Rituals (Cainsville 5)

"Not Gabriel. We'll remove him from the options, knowing he will never be the one you sacrifice. So choose between the other two. Arawn or the bocan. Which may we have for letting Gabriel go free?"

"If you touch either, you will never win my favor."

"Is that a threat? Excellent. You do know how this works. Let me be generous, then. It doesn't help our cause to overplay our hand too soon. You don't need to choose. Not yet. In fact, we'll set them all free for you, Olivia. We'll even escort them out the door. But you..." Her voice circled me. "You stay. You find your own way out. And if they come back for you, they'll die."

Her voice turned to smoke, the black enveloping me even as I heard Ricky shout "No!" and lunge. His fingers brushed my arm, and then...

Darkness.

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

I woke facedown on a cold floor, my head throbbing. I rose to all fours and gagged as my stomach lurched. I felt like I'd swallowed that smoke, the most foul imaginable, like something from a crematorium. My stomach lurched again at the thought.

Less thinking. More doing.

I turned on my switchblade's penlight and looked around. Not surprisingly, I seemed to be in the same place Gabriel and Patrick had been--a basement room with a jagged hole in the ceiling. Also not surprisingly, I was alone.

The third "Nope, still no surprises" moment came when I tried the exit door, and it wouldn't budge. I figured if Gabriel couldn't open it, neither could I, but still I tried, again in case the sluagh decided to play pranks with my presumptions.

So the question became "How to escape?" I

wasn't particularly concerned that I couldn't. I wouldn't be much use to the sluagh dead. Unless...

I thought of the melltithiwyd, and shuddered. I can't imagine Mallt-y-Nos would be very useful as a mindless hell-bird.

Gabriel and Patrick were able to climb out of this room, presumably by Gabriel standing on the pile of debris. Which is great, if you're six foot four. The obvious answer, then? Build a bigger pile.

That wasn't as simple as it sounded, given that I had to construct a pile stable enough to support me. I managed it. Then I heaved and hefted and hauled myself up through that hole...and in came the melltithiwyd, a swooping swarm of avian piranha. I instinctively let go and fell back into the damned basement.

Attempt number two. I did the exact same thing. And, shockingly, got the same result. When the melltithiwyd attacked, I squeezed my eyes shut and gritted my teeth and endured the pecks and the bites and the beating wings as I kept heaving myself up. Finally, I got out and rolled away from the hole. Then I crouched there, my head down, as the melltithiwyd battered me, and I lashed out as hard as I could.

That's what did it. Hitting them. I bashed a few into the wall, heard the thump as their bodies struck, the crack of bones, and then the shrieks of their comrades, diverting course to devour their brethren, not caring if they were dead or alive, only that they were momentarily dazed, weak, and vulnerable.

Whatever intelligence the melltithiwyd possessed, it was enough for them to see me hurting the others--and those others being devoured--and decide maybe they didn't want to torment me after all. Finally, with a scream that seemed to come from a thousand tiny throats, they tore off and I was left there, panting, blood dripping down my face.

"You're very pleased with yourself, aren't you?"

It was a woman's voice, which made me think of the sluagh, but this one was pitched lower, edged with anger rather than mockery.

When I didn't answer, she said, "Are you too good to speak to me, Miss Larsen? I bet you think you are."

A figure stepped into the doorway. I had a flash of instant recognition followed by...nothing. Just that flash that said, "I know you," but when I went to chase down a name, my memory had nothing to give.

She was my age, maybe a little younger, and she stood in that doorway, her blue eyes dark with hate. I'd seen that face. Seen it recently. Where...?

"Does this help?" she said, and her jeans and blouse disappeared, and she stood there in her bra and panties. Dried blood smeared one bare thigh where I could make out part of a symbol carved into her flesh. Another symbol decorated her stomach above her panties, this one in blue paint, pierced by a twig. Blue woad. A mistletoe twig.

"Stacey Pasolini," I said.

"Very good. A shame you needed me to humiliate myself with that visual reminder." The clothing reappeared. "That's how it goes, isn't it? People remember the killers, not the victims."

"Except you were both," I said. "The world just doesn't know about the first part yet. Don't worry--they will soon, and I'm sure you'll get a fresh batch of news coverage."

She lunged, the edges of her body dissolving into black smoke, reconstituting when she stopped, looming above me. As she glowered, the blue seeped from her eyes and they went as white as the melltithiwyd's, and when she snarled, her teeth were razor-sharp.

I got to my feet. "Let me guess. You're one of the melltithiwyd now, and you're a little pissy about the whole thing. Can't say I blame you. It doesn't look like a lot of fun. Although I suppose there's always that option." I glanced at scattered feathers on the floor.

"Do you think it's really that easy?" she said. "Do you think that doesn't happen to at least one of us every day? It happens again and again, and we are reborn, again and again. Devoured and reborn, and constantly surrounded by those who cannot wait to do the devouring."