Page 66 of Nightshade

“I’m not in a position to grant you mercy. But I can hunt you down and make every miserable moment of your life up until now seem like paradise.”

“What will you have me do?”

“You’re going to return to the earthly realm and find the men who hurt you. And you’re going to offer them the same ruthless compassion that you’ve given to so many children. From this day forward, you will hunt men just like them. Remove their tongues so they won’t utter a word of repentance. Cleave away the very source of their power and watch them bleed out.” Releasing his throat, I petted the man’s hair, which earned me a flinch of the cambion’s eye. “As many as you can. You’ll be the Pied Piper, leading them all to a grisly end.” The vacuous hunger inside of me clawed for the chance to feed, but the power of suggestion would yield far more fruit.

“And if I can’t?”

Fingers curled into the man’s hair, I tipped his head back.

A gasp flew past the cambion’s lips.

“If you fail …” I tipped the sword, holding it to the cambion’s throat. “I will be the one reveling in your screams. And when I finish, I will send you swiftly to Ex Nihilo.”

The half-breed’s eyes widened. “The endless void,” he whimpered.

“These children give you nothing. Do not be distracted by petty and useless desires. Killing the men who harmed you will restore your power.”

“I promise I won’t fail you, Master.”

“I’m not your master. But should you fail, I will be your executioner.”

“I will find them. All of them. And I will make them suffer. For you.”

“And you will not touch another boy. You will feed your desire to kill with those more deserving of it.”

“You have my word.”

“Your word is meaningless unless etched in blood.” With the sharp tip of the blade, I carved my personal sigil into the cambion’s flesh. Tarry, black blood oozed from the wound and hardened in the trenches of the mark. If summoned, the cambion would be powerless and forced to return to me, a fact that seemed to horrify the half-breed, as he stared down at the wound with fear in his eyes. “I’ll be checking in on you, Mr. Crane.”

One hard push threw the cambion backward, and he stumbled over his own feet. He took off running in the opposite direction and disappeared down the alley’s corridor until he was out of sight.

It wasn’t out of mercy that I’d let the half-breed go. Whatever shred of mercy that was left inside of me had shriveled long ago, leaving nothing but a cold and callous void. I was an opportunist. The power of suggestion fed my hunger, and preying on molesters meant fewer young boys ending up in Nightshade. The place of those who failed to believe in anything.

I turned to where the boy had lain just moments before. Only the telling, bright red blood of a human child remained. The rest of him would be trapped in Nightshade for eternity.

Such a shame the young and innocent feared the light so much that they hid in the darkness of Purgatory.

As I headed toward the mouth of the alley, a tingle innervated my nerves, and I turned, just as a clawed hand reached out from the shadows and into the light. Behind it, the bald crown of a creature’s head tipped forward, and a long, serpentine tongue lapped at the blood on the ground. Its back curved in an unnatural arc, and the skin covering its body bore the dark, mottled sign of decay.

I’d never seen one so close before. The rumors throughout Nightshade had described the creatures as animals, but the distinct humanoid form beneath all of its deformities was undeniable, even though it was clearly not human.

A number of fatal attacks had been reported throughout Nightshade, describing monstrosities that not only fed on humans and cambions, but Fallen, as well.

What luck to stumble upon one.

Shifting the sword in my hands, I stalked closer, careful not to disrupt its feeding. I raised my sword for a swing to lob off its head. At my lurch, the creature hissed and flashed past me in a streak of gray. A sharp burn struck my flank, and I let out a grunt, twisting to find my jacket in shreds where three claw marks ran horizontally over my abdomen. Blood oozed from the wounds, and I set my hand there, grumbling as I spun around to find the creature was no longer there.

Instead, another figure hobbled toward me, hunched over from a severe deformity that gnarled his spine. The telling sign of the bullio he’d been born with. They were known throughout Nightshade as Intortui, and in addition to their contorted appearance, which tended to frighten the villagers, they were also known for their ability to see the future.

“Master Jericho?” the Intortui rasped as he limped toward me.

“You’re Tartys?”

“Yes.” Words affected by a lisp from his crooked jaw and teeth, he spoke slowly and with effort. “I understand you’re looking for someone.”

Instead of answering, I studied the grotesque deformities of the man, ones that made him a monster in Nightshade.

“Virgil.”