Your Turn to Suffer by Tim Waggoner (free romance novels .TXT) 📗

attempt to slow the bleeding, but the dark stain was still spreading. His teeth were gritted, features contorted in pain, and she remembered what Edgar had told her about the Gravedigger Special’s ammunition.

It fires the teeth of people who’ve died horrible, agonizing deaths. Their suffering is distilled into the teeth, and it’s released when they hit their target. Few things can withstand a concentrated dose of another being’s pain.

She was glad the fucker was hurting. She’d make him – and the rest of the goddamned Cabal – experience all the pain in the universe if she could.

Rauch, wearing his police uniform, exited the cruiser, seemingly unhurt after ramming his vehicle into the Pest Defense van. Too bad, Lori thought.

The rumble of the motorcycle engine grew louder, and an instant later, Goat-Eyes joined the rest of them. Like the Driver, she wore her Cabal robe, and Lori wondered how she was able to drive her bike without getting the hem’s fabric caught in the back wheel. It seemed to Lori that it would take as much supernatural power as anything else the Cabal did.

Goat-Eyes pulled her motorcycle up to the Driver’s car, parked, and dismounted.

The gang’s all here, Lori thought.

Ignoring the protestations of her knee, she rose to her feet. Whatever was going to happen next, she’d be damned if she’d face it lying down.

She looked around once more for the Gravedigger Special and this time she saw it, gleaming white against the Nightway’s glossy ebon surface, ten feet to her left.

Goat-Eyes had a cord of braided leather wrapped several times around her waist. A handle protruded from the coils, and Goat-Eyes took hold of it and yanked. The cord slipped loose, and when Goat-Eyes flicked her wrist, Lori realized she was holding a whip. It cracked loudly and flames burst to life along its length. Lori had to admit the effect was impressive. Goat-Eyes kept cracking the whip as she approached, and every time she did, the flames burned higher and hotter.

Smiling in triumph, the three Cabal members closed in on Lori and Edgar. Only the Driver was unarmed, but considering what his non-eyes could do, Lori knew he didn’t need any other weapon.

“Come with us willingly, Lori,” the Driver said, hand pressed to his shoulder wound, voice tight as he fought against the agonizing pain caused by the tooth-bullet. “If you do, I promise no harm will come to Edgar. We’ll leave him here without so much as mussing a hair on his head.”

“Of course, there’s no guarantee a predator won’t get him after we depart,” Goat-Eyes said.

“But that’s not our problem,” Rauch said. “Besides, he’s a wily veteran of the Nightway. If anyone can survive its dangers on foot – literally one foot – it’s him.”

“Don’t do it,” Edgar said, wobbling as he continued to try to maintain his balance. “You can’t trust them. They’ll probably kill me as soon as they get you out of here.”

“We wouldn’t do that,” Goat-Eyes protested. “We still have need of you.”

“By need, you mean you want to take him back to the tower and torture him,” Lori said.

Goat-Eyes shrugged. “One person’s torture is another’s bliss. We do what we must to maintain the Balance.”

The trio had continued moving as they spoke, and now they were less than fifteen feet from Lori and Edgar. Lori glanced at the Gravedigger Special again, tried to calculate the odds of her being able to get hold of the gun before the Cabal members could attack. She was no great mathematician, but she figured her chances were piss-poor.

Edgar extended his hands in a warning gesture.

“Stay back! Not all of my bugs are dead. They’ve multiplied since I escaped you, and I still got a fuck-ton inside me. If you so much as take another step closer, I’ll—”

Rauch raised his gun and fired.

Edgar’s head jerked as a bullet pierced his skull and entered his brain. The impact knocked him off balance and he fell to the ground, blood jetting from his wound. He turned to look at Lori one last time, but his eyes were already starting to glaze over, and she didn’t know if he actually saw her. Then he slumped over and fell still, mouth open, no beetles emerging from it.

“You idiot!” the Driver shouted. “He was bluffing – he didn’t have any more beetles inside him!”

“How was I supposed to know?” Rauch said. “He sounded very convincing.”

Goat-Eyes stared at Edgar’s body. The whip fell from her hand, and when it hit the ground, its flames extinguished.

“Do you have any idea what you’ve done?” she said, nearly screaming the words.

Edgar’s sudden death shocked Lori to her core. She hadn’t known the man long or well, but he’d been a friend to her, helping her when she’d most needed it, and without any concern for his own safety. Fury at the Cabal – especially Rauch – overwhelmed her, and while the three mystics argued, she started toward the Gravedigger Special. She tried to run, but her fucking knee wouldn’t allow her to do more than a sort of shuffling hobble. She expected to hear Rauch fire his gun once more, expected to feel a bullet slam into her, but he didn’t. As if from a distance, she heard him arguing with his two companions, and she prayed the three would remain distracted just a few moments more.

Her knee gave out on her before she reached the gun, but as she fell, she stretched out her right arm as far as she could. As she smacked down onto the Nightway’s cold, smooth surface, her hand came down on the Gravedigger Special. She grabbed it, rolled onto her side, aimed at Rauch, and fired.

The tooth-bullet struck Rauch in the throat, and his head jerked backward. Blood jetted from his neck slits, and when the agony contained within the tooth was released into his system, he screamed. More blood gushed from his mouth, and for an instant he looked like some kind of grisly fountain. Then his body went