“Well, thanks, buddy.”
I cocked my head, still trying to digest everything that’d happened in the past few days, especially last night.Though I’d be lying if I said I wanted things to go back to how they had been before the semester started.Darkness and death to be sure, but having Temps and Lizzie in my life, and now Cerberus, who felt odd at home within me, was something I wouldn’t trade.
And would certainly kill for.
Your home feels off, sage.Be wary.I sense something.
Looking around, I couldn’t spot anything but the usual pile of books and various folders and printouts I’d left on my coffee table from the other night.The studio was cramped, a single bedroom and bathroom at the back, my open-plan kitchen, living, and dining room seeming untouched.
I don’t see anything.Are you sure that—
There!
I turned just in time to see something pull itself out of the shadows, as if it had been a part of them, and leap toward me.Holding out my hands, I gripped the fabric below the neck of this masculine figure, rolling back to absorb the momentum and land with me on top of him, pinning him to the floor.
Cerberus’ honed instincts flared through me, bolstering my own, and a menacing growl tore from my throat.Claws extending from my fingers, I held them poised over the man’s face, one lined up with his pupil.
“What the fuck are you doing in my apartment?”
Realizing what I was looking at, I sneered as the man, dressed in a shabby, striped clown’s outfit, grinned up at me.He laughed, eyes flaring wide, and the sound was empty and wrong, this discordant, warped recording of a laugh, not the real thing.
“Well, I gotta say I figured getting the drop on a guy in nothing but the breeze would be a bit easier.”His voice was squeaky, a dull whine that was low on some words and horrendously high-pitched on others.“You got some tricks there the circus could use.Too bad you gotta be dead,witch.”
He uttered the word with such disgust that I immediately tightened my hold on the grubby, red and white striped shirt, my claws inching closer.
“I promise you, the only dead man talking right now is you.So make your last words useful.What is the carnival doing?Has Paine been sacrificing patrons to this false-god of yours?”
Like flicking a switch, the man snarled at me, bucking against my hold and snapping at my hand with his crooked, rotten teeth.The smeared makeup on his face cracked as he growled, thrashing this way and that.From someone who might have appeared cognizant, this demented clown was all that was left, a thrawl offended for its master.
“Heis the one!The only path to power and glory!You will be chewed for eternity in his holy maw!”
The fucker dug his nails into my forearm, and without even asking, Cerberus surged inside me, pressing more of himself to the surface.Fur pushed up through my skin, coating me from head to toe, and I watched as the clown’s mouth dropped open, his stare wide with terror.Where I gripped his costume, claws lengthened, slicing into the skin of his chest.He hollered out, and I swept a hand through the air, channelingmymagic to create a soundproofed bubble.
“Misguided fool,” Cerberus spoke along with me, a growl that passed through fanged teeth.“Tell me.Tell me what your ‘omniscient’ being is up to, and maybe, I’ll end you quick.”
Eyes wild and unfocused, the asshole laughed, a shrieking wail of unhinged dementia.“Do what you will, heathen.I will live in eternity, taken into his welcoming embrace.I will sing in the heavens as his might tears you all limb from limb!”
Rage bubbled over in my blood.This was the same type of bigoted fool as those who had killed my parents.He was giving up his ability to think logically for some promise of power.And what a fucking hypocrite to boot, thinking that he was following some higher being when in reality he was just the pawn of some dark evil.Could he not even see that his own “church,” the carnival, was killing innocent people?
What kind of ‘holy’ fucking god did that?!
Throwing my hand back, I let the full length of Cerberus’ claw jut through my fingers, pain flaring but no brighter than the fury roaring in my veins.Towering over the pathetic man, a farce of a missionary for some fucked up cult, I channeled all my inner reserve to give the man one last chance, Cerberus right there with me.
“Tell me.I won’t ask again.You spill about your god’s plans, or I spill your guts across the fucking floor.”
“It is already too late!”The clown didn’t even look at me now, his eyes tracking up as he pressed bloody palms together over his bleeding chest.“None of you are long for this world because our god has his final sacrifice.He will walk free this night!”
His eyes found me, bloodshot and peering out from the depths of madness.
“And he’ll start with those fucking sluts of yours.”
Without thinking, I jabbed my claws forward and into the soft spot beneath the man’s ribs, hooking them upward before yanking them free with a loud tearing sound.Blood spurted out of his mouth in seconds, followed by gargling sounds as he choked on his own lifeforce.All I did was watch, watch until the lights of his eyes finally extinguished.
Temps and Lizzie.The carnival will—
It won’t have the chance.We will rend them all from their foolish beliefs…our claws finding purchase in their weak bodies.
But despite Cerberus’ words, panic infected me.Their god was ready to come out and play; the final sacrifice apparently a done deal.We needed to get the fuck out of here and to that carnival before the big show.I wouldn’t lose them.Temps and Lizzie were the best things that had ever happened to me, and if I needed to, I would die making sure they lived to see another day.
