Chapter 5
All thoughts of capturing the grimoire leave as my mind goes blank.
Then there’s fire. My fire. The one that burns in my soul and crackles in my throat, the same fire that warmed me when I was betrayed, the one that fueled me during my darkest and loneliest times when the nights were long and my future dim.
My rage, my power surges. I roar, the cavern shivering with the force of it.
Flame explodes from me. As if on thundering hooves, the magic rumbles as it descends upon the creature.
It screeches, diving away and abandoning Lucas’ body.
The fire follows. The cavern lights up with the attack, my wards on my records flaring to protect them.
The Flame of Creation is powerful and burns too brightly for the Entropy within the spider to absorb fast enough. Beneath its monstrous exterior, it is still a book, and it can burn. But it drains me at an alarming rate.
I stagger, gasping, my hand clutching at the throbbing in my chest. Something cold stings and fear cripples me as my knee hits the ground hard.
I shouldn’t have touched my grimoire without Jinx.
I shouldn’t have left Lucas alone. All mistakes that might’ve cost me everything. But I cannot dwell on that right now.
I force my feet under me to run to Lucas.
I don’t think too deeply about his stillness as I pull him, throwing his arm over my shoulder.
Magic whispers from my lips, lightening him, lightening me, and I bolt.
The stairs are too numerous. My flames too hot.
The small, stone space turns into a heating oven.
The creature is too fast. It’s leading the flame round and round like it understands the rules of magic. Like it knows that it’s draining me.
I spot the door. Almost there.
Heat grows behind me, but I don’t look back.
Lucas becomes heavier, but I don’t look back.
I miscount the steps and my ankle stings, but I don’t look back.
My lungs struggle for air, my body slick with sweat, my hold on Lucas slipping.
A screech raises the hairs on the back of my neck.
I push myself harder, faster, black spots blooming in my vision.
I slam into the basement’s iron door, the unoiled hinges opening too slowly. The roar is in my ears, my vision sparkling. I fall to the ground, dragging myself, dragging Lucas.
But I need to shut the door before we’re safe. Magic cannot move iron.
The light of the room hits the creature. Dripping fangs, hairy grasping pedipalps, and skittering tarsal claws are highlighted in perfect detail. Cold fear seizes my muscles, my mouth stretching open in a silent scream. I’ll remember this grotesque form for as long as I live.
For however long I live.
I lift a trembling hand, gasping for enough air to summon the power needed to bring the roof of my back room down upon the entrance in hopes of trapping the creature within.
Searing agony slices down my chest cavity.
I choke on a scream, my vision flashing and my concentration splintering so effectively that the magic dies on my fingertips.
In the last few moments we have, I twist my hand in Lucas’ shirt in a white-knuckled grip.
Together.
Something black leaps over me, tail smacking me in the face, and I nearly sob from relief.
With a mighty roar, my familiar, Jinx, uses what she can syphon from my power and transforms midair from an overly fluffy black housecat into a monstrous beast. Massive like a tiger, but black as night with large blue eyes.
Fangs, a half foot long, glint in the light from where they hang down past her powerful jaw.
Jinx slams her clawed foot into the spider, sending it careening back down into the advancing flame.
Rearing on her slightly shorter hind legs, she grabs the edge of the door and slams it shut.
The seal flares back to life at her touch.
I feel the snip as the iron severs the connection from my Creation Thread to my flame and know that it has been snuffed out.
I pant, eyes wide and hands shaking. I can no longer enter the basement.
My grimoire, my precious book, is out of reach beyond two layers of iron.
It will weaken without my ability to commune with it.
Then my curse will reach my vulnerable Soul Threads within the bindings, allowing corruption to spread within my soul.
It nearly succeeded once with my Entropy Thread, and I shudder to think what will happen if it tries again.
The books I’ve collected on corruption all agree on the same thing: the first signs are easy to miss, but are generally described as increased exhaustion and paranoia.
Then, as the brain deteriorates, it escalates to loss of general sensations, like hunger, thirst, and pain.
Madness is the final stage and is quickly accompanied by rotting flesh until the weaver is more a mindless creature than a mortal.
Hopefully, all my hard work adding the runes along my grimoire’s spine will pay off, and my book will be able to syphon off the excess power from the other grimoires around it. That should slow down the weakening and give me more time to reach it.
But there’s a complication, one that nearly sends me into hysterics to even consider.
My Dual Threads. Creation and Entropy. Two conflicting sources.
My communion with my grimoire assists me in creating a divide between my two threads.
Without it, they will become aware of the other once again.
The pain in my chest will grow worse. My magic is unstable.
The Raveng boy destroyed his entire family line and he had the compatible sources of Creation and Transformation. Creation and Entropy? Their warring for dominance of my soul will lead to a detonation, the force of which could be catastrophic to anyone near me.
Blood drains from my face. I’m completely and totally fucked.
My fists clench. “Lucas. Get up. We need to act fast—”
But Lucas doesn’t stir. He’s crumpled on the floor, pale and unmoving. I peel my fist from his shirt and brush my trembling fingers against his clammy, cold cheek.
“No.” I whip my arm out, anger flaring, voice shrieking, “NO!”
All the books, cauldrons, and various potion ingredients on my large worktable explode off the top, crashing into the walls and scattering to the far corners.
With panic pounding in my heart and exhaustion sinking into my bones, I magically lift him onto the wood with as much care as I can.
I flick out my silver switchblade and use it to rip clean lines down Lucas’ stained shirt.
The fabric sticks oddly to his right shoulder. No blood, though. It just… sticks.
I gingerly peel it away to reveal two deep fang punctures that ooze a green slime.
My hands shake and my dagger clatters to the floor. The world tilts. My legs crumple beneath me and I slam into the ground.
This can’t be happening.
Lucas…
A choked sob escapes me and I curl up in grief. His name wordlessly moves my lips, my heart fracturing into a thousand glittering pieces.
Two strong hands grab me and wrench me back to standing.
I’m shaken like a doll, my head whipping back and forth.
Jinx has transformed again and I was in such pain that I didn’t even feel the vampiric draw from my power to fuel the transformation.
She stands before me in her usual lazy attempt at a humanoid.
Slightly shorter than me, black patchy fur covers her naked body, and her large blue eyes remain slitted.
Her ears are large, curved, and pointed, but of different sizes.
Her nails are long and sharp on human-ish hands.
A fluffy tail remains and whips back and forth.
She snarls, sharp teeth bared, “Don’t you dare! Get up.” She shoves me towards the table and the wood bites into my hip. Jinx roars, “He’s alive, so save him!”
The harsh treatment penetrates my fugue.
I grip the table’s edge and swallow with a gasp, sucking in as much air as I can with my chest so tight before I rip away from it.
I send various glass jars to the floor as I dump out drawer after drawer until I spot them.
The little glass vials housing a slightly glowing red liquid. An endurance potion.
I rip off the cork and down the entire potion. It burns my insides, and I clutch the cabinet to stay upright. The forced energy replenishment turns my stomach until I’m at risk of throwing up. But I choke it down, swallowing again and again, the back of my wrist pressing against my lips.
My skin vibrates, mind humming, and magic burning. The fog in my mind dissipates and a plan of action forms. There is no way in spider hell that I’m going to lose Lucas. Not now. Not today. Not ever. He is mine, and I’ll tear the Tapestry apart if it means saving him.
Enraged at the audacity of death, I rip aside the silk curtains and step before my stacks.
My magic pulses, the air shivering with it.
“Obey me!” My words combine with my magic like a whip crack and all focus lands on me.
I raise my hand, fingers outstretched. “I need an antidote, or he will die. The Arachnomicon. Spider transformation. Body approximately six feet long. Mygalomorph. Bite. Venom. No blood in the wound. Green discharge.” My voice echoes. “Come to me.”
The stacks shiver. Bangs and cracks. A book comes spiraling out of the depths towards me.
I slap my palms together, catching it. A diary.
It opens, pages fluttering, to a scratched-in entry from Septrum 13th, 1643 post-Ascension.
A vicious attack from a demonic spider species during an Order research expedition.
I read rapidly. More cracks and I don’t look up. I catch the second book before it hits me in the head, thunking it down on the front counter.
I slam the first book shut, picking up one after the other, reading their flickering pages. My heart hammers in my ears, a cold sweat blooming.