Page 34 of All Hallows Fate

I froze when every spirit in the mine turned, their eyes seeking us without fail, not even the hammer and thud of pickaxes covering my shriek. But that wasn’t what made my heart stop. It was the piercing, dragon-like scream that came from deeper in the mine.

“What the fuck is that?” Pain demanded, wrapping his arms in magic, so many wisps searching the space around us.

Tor groaned. “The overseers.”

23

Cat

“Put me down,” I whimpered, but Madde did no such thing. Tor and Death exchanged a glance, and then we were all ushered onto the narrow runway down the sheer wall. “Pain, save me,” I breathed, flinching when I caught sight of the drop.

It would be like falling from the top of a skyscraper. I’d be dead on impact, death magic or no death magic. I screwed my eyes shut when Madde increased his pace, following Tor at the head of our group. He was another god that was accurately named, because this was pure torment. Knowing one false move, one slip, and every bone in my body would break—and Madde’s, because we’d both fall—was a torture so acute that I shook.

“I’ve got you,” Madde promised, his grip secure on the back of my legs, my stomach resting against his shoulder. “You’re safe with me, lioness. I’d vow it with a blood pact, but that would mean putting you down and—”

“Don’t you dare put me down!” I shrieked, but mine wasn’t the only cry that filled the eerie silence. The lack of miners hammering stone became horrifyingly apparent when the overseers screamed. Whatever overseers meant.

Dragon-like cries crammed the cavernous space full of noise until I was sure this wasn’t real. I’d just fallen asleep and my brain had conjured a scene I’d watched in a fantasy film. That was the only explanation for that loud, battle cry, that scraping, shrieking cry for blood.

“Faster,” Death urged.

“No!” I blurted. “Not faster. Slower.”

“Do you want to be eaten?” Miz asked, just behind us.

“No,” I whined.

“Then we’re walking faster. Pain, hold onto me.”

“I hate this, I hate this,” Pain chanted, and it struck me that he was worse off. No one was carrying him. He had no choice but to keep his eyes open, witnessing the horrific drop and the thousands upon thousands of evil spirits sent here to toil, a fitting revenge for the crimes they committed in life. How I knew that, I had no idea, but the knowledge was immutable. I recognised the guilt in these spirits, felt the evil in their fetid souls, seeping wickedness into the air so thick I could almost taste blood when I inhaled.

Evil, my inner judge declared. Cruel, heartless, wicked, psychotic, depraved. On and on, as we descended the ribbon-thin path through the mine, I felt the blackened hearts these spirits had possessed in life, the stain of their deeds so bad that I choked, and I judged each one.

By the time Madde jerked to a halt, I was incensed with it. Livid to my blood and bones. Only the fact that their punishment had already been given, and eternal toil was a fitting price for their immorality kept me on Madde’s shoulder instead of inflicting my magic on each and every spirit.

“Why are we stopping?” Pain demanded shrilly. “Oh god, why are we stopping?”

“Calm down,” Miz muttered. “Breathe. You’re a death god.”

“Even gods can be killed, and look at those things!” Pain’s voice climbed, higher, louder.

“Put me down,” I told Madde when it was clear we weren’t moving. “Carefully,” I added, clinging to him when he set me on my feet, squeezing my waist as if to echo his promise that I was safe with him. I couldn’t help but notice his hands fit perfectly in the dip of my waist, fingers splayed over my curves as if they belonged there.

I took a sharp breath and opened my eyes—and immediately wished I hadn’t. “Those are the mine overseers?” I demanded, my voice matching Pain’s.

I thought they’d be spirits, or maybe gods like us, but these were… like nothing I’d seen before. They were humanoid, but with jet-black bodies flecked with grey as if they’d been cut from the mountain around us and formed into the shape of three men. Three too-long, stretched forms that made me shiver, something wrong about them that made the remnants of mortal Cat bleat in terror. Wings carried them through the air, shining with the same black substance as their bodies, reminiscent of a bat’s wings but stone where there should be delicate flesh. When their wingbeats brought them closer, too close to avoid, I saw their eyes glowed with a spectral white.

“Intruders,” the creature in the middle spoke. Longer and bigger than the others, with a wider wingspan. The voice was male, as if a male spirit had been placed in the stone body, but his face was a blunt, imperfect rendering. A crude carving rather than a master’s sculpture. It made the effect of his mouth opening unsettling, and that was before I saw the sharp stone teeth.

“We cannot intrude on our own domain,” Death disagreed, his voice different—deeper and rough. When I looked at him in surprise, it was to find a flowing robe and nothing more. What hid within that black cowl? Did he still have a face, did he have a skull void of flesh? Or if I reached inside would I find only darkness? A memory tried to break free, but the creature screeched in offense, ripping my full attention back to the three overseers flying over us, penning us in on the narrow path.

It would take very little effort for one of them to grab us and tear us from the path. My stomach dropped, and I pressed myself against the wall at my back, breaths sawing in and out of my lungs.

Pain flattened himself to the wall beside me, a curl of shadow brushing my jaw. “Fancy seeing you here.”

“Blind puns?” I demanded breathlessly. “At a time like this?”

He snorted. “Never an inappropriate time, darling woe.” He clasped my hand and feathered a kiss over each knuckle. “I won’t let you fall. I have three dozen shadows ready to form a net at the first sign of slippage.”