31. Chapter 31
Pain sliced through my shoulder blade in long sloppy slashes that didn’t seem to have a rhyme or reason. I bit my tongue until it bled, refusing to cry. I’d let him have too many victories over me. He wouldn’t get anymore.
I may have laid down and surrendered, but I wasn’t going out with at least a little bit of dignity.
“There.” He panted with the effort as he stood over me. He went silent. “It’s not right. Something is missing.”
His claws sank back into my skin, going deeper as if that would help. A whimper escaped my lips.
A shadow moved deeper into the treeline on the opposite side of the parking lot. Something was calling them. “Abiel?”
“Don’t speak his name to me.” His claws sank even deeper, going through the other side. A cry finally escaped my lips.
A roar that shook my bones filled the eerie silence. The hat man’s claws ripped from my flesh with no regard for my body.
Something repeatedly thundered in the distance. As if Thor were pounding his hammer. The loose pebbles on the concrete shook under the force.
Trees snapping reached my ears. From our vantage point on the hill, it was easy to see trees falling, as if they were being shoved out of the way. Not only that, but they were turning black, and the disease was spreading fast.
I held my breath.
The hat man stepped over me, taking a few steps forward. His head tilted with curiosity.
A section of the outer row of trees turned black and in a blink they were disintegrated out of existence, revealing the source of the disturbance to Mother Earth.
He stood on four legs, taller than a house. His muscular, canine-esque body was covered in tendrils of darkness that floated in the air around him. He opened his mouth to give out another unholy roar that whipped through the air like a storm, showing a mouth full of sharp teeth.
He lifted his front two feet slightly, highlighting serrated claws on his hands, and sniffed the air. I was glad I hadn’t drank anything in a while.
“Abiel?” My voice came out a strangled whisper.
His face turned to me. His gaze ran over me, leaving a heat that confirmed that it was him. He’d come for me.
Relief washed over me, before I remembered that he wasn’t supposed to be here.
Maybe he wanted to save me. Maybe he intended to finish the job the hat man started.
Yet, my heart warmed, either way,
Rage thickened the air until I couldn’t breathe. The concrete snapped underneath me, and the decorative native flowers, that lined the sidewalk, turned to ash. He ran full force in our direction.
The thundering started again and made me realize it had been him running that made all that noise. He was faster than any creature that size had any right to be. The hat man morphed into the wraith I recognized from when we’d met while he was alive.
Ten-feet-tall with huge horns on top of his head and four arms, and he gave a roar of his own.
Abiel crashed into the hat man, tackling him to the ground with ease.
Those deadly teeth snapped at the hat man’s throat, with a snarl that made my entire body shake with fear as they snapped only a foot away from me.
I gathered enough strength to crawl away inch by inch as inhuman bodies thudded and collided too close to me.
“Get back here!” the demonic voice said, grabbing my feet and yanking me back. My hip popped as it was dislocated. I screamed in agony.
Only for its shadow arm to flop onto the ground, separate from the rest of its body. The pressure on me released and black ooze sprayed over me. The hat man wailed in surprise and stumbled back.
Abiel put his body between me and the other shadow. The tendrils on his back stood straight, like a dog with his hackles up.
Still the hat man ran forward again with only three arms left. I could feel his gaze locked on me with every ounce of malice pouring over me. He completely ignored the giant overwhelming threat in front of him.
He was crazed by his need for revenge. For all his strategic planning, waiting for me to be out of Abiel’s protective range, he wasn’t thinking this through.
Like…
Like me.
Carefully calculated one minute. Then an unhinged mess the next.
Shadows were a direct reflection of an object light couldn’t pass through.
Was that how he hid from Abiel?
Because he was created from the worst part of me.
How did he find me so fast? Because he wasn’t just a shadow who’d latched onto me like Abiel.
He was my shadow.
My eyes landed on the herb bed around the tree I’d noted from earlier. Overgrown lemon balm that hadn’t been harvested shined like a beacon.
This hat man was a piece of me, right?
Abiel would win the fight. But I wasn’t sure he could actually kill the hat man. There wasn’t a known way to kill a shadow. Would this thing I created haunt me for my entire life?
Why dandelions?
I never asked Abiel that question. Too distracted by his presence.
They weren’t special on a magical level. Not in regards to fighting monsters at least. So it wasn’t a magical property that made them effective. So why?
Why had the lemon balm released the malicious energy the first night I landed in Cornwall?
Abiel ripped another arm off, pouncing the hat man to the ground.
Maybe…
I grabbed a wad of lemon balm and lit it.
The sneer on the hat man’s face vanished, his attention snapping to me. “No!”
“Have you burned some lemon balm?” Willow asked when she called me. Because she knew there was only one way to settle me down when I got out of control.
Maybe Margaret’s coven sisters always told her to blow and make a wish, because they gave her a small piece of joy. Hope.
And I was Abiel’s Dandelion.
Tears filled my eyes as the comforting scent surrounded me. Memories of my cousins burning lemon balm candles in the dark of night and holding me when I cried for my mommy. The promise that we would never abandon each other. No matter how much it hurt.
The only thing that sustained me all these years.
That no matter how much I lashed out, they were always with me. Even when we were thousands of miles away from each other.
The hat man growled and lurched forward, but stumbled off his feet to his knees. He clawed and growled on the ground, until the tension eventually bled out of him, leaving nothing but silence behind.
Sometimes you couldn’t kill the monster.
Sometimes you brought it dandelions every day during the blooming season.