Savage Saints (Monsters of Saint Mark's)

No. This is what Pie’s rage looks like.

And then my mouth is moving. And words are spilling out. Like a stream, they come from me. Without thought, or reason, or fear of the consequences. She is wrong. My magic is still very much alive. I am walking towards Callistina with every intention of clawing out her eyes. “A horn, a hoof, an eye, a bone.”

The queen squints.

Tarq says, “Yes!”

Pell says, “Pie?”

“A bitchy queen on her makeshift throne.”

“Do it!” Callistina yells. “I dare you to try to dethrone—”

“Her sins are mine to keep and hold!” Now it’s my turn to make words tremble a room.

“Pie!” Pell yells. “No! You don’t want to—”

But I do want to. So I yell the last part and it shakes the windows until they break. “In debt she goes in my control!”

The portal opens. A door with a purpose. Just one, and one alone. To enslave this bitch to me.

It’s a sliver of shimmer wedged between her back and Tarq’s chest. Like it’s part of her, and part of him.

I rush forward, push her backwards with two flat palms to her chest, and even though Tarq is directly behind her and he should maybe fall through the door with her—he doesn’t.

She goes tumbling through, disappears, and I go in after her.

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE – PELL

Stunned silence is the only way to describe the room.

“Um…” one of Tarq’s girls says. “Where the hell did Queen Callistina go?”

Which might not have been the right first question, because all the palace supplicants, who are still kneeling on the floor, quickly lift their eyes up.

“Tarq?” I whisper. “What the fuck just happened?”

“She’s your woman. You tell me.”

“I think,” Tarq’s other girl says, “Pie just kidnapped the queen.”

Which is most definitely the wrong thing to say. Because all the guards snap to attention and all the supplicants get back up on their feet. There’s one last moment of confused silence and then all hell breaks loose. The guards are coming at us, and the supplicants are screaming, and Tarq’s two women are pushing us in front of them, and Tarq is leaning down into my face growling, “Do something.”

“Me? What the fuck am I supposed to do?”

“Magic,” he says. “Do it, Pell. Do it now, or this whole thing ends here and no one gets what they want!”

I’m about to make a bullet-point list of all the reasons why I will not be of any help whatsoever, when the realization hits me.

I can do something. I do have power. I am a magical monster. I can freeze people. Not only that, I am a maker of magic bags and a breather of magic breath. I’m not quite sure what’s going on with my new earth-quaking word power, but it has to mean something. All three of these things have to mean something.

So… I ‘pull a Pie’.

When you don’t know what you’re doing, make shit up.

I put up both hands in a palms-out full-stop motion, sweep the room with them, and yell, “Stop!”

Everyone in the room stops.