Chapter 47
CAT
My eyes flew wide, and I wrenched off the icy cold ground with a gasp, completely and utterly blind.
“Don’t panic,” a male voice said, kind instead of cruel, but roughened like sandpaper. Not the smooth ice of Violence’s voice. Not any of my bonded ones’ voices, either. “You’re completely dead, but it won’t kill you.”
I panted, gulping down air, my hands flying to my throat where I felt the bite of metal. What happened…? Someone cut me. I remembered it through a gauze of confusion. Who cut me? Why? And how the fuck was I still alive?
“You’re not alive. You said that out loud, by the way.” A hand grasped my arm and wrenched me to my knees, then my feet. “You’ll be a little disoriented for a while, and you might have blank voids in your memory. But up you get. We’ve got so much work to do, and very little time to do it.”
My head blurred and I wavered on my feet. My bare feet. Had my feet been bare a minute ago?
“You can clothe yourself,” the man said, as if noticing my attention. I turned to glare at him, but I was alone. There was… nothing. No people, no rooms, no buildings, no streets. An empty white space as far as I could see. “Focus on clothes, and they’ll form.”
“What…?”
“Probably a bit advanced,” he mused. “Given you just died.”
“I didn’t die,” I laughed, even if I could feel the cold slice of a blade through my neck. I felt along my throat, but my skin was intact. “I’m not dead.”
Someone patted my shoulder, and I spun around, but there was no one there. There was nothing but stark whiteness in all directions. “That’s what they all say.”
“Who are you?”
“A friend of a friend, I guess you could say. I’ve taken it upon myself to give you a head start in all this.” By all this, I could only assume he meant the nothingness all around me.
“Are you… God?” I whispered.
His laugh was a sharp sound. “Yeah, sure, think of me as God if that’ll get your ass moving. First things first, can you take a step?”
I lifted my foot and put it down, repeating the motion, not entirely sure why I’d been given a vision from God. I’d never been particularly religious. Maybe this was what all dead people received.
“Great. Now squint into the space where my voice emanates. Focus on trying to see me.”
Trying to see God…? I shrugged, my confusion deepening and the memory of that blade cutting me getting further and further away.
It took eternity, but my eyes finally focused on a man.
Tall, stocky, with a sleek flop of dark hair, heavy stubble, and narrowed eyes. Not how I’d pictured god, but okay.
“Where’s your white beard?” I found myself asking.
“I shaved it,” he replied without missing a beat. “Hold out your hand.”
Giving him a wary look, I did.
“Call a shadow—a small one! Picture a coil of magic sitting on your palm like a lizard.”
“That’s an odd request,” I said, but my head was floaty and disoriented enough that I followed his instruction. I startled when it worked, a small curl of darkness sitting in my palm. “What is this…?”
“Power,” God replied tightly. “The thing the entire fucking world revolves around. Can you make it bigger?”
I could, it turned out, and it didn’t take much effort at all. The tiny black lizard growing into the size of a small house cat in my hands.
“What’s next?” I asked, staring at the magic, bemused at its existence.
God’s expression hardened. “Now,” he said, “we use that magic to save the domain.” He cast me a canny glance. “What do you want, above all things?”
I sensed his question probed deeper, searching for a different truth, but it cost me nothing to answer, so I did.
“Vengeance,” I answered, staring at the magic pooled in my hands, not even sure where the words poured from. “Justice. I want people to pay for the wrongs they’ve committed. I want them to meet their final Judgement.”
I hope you loved All Hallows Legacy!