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"What did it look like?"

She tried to remember, but that part of the dream was unclear "I don’t know It was fairly sie attached to it" Moons again She shuddered

"Anything else?"

Ruby shook her head "What do these drea on with that damn cat knickknack?"

Zane didn’t answer for a while "You don’t believe in oing to change pretty quickly," she et rid of the cat?"

"I’m sorry to say, I don’t think you can Not easily, at least," he added "I’ to have to study this a bit before I have any definite answers for you"

"Study to into his side "If you leave I’llI’ll" Go mad, eat every bite of the leftover cake, cry, screa," he assured her

Ruby took a deep breath and sighed On her television screen,in black and white A wo white dress drifted across the screen It was an odd scene to fall asleep to, but she did, falling hard

Olwen stopped fighting She was tired, and she was frightened, and she no that there was no escape from this Her beloved husband Arlin had tied her to her own bed when she’d told hiht her a witch, but now she knew that was not true He si dreams

She’d been here for two days, now Arlin had seen that she was fed, and he had even given her a washing and dressed her in her best linen shift The man she loved, the father of her child, made sure she could not escape, but he also cared for her And then, when he said the tined, he offered her soul to the demon he worshipped

The dark cat stood on her chest and placed its snout close to her nose It purred, deep and ru, so that it

’Seemed the entire world shook When she had first seen the feline rise froiven her, it had beenIt had been a hole where there should’ve been none, darkness where there should’ve been light, but noas solid, heavy on her chest It was real She could see the fur on its skin and the burning red of its evil eyes Using the power of its mind, the cat forced herher life and her soul fro, white and blue streaks flowing fro left of her but what lived inside the darkness

Olwen, devoted h the eyes of the de upon her own lifeless body

She looked so scared in death, so horribly empty

Arlin dropped to his knees and praised this dee cat who had once been nothing but a dark hole now had a beating heart and a deep hunger for flesh He would not be like this for very long, she knew, as she was now inside the deht was all the tier of almost three centuries

The curse that kept the demon trapped in stone for all but a few hours out of nearly two hundred and ninety years was not unbreakable When he woke the demon took souls, and when the ninth soul was his, he would live again He would be whole and he would make the world pay

Arlin looked up, a love and adht such expressions were reserved for her, but apparently his love for the dereater than his love for his wife "I have been proreat sacrifice" Arlin opened his arreat black paiped out and sliced open the betrayer’s throat A cat’s screaan to cry The demon who had taken Olwen’s soul could not take another, not until he hole again, but while he lived he craved flesh, and he started with his most huruesome scene went black, and a soft voice, the voice of the woman who had been sacrificed, whispered in Ruby’s ear, "While his heart beats, he can be taken Do not hesitate, or he will take your soul

"Trust no one"

Ruby aith a cry and all but threw herself at the man who shared the couch with her Zane, too, had slept, and when he came awake his arms instinctively wrapped around her

"Are you okay?" he asked