The demon’s pale and shriveled lips peeled back to display a needle-toothed grin.
Death would come next. Isobel had no doubt. And there was no stopping it, or what would happen after.
She would become a Lost Soul, like Reynolds, bound body and spirit to this realm—to Lilith—for eternity.
Gwen had been right, and, enemy or not, Reynolds had been right too.
She’d never stood a chance.
Cold and caressing, the creature’s knuckles trailed Isobel’s cheek, brushing over her scar before sliding up to her temple. There, the wraith’s talons wove their way into her hair, causing Isobel’s crown of flowers to dislodge and drift off.
Though Isobel tried to wrench her head away, the demon tightened its grip at the back of her skull, holding her face to its own.
With lungs now threatening to explode, Isobel ceased her feeble side-to-side twists. She waited, anticipating the piercing pain of those spiked teeth, the ripping sensation of having her throat torn out. The clawed hand that would contract and crush her windpipe.
When none of those things happened—when nothing happened—Isobel’s yearning for air became an all-consuming need, and it occurred to her that delivering a swift death was not what Lilith had in mind.
The demon wanted to watch her struggle, to drink in her final throes as she drowned slowly in its clutches.
But she’d come so far. Survived too much. Risked everything . . .
Isobel kicked her legs again, though no longer in an effort to escape. Now she hoped only to fend off the fog of unconsciousness that had begun to steal over her, lulling her toward the last bat of her eyes, since her final breath had already been taken.
Varen, she thought, her fingers wrapping the sinewy wrist of the hand that held her. Where was he?
Shhh, a woman’s voice hushed in her head. Sleep now, so you can awaken safe in your new bed. Forever and always home . . .
Of course, Isobel thought dimly, lids drooping.
The demon’s plan was to seal her away. That open tomb. Halloween. The blue marble crypt. Lilith’s own vault.
Total darkness. Complete and everlasting.
The very fate Isobel had threatened the demon with in the ballroom.
Gritting her teeth, Isobel summoned one final burst of strength, attempting a second time to tear the creature’s grip away.
She succeeded only in ripping more of the clinging silk.
Shhh, the voice in her head shushed. Then, out of nowhere, the same voice began to sing.
“Hush-a-bye my little bird
Hush-a-bye my child”
Gwen’s lullaby. Isobel recognized the melody immediately.
“I have lost a love so great
Oh, woe is me.”
So, Isobel thought, her body slackening, that’s what the lyrics meant.
The singing turned to humming then, one melody to another, and Gwen’s lullaby morphed into Madeline’s. Varen’s.
Isobel’s lids fell closed at last under the weight of the soothing refrain. Her arms drifted open, her body preparing to indulge in the lethal inhale it so wanted to take.
Don’t you ever tire? Scrimshaw’s voice echoed over the humming.
Too late to turn back now, Isobel heard Gwen say.
Good-bye, cheerleader . . .
Good-bye, Isobel thought, just as her back collided with something solid. The ocean floor?
No, she thought when she felt an arm loop around her waist—pulling her in close against a body.
The moment seemed so familiar. Like it had happened once already.
Isobel opened her eyes to slits. As her mind attempted to make sense of murky shapes, garbled sounds, and hazy colors, she wondered if it was now her turn to relive old memories.
Pinfeathers, pulling her from one side of the veil to the other . . .
Then her clouded brain registered a look of rage contorting the demonic face that still hovered inches from her own. Lilith’s pitted eyes weren’t fixed on her anymore, though. They were locked instead on whatever—whoever—had taken hold of Isobel.
Isobel grabbed the hand gripping her, feeling for claws, but she found strong fingers instead.
A glint of silver sparked in the fringe of her vision.
Was that . . . ? Her arm shot out, and as soon as her fist closed around the veil-wrapped hamsa, the demon’s hands unlatched from her like loosed manacles.
Recoiling, Lilith’s face fractured down the center, spilling clouds of black and violet ink.
The creature opened its mouth in a soundless shriek, palms pressing to its rupturing face.
Then, before Isobel’s lungs could collapse, forcing her to inhale the swirling ink, the arm encircling her wrenched to one side—transporting her.