Chapter 43 – Malachi
Chapter
Forty-Three
MALACHI
D espair. Desolation. Black and shadowy and all-consuming, it creeps into every cell of my body, solidifying inside until I am no longer made of flesh and bone, but of only darkness and anguish. There is nothing worth living for. Not even her.
I screw my eyes closed and try to curl myself into a ball, but I realize I’m hog-tied with my ankles and wrists bound together. Even being here, in the cellar in our basement where we brought Ophelia all those months ago, is not enough to bolster any strength of feeling other than abject misery.
I know the creature that took me. I’ve read enough of wraiths to know this darkness swallowing me whole is its doing. It should have taken my soul but for some reason has not. But I didn’t know they existed until today, and I have no idea why I’ve never come across one before. Surely a being with such powerful dark magic would not have to hide itself.
“Happy to be home, Malachi?” Giorgios asks, his tone mocking.
I don’t care where I am. I want to be nowhere, to sink into the ground and disappear. That is the only fate that seems appealing. But there is something still in me, perhaps it’s her blood running through my veins, that flickers with the tiniest spark of something.
It takes me a moment to recognize it as hope, the true enemy of a wraith. But it gives me some fighting spirit. “What do you want with me?” I growl.
Giorgios runs a pointed fingernail over my jaw, and I snap at him, rage and hatred bubbling up from my core. It’s only now I realize I am bound with chains of silver. They burn the flesh from my bones, but that pain is nothing compared to the crushing despair.
“You are very important to my plan, Malachi.” He cups my jaw almost tenderly. “Of the utmost importance.”
I wrench my head from his grip. “What plan?”
He smiles, and his beady eyes light up with glee. “All will be revealed. But you shall be reunited with your precious Ophelia, if only for a short time.”
His cruel laugh echoes off the bare brick walls. The air turns ice cold, and the wraith drifts through the room. Giorgios stops laughing and dips his head in deference.
The wraith’s screams fill my ears, so sharp and piercing I am sure they burst my eardrums, and Giorgios talks to him like he understands what those screams mean. Yet I cannot hear his words for the incessant cries of anguish ringing in my head. Unable to cover my ears, I simply close my eyes and wait for Death to take me.