Total pages in book: 151
Estimated words: 147649 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 738(@200wpm)___ 591(@250wpm)___ 492(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 147649 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 738(@200wpm)___ 591(@250wpm)___ 492(@300wpm)
Except… he just spat on my man. So… what the fuck?
Cookie and Pell are eye to eye now. And I think the whole sanctuary is holding their collective breath, waiting to see what happens next. “You’re nothing but the stand-in.”
“I am the master!” Pell roars this, making already-crumbled tombs crumble even more. “Saint Mark’s is my domain. You are here as my guests. And I want to know just what the fuck you all think you’re doing.”
That’s when Eyebrows appears. And again I have this sudden feeling of relief. That he might set things right. That he might be the reasonable monster. He has been making me pretty tailored clothes all these weeks, right? We’re friends, aren’t we?
But he roars back at Pell too. “You’re no longer necessary here, monster. Be gone now.” But he just dismissed Pell with a flick of his finger.
“Be gone now?” Pell and I both say this at the same time. Then we look at each other and laugh. After the laugh is over, we look back at Eyebrows. “We live here.” And once again, we say this together.
“I am the master,” Pell says.
“And I’m the slave caretaker,” I add. “You people are literally guests. And I think you should start acting like it.”
“Should we?”
Everyone turns to find Nysta slithering her way along a tomb wall that didn’t actually fall down during Pell’s rumble. I don’t know why she has to walk like that. I think, in her head, she feels like this is some kind of seductive, sexy thing. But it’s not. It’s… reptilian. And gross.
Pell is just about to answer her, but I put a hand on his shoulder. It’s an ‘I got this’ gesture. He looks at me, kinda shrugs, and then makes a little wave of his hand to indicate Nysta.
I step out in front. “Nysta. I’m only gonna say this once.” And then… then… then the fucking words come spilling out of my mouth! It happens so fast, I’m already on the second verse before I realize what I’m doing!
“‘A wood, a nymph, a space alone.
‘A woman now without a home.
‘Once a power, now a shell
‘Go away, live in your cell.’”
And then… poof!
She’s gone.
CHAPTER FOUR – PELL
It’s a bad idea. I know it’s a bad idea. But the words come spilling out of Pie’s mouth so fast, no one even has time to think. And this is interesting. Because it’s kind of a lot of words. And it’s not like people can’t hear it coming. I mean, she has to spit out a whole poem. So one might assume that one has time to counteract these spellings my Pie does.
But that’s not how it happens. It’s like once the spell is in motion, it’s already working. It kinda stuns people.
And after it’s done, there’s another moment of stunned silence. A moment where all the monsters process the empty space where Nysta used to be, but now isn’t. They can’t move. They just stand there, mouths open.
But then there’s always that other moment. The one that comes after the moment of stunned silence. The moment of pandemonium. The moment when their confusion turns into outrage.
I take control now. Because there will be no outrage in my sanctuary. So I use my new voice to stop them. “Do you see now?” My words roar across the grounds, weaving their way around tombs and along gravel pathways. They burst up into the air, like a mist, and cover everything and everyone. “You. Are. Guests. You have no idea what this place really is.”
I don’t either, but they don’t need to know that.
“It’s a debt prison,” Pie says. “And you are all in debt to us. And now Nysta is in a gloomy cell, hidden from all of you. And I can do that to anyone I want.”
Well, that escalated quickly. It’s probably true that Pie can banish any and all of them to the Bottoms and she does appear to be in charge of handing out Books of Debt, but it’s a threat too far, I think.
And all the other monsters think that too. They do go silent and they do not argue. But they’ve got that look on their faces. It’s a defiant look. It’s a look that says, You might be in charge now, but you won’t be forever.
And because Tomas is not here to smooth things over, I decide I need to smooth this over. “You are guests here.” I’m still using my voice, but it’s a low rumble, a soothing one instead of a threatening one. “And all we ask is that you respect our home. Because this is our home.”
“We get it.” Eyebrows steps forward, like he’s the leader of this little band of misfit assholes.
And wow, did I ever get that guy wrong. All of them, actually. How did I ever think they were so… harmless?