
A landing appeared! When they reached the floor, she wanted to kiss it. Three doors awaited them. “Which one?”
Rök chose the closest. “This looks good.”
From the other side, a whispery sound slithered into her hearing. Kill kill kill puh puh puh. “Wait!”
Rök had already opened the door, coming face-to-face with the gigantic camp slasher. Behind his mask, a murderous hunger burned in his eyes. The machete he carried glinted in the dim hall light.
Rök dropped Poppy and readied his sword. When the machete flashed out, Rök blocked the blade with his own, then doubled back for a swift hit. His sword struck true; the slasher’s hand and machete flew into the air. Never slowing his momentum, Rök targeted the madman’s legs, severing them above the knee with one gory sweep.
Blood spurted as the slasher collapsed to the floor.
“Come on, Poppy, keep moving!”
As Rök urged her away, she glanced back at the writhing slasher. He grunted manically, a thrill killer denied his prey.
How could that thing be connected to her? Why this curse? Why nightmares? Was it because she’d always liked spooky stories?
With more caution, Rök opened the next door. No bogeys awaited them. He and Poppy dashed from the castle, only to be greeted by a thorny wall of hedges in an outdoor courtyard.
“Outside, finally!” Rök tried to trace them, but they didn’t budge. “We’re still within the castle’s boundary?”
She glanced up at the rain pattering against an invisible barrier. “Looks like.”
Rök jerked his chin at the sole opening in the dense hedge. “That’s a labyrinth.”
“With a twist.” Poppy recognized that thorny species. Her sister Sage joked that its Latin name should be Sittingus Duckingus. “Those briars carry a paralytic agent.” Though the plants appeared to have been dead for some time, their thorns would still be toxic.
“I can vault over them.”
“One scratch for either of us, and we’d be helpless for hours.” Sitting ducks. “Let’s head back. The landing had a third door.” They’d just turned in that direction when children’s laughter sounded, accompanied by the tip-tap of little shoes. “Shit! Annelise and her friends are back.”
HISSSSSS. StStSt. HISSSSSS.
“Aliens too,” Rök said. “Looks like we’re heading into the maze.”
“Halloween labyrinths never work out well for the maze-goer.”
“Open to ideas.”
“Okay, we’ll go. But not one scratch. Remember, I don’t have any pouches left to help us.”
“Got it.” Gravel crunched beneath their boots as they started in. Overgrown limbs seemed to stretch toward them, thorny fingers grasping. He hacked at them with his sword.
As they hastened down the prickly corridor, creaking metal sounded from behind them. Rök said, “Just heard something not so good.”
“Haunted suits of armor. Watch for maces. I’m feeling some ghosts too.”
Floating apparitions shook the limbs and moaned, “Whooo whooo . . .”
“When you said a tsunami of shit, you meant it.”
Yes. Because nightmares were infinite.
She and Rök had just turned the first corner when a pair of maces burst through the hedge from different directions, both heading for her face.
He blocked one with his sword and caught the other in his fist, gritting his teeth against the spikes. As he tossed those weapons away, more maces swung toward them. “Keep moving!” He and Poppy sprinted forward.
Dodging strikes, they turned left. They curved right. Ducking and sliding.
Whenever they came to a fork, maces would spur them in a particular direction. Between breaths, she said, “They’re steering us.”
“Getting that feeling.”
High above them, an apparition shook the limbs, sending thorns flying. Rök yanked Poppy to his chest just in time to shield her.
Once the downpour ended, she said, “Tell me you didn’t get barbed.”
“I don’t think so.” He tugged her along, and they rounded another corner. “I see the exit!” The corridor ended about two hundred feet away. Beyond the maze, a pair of double doors marked another castle entry point. “We’re close.” Yet then Rök stumbled.
It’d been cute when he’d stripped. Not so much now. “You tripped over your feet running from bogeys.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“Like a blonde in the woods.”
“Yeah, I know!”
“I’ll never let you live this down.”
“Yeah . . . I know.” Was he slurring?
Poppy dropped back to scan the demon. “Oh, Hecate!” Thorns dotted his back.
He slowed. “What?”
“You don’t feel anything?” The toxin was already working. “We’ve got to get these out.”
He turned to her. His pupils were enlarged, his skin clammy.
“I need your sword.” When he handed it over, she used the edge to scrape the briars free.
He scowled at the growing pile of barbs atop the gravel. “How long before those hit me?”
“In less than twenty minutes, you won’t be able to move.”
Most people would have panicked; he looked resolved. “Then I’ve got that long to get you out of here. You’re going to be . . . the final girl . . . if it kills me.” He reclaimed his sword.
“By definition that means you do get killed.”
“You know . . . what I mean.”
He was about to lose the use of his body, and she couldn’t protect him. She had no pouches. No abilities. No ally to save the day.
Another mace struck, missing them by inches. “Rök, they are steering us.”
“To where?”
A horse’s shriek sounded from the direction of those doors.
Eyes looking black from the toxin, Rök said, “If they want us to go to there . . . then we head back. Do not go through those doors!”
She nodded, and they reversed course.
A snarling mass of foes blocked their way. The killer clown and the healed camp slasher had materialized. The fiend with the razor gloves and Jack O’Lantern too. Aliens and gremlins emerged from the hedge walls. Annelise and the other dolls balanced atop thorny limbs.
“We’ve gotta break through them.” Rök swiped his eyes. “Stay right behind me.”
“You can’t fight them all!”
He chucked her under the chin. “When I said I’d take on hell for you . . . I meant it.” He faced the visitors with his horns sharpened and fangs bared. Raising his sword, he roared until the hedges trembled.
He couldn’t trace; he had no smoke. And still he charged. . . .
Sword and weapons clashed. Parries and blocks. Muscles slashed, skin flayed.
He would slice one foe with his sword while mauling another with his claws. Fire and ice.
Poppy held her breath as he fought, kept digging into her satchel from habit. A bystander at her own battle, she could do nothing but silently urge him on and flinch with each hit he sustained.
He’d “killed” most of them at least once. Though he’d dispatched five aliens, seven regrouped. And the toxin seemed to prevent him from accessing his demonic self. Which meant the battle was a losing one.
Then came the coup de grâce, the strike that ended all hope of victory: one wave of a blank-eyed doll’s arm.
Poppy’s and Rök’s bodies left the ground once more.
