“It’s time.” 

I erupted out of the ground in Royce’s office and planted my hourglass on his desk with bone-rattling force, so that both of us could watch the last of the red sand inside pour down. 

His jaw clenched. He hated me, and with good reason. I’d killed his great-grandfather when I’d been bound to his line, and no matter how often he tried to rid himself of me, just like his father and his grandfather before him, he hadn’t managed it yet, and he never would. 

I was a creature of shadow and fate, and every time the hourglass turned, it was time for me to get my due—and right now, there was someone coming to the Monster Security Agency who was meant for me.

Someone from whom I could feed.

Royce pushed himself away from his desk reluctantly. He’d said ‘no’ before, and he’d tried to refuse me, but that wasn’t how this worked. The curse that made me roam the earth feeding on fear and terror could not be denied, just delayed, for one hourglass’s worth of sand.

“Fuck you, Sylas.”

I laughed at his discomfiture. “Cursing won’t change anything. Does it even make you feel better, at this point?” 

“Not really, no,” he confessed, taking a long inhale, and looking out the window beside him, as if he could see whoever was arriving, seventeen floors below. 

“Who do you think it will be?” I asked conversationally. The opportunity to taunt him was too good to pass up. “Young, or old? Male, or female?” The smoke I was comprised of swirled around in eager anticipation. 

A sheen of sweat broke out on his head, reflecting light as he shook it. “Whoever it is, I don’t want to meet them.” 

The burden of knowing that horrible things were going to happen was too great for him to bear, but it didn’t bother me in the least. In almost every case people—usually men—would walk in and ask to hire a monster for an ‘assignment’. Sometimes they were cagey, sometimes not, and I would give Royce one thing, he never entertained them, nor tried to extort money from their insanity. The second they said anything about hurting other people, he—or a cadre of his employees—would escort them out the door.

And in those cases, released from my tether to his hourglass, I would follow them, silently, knowing that a great crime was going to be committed. I had followed cult leaders, mad bombers, and school shooters alike—and each time, I knew that somewhere inside the MSA building a frantic Royce Bannerman was making phone calls to lines that would suddenly not work, or getting through and shouting warnings that went unheeded.

His line was cursed, I supposed, much the same as I was—but I had accepted my fate long ago. I was well aware of my place in the world, and I didn’t fight it.  

“I have no idea what my grandfather was thinking, when he tied you to that.” Royce pointed at the hourglass that we were both watching—the object I’d spent most of the past three generations trapped inside.   

“Hmm. He was probably too busy planning your great-grandfather’s funeral to think much,” I said, letting a malevolent smile cross my shadowed face. 

Royce made a pained, growling noise, from deep inside his chest. “You’re no better than a tick.” 

I gave a dark and mocking laugh. “Really, Royce,” I chided. “Have you ever considered that I perform a needed function?”

The magical dark red sand inside the hourglass was thinner now and pouring out like blood. 

“Which would be?” he asked, his tone arch. 

“Maybe someone needs to feed on those emotions. Maybe if they were left alone, they would multiply endlessly, splashing out onto others.” 

“Is that what you tell yourself? So you can sleep at night?”

“Oh, tsk, Royce. I don’t sleep. I only make others sleep—sleep, and dream of me.” The final few grains were rattling down. “Here it comes.” 

The last one dropped—and Royce’s intercom went live. “Mr. Bannerman? There’s a potential client here to see you. I tried to tell them you weren’t in, but—” 

I eyed Royce, watching him swallow and hate me with his full heart.

It was the first time I’d gotten to eat since being released, and his animosity tasted like a fresh warm blackberry plucked from the vine at the end of the season, when you were standing in full sun, but there was a light and comforting breeze all around you. 

It tasted like life. 

I wanted more—so much more—and soon I would have it. 

Royce gritted his teeth together and reached out to hit the intercom button. “Reception room three,” he announced. 

“Race you there,” I taunted him, snatching up my hourglass to sink into the floor at once.