“I’m so sorry, Jenna,” he whispered, his voice hoarse, “for everything. I’m just so fucking sorry.” Pain flickered across his face, muscles bunching as the power gathering built. Initially, I’d thought the power was building around him but as I looked a little closer I realised the power was coming directly from him, gaining momentum as though he were a battery fuelling the energy, and in a way he was.
Carmine leaned over and pressed her lips to mine. Strength pulsed through me, the kind of strength I’d never felt before screamed through every muscle fibre in my body, flooding me with adrenaline. I felt every injury, every ache, before they disappeared and I was nothing but raw unbridled energy.
I’d seen the magic gather around Grey and, judging by Emily’s reaction, it was potent. Now that I could feel it for myself, I knew it was the kind of power that could rip the world apart if I wished it to. But I didn’t need it to tear the world in two, I just needed it to get out of my bonds.
Instead of shying away from Carmine’s kiss, I leaned into her and clamped my teeth down on her bottom lip. I tore at the cuffs holding my wrists aloft and felt the satisfying pop as the locks gave way.
Carmine screamed, her one good eye wide as she tried to pull back, but I held on, feeling her blood trickle over my chin with a kind of grim satisfaction.
Her hand tore across the side of my face and I released her, sending her stumbling backwards away from me. She hit the dais, her eyes wide with fear and something else… Longing.
Grey’s groan of pain drew my attention once more and I turned back toward him. He’d gritted his teeth, the power gathering around him dancing tiny sparks of light against his skin, each one leaving a tiny burn in its wake.
“Grey!” I reached out toward him but as though he could sense it, he drew away from me, the effort it took to move in his chains etched into every line of his face.
“Don’t,” the word ripped raggedly from the back of his throat. “You can’t touch me, Jenna, it’s what the power needs. You must feel the pull, the desire for release.”
I nodded. He was right, I could feel it, like a pressure building in the centre of my chest. If I didn’t touch him, it would tear me apart, or at least that was what it wanted me to believe. Long before it could ever break me down, it would destroy Grey. It would consume him and burn out, leaving nothing of the man I had loved behind.
“Take her!” Carmine’s frightened voice filtered through the fog surrounding me and I spun around in time to see the axe-wielding vampire barrelling toward me.
“You again.” Anger boiled, fuelling the power that sang in my veins. I felt as though I could do anything, defeat anyone. Nothing would be too great for me to destroy and I knew it with a kind of all-consuming confidence.
The vamp swung his axe and I stepped in toward him, catching the handle of the two-headed axe in one hand. The force of his blow reverberated through me and I knew if I didn’t have this strange, alien power coursing in my veins, it would have driven me to my knees.
He towered over me, my face level with his chest.
“Don’t touch her—” Carmine’s words came too late. The vamp’s meaty hand closed over my shoulder, his strength crushing the bone. I knew I should have felt it but I didn’t. There was nothing, just the all-consuming need to possess and conquer that raged inside.
Stone flowed up and over his arm, the panic in his eyes lasted only a heartbeat before he was gone. The viper on my back stirred and awoke, swallowing the vampire’s energy before feeding it into the other power.
My fist connected with the vampire in front of me, his stony body disintegrating into dust that floated away on the breeze. I turned my attention to the others that came at me and I felt the power reach out to them, begging to consume them, too.
I let it, feeling it whisper through the air, the viper coiling around their bodies. Their screams beating at my eardrums as they tried to outrun something as inevitable as death. Each one the viper caught, it wrapped in a new skin, one made entirely of stone. And each time they were made new, their faces frozen in agony, the viper drank down their dark energy, sucking them dry.
I felt the lives of all the living humans still in the building, their pain and suffering tugged at me.
We could end it. Give them a new life, an eternal life… The viper’s words were seductive as it crept over the ruins toward those who could still bleed.
It wouldn’t take much.
“Jenna!” Grey’s hoarse cry pulled me away from the edge of the dark abyss I’d been teetering on. I blinked, once, twice, trying to clear the cobwebs of this alien power that was slowly chipping away at my resolve. I wasn’t like that. I’d sworn to protect the innocents from the monsters of the world. Made a promise to myself that so long as I had strength, I wouldn’t let anyone suffer as I had.
I spun away from the crowd and searched for Grey. He was no longer shackled to the St. Andrew’s cross. Instead, he knelt on the dais in front of the throne. I could barely see him through the haze of power that surrounded him now, but what little I could see, his eyes were dark and black veins pulsed and writhed beneath his skin like thick vines in search of release.
Carmine grabbed his hair and jerked his head back, pressing the tip of her curved blade to his throat as she glared at me triumphantly.
The viper reached for her but it was as though she was made of something too slippery to grasp. Every time the power tried to coil around her, it slid away, unable to find a chink in her armour.
“Don’t,” I warned.
She responded by pressing the blade against his throat and a bead of dark blood appeared at the tip of the knife. She would kill him, I knew it.
The power inside me screamed, its frustration spilling from my lips as though it could sense its opportunity slipping away. It took only a second but in that instance the power wrested control from me and I crossed the stage.
My hand found Carmine’s throat and I lifted her from the ground, her blade clattering uselessly to the stage.
“You would renege on our deal now?” The voice that came from my mouth was not my own, but it was still only an echo of what would be if the ritual was complete.
Grey pressed his face to my abdomen, nuzzling against my bare skin and desire spiked inside me.
Carmine was suddenly forgotten and the energy that didn’t have a name discarded her, tossing her limp and useless body away as I turned my attention to the man kneeling before me.
I dropped to the dais in front of him, the energy inside me merging with his as he cupped my cheek and stared into my eyes.
“We are the living,” Grey whispered the words against my lips, his voice unfamiliar to me.
“I am the end.” The words left my mouth unbidden, called from the depths of whatever soulless monster was feeding me its energy.
My mouth found his as the energy reached its peak. Some distant part of me knew that what we were doing was wrong, that the wheels we were setting in motion were ones I had no idea how to stop. But the ritual demanded the culmination of its power. Energy danced around us, flashes of light so bright they could blind you if you stared directly into them. But I had eyes only for Grey. All that mattered was the feel of his lips on mine and the kiss we shared.
Grey broke the kiss, his eyes as dark as they had been just moments before but the energy was no longer eating at his skin. Instead, it had settled inside him.
The lock is open. The thought popped into my head as I stared into the face of the man I’d once loved, still loved if I was to be perfectly honest. Except he wasn’t there. There was nothing of the Grey I had known and I found myself staring into the eyes of a stranger.
I crab walked away from him until my back hit the throne behind me.
“Grey.” Despite knowing it wasn’t him, I still felt compelled to call his name.
The thing that had at one time been Grey looked at me and for a moment there was a flicker of recognition in his eyes. It was gone as quickly as it had arrived, leaving
me to stare once more into the abyss that now existed inside him.
From the corner of my eye, I watched as Emily pushed up onto her hands and knees and started to crawl in the direction Grey had thrown Carmine’s body. Loyal even to the end, I thought bitterly.
As though he could sense my thoughts, Grey glanced down at Emily, something akin to hunger flickering in his eyes.
I pushed onto my feet as he crossed the floor and wrapped his hand in her long hair. She screamed, a pained yelp as he jerked her onto his feet and spun her around to face him.
“You have given us flesh, now we are owed the spirit.” The words echoed hollowly through the room and the ground beneath me began to tremble.
He wrapped his hand around her throat and lifted her from the floor as though she weighed nothing at all. A blue glow shimmered on the surface of Emily’s skin and she screamed again. The glow grew brighter, looking more and more like a net made entirely of light. Grey raised his free hand and caught the net, threading his fingers through it before jerking it toward him. She screamed a long and pitiful howl that tore at my ears as she writhed in his grip. Her eyes widened as he pulled harder on the net and I knew without a doubt that it was her essence, the very magic that ran in her veins that he was ripping away from her.
He squeezed her throat and Emily’s eyes bulged, her fingers scrabbling at the grip he had on her.
“Grey, stop, please,” I pleaded, as I loosed my whip from where it was wrapped around my arm and it slithered soundlessly to the ground.
He didn’t even register that I’d spoken. Bile crept up the back of my throat as I watched him rive the net away from her with one final ear-splitting rip. Tendrils of her essence trailed back toward her limp body, gossamer threads floating on the air.
He let her body go and she crumpled to the stone like a broken rag doll, discarded by a careless child.
The ground beneath my feet ruptured and the magic Emily had conjured to remake the abbey anew ripped apart at the seams, the walls tumbling around us as he opened his mouth and swallowed her essence whole.
There was a roaring in my ears and for a split second I thought it was coming from within, but as the walls came down around me I realised it came from the sea. With the walls gone, I could see the cliff edge clearly, the sky over the sea had grown lighter as the dawn approached.
Something long and wet flopped up onto the ledge of the cliff, the black skin shimmered in the half light. It rippled and then lifted into the air once more.
Tentacles. You have got to be kidding me.
Another tentacle hit the cliff. This one had a circumference thicker than my waist, the end of it probed forward, slithering and undulating toward the broken ruins of the abbey. Grey stalked toward it, his gaze intent on the cliff edge.
The overpowering stench hit me first. Decay and something else that I couldn’t quite put my finger on soured the air as I followed Grey.
My steps faltered as the head of the beast rose above the edge of the cliff. It was huge, larger than anything else I’d ever seen. Thousands of eyes blinked in unison, the lack of intelligence within gave me hope that whatever it would become hadn’t yet happened.
Grey moved faster, his body lithe and graceful as he hopped over the downed blocks that had once been a part of the abbey walls.
The beast opened its mouth, revealing rows of teeth, numbering in the thousands as I stared into its maw. My heart beat a violent tattoo against my chest as I went after Grey.
The whip cracked through the air and he turned, the tip of the whip wrapping around his upraised arm.
“You cannot stop what will be.” The voice echoed again, caught up in the wind, the words were flung in my face.
“It’s what I do,” I said, “it’s what we do.” My heart broke as I stared into his face, knowing what I would have to do if I couldn’t reach him.
He shook his head and I wrapped my arm around the whip, drawing him a couple of steps closer.
“You think you can stand here and stop what you have begun.”
I dug my heels in, fighting to stay in control, but Grey jerked his arm, sending me skidding forward several paces closer to the edge of the cliff and the mouth of the Elder God that wasn’t yet fully realised, but it was whole enough to swallow me.
A large tentacle slapped the earth next to my face and I released the whip, grabbing at the tentacle with both hands instead.
The second I touched its skin, pain ripped through me. I felt my hands blister as whatever coated its body burned through me.
Power coiled in my chest and I released it, feeling it spread through my hands and into the tentacle, turning it instantly to stone. I screamed as the power fused me to the beast, its pain became mine as my power travelled upwards through its slick tentacle.
Power exploded inside my head like thousands of fireworks as my power hit the body of the Elder God and started to spread across its huge expanse.
A fist slammed into my face and starlight exploded behind my eyes. I could taste blood in my mouth as I staggered backward from the creature’s tentacle, losing my grip on it.
Grey came at me again, his face grim as he punched me, the full force of his power slamming into my jaw. I’d thought it was painful when the vampire had hit me with the butt of the axe, but Grey’s fist with the power of an Elder God fuelling him was a million times worse.
My back hit the dirt and I rolled over onto my stomach, desperately clinging to the tufts of grass as I tried to crawl away from him.
His hand found my braid, jerking me up from the ground and forcing me back to my feet once more. I turned toward him, hands outstretched.
“Grey, please, I don’t want to hurt you…” Blood trickled down my face as I spoke.
“Jenna…” His voice was hoarse, eyes filled with agony as he reached for me. “I can’t stop it… I can’t fight—”
His eyes flashed an obsidian light that promised peace if only I would give in. His hand wrapped around my throat, grip squeezing as he raised me from the ground and hoisted me into the air above him.
I slapped at his arm but it was useless, Grey had said it himself. He couldn’t fight the creature. Couldn’t stop him. But he was still in there.
Suddenly, I knew what I needed to do. The viper on my back stirred, pain ripping through every cell of my body. It was easier this time, easier than it had been with the wight but still painful.
My back arched, body spasming as the viper from my tattoo broke free and climbed into the air. It wasn’t the same as it had been with the wight, there was nothing solid or corporeal about this creature. I could almost see through it. Was this what happened to it when it swallowed the wight? The Pied Piper had after all been a wraith. Had the viper gained the ability to do the same? It certainly looked that way. I could feel the power of everything it had consumed, all the energy from the vampires and the wight that pulsed inside its being. Its scales shifted back and forth, one minute a shimmering green, the next instance an opaque black that reminded me of the same infinite void that existed inside the Elder God.
This creature wasn’t a separate being the way the one that had swallowed the wight had been. Instead, it felt like more of an extension of me. As it moved across the ground, I could feel every blade of grass that slid beneath its belly. It circled Grey and me slowly, almost lazily, as though awaiting instruction. I knew with a kind of childish certainty that it would swallow the Elder God that possessed Grey. It was the same kind of certainty that kept the hope alive inside me that Grey could be saved.
“You bring me gifts,” the Elder God spoke through Grey and the first hint of unease unfurled in my chest.
“I bring you the end,” I said, voice half choked from the grip he had on my throat.
Grey smiled and let me go. I let myself bend at the knees to absorb some of the impact of being dropped so suddenly.
“Now,” I whispered. The viper struck, coiling around Grey’s body, wrapping itself tighter and tighter. Part of me wondered
if perhaps the Elder God would just pop out when the viper squeezed enough.
Carmine’s laughter cut the air and I glanced over my shoulder to see her sitting against the side of the broken throne. Blood covered one side of her face, but she was still very much alive and her laughter sent my nerves into overdrive. Sure, she was crazy, but it still wasn’t a good sign to see her laughing as though everything was working out just as she’d planned.
Movement from the corner of my eye brought my attention back to Grey. His remaining free hand whipped out lightning fast, grabbing the head of the viper.
It should have been impossible. The viper wasn’t corporeal, there was nothing to grab and yet…
Pain seared through my head, driving me to my knees as Grey tightened his grip on the viper’s head. I felt as though someone had placed my head in a vice, one that grew ever tighter with each second that passed.
Agony seared in my spine as Grey lifted his hand, ripping the viper away from his body. So great was the pain that it took me a moment to realise what was going on. He grabbed the viper with his other hand and pulled.
My vision spiralled and grew dark and I threw my head back and screamed. I felt like acid ran in my veins, as though someone was ripping me apart thread by thread.
Was this how Emily had felt when Grey had ripped her magic from her body?
Is that what he’s doing to me?
I arched my back, clinging to the threads of the viper that kept me attached to it. The creature in Grey’s grip writhed and bucked, fighting his hold, fighting for its life. This was the kind of battle where, if it lost, I knew I, too, would perish alongside it.
Darkness separated from the viper and Grey drank it down, his insatiable hunger sucking down the energy my viper had absorbed from the vampires.
I screamed again as he started to rip the viper in half. Blood flooded my mouth, warmth trickled down the side of my face as I stared into the eyes of my viper, my creature. The intelligence I’d seen in its gaze was replaced by pain. Pain and regret.
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