Chapter 11 #3
Fear, coating his mouth in ash, packed down his throat until he couldn’t breathe.
Yearning, the taste of sweet citrus bursting across his tongue, making his head swim and his pulse race.
Self-loathing, a rancid, bitter rot creeping sluggishly through his veins.
Hope, the sweetest fizz in the pit of his stomach, flowers blooming up into his ribs to cradle his thumping heart.
Miles fell to his knees in the damp grass, the oxygen knocked straight out of him. It was too much, everything drowned out beneath the force of Gabriel. He couldn’t find himself.
This was why the first thing his dad ever taught him was to construct a shield and protect himself. It was too easy to get pulled in, lost inside someone else, sucked down and buried beneath the weight of their feelings. He needed to climb back to himself, but he couldn’t remember the way.
Then, he sensed it.
Something else was here with him, something that didn’t belong inside Gabriel. Like grabbing a ripe apple and sinking your thumb into a rotten spot. Lifting your face to a fresh breeze and catching a whiff of decay. A wrongness. An infection.
This must be the feeling Gabriel had told him about, the evil thing living under his skin.
It responded to the magic trying to slither inside Gabriel, calling and reaching out to it, assuring it would satiate its hunger, give it a warm body to nest in, a vessel to fill.
It radiated power, temptation; it took everything in Miles not to reach for it, to see if its darkly honeyed promises were true.
Gabriel wasn’t just fighting against the magic they’d summoned, but a part of himself that had been planted in a forgotten corner against his will, spread its roots and grown.
Anger roared in Miles, the sudden flare of emotion snapping him back into his own mind.
He emerged with a gasp, finding Charlee and Emily crouched beside him, twin looks of alarm on their faces.
Above him, the ball of darkness rested in the outstretched palm of Gabriel’s hand, black ooze slicked down to his wrist.
Shrugging off Emily and Charlee, their protests a distant drone, Miles stood and grabbed the orb. He’d claw at it, tear it, anything to rip it free of Gabriel and throw it as far as he could.
The moment it met his skin, pain flayed open his flesh and seared down his nerves. He screamed as it slid up his skin like hot oil, but he couldn’t move, couldn’t pull away.
Let us in, the thing breathed, the words echoing and endless. Let us in and the pain will cease. Let us in, and you will never know hurt again.
The fire burned hotter across his body, until Miles thought he’d hear his skin sizzle, his bones crack. He would’ve done anything to make it stop.
Let us in and it will stop.
Uttering a simple yes was the easiest thing he’d ever done.
Hot blood flooded his mouth, a blade slicing into his very being, cutting down to his core. It was ravenous, shredding him apart to feast, pleased with this new offering, opening its maw wide to—
It ripped from his mind like a barbed hook. The pain of it leaving hurt almost as much as the sudden relief once it was gone, and Miles had a terrible feeling it had taken some part of him with it. His legs gave out.
Only a second behind him, Gabriel dropped to his knees with a keening whine. He sank forward to clutch at the grass, tearing it up in fistfuls and shuddered like he was rattling free of his own skin.
A terrible cold pulsed around them, ruffling Miles’s hair and sinking under his clothes. The sheepskin collar of his jacket crusted with frost, the sweat soaking his shirt turning frigid.
Gabriel’s eyes rolled back, nothing but whites, and he went limp, slumping forward.
“Gabriel,” Miles croaked. Cleared his throat and tried again. “Gabriel.”
He didn’t move.
Miles was about to puke, and every inch of his body hurt, but Gabriel wasn’t moving. Too weak to stand, he shuffled closer. “Hey.” He shook Gabriel by the shoulder, clumsy and a touch too rough. “C’mon, talk to me.”
“Miles.” Charlee sounded strange. “Look at the grass.”
It was withering, turning brittle and brown.
Bouquets of flowers on surrounding graves decomposed into sludge, bushes collapsed in on themselves.
There was a thud—Miles turned to see a bird on the ground, frozen in death.
One, then another, more thumps in the darkness.
It was as if a foul miasma had settled around them, killing everything it touched.
Gabriel shifted with a low groan, curling in on himself. “I had to,” he whispered, scraped as raw as Miles felt. “The magic had to feed, or it would’ve taken you.”
Jesus. It was sucking the life straight out of their surroundings, devouring anything it could reach. It’d been so close to doing the same to Miles. Would he have turned into a husk, skin melted into rot? Would he even have had a second to scream before the magic killed him?
“I’m sorry,” Gabriel choked out. His arms tightened around his body, knuckles stark where he clutched his coat. “I had to.”
Miles crawled over to wrap his arms around him as he shook. He held him and wished the doorway between them hadn’t closed so he could share his anguish, carry part of it for him.
“It’s okay,” he lied, murmuring the words into Gabriel’s hair. It was far from okay, but there was nothing he could say to fix it. Gabriel hadn’t killed the plants and the birds, but they were dead all the same.
How did you thank someone for saving your life when the cost was so horrible?
“You were right.” Gabriel shivered so violently Miles’s vision blurred. “We shouldn’t have used the grimoire. I should’ve listened to you.”
“You didn’t know. This isn’t your fault, okay?”
It was all their faults. They’d all agreed. This cemetery was supposed to be for the deceased to rest, to find peace. Because of them, they’d been ripped from their graves and puppeted around. Now, the few living things in this place were dead.
Charlee crouched down to place a hand on Gabriel’s shoulder. She waited until he looked up, eyes hollow pits, blood gathered in the corner of his mouth where he must’ve bitten his tongue. He dipped his chin, resigned to face whatever judgment laid upon him.
“Don’t…” Miles started.
“It’s done.” Her voice was softer than she’d ever spoken to Gabriel before.
“You said it yourself—you had to. If I had to pick between Miles and a couple of birds, I would’ve made the same choice.
I would’ve left this whole cemetery in ashes before I let it take him.
” She stood and offered her freckled hand.
“So, it’s done. Now we need to clean up our mess. ”
Gabriel’s ribs swelled beneath Miles as he took a deep breath, then gripped Charlee’s hand and let her pull him to his feet.