A Different Kind of Deadly Read Online Free

black when I felt myself
getting jerked back. I gasped as air rushed into my lungs. It was
about a minute before I realized how quiet it had
gotten.
    When I raised my head, Leo wasn't staring at
me, and neither was anyone in the room.
    In the moment Diana pulled me out of Leo's
crushing embrace, her hood had fallen back. She glared daggers at
everyone, and I felt tension running through her porcelain
limbs.
    A familiar clacking pierced my ears as my
mother walked across the room. She stopped right in front of me,
and I saw such a foreign emotion flash across her eyes that she
looked like a stranger.
    "Marvin..." my mother's voice was breaking.
"What have you done?"

 
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    7: The Crone of
Astheneia

    My mother seemed
human for the first time in over two
decades. There was real emotion reflected in her eyes, not the
frosted mirrors I'd known for years. She looked from me, to Diana,
and asked one question.
    "Does he know?"
    Diana shook her head.
    Something was tapping in the room. It was slow
and measured, and any necromancer worth his salt was filled with
foreboding.
    Approaching our small group was a ghastly hag
known as the Crone of Astheneia.
    Like other high ranking members of her House,
her face was chemically burned. A web of scars that never
completely healed limned her skin in reddish welts. Her one
remaining eye socket was a sagging, oblong shape hanging off her
cheek. Strands of gray hair clung to the edges of an otherwise bald
scalp, and the whole picture was decidedly hideous.
    If there was such a thing as a
ruler of Nethermount, the Crone would be the one to hold that
title. It was said that she had been here long before the Houses
were formed. In numerical terms, this placed her age at a minimum
of four centuries.
    While I can't say I believe that rumor, she
certainly looked it.
    The tapping sound came from the gnarled cane
in her hand. It was warped all the way up, culminating in a six
headed hydra. Its individual necks coiled around her fingers and
around her wrist. I was horrified to witness one sinking its fangs
into her thumb, and I wondered what kind of monster this woman was
that she didn't even flinch at the cane making a meal of her
fingers.
    "Diana." The Crone's voice
suited her namesake; a scratchy sound that was breathless and
forceful all at once. "I see your... knack for making an entrance is the
same as ever."
    The Crone came closer, and I was
surprised to discover that she smelled... sweet, like chocolate and
fresh cut flowers.
    She raised her cane at me.
    "Wait!" My mother held her hand for
pause.
    "What is it, Formosa?" The
Crone asked. "You can still bear another child to inherit Thanos.
This one is a failure ."
    The word cut through me like a serrated knife.
In my mind, I cradled this severed piece of ego, but I couldn't
stop it from bleeding out no matter how hard I tried.
    "Great Witch." My mother dipped her head in a
low bow. "Marvin's only crime was his ignorance. He couldn't
possibly have known that-"
    The Crone slammed her cane on the floor,
jarring everyone in the room.
    "Would that I could show you
the terrors that Doll rained upon us, Formosa." Her voice had a
new, sinister edge to it. "We couldn't even destroy her, only lock
her up in a wooden box," the Crone wheezed in her interpretation of
a snort. "Ignorance is not enough to excuse such a stupid blunder."
    Something strange happened then.
    It felt as though a hook had latched onto
me... not physically, but deeper; much, much deeper. I panicked for
a moment, but was soon filled with a reassurance I couldn't
place.
    "Spare him, Mahlah," a new speaker commanded.
I tilted my head back slowly. Diana's painted lips had somehow
become faceted... and moved in a way that looked oddly human. She
stared down the Crone, something that I didn't think was
possible.
    Diana's sudden ability to speak must've been
significant. Something changed in the older faces in the room, and
it was especially pronounced in