The ghoulish herd encroaches from all around, and disorientation chews at my mind. I reach up and remove the circlet, tossing it to the ground. Gaining balance, I grasp the staff with both hands and slash an arc through the air.
My attackers can’t see the fire, but they can hear the searing pop, feel the heat. I use the fire to push them back as I hedge along the wall. Their groans compete with the ringing in my ears, and I try not to look at their stitched eyes, to feel even a measure of sympathy that will hold me back.
The massive Vince Lipton closes his arms, making a grabbing motion as he forcefully barrels toward me. I plunge the fire into his chest, halting him and earning a furious roar.
As I fight my way toward the mouth of the cave, Devyn pushes to the front of the throng.
Wreathed around her neck is the chain of bone, and she unhooks a slender, pointed antler from the necklace and starts toward me.
I tighten my hold on the staff, the light of the flame illuminating her as she draws close. “I don’t want to hurt you—”
“Want is powerful, Halen.” She swipes the talon-shaped bone through the air, forcing me to back away. “I want to rip you open and wade around in your depths. My want is stronger than yours will ever be.”
Holding her fierce gaze—seeing even a sliver of what remains of the woman I know—I make a decision.
I drop the staff and run.
Making it as far as the opening, the pale moonlight spilling in to show the way out, I feel her hand snare my hair before she snatches me backward. I hit the ground hard on my shoulder. Pain flares through my bones.
Devyn descends on me, a wildness cast in her dark eyes. I block her strike with my forearm, keeping the weapon locked in my sight as she bears down.
A cold, despondent look passes over her face before she tears into the flesh of my arm, coming away with skin and blood between her teeth.
A gritted scream rakes free of my chest. Adrenaline firing through my veins, pain isn’t what ignites my rage. Fury tears a destructive path through my reason at seeing the damaged ink. Fight comes alive, and I dig my nails into her throat, squeezing her trachea until I hear her wheeze.
I gain leverage and roll her body off, where I mount her chest and capture her wrist. Eyes flashing wild, Devyn cries out, refusing to relinquish the antler as I pry it from her grip.
Chest heaving beneath me, a faint smile touches her mouth. “It’s a delicate shift,” she says, her voice coming out in a rasp. “Like walking a tightrope over an abyss. The choice to either take a life or sacrifice your own…”
Weapon clenched in my fist, I stare down into her face, at the blood smeared across her mouth. My heart riots in fluttering bursts against the wall of my ribs. I see the sharp tip of the antler impaling her neck; I see it so clearly…just as I stabbed Landry in his jugular.
I could kill her.
It feels so easy…
With that awareness, another vision fights for dominance, plunging me far past the depths. The horrifying imagery was stirred from the abyss when Alister held me trapped, the bloody face of a man surfacing to seize my mind.
The weight of the tire iron held in my hand.
No.
I’m not a killer.
“That’s it,” Devyn says. “Let it in. There’s the answer, Halen. You see it.”
Freeing the aching breath trapped in my lungs, I cry out, lashing back against the images shredding my mind. I draw the antler up, my aim fixed on her neck, and release a scream.
I throw the weapon.
Devyn rebounds the moment I surrender. She thrusts me off her chest and commands her herd. “Take her.”
I flail as they grab my arms and legs, but my fight has been depleted. I’m lifted in the air and hauled back to the inner circle of the fire ring. The beat of the drum resumes, the disturbing cacophony of moans and wails filling the dark cavern.
I’m dropped to the earth, my back smashed to the dirt, my arms and legs stretched out. Chest rising as I try to grasp a breath not tainted with smoke, I struggle in vain against the banded hands around my limbs that pin me to the ground.
All will to fight lost, I close my eyes against the fire and surging bodies. I close myself off from the pain. I let the drug dull my senses.
Sharp pain slices into my shoulder. My eyes forced open, I see Devyn carving the point of the bone to draw blood. I bite into my lip, my arms braced against their brutal grip, a scream caught in the base of my throat. Then I feel the soft probe of her lips and tongue over the wound.
My head sways with the effect, my vision blurred.
She sinks her teeth into my shoulder. The piercing feels almost orgasmic, an answer to the constant, muted ache encasing me.
I’m about to be rend apart and devoured.
My system crashes into shock. I delve below the surface of my consciousness, searching for an escape, surrendering to the blackout…
And a shrill screech invades the dark.
A web of terror encases my body at the sound, the high-pitched chirp of the death’s-head hawkmoth. A distinct sound I’ve only heard while obsessively hunting a killer.
The Harbinger.
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15
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HARBINGER OF DOOM
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HALEN
The horned higher men shriek in response to the ear-splitting noise. The drumming abruptly stops. A tense crack of silence follows before the pounding of my heart thunders in my ears. Then the screeching chirp sounds again, coming louder.
Devyn rises up, her hands mounted to my shoulders, as she follows the sound to the mouth of the cave. Through her drugged state, she sways, her movements lethargic as she seeks the source of the disturbance.
The hands fastened to my body slacken, the horrid moans and whines increasing until the men are forced to cover their mutilated ears. I take advantage of the interruption and roll onto my stomach. My fingers claw at the earth in an attempt to escape, and my gaze follows Devyn’s through the flames to the dark silhouette outlined by hazy sky and stars.
A figure stands erect amid the night.
As he moves into the glow of the firelight, my breath stills. His face is contrasted in dark-red tones to depict a skull. His bare chest glistens in the vibrant blaze, skin washed in blood, as a fresh cut on his chest bleeds. He is the fabled bringer of death brought to life.
I sold my soul to a beautiful devil. And that demon has come to collect.
The threat of oblivion darkens my vision as I watch the Harbinger verge deeper inside the cave. Alarm thickens the air, terror curls up in thick tendrils with the smoke.
“You’re not real,” Devyn says, her words faintly slurred. She swipes at the air, as if she can dispel a vision. The closer he draws, the more corporeal he becomes.
“Run—” Devyn shouts. “Flee the false prophet. Do not hear his words of corruption.”
The Harbinger’s presence incites fear in the higher men. A bad omen, a doomsday to sabotage the Overman’s ritual. Their screams climb above the persistent screech of the moth.
The frenzy of chaos morphs into the blind fleeing deeper into the cavern. The straggling members of Devyn’s followers stumble and grope as they abandon their priestess to escape.
Devyn rises to her feet, planting one bare foot to the small of my back. When his clashing gaze finds me through the flames, I’m drawn into him. He is beauty and death and destruction—and he’s here, the Harbinger in Hollow’s Row.
Kallum came for me.
With the barrier of flame crackling between them, Devyn stands facing her intruder. “You are him,” she says. “I see you. You have revealed yourself to face me.” I recognize Devyn’s wordage taken from the Harbinger’s letter she penned herself.
