Page 221 of Bedeviled

No.

BOOM!

My panther yowls, and I choke on a scream as he’s blown back, his body hitting the earth with a sickening wet thump.

And then I am screaming, despite the pain and the blood cascading down my torso. Something ferocious has entered me.

I force myself to my feet as across from me Eislyn stumbles, her neck a mess. It takes little effort for me to stagger forward and lift my blade.

The fairy is too dazed to block the attack, and without the aid of magic or even decent form, it still manages to sink past her leather armor, past sinew and muscle, and it slides between the bones of her chest. I don’t know if I hit her heart, but I sense I did at least hit something important.

The fairy stares at me, mouth parted in surprise as the two of us fall to the wet earth. We hit the muddy ground hard, and I hear her dazed grunt.

I don’t think she imagined ever dying. I think living as long as she has made her feel impervious to the wastes of time and mortality.

But though Eislyn looks no older than when I first met her in Sarmatia, and though she might’ve had centuries left in her long life after this, fairies can be killed just like mortals.

Eislyn weakly presses the barrel of her gun to my side. It’s horribly anticlimactic that after all this time and planning, after all the misfortune and the ancient curses Memnon and I survived to get to this point, it’s a gun she uses to end my life.

Click.

The sound of the empty barrel echoes between us. It takes me a moment longer to realize that I’m not dead. Not yet anyway.

“You have ruined too much of my life,” I whisper. “Never again will you do so.”

She really was hasty and fallible once her schemes fell apart.

And yet, as I lie there on top of her, struggling to breathe, the edges of my vision darkening, I think that maybe not all Eislyn’s schemes have fallen apart. I think, at the very least, she might’ve managed to mortally wound me.

Selene! Memnon roars, clearly overhearing that last thought. You will not die on me today. I am nearly there.

I hear the alarm in his voice.

Then other voices replace his.

Empress…

The Hungering Ones say my name as one. I can sense them pressing close, like if I just reached a little deeper into the earth, I might be able to touch them.

Somehow, they must sense how close to death I really am, and they must remember that it was at this point when they last struck a deal with me. And now that they’ve tasted my essence and I’ve piqued their interest, they want the rest of me, once and for all.

My limbs sink into the earth a little, and I suck in a sharp breath, the action causing agony to rip through my chest.

“You do not get to have me. Nor do you want me—not when there’s something better,” I say, staring down at Eislyn.

She stares dazedly up at me, her blood pooling around my blade.

Gritting my teeth, I yank my dagger from her heart, and the fairy chokes, her mouth open in a silent scream.

What do you have to offer? the Hungering Ones whisper.

“The one who first killed me,” I say, staring down at Eislyn, who’s weakly trying to push me off.

Eislyn deserves more than simple death. She deserves to be feasted on by demons and for their venom to slither through her veins. She deserves to have her soul stolen away to hell to rot with the rest of the creatures of the Underworld.

But I’ll settle for a different set of gods with a different set of justice.

The ground stirs, and I swear I catch the faint whiff of brimstone and smoke. The earth claws its way over Eislyn, looking like spectral fingers. They wrap around her arms and legs, her neck and torso.