The knife almost fell from Allister's hands again as the woman in red wove her way around the tombs and back towards him.

"Your excess, your parties, your mansion, the life you live is all because of the pain brought to my family. The price your family has paid is but a grain of sand within the hourglass of retribution I have planned for you."

"So you're damning me to a life of solitude because of what my ancestors did to your family."

Allister kept his attention on her as she moved. As she walked closer, there was something different about her—more so than the night he had met her at his home. It was as though a power emanated from her, and it both fascinated and frightened him.

"I tried to test you the night we met at your mansion on Mardi Gras," she said quietly. "You had the chance to show me you had changed, that you could have redeemed your family for all they had done. But instead, you showed me you were no better than the others and deserved to suffer the same fate as the rest."

"But my sister, and my parents—"

"Casualties in the grand scheme of the Lao," she purred, now standing before him.

He forgot about the knife in his hand, remembering only too late. With that same power he'd felt before, she moved with an almost inhuman speed and grabbed the blade from his grasp. Allister reacted a moment too late and felt the tip of the metal pierce the skin of his neck at his Adam's apple.

"Your family suffered, and now, so will you," she breathed. "You will now understand the pain I have felt walking this earth alone tenfold."

"So you're going to kill me?" he asked again, careful not to move, not to swallow, not to breathe, lest the knife dig in any deeper.

Surprisingly she let out a laugh—the same laugh that had lured him into the mausoleum.

"I already told you—I'm not going to kill you. You're going to do it yourself."

"I don't know how that would be possible seeing as you're the one holding my knife."

"I have no intention of drawing blood," she informed him. "But I will do so if you don't move accordingly."

"And where would you have me move?" he asked. With the knife so dangerously close, he would do anything she asked.

Instead of answering, however, her gaze dragged from him towards the half-opened tomb next to them.

The tomb reserved for him.

"No," he breathed, the panic beginning to rise once again in his chest.

"Yes." She angled the knife, and Allister had to look up to keep his distance from the blade. "You're going to walk into the tomb and consider your family's sins."

"And if I don't?"

This time, the tip of the knife broke through the skin, and Allister hissed in pain, feeling the warmth of his blood as it began to trickle down his neck.

"Redemption, Allister," she whispered. "Penance for what your family did to mine. Retribution for what you did to me."

"Why not just leave me here to be alone?" he offered, sweat trickling down his spine. "Would that not be a fate worse than death?"

"Perhaps," she agreed. "Perhaps I could leave you here alone for the remainder of your eternity. And any life you may live thereafter. But instead, what I offer you is mercy."

"Mercy?" he scoffed.

"Mercy. The opportunity to atone. And the chance to rejoin your family. Is that not what you want?"

Allister didn't answer.

"I'll give you one more chance," she said, her tone growing impatient. "The tomb with the chance of redemption, or the remainder of your miserable existence walking this Hell on earth by yourself."

Allister hesitated, contemplating his options. Either option didn't matter—he'd be dead one way or the other. Either by her hands or his own, he'd never survive by himself. Perhaps what she offered was mercy. Perhaps he could begin to walk that road to redemption, and maybe even achieve the enlightenment needed to see his sister and his parents again.

She never gave him the chance to decide.

With a swipe of her wrist, the knife sliced through his skin, neck to jaw to ear.

As he staggered from the pain, she used his momentum to flip him up and over, landing him flat on his back down within the awaiting tomb.

The air rushed out of his lungs as the blood rushed from his neck. He was all but paralyzed as her silhouette overshadowed the opening above him.

"Goodbye, Allister."

He tried to call out, but no sound could be heard over the scraping stone that surrendered him to the darkness.