Hellmaw: Soul Larcenist by Suzanne Church

Author:Suzanne Church
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: The Ed Greenwood Group
Published: 2016-01-29T19:52:16+00:00

31. Hurry

Windsor savored the climax, the waves rippling through her body. Smiling, she opened her eyes and said, “That was—” but couldn’t finish. Because the image before her made no sense. Puck was gone, replaced by a monster. A daemon, like Videx, only different.

A scream escaped her throat.

He bore the same strange skin, looking more like carpet than flesh, his complexion a darker, more caramel brown than Videx, partially camouflaged against the orange tiles. His nose was definitely longer than Videx’s, and his mouth smaller. He looked like an alien version of Puck, the human man who, moments ago, had been inside her. The worst parts of his hideous body were the gobs of festering green-black flesh erupting from his shoulder blades.

As she detangled her arms and legs from the shower curtain, her thoughts raced back to Videx’s dungeon. She shivered, remembering the bluish-purple glow in the bastard’s eyes and the strange rippled ridges of yellow hardened skin on his elbows and wrists. Her stomach churned as she remembered the lingering stench of mulled wine oozing out of Videx’s cruel body. In contrast, the creature in the shower smelled of freshly laundered sheets and vanilla candles. He tasted like his peppery chocolate brownies. He spoke only honest and kind words.

He could not possibly be Videx. And yet...

She yanked a thin white towel from the back of the toilet, grabbed her clothes from the pile on the floor, and bolted out of the bathroom, slipping on the wet floor before her feet found traction on the filthy green bedroom carpet.

“Get dressed,” she ordered herself. The sound of her words helped her to snap back to the present. “Hurry.”

The godforsaken shakes returned. She put her shirt on backwards and had to take it off to fix it. She pulled her jeans over still-wet legs and couldn’t yank them up all the way.

She found her gun on the floor next to the bed and shoved it into the waist of her jeans. Finding her coat, she threw it on, and checked in the pockets for her car keys.

Damn. Puck had them last.

The shower continued to run and Puck—that monstrous thing—hadn’t emerged from the bathroom. Her rational mind pestered her with a message: If he planned to attack you, he would have by now. Drawing her old gun, she shouted, “I’m aiming at your head. Turn off the water and put your hands against the far wall.”

The water stopped. He made a loud show of slapping his hands against the tiles. In a calm voice, he said, “I won’t hurt you, Windsor.”

“I will. If you so much as scratch your ass, I’ll paint those tiles with your frontal lobe.”

“Understood.”

Standing to the left of the door, she ducked around the frame to check the bathroom. He stood exactly how she’d asked him to, with his hands pressed against the tile wall. His skin had returned to its regular human smoothness, covering the disgusting bumps. His head hung low.

He said, “Windsor, please.”

“Shut the fuck up. Or, I swear, I’ll make sure you never speak again.

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