All Hallows Night (Night Series) (34 page)

Somehow there was a giant gaping hole through Kemen’s trailer, and I’d been blasted through it. My cheek wasn’t pressed into a lamp like I’d thought, but against a sharp stick. The bookshelf I’d so lovingly set up was now crushing my left leg, and when I tried to wiggle my foot, I realized with a howl that it was broken.

“Pandora!” Asher screamed and I could see his shadow racing to me, but something was very wrong with him.

His arm was hanging useless by his side, and that’s when I realized it was barely hanging on by a thread of skin. His left cheek was blown open, exposing the red meat of muscle below. I shook my head.

His eyes were glassy and he looked as disoriented as I felt, and that image chilled me to the marrow of my soul because nothing got the drop on a priest. Ever.

This wasn’t real. None of this was happening. I’d just been in bed with Asher and we were going to make love, it was finally happening. And then it wasn’t, and now I didn’t know what was going on.

The claws tossed me over a hard, impossibly thick shoulder covered in a coarse jacket.

I whimpered and tears slid from the corners of my eyes as the body ran through the swamp with me draped over its back. I tried to move, to wiggle even, but a lethargy gripped me. My limbs refused to obey even my tiniest command. Every time the thing’s steps pounded the wet ground, I lifted up, only to then slam back into its hard-as-concrete muscles. Groaning, I shoved at its back, trying to yank the jacket off, only to realize it wasn’t a jacket but amber-hued fur.

“Oh God,” I sobbed, reaching out for Asher, who was now on the ground, tackled by two more giant beasts of fur and muscle.

And that’s the last thing I remembered before a fist rammed into my skull, crushing it on impact.

***

T
he green blinking lights were the first thing I noticed when I squinted my eyes open. The next was a horrible metallic buzzing, as if from a dying florescent lamp. The third...

The third thing was the worst. A scream of horror was trapped in my throat. Not because I was strapped down on a gurney, or even because I had a ball-gag shoved in my mouth. But because I was naked, and I was open.

From my chest cavity to the bottom of my stomach, I’d been cracked open like a watermelon.

Help! Oh my, God! Help!

Tears rained down my eyes because the words had only been in my head. There’d be no one coming for me. No knight to rescue me. I was alone and lost, tucked away only God knew where.

“Good, she’s awake. Now the testing may commence.” A disembodied voice spoke over loudspeakers wired into the room. I couldn’t tell if it was a man or a woman, but it didn’t matter.

Nothing mattered except them not doing whatever they were about to do to me.

No. No.
I shook my head and tried to fight my restraints. I kicked out with my feet, then lashed out my arms. But the moment I moved it was like someone had inserted an electric cattle prod directly into my heart.

I bucked, writhing from the agony of it. My eyes grew larger as I saw, SAW!, my heart. The actual beating organ. It was as exposed as the rest of me and there were wires attached all over it.

There was a beeping sound, and then hard, merciless hands were shoving me down onto the cold metal table, and a light so bright it was like staring into the sun was turned directly in my face.

I couldn’t see anymore. I whimpered. Moaned. Trying to plead, to beg them to stop. But they couldn’t make sense of my words, and what would it have mattered if they had? I knew these were the kinds of people who would never stop.

The last thing I could remember was my priest—he’d been holding me and we were going to....

I screamed when they took a knife to me. Screamed until my throat went raw, and still I went on.

I should have passed out. Why wasn’t I passing out?

“Pass me the clippers,” a male voice said.

The sound was so methodical, so normal, as if he were doing nothing more than cleaning his nails. Eating lunch.

“If you’re worried, demon, that we mean you harm,” that same male voice whispered to me as casually as can be, “then you’d be right.”

Then something sharp, metal, and hot as a hell furnace sank into my gut. The pain ate me alive and fractured my soul. My demons were gone. I was empty. So empty. So cold.

I was nothing.

And finally, finally, the blessed darkness took me...

~*~

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