Chapter Eighteen
Maverick
“Move!”
I spat the words into Knox’s face. Which was, coincidentally, my face. The vampire god, or whatever he really was under that smug grin, had used my body like a template, using it to create a physical form that was more than shadow. He seemed to appreciate it, too, because he’d been luxuriating in making my limbs move for a while now. I’d never been possessed, but this sounded eerily similar to some of the stories Wanda told on the rare occasion she deigned to talk about her experience.
It had been confusing at first, waking inside my own head, trapped in some elusive corner, alive but not able to move my body. I could feel it like a heavy weight holding me down. It was almost unbearable and reminded me of the fits of terror that night hags could produce. Had they been spawned from this son of a bitch?
Staring at Knox, I finally understood why I’d been punched in the face so often in my past. The sneering set of my mouth, especially guided by the vampire deity’s derision, made me want to haul off and break his face. I’d tried planting a blood bolt between his eyes only an hour after waking here, but to no avail. Because all of this was only existing in my mind—this opulent prison he’d forced us into was just a holding cell, but in it I could still lunge at him. Try to fight him.
And get absolutely nowhere.
Knox blew a stream of smoke into my face before offering me an ‘aww shucks’ smile as though he hadn’t intended to do that the entire time. It felt strange and somehow incestuous to notice how full my mouth was. It was also hard to think about him as me, even though we now shared a face. My face.
He didn’t feel like me, and that was the most I could pin down about his energy. He kept himself a huge, scary mystery on purpose. The fucker wasn’t done manipulating me yet.
“I told you, dear boy: I already have a summoner. I can’t turn on a dime and betray her.”
“So you kill me instead?”
He chuckled at that. “You are far from dead. To the outside world, you might appear that way, but don’t worry, though. The witches of your coven haven’t buried you yet. They can tell something’s off—that you aren’t really dead. You just look incredibly convincing. And that’s by design—I had to make it look good to her. The spell should wear off in a few days. That’s all it will take, in the end. Just a few days, and then you and I can be one… at last.”
It wasn’t the words that disturbed me. It was the expression. The vampire was eyeing me like a particularly fine cut of beef, and he was wondering how and when to make the first cut. Paired with the longing in his voice, it felt like I’d walked in on something personal. Something inhuman and ugly that I was never meant to see. There were monsters in the descriptive sense. Classified so by humans. Then there were monsters. Demons of the lowest infernal layers. Reepers. Hags. Wendigos. Killers. Soul crushers. Knox was one of those. He wanted to crack me open like a nut and live inside my skull. Creepy didn’t even begin to cover it.
“Save the Hannibal Lecter routine for someone who gives a damn,” I hissed, pacing back the way I’d come.
He’d channeled Wanda’s aesthetic when creating the place. The red velvet damask wallpaper was something she’d have adored. I thought it made the room feel tight and cluttered, especially with all the antique furniture shoved into the space. The chandelier would have been to Wanda’s taste as well. Or perhaps Wanda had adopted his preferences. I didn’t like thinking that way, but maybe there was more than one reason Wanda had been susceptible to the Reeper’s influence. Maybe because there was a shard of something evil inside of us that we hadn’t asked for.
I ended up sitting stiffly on a black wingback chair, glaring at Knox instead of trying to rush the door. He’d been standing vigil there for a while. I couldn’t tell if hours, days, or weeks had passed while I paced my cage, waiting for the fucker to do something.
“Come, don’t get sour grapes now,” he said, ruining the rebuke with a toothy smile. His fangs disturbed me viscerally. They looked wrong in my face. The eyes were wrong too, red seeping in under the gray so that they resembled the color of blood in murky water. I didn’t want to know what else might be hiding in their depths. “We’ve only just begun.”
“Why are you keeping us here?” I asked. “Where’s Tally? Where are the boys? If you hurt them—”
He raised a hand. “Slow down, Charmin.”
“If you’re going to wear my damned body, you’ll call me by my right name.”
“Maverick,” he corrected himself with a smirk. “The boys and the fae princess are fine. In fact, when they come out of the spell, they won’t remember a thing. Only you are conscious.”
“Thank the goddess for small mercies,” I muttered.
Knox’s face scrunched into unhappy lines at the mention of the goddess. He actually spat on the ground near the door. The ebony floorboards sizzled at the heat of his displeasure. He gave me a hard, almost disgusted look.
“Why invoke her? I know you don’t believe in her.”
“I don’t worship her,” I said quietly. “Not unless a ritual calls for it. I have the same view on the goddess that I have about my mother.”
“Which is?” he asked, one brow arched.
“That she exists. And that she also doesn’t give a damn about me. I’m pretty sure she abandoned me the same time Tabitha did.”
I had to think of my mother as Tabitha most days. Because if I thought of her as Mom, it hurt more. Her absence was like a sore tooth. I could ignore it most days until the pain became sharp and immediate. Sometimes it made me its bitch, but the self-pity had become less common of late. There were people in the Hollow who loved me. Not many, granted, but that was an improvement from five years ago.
Knox’s laugh was an echo from the past. It had been my laugh once upon a time. Cynical. Hollow. Full of seething anger. I hadn’t realized it had changed.
“We have that in common, dear boy.”
“We have nothing in common.”
He shook his head. “No, I do know something about being abandoned by your creator.”
I didn’t want to believe him. If he was a creation of the goddess, just like me, it meant something. I wasn’t sure what. Change, for sure. Wars, maybe. Our people had fought over less.
“Is that why you hate her?”
The smirk crept like an unabashed intruder onto his stolen face. “It’s part of the reason. As to your aunt…”
“Celestine.”
“Yes—I’m tempted to do away with her before my time is up.”
As much as I hated my aunt and blamed her for what had happened to me, I didn’t want her dead. “Don’t kill her.”
Knox tilted his head to the side. Past how far my neck should have been able to go. Not that logic mattered in this mindscape. The mortal mind was as malleable as clay. As fragile, too. If you messed with it too much, the structure fell apart. It was why so many humans went crazy during or after a possession. Too much strain, not enough mental defenses.
“Why should I not kill her?” Knox asked. “You hate her. She tried to have you killed. Worse, she tried to have your sister killed, which you count as a greater sin.” He paused and inspected his fingernails—my fingernails. “I was happy to see Astrid join my brood. It makes things easier. Again, not the vessel I’d normally choose, but any port in a storm.”
The thought of any part of this creature creeping in to smother the life from my sister was unbearable. I’d crossed the room before Knox could blink. His nose... my nose... our nose made a satisfying crunch beneath my fist. Blood fountained out, bubbling over his lips. If it bothered the bastard, he didn’t let it show. He licked the blood from his lips delicately, as though savoring the taste. It didn’t seem to matter the source. He just wanted blood.
“If you touch her, I will fucking kill you!” I raged at him.
“We’ll see,” he said with a grin as he tilted his head again, then his expression brightened. “Ah, finally. She’s let the leash go slack.”
“What are you talking about?”
He shook his head like he didn’t have time to explain. “Come with me, boy. You’ll get the answers you’re looking for.”
He stepped away from the door with a flourish before offering me a hand. My skin looked pale. Bloodless. Dead. This was the closest I ever wanted to be to the reality of what I’d look like as a leech. The door swung open of its own accord, and only blackness showed beyond. For once, I didn’t want to go through. I was afraid of what I might see.
But that didn’t matter. I had a family to save.
I took Knox’s hand, vanishing into the blackness behind him.