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Collette took a long, shuddering, exhausted breath and pressed her forehead against the wall The sand scraped her skin, but in frustration she pressed harder and began to slide her forehead to the left, welco, the h her teeth, but then she just stood like that, head leaning on the wall, hands pressed against it on either side of her The Vittora huot no strings…to hold

With a shout, she struck the wall Pain ja shifted elsewhere in the cell Rustled Collette spun and glanced around The Vittora had stopped its childlike hu and had shrunk to a ht of the loom of the rounded cell and saw that she was indeed still alone

The sound ca familiar about it

And then she knew: feathers

Collette craned her neck back and looked up One of the skeletal creatures she had seen before was crouched in an arched , green-feathered wings black in theheavy upon its head She blinked aher eyes to adjust, and she could barely lea the tinny, frantic sound of her voice

The Hunter only perched there, liave a birdlike cock of its head and seeh Collette Its antlers threw ht shadon upon the floor of the cell like the twisted branches of soht

But there was no storm here No sound, save a barely audible wind and the rustle of its wings as the Hunter shifted its weight again

"Stop…why are you just staring at s and rose, legs tensed, about to take flight

"No, wait!" she cried "Please!"

The Hunter paused, regarding her once s around itself like a cloak

"I know…I know you won’t helpwanted to kill her, maybe even eat her, if it was into that Only the fact that the Sand down on her right now

"But, look, can you just tell me why?"

Silhouetted in the arched , antlers black streaks across the ht actually come down to join her in the pit then, but it re repeated, its voice harsh and stilted, as though itswords

In despair, she nodded "Just…why? Why do you want Oliver dead? Why me? Why…da to die andto die, I’d really like to knohy"

The thing sat for so long staring at her that she was sure she would get no answer It bent its head and scraped its antlers against the archedfraht

Just as she was about to act, to plead, or to scream in frustration, the Hunter spoke

"You will die because you were never meant to live," it said in that stilted voice "You will die because if you are allowed to continue, neither of our worlds will ever be the same The Bascoe only shallow breaths She stared at the thing "Creatures of…what are you talking about? We’ve never done anything to hurt anyone! We’re just…we’re just people Boring people, for Christ’s sake!"

And then she couldn’t hold it in anyet o away Oliver and I, we’ll just disappear, change our names, whatever Nobody in this place will even knoe’re still alive Just let me out, please! Please!"

Even as the words left her lips she hated herself for them, hated the weakness in her But desperation was all that she had left

The Hunter spread his wings again She thought he would fly away for sure now, but a tiny spark of hope remained and she wondered if instead he would fly down into the chamber and pluck her from her prison It was a foolish hope, she knew, but could not help nurturing it just for a ainst his back, she saw the gray-cloaked reaper behind him

The Sandman had come, and even the Hunter seerabbed hold of the Hunter’s antlers, and twisted Bones snapped and flesh tore wetly as the Sand tu as it struck the sand and twitched, wings atteh the body had no head It shifted toward her several inches and a spurt of blood jetted froed stump where its head had been

Collette was frozen to the spot, but even had she been able to flee, there was nowhere for her to go

The Sande and spilled down into the cha the wall and then rising up across the cell froht hand, antlers clutched in his fist

"I told them; I tell them all," he said, "we do not speak to the prey"

The head fell frorily, as if it had never been Then the sand began to slip around the corpse as well Soon the Hunter would be a memory, a fossil buried deep, and Collette wondered what else had been sed up by the sands of this place, this prison

Then a strange sound reached her--a rasping, grinding noise--and abruptly she realized it was the terrified sound of her own breath Collette shook all over, heart racing as it had when she had woken fro fro the wordthis creature, who of mercy

The Sandman see spindly fingers wrapped around her head, a terrible vise that h it would pop She opened her mouth, and the screae of her hope departing But she lived She reached up to batter at his arms and his face

Beneath his hood, he stared at her with those dreadful lemon eyes

The Sand hi at him, but he pulled her inexorably toward hiaze with his own, he drew her near until their faces were only inches apart

His lips parted A pink-brown tongue snaked out He held her head so tightly, fingers pulling her skin taut, that she could not close her eyes He ran a tongue like sand across her right eyeball

Piercing screao, felt herself fall to the ground, contorted in a frenzy of revulsion and pain, one hand over her eye

Darkness claimed her Blessed unconsciousness, her only escape from the Sandman, frohtan