Chapter 34
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
The red oozed around me, dripping with crimson menace, taking shape. A humanoid body, female-looking, as if drawn in the liquid red. Eyes with no attributes other than the shape blinked in the bald head, lips appearing next. No nose, no ears.
I tried to speak to it, my voice still lost.
“Hello there,” an echoey woman’s voice rolled in my head.
I couldn’t respond.
“There is no need to panic. You are undergoing a repressive process by way of your blood. Relax because there is no point trying to resist. Any autonomy is on hold until I say so. It will make sense soon. But know you’re very important to me, Cherry Boy.”
Cherry Boy. It made my skin itch. I think. I wasn’t sure, so lost and disconnected by this magic.
Blood magic. It had to be.
Blood magi weren’t like other spellcasters. Where witches were human, using magic from books and scrolls, and therefore susceptible to Dawn, blood magi were of non-human blood. Their power came from within, making them immune to Dawn.
At the start of the apocalypse, blood magi were blamed for the pink smoke.
A hate campaign gained momentum, resulting in a series of hangings and burnings, like those witch hunts from humanity’s dark past. A regressive turn that took too many lives, only adding to the rapidly rising death toll as Dawn strangled human life off the planet.
I tried thinking at her. What do you want?
If she heard me, she didn’t indicate it. “You will be a great help, Cherry Boy.”
Stop calling me that!
“Let’s get moving.”