Page 140 of Hellbound

“Oh, I’m so excited.” Verinne fucking giggled as she practically danced up behind Marian. “Make it good, would you? Make it hurt.”

For one long moment, there was no Verinne, nor an audience of Argent, or bought and paid for humans. There was Tori in the corner, eyes full of terror. And Vale, who gazed at Marian like she was the only thing in the world worth seeing.

“I won’t fight you,” he murmured as he stepped so close, the smell of him enveloped her. Woodsmoke, leather books and the cold wind at winter’s edge. “If this is your choice, then so be it.”

He brushed the hair from her brow and pressed his lips to her forehead in a kiss so gentle, it summoned tears to her eyes. He tipped her chin up. The corner of his mouth twitched upward.

“You spiteful thing,” he whispered.

Fire blazed behind the ice in his eyes.

Verinne cackled. “Oh! Oh, oh, oh—it’s true! Vale likes the little rat diver. Oh, this just got so much better.” She leaned forward, her head hovering over Marian’s shoulders as she sneered at Vale. “Stellan said you were fucking, but I didn’t believe—”

Black static tore through Marian’s bracelet and entwined with a torrent of smoke. Shadow became solid in her hand. The knife grew rapidly and kept growing—heavier than before, and longer. Darkness billowed from the unknown as Marian spun on Verinne.

And sliced the knife through the veil between worlds

A shockwave blasted through the room, sending the Argent flying backward. Shouts rang out as the rest scattered. Tables toppled over. Armed guards charged Marian.

The Remnant burst free through the tear, climbing into their world with dozens of limbs that all roared like the fiercest gale. Screams of multitudes shattered the high windows and abandoned cocktail glasses.

It all happened so fast. Too fast. The Remnant kept coming, more and more of its mass pouring through that single speck in space and time to become the same gargantuan horror that haunted her nightmares. The legion of its lost souls cried out endlessly.

Many-jointed limbs reached out from its shuddering core, ever-shifting luminescence suddenly blinding in the light.

“You fucking bitch!” Verinne spat as she hobbled to her feet, her long blonde hair a tangled nest around her neck.

The guards scattered as a volley of barbed tentacles lashed at them. One tripped on the edge of Tori’s chair and screamed as the Remnant slammed into its back and lodged a barb in his skull. The guard’s body convulsed, then inflated until his suit split around him. Spikes sprouted from his spine, then dissolved into black sludge. The stench of sulfur joined the intensifying smell of ozone.

Tori screamed and jumped out of her chair, but fell over immediately, her feet bound together.

“Run,” Vale commanded Marian. “I have Tori.”

Run? No fucking way.

Marian bounded across the room faster than she’d moved in her life. She flew past the fleeing Argent, ignoring Greg as he shuffled terrified between incapacitated guards and their new wriggling Remnant limbs.

Vale was suddenly a swirling black wraith. He descended on Tori, making quick work of her bindings as Marian sprinted to the slice she’d made between worlds where the Remnant spawned. She ducked as the Remnant swiped at her, her knife gripped tight as she barreled toward the heart of the beast.

Guards lumbered to their feet all around her, their faces misshapen, bodies mutating violently as their vacant eyes sought Marian. One lurched toward Tori. Vale shot forward, darkness expanding around him as his shadows leashed the snarling abomination.

But another animated in the back of the room, the guard’s body twisting into a fleshy spider covered in skin and black suiting. It scuttled toward Tori, but Greg saw it first. He grabbed the traveler and brandished her like a human shield against the possessed guard.

Marian flew at breakneck speed for them. By the time Greg realized she was coming, it was too late. She sliced the knife across his throat, painting the floor with his blood. Tori ripped herself free of his slackening grasp and collected herself in record time. She grabbed a swaying Greg by the arm and flung the diver into the many open jaws of the oncoming Remnant instead.

Tori didn’t look back at him. She seized Marian’s wrist and dragged her away from the monster.

“I only see five guards!” Tori shouted. “Where’s number six?!”

Verinne screamed behind her as she stared at the chaos unfolding around her. “Stop her! Stop her!”

Her guards shambled toward them. Tori was right. Only five. Where was number six?

She saw him too late over Tori’s shoulder, tethered to the Remnant but still mostly human. His eyes were gone, the sockets black and charred at the edges as he aimed his pistol at Tori’s back.

Marian’s eyes went wide. To her right, Verinne rushed toward her. Vale approached from the left.

There’s no time.