Chapter 36
ISAAC
Iwatched him work me like a puppet, forcing me to my feet, my little brother holding my arm.
“What happened?” he asked.
“Riley!” I cried, my voice swallowed in the void.
Darkness around me, no more solar shadows, the real world playing out before me like watching it on a huge TV screen.
“It’s not me!” I yelled. “It’s not me!”
Fuck. There had to be a way back to myself that didn’t rely on my powers, which weren’t working right now.
Of course!
Fake Me got up, taking Riley by the shoulders. “I’m better than ever.”
My brother backed away. “You sound different.”
“Do I?” Out of nowhere, Fake Me cracked his fist on the side of Riley’s head. He went down into a heap, out cold.
I screamed bloody murder, clawing at the darkness, running into it, only to arrive right back at this point before the screen.
“You fuckhead!” I wailed. “I’ll kill you! I’ll kill you!”
Tony laughed, the sound resonating through my body.
“I’ll fucking kill you!” I screamed, my rage needing his blood to paint every wall.
He strode toward the door. “We’re on a timer here, so be—”
When he flung the door open, Drake was waiting there with a gun. “I know you’re in there.”
Fake Me shrugged, dropping to sweep Drake’s feet from beneath him. When the scrying witch hit the floor, Tony picked up his gun and shot him in the leg with disgusting speed.
“Drake!”
Was it his new wereleopard features making me move like that? Did being inside me enhance his skills?
“Don’t follow me.” He threw the gun over my shoulder and hurried down the stairs.
He moved quickly, pausing at the front doors. “And now we begin, babe. This is where the real fun begins.”
White magical energy came to his hands. “Freedom!” He clapped my hands, releasing the spell.
The bright figures tore from my body, dancing in a blinding ring around me. My fury quaked inside me, forcing tears down my cheeks.
I’d end him. I’d find a way to make him scream.
Fake Me kicked the door open and ran outside, leaping into the air. The solar shadows moved beneath us, lifting us off the ground like a flock of fucked-up angels.
More of the white magic came to my hands. “Break it!”
A beam of energy shot into the sky, striking the invisible barrier of protection around the mansion. The strike forced it to appear like glass, just like when the hag’s crystal shades attacked.
Cracking glass, fissures darting across it.
Oh. Shit.
Fake Me/Tony picked up speed, hurtling toward the splintering barrier.
“No!”
“Yes!” he roared back. “Yes, Isaac! This is awesome!”
With an almighty crash, the barrier collapsed just before he shot through it.
He laughed, my head spinning, my brain out of ideas.
I whimpered, falling to my knees, terrified for my brother and Drake and everyone down there. Desperate for a solution, I resorted to begging him to stop.
“I’ll do whatever you want.”
“I know you will, babe,” he replied ominously.
It made no sense. He shouldn’t be inside me. Uncle Jonathon couldn’t pull it off, and he’d been running on traces of Moon power. As much as it pained me to say it, Jonathon had more power in his pinkie finger than this prick.
Only, that wasn’t true.
We flew over the city, those figures spinning and leaping and dancing around him. Me. My body.
Think your way out of this!
I was supposed to be The Sun, not this impostor, not this weak creature having his arse kicked again.
By Hecate, my little brother and his boyfriend. Everything inside me throbbed with aching guilt. To see myself punch Riley, shoot Drake… Oh, Hecate. I couldn’t stand it. I couldn’t fucking stand it.
Fake Me arrived at Rowan Road, landing in the middle of it, then strode toward Blood Palace—a crimson-bricked, detached house with a pointed roof.
What did Tony want with it?
The windows were dark, sealed against daylight. We were still a few hours away from sunset, so none of the vampires would be awake yet.
A sea of plastic flamingos observed the street from the house’s front yard, clustered together under the shelter of tall spruce tree. There were Hecate Crystals growing on the garden wall and on the roof of the next house down.
Fake Me clasped my hands together as if in prayer.
The doors of the parked cars popped opened, people in white getting out. Every one of them wore a creepy smile, carrying shimmering shards of Hecate Crystals in their hands.
“What’s… What’s happening?” I rasped.
“Welcome,” Tony-as-me greeted them, keeping my hands pressed together. “It’s good to see you all.”
They surrounded him, forming a ring, the solar figures sat in a circle around us.
Another car pulled onto the street, coming to a stop before the gathering. The driver’s door opened, a huge guy in white getting out and opening the back door. He bent inside, picking something up.
That something turned out to be the unconscious body of actual Tony.
A wave of energy crashed down on me, a vibrant and invigorating wave of celestial power. I saw sunlight, true sunlight beyond these ridiculous solar shadows. The magic of the goddess, her blessing humming through me again, getting me to my feet within this rotten darkness.
“No!” Tony yelled.
Yes, yes, yes. A new form of rejection, a major kick back against him.
“Stay where you are!” Tony’s voice shook the darkness around me, the screen fading, the cold touch of the real world whistling in the air.
Destroy him, a voice demanded inside my head.
I wasn’t sure if it was mine or not, but my Defensive Sunlight illuminated my hands, tearing through the darkness, filling my ears with Tony’s delicious screams.
“Get ready, fuckhead!” I bellowed. “Here comes The Sun!”