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“Life.”
“Does that come with a possibility of parole?”
That threw him off track but only for a moment. “Surrender the child.”
“Life, huh? That’s not a very good offer. Shouldn’t you at least throw in some riches and a pile of handsome men?”
“Give me the girl,” the whispery voice commanded. “You’re nothing, human. You’re no threat. My reeves shall grate the meat from your bones.”
So the hair ladies had a name. I bared my teeth. “Then why waste time talking. Take off that hoodie, and let’s go.”
He leaned back and thrust his arms up. Bulges rolled under the cloth, spiraling around his chest and sliding over his arms. A phantom wind stirred his habit. The cloth parted and within its depth I glimpsed an abomination of a face: a narrow fanged muzzle the color of old bruises, two huge round eyes, dead, cold, and alien like the eyes of a squid, and above them in the middle of the forehead, a soft pale green bump, palpitating like some grotesque heart. Twin streaks of gray ichor leaked from the bump, carving wet paths between the cruel eyes.
Tangles of green burst from the sleeves of the habit and split into tentacles that fastened above the door and raised Hood off the floor. He hung suspended in the tentacle net. The bump pulsated faster. His whisper flooded the apartment, so strong it soiled my skin.“Asssiiissssst…”
The magic burst from him in a cannon blast. The ward on my door tore like tissue paper and the blast smashed into me and out of the kitchen window. If the magic had substance, it would’ve shattered the walls. Shocked by the power, my mind took a second to comprehend that wards no longer shielded the door or the window behind my back.
A coil of black hair grabbed my waist and jerked me back with awesome force, pulling me to the broken window. I smashed into the twisted bars. Fiery pain raked my back and bit deep. I cried out.
A strand of black hair whipped my arm. Julie froze, her eyes wide in panic. The hair pulled me harder and harder, constraining my chest. I couldn’t shift a muscle. A steel band crushed my lungs. I would pass out and it would get Julie.
“Kiill…”Hood rasped. Teeth bit into my shoulder and let go. The reeve screeched, burned by my blood.
She was undead. Pilot her like a vampire. I reached for her mind and hit a wall of Hood’s defense.
Impenetrable.
The hair squeezed. Out of options.
The pain slashed my back. I strained and let out a single word.“Amehe.” Obey.
The power word tore from me in a flash of agony as if my insides were suddenly ripped from my stomach. The wall shielding the reeve’s mind shattered. Hood howled in his tentacle net.