Chapter 34
Chapter Thirty-Four
“There is nothing sweeter or more powerful than draining a host. Our magic is delicious.” He licks his lips.
“You cannibalise your own people.” To understand what this creature does is an alien concept in my head.
It is horrific. Another realisation comes to me.
“There are no sealgairí, is there? No big bad killing hosts. It’s you, isn’t it?
It has always been you. You have pulled the wool over everyone’s eyes.
” I shake my head. “Not only are you a mass murderer who has taken our race to the verge of extinction, you have been draining other creatures, while blaming it all on the realms.”
“Not so stupid after all.” He creepily tilts his head and taps his lips.
The man is a bloody psychopath. His expression is thoughtful as he shakes his head.
“Tell you what, I will indulge you just this once, as what does it matter? A last wish. The hosts left alive are too wily, too embedded in their little realms, hiding like little mouses. So, I hunt the young ones. The ones like you.”
He bops me on the nose. “Baby hosts, yet to get their power. I scare them enough that they run and I trap them in my dimension. It activates their magic and then… bam! I simply drain them dry.” He shrugs as if he’s not talking about ending innocent lives.
“It all worked perfectly.” He scowls. “Until you.”
He leans closer again and breathes me in.
A shiver of revulsion trickles down my spine.
“So much magic,” he whispers. His tongue flashes out of his mouth as he gazes at me like I am an extra delicious cheeseburger.
“You know, it has happened once or twice when the magic hasn’t drained my prey completely overnight.
” He smirks. “They spent the time they had left flapping around, panicking, crying, freaking out. They couldn’t even leave their room.
After a day or so, when I finally got to them, they were practically basket cases. So deliciously frightened.”
I feel sick. This guy is a monster.
“What they didn’t do is take over. You took over my fucking world!
Look at it!” I flinch as he roars, sweeping his arms around to encompass the realm that peeks out from behind this dark horrid corner.
He lowers his voice and, somehow, it’s more menacing.
“Trees, flowers, butterflies, a lake? I left a rotten hotel and a barely functional car park. You’ve been busy making yourself a true sanctuary when you should have been a good little girl and laid down dead.
This isn’t fucking Disneyland,” he spits.
“This pocket dimension is not yours. It is mine. Mine. This place was made to be a prison.”
In a panic, I send my magic out and try—like I’m pulling strands of string that are tangled—to gather the realm’s magic, but it is as if I’m trying to touch through glass. I keep hitting a wall.
“Girl, stop trying to manipulate the magic. You have had days to try and learn something I’ve been doing for millennia. Quit it. This pocket world is not yours.”
It wants to be.
“That’s the problem though, isn’t it?” I rasp.
“This realm likes being a sanctuary. It does not enjoy being a trap.” Sentient.
I know it sounds crazy. The magic is sentient, and that is the reason I am still alive.
He’s been killing people for centuries, sucking out their life force, abusing the realm’s magic.
Like me, the magic doesn’t want to hurt people, it wants to help, and perhaps it found that spark of possibility within me.
We align. The magic stepped up and protected me.
“That is why you are so pissed. The realm locked you out.” My released host magic combined with the dimensional magic healed the world and pulled it right out of the rogue host’s hands.
“Oh, will you just shut up? What does it matter, Nancy Drew? Just shut up and die already.” He groans.
“It will take me years to get your stink out of this place. Do you know what? I’m going to drain you slowly.
It will take weeks.” He runs his finger across my lips.
“I will cut out your tongue to halt the incessant chatter and put you in a tiny pocket cell, safe and away from my realm. While I drain your magic, I will enjoy watching you slowly go mad.”
Pain screams inside me. Is he draining me already? Ouch.
“You feel that, don’t you? The tickle underneath your skin.” A tickle? More like my stomach and bowels have been put into a meat grinder. “Danger will do that. The magic doesn’t like it. So finicky in its attempt to be so pure.”
My vision flashes to black and I am forced to close my eyes.
Creatures pop up on the magical map inside my head, and it pounds with the overload of information.
I take the opportunity to frantically check on Owen, Daisy, and my coven.
For the moment, they are safe. I can feel my hellhound's concern and determination. But then I see what the rogue host wanted, the reason why he is allowing me to see, to torture me with the truth. Eight—no, ten people that shouldn’t be here. Mercenaries.
The first thing I did when I felt someone rip a hole in the realm was lock down all the portals. He has yet to re-open them.
I locked down every portal, except for one.
I didn’t lock down the emergency one leading to Jodie’s shop. Nobody but a member of our coven could gain access to her shop. Yet they have. Perhaps the rogue host destroyed the wards? But Jodie would have known.
“I brought along some friends.” Despair fills me. His friends are surrounding my coven. They didn’t make it out. I failed. The magic screams at me to do something, but the rogue host cuts my connection. It is down to just a whisper.
My voice cracks. “How?”
“I didn’t even have to pay them,” he says, all jolly. “You killed a dryad, and some guy loved her. He went a bit nuts when her tree disappeared. The poor love-blinded fool thought he had a hope of saving her—save the tree, save the girl.”
Erin.
“When the whole clan up and left, he knew something bad had happened. So he did a little digging. A kind-hearted soul—that would be me—whispered your name in his ear. I helped to stir him up and push him in the right direction. Towards you. I also helpfully gave him the number for an excellent mercenary firm as professional backup. The rat shifters are wonderful soldiers and so much easier to manipulate than the wolves.”
Yeah, the same rats that ransacked my flat.
I don’t bother telling him that Erin is still alive and well. It’s not something he’d understand. Undoubtedly, he thinks everyone is a soul-sucking monster like him.
“I needed a backup plan in case you were more difficult to deal with. Waste of effort, really. I thought you would have at least offered me more of a challenge, but…” He huffs.
“Never mind. By now, the rats will have gathered all your guests, including your pathetic little coven, for me to eat. Even if they kill everyone before I get there, the power, their souls, are mine.”
I force my face to look appropriately horrified. The host has made a mistake. He should have used a null band on me. He should not have left the tiny little spark of access to the realm’s magic.
Using that magic, I initiate a change of plan.
Instead of letting Owen come to me, I need him to help the guests, help my coven.
With the access to the realm’s magic drifting ever so slowly out of my grip, I get a message to Owen, to tell him what is happening and to give him access to the realm map and the location of all the mercenaries.
Within the message, I lie and tell him I have got everything under control, and with a blast of magic, I Step him back towards the hotel. I breathe a silent sigh when it works.
The host does not notice, as he is still waffling on with his villain speech. “…I must say, I do so enjoy the thought that so many creatures will add up to a real feast.”
“Can you remember who you’ve killed?” The host scoffs and tightens his hand in my hair before wrapping the other one around my throat. “What about Rebecca Lynch? She was a—”
“Dead.” He squeezes my throat. “Any creature that stumbles into the hotel and isn’t useful is dead. A mere snack. Unlike you. I’m going to feast on your power, little girl. I will be careful to drain you so slowly you’ll be kept alive for months.”
“What about Atticus? Does he not care about you killing hosts, killing guests?”
He laughs. “No, you na?ve little fool, of course not. He doesn’t know. What do you take me for, an amateur? I control everything he sees. Pureblood vampires are selfish. He doesn’t care about others.”
“That’s where you’d be wrong,” says a cultured voice behind us. “I care, and I quite like having a swimming pool.”