Page 45 of Hellbound

The red-eyed beast threw its head back, and Marian caught a glimpse of long, wickedly-curved horns protruding from its wolfish head as it roared.

The sound broke her in half. She clasped her head in her hands and screamed and screamed until something jettisoned her through the ether and out of Hell.

Marian arched off the cold, hard ground as she coughed violently. Panic took hold well before Marian recognized the source of her fear. She was alive, which was supposed to mean she was safe—though weakened. But she knew better.

Every cell in her body vibrated. Memories of her clash with the Remnant filled her mind, but she didn’t understand it. The knife. She’d had a knife. It made her scar glow as it engulfed her in shadows. It hurt her. Saved her. Where was it?

Something else had protected her, but the memory had no shape. The knife, though—that was real. She clenched her fists at her sides, but her fingernails bit into the flesh of palms instead of the strange metal she expected to feel. Gone. How? She blinked through her watery eyes, groping around for her prize. Her protection. But it was gone.

She tried to push herself to a sitting position to look for it, but she slipped and toppled sideways onto cold concrete. Marian sputtered as water dribbled down her chin. A hulking shape stood over her.

Lloyd propped his hands on his hips and frowned down at Marian as if she was a problem.

“Should have let me tape your mouth shut, sugar.”

Cigarette smoke mingled with the overpowering aroma of cheap aftershave. It made Marian’s stomach churn violently. She couldn’t articulate the warning, so she flopped away from Lloyd and vomited pool water. Lloyd kept talking, but nothing he said mattered.

The world had shifted on its axis. As if some cardinal rule of nature had been irreparably broken.

What mattered was the feeling behind the pain of revival, behind the nausea and chill wracking her bones. It was the fear coiling around her throat, the malice at her back, vibrating with the need to hurt her. Consume her.

Marian’s eyes flared open as fresh horror flooded her mind. The veil was still open, leaving a gaping hole between their worlds. It should have closed the moment she returned to life.

And something was coming.

She pushed up onto trembling elbows. It took a few tries; her legs were near useless—numb and cold and disobedient as Marian urged them to run from the thing stirring at the edge of death. She needed to warn them, but her voice didn’t work. They needed to know now.

It’s coming.

“Marian!” Tori shouted through the sound of a roaring wave in her head. “Marian, are you OK? Talk to me, please. He said there wasn’t anything I could do, and you were so—”

“Stop shouting,” Lloyd snapped. “Divers don’t always talk right away. Death gums up the brain. And this one’s got a reputation for—” He paused. “How did she get that knife?”

Marian opened her mouth to speak, but only a strangled whisper came out as a stabbing pain pierced the scar on her wrist. She flexed her hand with a wet gasp, bewildered by the feeling of static between her fingers. A long black knife filled her palm, its lightless surface undulating gently in her grasp.

Inside, Marian was screaming.

It’s coming.

Lloyd backed away. He reached for his pistol. “The fuck is going on?”

Marian convulsed once, twice, her body struggling to process the feelings coursing through her. Her scar was on fire. Energy surged through her limbs, alien and overwhelming.

Tori’s eyes were suspiciously wet, pleading. “Marian, what’s wrong?”

Marian let slip a shuddering breath as the hinges of the garage doors rattled.

“It’s here,” she croaked at last. “The Remnant. It’s here.”

Then every overhead light went out, plunging them all into absolute darkness.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Faster. She needed to move faster than her body would allow. She tried to push herself to her knees, but her elbows gave out immediately. Tori had an arm around her shoulder before Marian hit the ground.

“What do you mean ‘it’s here?’ ” The traveler asked as she hoisted Marian to her jelly legs. “It can’t come here. The Remnant can’t leave Hell.”

Marian swatted her away, but the traveler’s words rang inside her skull as infernal, disembodied shrieking filled the garage. She clasped her head in her hands, the knife bumping against her temple as the sound burrowed between her eyes.