Blood Secrets

epilogue



PETER STOOD BEFORE THE DOOR LEADING TO THE HALL of Records. Varik Baudelaire had no idea what kind of monster he’d unleashed when he killed Peter.

He grinned. He would make Baudelaire pay for what he’d done, and he would pay dearly.

He turned the knob to open the door but it didn’t move. Confused, he tried turning it the other way but met with the same result. “What the f*ck is going on here?”

“Hello, Peter.”

He whirled around to find Bernard Sabian standing a few yards away with his hands in the pockets of his dark suit. “What did you do, old man?”

“Having trouble with the door?”

Peter pounded on the door. “What did you do!”

Bernard shrugged. “I didn’t do anything. When you died—”

“I was murdered, old man! Don’t play games with me!”

“Fair enough. When Varik rightly killed your pathetic ass,” Bernard sneered, “all that stored soul energy you used to boost your abilities went poof.”

Cold realization began to sink into Peter’s mind.

“The magic you used to create all those dolls, so long as they remained intact, required a beating heart to contain them, and yours doesn’t anymore.”

A wind kicked up, whipping around them and carrying the wail of a thousand souls.

Peter scanned the horizon for its source until he spotted the dark roiling mass heading toward them.

“And here they come now,” Bernard said. “I’d start running if I were you.”

Peter spun and fled, running across the field as fast as his legs would carry him.

The roiling mass gained on him. The shrieks and screams of all the souls he’d trapped spurred his flight.

The mass overtook him and he felt hands grabbing at him. He cried for them to stop, begged them to release him.

The once-trapped souls lifted him from the ground, tossed him about, ripping and tearing his flesh from the bone, and Peter knew his screams would continue as they tormented him.

Forever.