Page 52 of Hellbound

“Ah, yeah. ’Course. Sorry, I don’t think I’m all there right now. I have what I need, but I wouldn’t say no to a few extra prayers if you’re the praying type.”

Marian wasn’t, so she said nothing and tried to ignore the pit of unease forming in her stomach. The train slowed to a halt, and when the doors whooshed open, Tori all but jogged through them before Marian could stand up.

They hurried through the terminal in silence, keeping a healthy distance apart. As Tori split off through a turnstile toward a different platform where a commuter train had arrived, Marian called after her.

“Hey! Wednesday! Don’t be late!”

Tori stopped halfway up the platform. Then she slowly turned around and called back, her expression serious.

“It’s a lie, you know. Whatever she offered you, she doesn’t have it.”

All the color drained from Marian’s face. She ran forward, blind to the turn style in front of her until she slammed hip-first into it and nearly bowed over. The screen lit up, prompting her to pay the fare. She fumbled for her transit card, but Tori was already almost gone.

“What the fuck did you say?” Marian shouted back.

But the traveler had vanished. With a groan, she leaped over the turn style and jogged up the walkway. There was no one left on the platform as the train lurched away.

What the fuck?

She wasn’t going to get any answers running down a subway tunnel. So, she pulled out her phone to text the “WTF?” To Tori.

Her heart stuttered at the notification on her lock screen. A text from Vale.

Two words that sent a chill down her spine. The timing was too perfect. And Marian didn’t believe in coincidence.

“Be careful.”

Marian stood in front of her bathroom mirror dressed in a sports bra and black joggers, her throat raw from screaming. The overhead bulb buzzed loudly as she inspected her reflection. Little shadows huddled in the darkness between the wall and the toilet, as though watching her.

A shapeless nightmare lingered in the back of her mind; its darkness accompanied by the vague memory of the sound of something breathing from inside her walls.

Or maybe that was just the wind gusting outside her bedroom window. She’d forgotten to shut the blinds before passing out in bed and awoke to the sight of a palm tree bent in submission.

Odd. She’d not seen high winds in the forecast for today.

Stabbing pain in her bladder made it difficult to care about the sudden shift in the weather. She padded stiffly to the toilet and lifted the lid as the sound of rushing water exploded from the bathroom sink. Marian’s eyes snapped open, suddenly wide awake as she spun to face the faucet.

But it wasn’t water rushing from the tap.

It was smoke. Thick, black smoke, followed by thick, viscous threads of pitch. The sink filled quickly, long tendrils of darkness curling over the edge like vines. A deep, pulsing thrum began.

Marian turned to run, ready to flee her apartment and never stop running. But there in the bathroom doorway, blocking her path, was a pillar of bubbling pitch sprouting tentacle after tentacle. They all reached for her in unison.

A gentle brush around her legs had her looking down. The shadows had gathered around her feet, linking together to form one dark mass. It tugged at the hem of her pants and began to climb. Like a cat.

Marian opened her mouth to scream, but the moment she did, the shadows in her doorway plunged into her mouth.

Then Marian wished she was dead, Hell be damned.

It was eight thirty AM when Marian was awoken by the sound of a motorcycle backfiring outside her window. She was so nauseated, she could hardly see straight. She barely made it to the bathroom in time to vomit, the stuffy, windowless room stifling as she knelt on the floor, panting.

The nausea passed soon after, but her anxiety didn’t, so she distracted herself by making her morning cup of shitty coffee.

Every mouthful tasted like how old batteries smelled, but the warmth of it in her belly helped chase away the tremors in her hands. Soon enough, her mind wandered to other matters.

She never replied to Vale last night; she’d been fully focused on bombarding Tori with calls and messages that went unanswered. Who was “she?” Verinne? How could Tori have known about the demon’s offer?

A sickening thought occurred to her. Was Verinne Tori’s nightmare client?