Chapter 30
Thirty
HAVEN
It took entirely too long to remember that I know how to warm myself. It was one of the first things Becks taught me, and my only excuse is that trauma has left my brain jumbled. After I pull myself together enough to generate some heat, an idea comes to me.
If I can make fire, can I heat the chain up hot enough to break or melt it?
I’m pretty sure I’m in a sewer, but I have no idea where I am or how to navigate these tunnels. Still, if I can get free, at least I’ll have a chance.
Right now, I’m a sitting duck. A lamb waiting for the slaughter.
With that last gruesome thought hovering in my mind, I concentrate on making a ball of flames in my palm like Becks taught me. It sparks to life quickly, forming to about the size of a plum, the soft light flickering against the tunnel’s curved stone walls.
A swell of pride blossoms in my chest. A week ago, I wouldn’t have been able to do that on my own.
Turning toward the flat wall behind me, I reach down with my free hand, feeling for the manacle clamped around my ankle. My fingers trace the chain connected to it, following it to the metal ring bolted into the stone.
I shiver, thinking about why this setup even exists. What other purpose would a chain and manacle secured to a wall serve if not imprisonment or torture?
Shoving the thought aside, I inspect the chain, searching for a weakness. The links look old, rusted and brittle, but when I give them a sharp tug, they hold fast.
What temperature would I need to reach to bend or melt the metal?
I’m not sure. Different metals have different melting points, and I have no idea what these links are made of. Iron or steel, maybe.
Either way, it hardly matters. It will take more heat than I have ever drawn from my magic before.
Forgetting where I am, I suck in a deep breath to steady myself and immediately choke on the taste of sewage. I won’t be making that mistake again.
Finding the middle point, I grasp the chain with the hand that’s holding the fireball and manipulate the flames to coat the section of chain I’m clutching.
It isn’t long before I’m sweating underneath my wet clothes and coat, but the chain on either side of my hand is glowing red and the fire coating it turns blue.
“Come on. Come on,” I whisper, trying to increase the heat my magic is producing.
Finally, I feel something. The links clenched in my fist are bending, distorting under the pressure I’m putting on them.
A flash of excitement runs through me. It’s working!
I pull, using my body weight for leverage, and the links start to stretch.
My heartbeat thuds in my ears.
Almost there. Almost there. Almost there.
The heat peaks, white-hot now; the metal softens in my grip, glowing brighter, as sweat drips down my temples.
The warped links finally tear apart, molten edges sagging as the chain drops to the floor and I stumble back, free.
I did it. I actually did it.
Spinning, I head toward the mouth of the tunnel, stumbling blindly forward, not knowing where I’m going except away from where I was imprisoned.
Despite all that’s happened, all that I’ve learned about him, it’s Becks’ face I have in my mind as I flee. My heart twists with the thought that he may not be alive.
No. He has to be alive.
I don’t know how it happened, but in just a few short weeks the thought of living in a world where he doesn’t exist has become unfathomable.
I keep my hand on the curved stone wall, picking up the outline of the tunnel as my feet splash in the water with every step. I’m almost to the first turn when a dark shape appears from around the corner.
The gasp hasn’t even left my lips before I’m flying back through the tunnel. I don’t stop until I slam into the wall with bone-jarring force. I crumple to the ground, flopping into the thin layer of putrid water.
My mind is scrambled eggs as I try to make sense of what just happened, too disoriented to grasp hold of my magic.
Footsteps sound, each step splashing in the water as someone nears.
I plant my hands and try to push up, but my arms give out, dumping me back onto the slick concrete.
Harsh hands grab me and flip me onto my back.
The tunnel is dark again, and it takes a moment to make out the shape of their face, and then for the familiar features to make sense.
The smile stretched across Tate’s face sends a spike of fear straight to my heart, because even though it wears my friend’s features, it isn’t really her looking down at me.
A flare of light blooms and I flinch at the sudden brightness. When I blink it away, a lantern is burning on the ground beside me. My gaze drags upward—from the shoes planted inches from my face, up jean-clad legs, over a broad torso—until my eyes lock with the demon’s black stare.
“And where did you think you were going?” it rumbles, its voice a deep distortion of Tate’s.
I yelp and scramble away, adrenaline burning through me and forcing my muscles to move. I only get as far as the wall I was chained to only minutes earlier. There’s nowhere else to go.
The demon crouches down, the smile on its face deranged and unhinged. It cocks its head like a bird’s, twisting Tate’s neck to an unnatural angle. I struggle not to whimper.
“That took you longer than I expected.”
“Wh-what?”
“With the power you have brewing inside you, I expected you to break those chains quickly. But you didn’t.”
It studies me as if trying to figure me out, like something I’ve done, or failed to do, has stumped it.
I keep my mouth shut because I don’t know what to say. Clearly it overestimated my abilities, but it doesn’t seem wise to point that out.
Its dark gaze rakes over me, and I get the unsettling sense that it’s looking past skin, past flesh and bone. The longer it stares, the more exposed I feel, like it’s peeling me apart layer by layer.
A deep sound of approval rumbles in its chest, making me shudder as a twisted smile lifts its mouth.
“I see you now,” it murmurs, then runs a finger almost lovingly along my cheek.
The contact burns, not with heat, but with the wrongness of it, and I flinch away, my heart hammering.
The monster curls its upper lip, a throaty growl spilling from its mouth. I can’t bring myself to look at what it’s done to my friend, how it’s twisted her into something barely recognizable.
“What?” it asks. “You don’t like this vessel? Don’t worry. I’ll discard it soon enough.”
That gets my attention, and I snap my gaze back to it. The word discard echoes in my skull, cold and final.
“Don’t hurt her. Please,” I beg.
The demon seems to savor my pleading, a crooked grin stretching its mouth wider.
“Oh, but that’s my favorite thing to do to humans. Make them hurt.”
An image of Kendra flashes through my mind. The way the demon tore through her flesh as if it were nothing. The way she collapsed to the ground and how I held her in my arms, begging her to hold on through my tears, even though deep down I knew she was already gone.
Revulsion and hate for this monster stirs inside me, strong enough to blot out the fear that has had me in a chokehold.
I glare at it, hoping it reads the loathing in my eyes. “I’m going to kill you.”
A guttural sound comes from the demon. I think it’s laughing at me.
But then it cuts off and it grabs my chin, hard, forcing me to look into its black eyes as it says, “It’s foolish for you to hold out hope.
When the time comes, I will suck you dry, steal every bit of magic inside you and make it my own, and there won’t be a thing you or anyone else in this world or the other can do about it. ”
Suck me dry. Steal my magic.
Ice-cold terror seizes my heart, nearly matching the grip of the demon’s fingers on my face. If I live through this, there’s no doubt finger-shaped bruises will pepper my jaw.
The demon makes a pleased, inhuman sound in the back of its throat. “Ah, yes, there it is. Fear. You’re right to fear me. I’ve been waiting millennia to bend this world to my whims, and an untrained girl who doesn’t even know how to use the power she carries isn’t going to stop me.”
“I won’t beg for my own life,” I say, finding a smidgen of courage.
“It wouldn’t make a difference if you did. But don’t worry. It’s not time for the main course yet. Right now, I just want to take a small taste.”
A taste? Is it going to bite me?
As fast as a striking snake, the demon’s hand shoots out and latches onto my wrist. I twist and kick, fighting it, but its grip is like an iron band. Hard and unbreakable.
“I’d tell you this isn’t going to hurt,” it says, and then that sinister smile splits its face. “But that’s a lie. I’m going to make sure it does.”
It lets go of me, but the next moment it opens its mouth and a wave of black smoke shoots out, splitting into multi-tentacled streams that wrap around me.
My body leaves the ground and I scream, kicking out and struggling against the vapor-like substance that has me in its grasp.
But how do you fight against something that doesn’t have form?
With magic, I think.
Pushing through the fear and horror, I find my magic and bring it to the surface. I’m not sure what I’m going to do with it, but I’m not going down without a fight.
Blindly, I unleash a stream of fire from my palm toward where I think the demon is. Instead of a cry of pain, laughter echoes off the tunnel walls.
Dread builds in my chest. I’ve made some sort of mistake.
I try cutting off the magic, but I can’t. It’s as if my magic isn’t my own once again, and it keeps flowing from me.
I flail in the air, trying to find purchase on anything.
Something tugs on my magic, and suddenly it’s not just that it’s flowing freely from me but being pulled away, as if my very essence is being sucked out.
I try to stop it, but it’s like trying to stop the flow of a firehose.
And it hurts.
The more it takes, the more the pain builds, until it feels like I’m on fire. Like my muscles are liquifying and my bones breaking.
A scream tears from my throat, my back bowing, tendons straining as the most excruciating pain I’ve ever felt rips through me. It goes on and on until my throat is shredded from my cries and I’m praying for oblivion that refuses to come.