Chapter Forty-Three Through nature to eternity
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
Through nature to eternity
LUKE AND THE SIGMA CROW were the first to die. Their flesh and limbs were separated, their skin torn away, human blood and bones and marrow seeping from the creature’s crooked mouth.
And then it turned on the remaining Sigma members. The creature devoured them, biting and ripping their flesh apart, one by one in a massacre of blood and gore.
Kasem pulled me up by my waist and we ran, hand in hand, sprinting away from the creature even as it began to pursue us.
Faster and faster we retreated, despite the muddy ground writhing at our feet, slowing us down.
Just as the creature drew closer, Vivian appeared at our side.
Her eyes were steely, determined, and she wilted a slew of roots in the gator’s path, catching it by its feet.
“We have to go back,” I said. “Kasem, we can’t leave him.”
“Get Sianna back to campus,” Kasem told Vivian, ignoring my pleas. “You said you would take care of her.”
“And I have,” Vivian snapped. “What do you think I was trying to do? She doesn’t listen.
She’s more stubborn than you are.” Tears filled her lashes.
I didn’t know ghosts could cry. “Luke was my friend. He could see me better than most people at Westfield could. And now he’s dead.
Gone. Hasn’t your family and their wicked curse taken enough lives? ”
In front of us, a group of initiates were headed our way. They were being pursued by one of the vultures in a silver mask.
I waved to get their attention.
“Turn back! It’s not safe!”
They sped past me, splitting in separate directions while the vulture continued his path toward us. The Sigma pushed me and Kasem apart. Terror seized me at the thought of him launching himself at me like the others. But instead, he grabbed Kasem and pushed him against the tree.
“Diaírei kaì basíleue,” he whispered, drawing a silver rope from his side.
“What are you doing?” I shouted, trying to pull him away from Kasem. The Sigma struck me, the blow so powerful that I fell to the ground. My vision went white and I tasted blood on the inside of my cheek.
“Sianna!” Kasem shouted, wrestling with the figure and nearly succeeding in throwing him off. But then the figure thrust a blow to Kasem’s abdomen, right where he’d been stabbed months before. It was as if he’d known Kasem’s weakness.
Kasem crumpled to the ground, mere inches away from me. In the distance, the creature was getting closer.
Vivian emerged, trying to grab the figure by the arms, but her body, suddenly made intangible, went right through him.
“Be gone, ghost,” the figure hissed. “Or I will summon him.”
Vivian recoiled. Even the gator-like creature seemed to fear the figure’s words.
“Kasem,” I whispered, inching toward him from where I lay.
I reached for him and our fingers brushed.
But then something yanked me from the ground and threw me against one of the trees.
Kasem screamed my name, and the last thing I saw before everything went dark, before the air was sucked from the world, were his brown eyes pooling with silver and gold.