Chapter 19 #3
Teddy looked for something to stand on to help him reach while Wren lolled against the glass, trying to stay upright.
A sharp noise had him stiffening. The machine began to whirr on its own like it knew Teddy’s intentions.
From above, a hatch opened, and what Wren assumed was going to be more of that slick, black liquid he’d seen below was actually a vat of writhing, hissing snakes that he had mistaken for liquid.
They tumbled onto him in a rain of heavy thuds as Teddy cried out from beyond the glass. He could barely see him through the rain, viscous liquid smudging the glass and leaving behind oily smudges.
Wren acted quickly, shoving the lyre snake under his shirt and curling around it protectively just before the first teeth sank into his skin.
Immediately, Wren knew something was different.
It felt like ice was being poured into his veins instead of the burning sensation he knew most venoms caused. Wren had experience being bitten by a snake, but this was nothing like that.
As the snakes piled up to his shins and still kept coming, more fangs pierced through his clothes. Weak as he already was, he ended up falling to his knees in the pile, almost immediately swallowed up by the writhing mass.
He could hear distant calls, muffled now as something within him reacted to the substance that was forcibly being injected. The world started to spin, images flashing in front of his eyes and sounds ringing in his ears that he couldn’t trust.
A chemical reaction started inside him, and he could feel the magic within him welling up, swelling beyond the borders of his body, rising like a tide, uncontrollable, unrestrained, moving along pathways and spilling out of his eye.
He screamed, snakes writhing over every part of him, and when he opened his eyes all he saw were skeletons in every neon color. He saw every bone, every muscle under the skin in total clarity, all the cursed poison running through their mouths an answering siren call.
He looked down at his hands and could see it in his own skin, traveling from the numerous puncture marks and through his veins.
No one could control something like this.
He screamed again and all the snakes parted like a crashing wave against the side of a cliff.
In the brief swell he saw Teddy had climbed the side of the machine and was swearing and yanking at the conduit with all his strength, managing to pull it free in a spark of blinding color.
He fell backward with it still in his hands and hit the floor with a thud, unmoving.
The conduit continued to pulse between his fingers, and Wren realized with horror that it was stuck to his palms.
Wren felt the machine’s pull on his magic weaken, while Teddy appeared to be growing grayer by the second. It was pulling from him now.
Wren cried out and the snakes hissed with him, reacting to his unspoken desire to break free of this prison and get to Teddy.
They began pushing at the glass, the weight of them plus Wren’s innate magic causing spiderweb cracks to form in the glass.
It shattered and they all went spilling out.
Viscous black liquid coated the floor, shards of glass cutting Wren from all directions as he crawled through the muck.
“Teddy,” he whispered hoarsely, barely able to make a sound.
The magic swelled again and Wren had to stop, panting into the ground as he tried to control it. The world spun underneath him and in front of his eyes, making him see double, making him see things that weren’t there.
Images flashed in and out. He heard sounds that made him want to put his hands over his ears and beg for them to stop.
He heard Blu twitter anxiously through the cacophony, and held out a bloodied, coated hand to ward him off.
There was an army he was calling to outside, Wren could sense every one of them, animals hitting the outside of the building as they tried to come to him and grew angrier when they couldn’t.
With the machine destroyed, the bond curse had taken hold of the building fully and the hole in the ceiling was impenetrable.
Until it wasn’t.
Wren heard the metal screech of the door.
He thought it was another hallucination as in walked none other than Eerie on sky-high heels. Any relief was squashed by reality as Kellan followed after him. Where Eerie seemed worried, strides purposeful, Kellan strolled in with his hands in his pockets.
A few other men with the Nexus logos emblazoned on their chests flanked him.
“Saint!” Eerie gasped, hurrying over to his unconscious brother as soon as he spotted him.
“Be careful, everyone, we don’t know what’s going on here. Our cursebreakers have clearly been hurt by this strange place,” Kellan said for show.
Wren wanted to scream the truth, but all that could make it out of his mouth was an angry croak of pain, everything warping in front of him.
Kellan strode over, not hiding any of his rabid fascination with the scene before him. The fruits of his labor and research.
“What have we here?” he murmured as he crouched, the tips of his shiny shoes just at the edge of the carnage. “A bird that’s been caught in a cage?”
Wren bared his teeth but couldn’t lift his head.
A hand struck out and grabbed his bare wrist, something hot pressing against his skin. Wren could barely react, only seeing fragments before his hand was dropped again.
As Kellan drew out a handkerchief to dry his hand Wren could have sworn he saw Blu fly over to sit on his shoulder.
“Instructor Kellan?” a voice asked.
“He’s hurt. Help him. I’ll help Damir.”
Steps drew closer and a hand reached for him. The glove they were wearing slipped slightly, and Wren caught a glimpse of an eye tattoo before everything all went dark.