Blood Winter (35 page)

He scowled, his cheeks flushing. His hand whipped out, and he slapped her cheek with enough force to knock her to the ground—if she hadn’t been a Shadowblade. As it was, she didn’t move, didn’t look away.

“What’s the matter? Does the truth hurt? That power of yours is witch magic, and I ought to know.”

His hand rose again. Max smiled.

“Does that make you feel better? Does it make you feel strong and tough? Go ahead. Do it again. I can take all you dish out.”

His flush turned mottled as rage suffused him. He straightened. He pointed down at her. “You will die slowly. You will scream. You will beg for mercy, and none will be granted. You are filth. You are a deceiver, a succubus, a demon seed.” He turned, raising his hands to the gathered congregation.

“Let it be known that the sinner is stubborn and will not repent! She revels in her demon ways. She is sick with Satan’s poison. We must save her for our Lord Almighty on High. We must help her cast out the evil she carries inside her; we must destroy the root and branch of Satan. If God wills, she will live among us, a symbol of His strength and glory. Pray for her, my friends. Get on your knees and beg for the safety of her soul. We must ask our Lord to have mercy, to lay His hand on her and rip away the evil that stains her soul. We must be strong. We are soldiers for God, the Last Stand for Earth. We must put aside our finer feelings, and though this sinner may suffer, we must hold fast to the one true path. We must look ahead to the light of God and know that if we bear the burden of her suffering, she will be welcomed in His embrace. Can you be strong, my brothers? Can you be strong, my sisters? Can you be strong for God?”

His voice rose, and shouts answered him. Someone broke into “Onward, Christian Soldiers,” and the rest of the crowd picked it up. Soon everyone was shouting the words at the top of their lungs. They stamped their feet and pumped their fists in the air. Some shot guns into the air.

Sterling looked back at Max and smiled. His eyes were lit like a child’s at Christmas. He rubbed his hands together. “You will not like being purified,” he said so that only she could hear. “But I will. I will enjoy it very, very much.”

He was a sociopath, a serial killer with a love of torture, and he’d found the perfect outlet for his lust for blood and pain. Max could read it in the eager anticipation on his face and the way he licked his lips. He probably had a hard-on just thinking about it.

She doubted there was anything he could do to her that Giselle hadn’t already done. Except maybe kill her. But Sterling had the look of a man who’d tortured a lot of people in his line of work, and he was undoubtedly an expert at keeping his victims alive and squeezing out all the pain and suffering they were capable of. That was good for her. It would give her time. Time for the day to pass and for her to snag Daffy. Time also for the sun to go down and her Blades to come.

“Screw off,” Max said. “If there’s a god giving you the power to torture, maim, and kill, then he’s a son of a whore and deserves to be hung up by his balls and whipped until his skin falls off.”

She was hoping to piss Sterling off, force him to reveal more of what he was. It didn’t work.

He tapped a finger against his lips. “That is an idea I might have to use,” he said thoughtfully. “But you may not insult the Holiest of Holies, God Almighty.” He pointed an imperious finger at her and shouted, “Silence, Whore of Babylon!”

Once again, his voice carried as if he’d shouted into a microphone. Magic wriggled across Max’s mouth like maggots. She shook her head. The feeling continued. She opened her mouth to scrape her lips with her teeth—but once again her lips were sealed shut. She dug her fingernails into the seam of her mouth. She could not separate them. Sterling and his demon clearly didn’t like people talking back.

“Don’t worry,” Sterling said quietly, watching her, his eyes glowing with rapt pleasure at her struggles. “I will let you scream. I want to hear you. First I may cut your tongue. Fillet it inside your mouth so you learn not to speak ill of the Lord. He is great and merciful. But a tide of evil has washed across this land, and there can be no mercy for unrepentant evil.” He smiled, licking at the corner of his mouth as if to catch a driblet of drool. “I serve the Lord God with all my heart and soul. I will never fail Him by being too squeamish to do the work He calls on me to do. You will repent, or you will die.”

She was going to die, anyway, if Daffy had anything to do with it. The demon didn’t care if she repented or not. She doubted Sterling did, either.

Sterling’s smile widened into unsuppressed glee, before vanishing into holy sternness. “I will give you the chance to repent again, but first you must learn the cost of defying the Lord and defiling this earth with your evil.”

Max made a sound, her throat swelling with the effort. Sterling watched her and then turned away.

“Bring her to the temple,” he said to no one in particular, and suddenly, the invisible walls vanished, and the crowd rushed at Max.

Hands grabbed her, bruising her as the fingers gouged deep into her flesh. Her bare breasts were pinched, and the bloody cuts on her stomach and chest were prodded. She kicked and slammed her fists into her captors. Several fell, but others quickly replaced them. They lifted her above their heads, all the while continuing to sing.

Max stopped fighting. This was what she wanted. She forced herself to remain still as the hands hoisted her along.

The journey to the temple wasn’t short. They marched uphill toward the mountains. That surprised her. Kara had told her that Sterling liked an audience for his punishments. Max had half expected him to take her down into the center of Missoula. At least she could be grateful that she wasn’t nailed to a cross. Yet.

The stink of rotting flesh permeated the cold air. Max’s head was on the downhill side, and even lifting it up, she couldn’t see where the stench came from. But a new feeling washed through the mob. It was angry and violent. They had been content just to carry her along the path, but now they returned to twisting fingers into her flesh, pinching, gouging, and scraping. They yanked her hair and punched at her. Max didn’t react. They weren’t her real enemy. Daffy was. But where was the demon? Would it show up to the party soon? If it didn’t . . .

Finally, they jolted to a halt.

“Lower the sinner,” Sterling ordered. “She must face God’s wrath. Let her see what He has wrought.”

They didn’t so much lower her as drop her like a hot potato. She landed on unexpectedly muddy ground. Apparently Sterling had melted away the snow.

Her mass of attendants sifted slowly away but not before stepping on her and pummeling her with sharp kicks. Finally, she was alone on the ground. She staggered up, covered in blood and mud. Instantly, her mouth filled with bile. She couldn’t spit it out and was forced to swallow it back down. She stared around her in horror.

Sterling wasn’t just a sociopath. He was pure evil. He was the devil himself.

D
OWN IN THE BASEMENT OF THE OLD HOUSE
where the Shadowblades hid from the sun, the pain in Alexander’s head sharpened. It matched an ache growing in his chest, just below his sternum.

He lay on a discarded mattress and stared up at the ceiling. He could not stop thinking about Max.

Thor came and sat beside him, his back against the wall. “Are you really as cold-blodded about this as you look?” he asked.

Alexander rolled onto his side. “You think I should be in a rage.”

“I think it would be
normal
if you were.
This
is not normal.” He gestured, taking Alexander in from head to foot.

Alexander did not reply.

“Do you know what I think?” Thor pushed.

“I am guessing you will tell me.”

“I think you’re going to hate yourself a whole lot when you wake up and realize you let the woman you love go to her death without fighting for her. I think you’re going to want to kill yourself when that happens, which means Sterling or his little demon buddy win on both ends. If you ask me, you ought to be fighting harder to get back what’s yours and not letting them take it away because it seems easier. The Alexander I know is too damned tough for that and too much in love with Max to let them get away with stealing his soul.” He stood up. “Think about it.”

Thor left Alexander to ponder his words. They circled in his head, snapping at one another. The trouble was, he knew something was missing, and Thor was right; he had been content to let it go without a fight because it was easier. But the
wrongness
of it was beginning to wear on him.

The day dribbled past as Alexander wrestled with himself. He knew with iron certainty that the key to breaking the spell on his emotions, whether it had been imposed by Sterling and his demon or whether he had done it to himself, was simply to want them back. It meant inviting pain back. That soul-devouring, heart-grinding pain. It meant letting go of his control and giving in to his emotions—emotions that Max did not fully share. Why would he want to do that to himself?

He remembered that first moment of glorious freedom when he had ceased to feel the torment.

He remembered the ecstasy of her touch and the taste of her on his lips.

He remembered the devastation when he thought she had died.

He could not feel that again. He could not.

Pain drilled through his head, and pressure built in his chest.

M
AX STOOD AT THE BOTTOM OF A ROCKY KNOB
. At the top was something that looked like a Greek temple. It was made of magic and glowed with gold light. It was breathtaking. Leading downward from it was a wide triangular path, its point arrowing into the doorway of the temple. Lining it were stakes with bodies in various levels of death and decay. They were naked. The stakes had been sharpened and greased. The victims had been sat on top. Gravity and their weight had impaled them slowly, the stakes sliding up into their bodies, killing them slowly.

Too many were still alive. They moaned and keened with marrow-chilling desperation. They reached out with shaking hands, begging for rescue, for death, for relief. Others were rotting, birds picking at their flesh. Max panicked, searching for Kyle, Tory, Carrie, and Giselle. Relief rolled through her. They weren’t there.

Not yet.

But her relief was short-lived.

“Did you see? Look carefully,” Daffy whispered, the demon’s breath warm against her skin.

Max groped the air for it, but it just laughed.

Sterling stood at the base of a long set of steps leading up into the temple. She couldn’t see much else. The glow was too bright. She squinted. There were shapes—

Fury and fear ribboned through her, twisting together into a tangle of knots.

Standing up in a line like statues were Kyle, Giselle, Tris, Bambi, Liam, Geoff Brewer, Doris Lydman, Tory, and Carrie Lydman. They were all glassy-eyed and stiff. Max wasn’t even sure they were aware of where they were or what was going on. How had Daffy found Tris? Alexander and Thor had hidden them.

All of them were bruised and bloody, like they had put up a fight. Only Giselle was without a mark. But then, Max had watched Daffy steal her, and the demon had used magic. It looked as if the others had been taken by Sterling’s minions.

“I told you I would get those you loved. I will let Sterling kill them all. He does enjoy it so. You will watch. And then I will open your stomach and spill your guts on the ground and let the birds eat you alive.” Daffy stroked an invisible hand down her back. “This is the price.”

For what?
Max desperately wanted to ask just what her crime was. But her mouth remained sealed.

Her fear and panic tightened as she gathered herself. Everything narrowed down into one single need: get Daffy into the abyss. She turned, trying to find the demon. There was nothing behind her. It wasn’t there. Except that it was. She could smell it.

“Don’t turn your back on Sterling,” the demon whispered, and it had moved around behind her again. “He doesn’t like it. He will make you pay for insults.”

What happened to no one but Daffy touching her? She wanted to ask, to prod at the demon until it took solid form. Her mouth worked, but she still couldn’t get her lips open. She screamed, her neck tenting with the effort.