Menacing.

Lucifer Incarnate.

Her beginning and her end.

“Leave,” she ordered, holding up the knife.

He kept walking.

“I swear I’ll kill you.”

A slow, self-satisfied smile slid across his face. You think you invited me here, whore, when it was I who found you, who hunted you, who will do the killing. He didn’t say a word, yet his voice reverberated through her brain.

“I’m not kidding,” she warned, brandishing her small blade, the jackknife she’d stolen from her father’s drawer.

Nor am I.

She lunged. Driving the knife downward, intending to slice into his abdomen.

Quick as a snake, he coiled strong fingers around her wrist.

“Ah!”

Stupid cunt.

He bent her hand backward.

Pain screamed up her forearm. She cried out and fell to her knees.

Her gaze clashed with his.

Strong fingers bent her wrist back.

“Stop!” she yelled.

Breath hissed through his teeth. With a sharp twist he snapped the bones in her wrist.

She cried out softly. The knife fell from her nerveless fingers. His dark eyes were lasers as he snatched it up and drove forward, jamming it between her ribs. “No more,” he rasped.

She clawed at him but it was no use. Meeting his gaze, she whispered, “This is just the beginning…” and saw his face contort with rage as he shook his head violently, thrusting the knife deeper.

The night swirled around her. She crumpled to the ground at the base of the statue, aware that her attacker was staring down at her, his teeth bared, his breath visible in short puffs that dissipated as she gazed upward, the lifeblood pooling out of her.

Then she lay still as death beneath the Madonna. He backed out of her ever-narrowing vision. Clouds shrouded the moon. Few stars were visible. The Madonna’s arms stretched upward to the heavens. Somewhere, far in the distance, it seemed a bell tolled.

I am a sacrifice, she thought.