Hell.
Death sighs dramatically. “Fine.”
There’s a pause, a swooshing sound, and then the web violently shakes. The spider crashes to the sticky threads, one of its giant hairy legs narrowly missing me, and I realize that Death jumped on top of it.
The spider immediately goes still, dying instantly.
I crane my head up to look at Death as he gets off the spider like he’s dismounting a horse, and makes a show of putting one of his armored gloves back on his hand, and for a brief second I see his bare skin, which is covered in lines of pulsing silver.
Then he walks over to me, balancing gracefully on the web. He looms over my body, his figure larger than life, his cape black and flowing behind him, hate burning in the depths of his unseen eyes, and I realize that perhaps it would have been better had the spider ended me.
I’m about to find myself on another web, Death lurking in the shadows, waiting for me to tremble.
Chapter 9
The Liekkiö Plains
Death reaches down and grabs me by the elbow, hauling me to my feet, my skin screaming in pain as the web stretches and pulls and finally lets go. It feels like half my flesh goes with it.
I nearly fall back into his arms and it’s then that I realize how fucking huge Death is. He’s at least a foot taller than me, which makes him what, close to seven feet? And his hand is the size of my head, and I don’t think that’s because of the fancy metal gauntlets.
“Having second thoughts, fairy girl?” he asks and before I can answer, lifts me up so that I’m thrown over his shoulder, like a caveman would do to a kidnapped bride.
I don’t bother with the fist-pounding and kicking theatrics since I did sign up for this moments ago in exchange for my father’s life, and there’s also the fact that logically I can’t walk on the spiderweb without sticking to it.
Once we’re on solid ground again and away from the cliff’s edge, he puts me down and I get a whiff of his smell. I expected Death to smell like, well, death. Decay. Rot. Everything vile and disgusting. But for whatever reason, he actually smells pleasant. It’s deep in tone and hard to place, maybe sandalwood and…smoke? A bonfire with really good wood? Something like that.
“Are you smelling me?” he asks, a hint of amusement in his gruff voice.
I glance up at him, wishing that at such close range that I could see more of his face. His hood does such a great job of keeping his features in shadow; I wonder if it’s part magic.
Then again, I don’t think he has any features. If he really is just a black, shiny skull, then no wonder I can’t see anything.
But then, when he turns ever so slightly, I see a flash of white where his eyes should be. It’s hard to tell if it is a trick of the light or not.
“You smell vile,” I tell him.
“Good,” he says simply. “I take a bath every day but when you fill the tub with bat’s blood, the smell is bound to rub off on you.”
I still. Oh my god. I can’t tell if he’s joking.
“Now,” he goes on, reaching into a pocket inside his hood, “that we’ve made an agreement, struck a bargain, we still have to get you back to my home at Shadow’s End.”
“Is this the place you bathe in bat’s blood?”
“Where I what?” he asks. Pauses. “Yes. As will you.” He pulls out an iron collar from his coat, attached to a long chain. I have no idea where he’s keeping all these things, it’s like Mary Poppins’ purse in there. “And as I was saying, in order to make sure you uphold your part of the bargain and won’t try something foolish again like escaping and nearly going to Oblivion, I need to keep you on a leash. Literally. This belongs to my hound, Rauta. And before you take credit for this, because I do recall you listing treat me like a dog as one of the perks in owning you, I had planned this already.”
I don’t move as he places the cold iron collar around my neck, fastening it with a loud click that sounds like a jail door closing.
“There,” he says, sounding proud, and I can feel the intensity in his gaze as he looks me over, even though I can’t see it. “I must say, it looks rather good on you. Like you’re some wild fairy who’s been finally caught and tamed.”
I’ll never be tamed, is a thought I have but what I say is, “Do you have fairies here?”
“Not exactly,” he says. “There’s no Tinkerbell.”
“Tinkerbell?” I repeat. “No mention of fae folk, or sprites, or any of the other myths and legends from around the world that are most likely real, but Tinkerbell? From Peter Pan? A Disney cartoon?”