Chapter 29
BE STILL, MY BEATING HEART
A SUDDEN TIGHTNESS IN HER CHEST WOKE SUYIN JUST after dawn. She sat up in bed, trying to place the strange feeling. She hadn’t had any dreams that she remembered, but it wasn’t normal for her to wake up beset with … sadness? Grief? She wasn’t sure what it was.
More likely, it was the uneasiness about Murmur’s spell that she hadn’t been able to shake since he’d left last night.
Throwing her robe on, she padded into the kitchen on bare feet and flicked the kettle on for some herbal tea. She needed something calming. All night, the mark on her chest had burned, and it was still burning now. The skin stung from being cut, yes, but it was more than that.
The mark burned with dark magic.
She could feel its deadly power searing her from the inside, until it took all her self-control not to claw at her chest as if to scratch it off with her nails. What the hell had Murmur done to her? And why had she let him?
She stood by the window, watching the tree in the backyard swaying in the wind.
But what she was really thinking about was the look on Murmur’s face while he’d carved that mark on her.
He’d looked sickened, even paler than usual.
Was it because he hadn’t liked harming her?
He may have had a soft spot for her, but she wasn’t sure he was even capable of that kind of empathy.
Afterward, he’d avoided meeting her eyes, and he’d left in a hurry, barely bothering with a goodbye though it was potentially the last time they’d ever see each other.
She’d been fighting panic at the thought, and he’d been unable to get out of there fast enough. And now she couldn’t help thinking …
He was hiding something.
She knew him well enough by now to sense he was lying. He’d never bothered lying to her before. Before she’d convinced him to open up about his plans, he’d simply ignored her questions or refused to answer them.
God, how could she have been so stupid? She’d let him sex her into complacency last night.
And then she’d let him carve a sigil directly onto her skin, and she’d taken his word on how it worked instead of asking him to prove it first. She’d told him she trusted him, but that was taking it a little far.
He’d fucked the sense right out of her, evidently.
She dragged a hand down her face.
“If you fucked with me, Murmur,” she muttered to her silent kitchen, “I swear to god I’ll make you regret it.”
First, she had to figure out what the mark actually did. Maybe he hadn’t lied, and she was being paranoid and overly suspicious. It was possible. She wanted to believe in him, and she wanted to give him the chance to prove that he was worthy of her trust But she had to take care of herself too.
After her tea steeped, she went back to her bedroom, stripped off her robe and T-shirt, and then used her phone to take a picture of the mark on her chest. She zoomed in, studying it closely.
The skin was already scabbing over, thanks to her accelerated healing. It struck her as strange that she hadn’t felt Murmur use the mark already. The sigil’s power would fade as it mended, so whatever purpose Murmur had for it, he should have acted on it right away.
Had he done the spell already while she was asleep, so she hadn’t felt the drain on her energy? If so, there was no point researching this. But instinct told her to keep digging.
She copied the mark onto a piece of paper in her notebook so she didn’t have to tell anyone that she’d let a demon carve it into her chest. Then she snapped a photo of the drawing and sent an email to a certain black-magic coven in New York.
The head of the coven, Moira, was an eighty-year-old witch who looked forty, thanks to frequent youthfulness animal-sacrifice rituals, and that was who Suyin contacted directly. She attached a photo of the drawing and asked if Moira or anyone she knew recognized it.
Luckily, she didn’t have to wait long for a reply.
She’d just gotten dressed when her phone buzzed. Heart racing, she opened the message immediately.
Hi Suyin,
Where did you see this symbol? You need to be extremely careful. Do not put this mark anywhere near your bare skin. I would even be careful touching it without gloves on—it’s that powerful.
This is a Sheolic death mark. Once carved into the skin, it can be triggered from anywhere.
It’s used for sacrificial magic when the sacrifice isn’t present for the ritual.
The caster cuts a second symbol on herself and then uses the blood of her sacrifice to activate it, which will cause the sacrifice to die instantly, channeling his life force into her spell.
If you’re planning to attempt it, the challenge is getting the mark into your sacrifice’s skin. You need him to trust you enough to allow you to carve it, or he would need to be drugged or restrained.
This is not a low-level casting. Chances of failure are high, even if you follow all the steps correctly. I would recommend considering a simpler method for a male sacrifice.
Please don’t hesitate to reach out if you have any questions. Last I heard you were hesitant to learn Sheolic magic, and now you’re casting death marks! Something tells me we have lots to catch up on. ;)
Moira
Suyin reread the email five times. Each time, her heart beat faster, and it grew harder to draw breath.
She dropped into a chair, clutching her phone with a white-knuckled, shaking hand.
It took all her self-control not to find a knife and slash through the sigil right then, but she knew better than to break the line before learning the consequences.
She clutched her sweater tightly over her heart. Over the death mark.
The death mark.
The Sheolic death mark that Murmur had carved into her skin.
Do not put this mark anywhere near your bare skin. I would even be careful touching it without gloves on—it’s that powerful.
Well, it was carved into her fucking chest.
And just like the stupid male sacrifices Moira was talking about, Suyin had sat back and let Murmur do it. She remembered his averted gaze, his softened tone as he avoided her questions …
Do you trust me, Suyin?
She had. She’d been trying to, anyway. Trying to overcome her habitual distrust of people for his sake, because she’d believed he deserved it. At the very least, she’d trusted in their blood vow to protect her.
But now, replaying the conversation in her mind, she recalled exactly what he’d said, and she realized she’d been duped. I will return you from whence you came in more or less the same condition I found you in.
He had returned her home unharmed, as promised. He’d never sworn not to kill her from afar once he did.
Her phone clattered to the floor as it slipped from her hand. She tore her sweater and shirt off and stepped in front of the mirror. There, topless, she stood looking at her body with that physical manifestation of betrayal carved into her chest.
Right over her fucking heart.
She screamed. A primal scream of rage.
And then she felt it … The shift.
She’d completely forgotten about the possibility of having an altered form until this moment, but when she felt the dark energy bubbling up inside of her, she recognized it immediately.
And she realized she had felt it before in the past, but just as Murmur had said, she had unconsciously repressed it, believing she was keeping her emotions in check.
She didn’t repress it this time.
Sharp black claws grew from her fingertips.
Her canine teeth lengthened into deadly points.
Her eyes washed over with pure black. And while she stayed the same size, her skin took on a faint purplish hue.
The increased strength she’d had her entire life augmented until it felt like she could snap bones with her bare hands.
Any other time, her mind would have been blown. But right now, all she could think about was using her newfound weapons—claws and teeth and strength—to rip Murmur’s heart out. Just as he’d done to her.
She’d trusted him. She’d let herself soften toward him. She’d been vulnerable with him, in a way she’d never been with anyone before. And now this.
“You fucking bastard,” she snarled. “You backstabbing piece of shit. You fucking liar!” Her nostrils flared, her chest heaved, and her demonic eyes were black pits of rage. Her reflection in the mirror looked crazed—an apt description, because she fucking was.
This wasn’t just a betrayal. Murmur hadn’t just lied or cheated.
This was a literal knife in the back. Because he was going to fucking kill her.
She hadn’t been stupid enough to believe he was some reformed “good” demon just because they’d bonded, but she’d thought they had an understanding. They’d had sex multiple times, and she’d thought he cared for her in whatever twisted way he was capable of. She’d thought they had a bond.
Wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong.
She seethed. The anger felt like pure fire running through her veins. The betrayal burned like acid in her stomach.
She needed to find a way to deactivate that fucking mark immediately.
If she’d thought it would work, she would’ve used her newly formed claws to gouge it off right then and there.
But she didn’t understand how the spell functioned enough to risk it.
And knowing what she did about black magic, she had a terrible suspicion that once the mark had been on her skin for several hours, the damage had been done.
She ran to pick her phone up off the floor. With shaking hands, she fumbled to reply to Moira’s email, her claws scratching at the screen.
Once the mark has been applied, is there a way for the sacrifice to deactivate it?
Back in her bedroom, she donned her shirt and sweater and then she sat on the bed, trying to figure out what the fuck to do.
She tried to drag her hands through her hair only for her claws to get caught in the tangles.
There wasn’t time to waste, but she needed to know what to do to save herself first. If there was anything.
Moira’s reply was swift.
No, not from the sacrifice’s end. That’s what makes it so deadly.
The only way to deactivate it is if the caster interrupts a line of her seal. Or, if the death mark is never activated, the sacrifice’s mark will heal, and the magic will fade with it.
Hope that helps and good luck. :)
Suyin leapt off the bed. Maybe there was hope after all. She’d lasted this long. If she could just find a way to stop Murmur from activating the mark, she’d be golden.
She had two options: She could begin a period of diligent study or even ask Iris’s boyfriend and his brothers for help in trapping Murmur.
But that would require trusting a bunch of unknown demons, and it would take time she didn’t have.
It had been hours since Murmur had put the mark on her.
She didn’t know why he hadn’t activated it yet, but she figured she didn’t have long.
Which left her second option: go to Hell, find him, and stab him until he bled out.
Was it stupid? Reckless? Probably. If he was willing to kill her, he truly felt nothing for her, which meant he’d be ruthless if he caught her. On top of that, the odds of him having left the hellgate in his library open were low.
She probably wouldn’t even be able to get there, but it was worth a shot. Considering her options were do or die, she was inclined to take risks.
Mind made up, she hurried into her living room, which was still taken over by her expired paranoia wards.
She grabbed the mop from the kitchen and washed a clean spot on the floor.
Then she called up an old text saved on her computer for reference, grabbed some chalk, and began inscribing a hellgate sigil.
With a bit of walking around, she could have found the empty apartment Murmur had used, but again, that would take time she didn’t have.
As a blood-born witch, she was naturally able to travel through gates, while witch practitioners had to consume demon blood first. That had led to the age-old rumor that blood-born witches were descended from demons, something Suyin had always scoffed at.
She wasn’t laughing now.
According to her father’s research, blood-born witches were the descendants of Cambions, so they did indeed have demon blood in their veins. Which was why they could use hellgates. Go figure.
When the gate was finished, Suyin activated it, visualizing the gate she wanted to connect hers to and hoping like hell Murmur had left it open.
Then she ran back into her room, dug out one of her ritual daggers from her closet, and strapped on the worn leather sheath.
The blade was far sharper than anything in her kitchen.
She was going to stab Murmur in the back, just as he’d done to her.