CHAPTER NINE
“I don’t expect you to stay here, Lydia,” Bellan said over breakfast one morning.
I still couldn’t look at the sling that kept his arm draped across his body; the wound that was too stark a reminder of that hideous day. Couldn’t think about how many he’d helped—saved, even—with that hole bleeding everywhere. Not when my family had been so far beyond saving.
“I’ve arranged for you to move into a flat in Dwellings. A gift, of course. I expect nothing of you in return.”
The streets drowned in chaos as men, women, and children ran screaming through puddles of blood and rain and gutters that ran red.
Shadows of da’kai flickered on the sides of burning buildings, the figures in their grasps flailing as jagged teeth tore through their flesh.
The crackling of the flames was a soft melody in my ears, the screaming that punctuated the static sending a trill of anticipation down the ridges of my spine. A slow smile spread across my face.
A young girl sprinted toward me, her staccato yelps a chime in the symphony that had me utterly enthralled.
A da’kai nipped at her heels, its voracious maw looming open just inches from her back.
I stuck my foot out as she passed and she tumbled into a puddle of gore.
I snorted when her head rebounded off the ground.
The da’kai descended on her, sinking its spurred fingers into her back. Her screams harmonized with the chorus belting its agony to the heavens. I tilted my head back. My eyes drifted shut and I drew in a slow, deep breath, reveling in the sounds and smells of the mayhem surrounding me.
“Now, stop being melodramatic and think of a happy memory so I can go do something that matters.”
The low purr of a voice sawed through the music. It was pleasant enough but obliterated the perfect melody that sang to my very soul. I growled, my head whipping around as I searched for the source of the disturbance.
“Focus on it. Then follow it out.”
A house materialized in front of me. The scales-of-justice knocker that dangled from the busted front door stirred recognition—as did the shrill cry that resounded from within. I strutted up the steps and smirked at what I beheld inside.
Familiar bodies lay strewn on the large, plush rug laid out in the center of the main sitting room.
It was a rich, cozy brown. Perfect for hiding the stains left behind by three children.
But no color could mask the scarlet puddles that drenched it now, the blood still flowing from three throats carved to bone.
Lynnix had her hands wrapped around her neck, her wound less severe than the others, but crimson still seeped through her fingers and smeared her arms. Her head turned at the sound of my entrance, her eyes bright with agony.
Lynnix tried to speak, but the words were swallowed by the blood gurgling at the back of her throat before they could reach her lips. She struggled onto her side and dragged herself toward me. I watched her advance, each pathetic inch weaker than the last.
She finally made it to me, her fingers scrabbling at my boots, the hem of my robe. I knelt beside her and gripped her chin. Hope shone in her eyes as she stared up at me. An unbreakable belief that I was going to save her.
I smiled back and wrenched her head to the side, further tearing the arteries that spilled her life force onto the ground at my feet. That foolish expectation left her eyes alongside their light.
I rose and stepped over her body. A glance at the others confirmed they were already gone. Pity, that I’d been too late for most of the fun.
“Grab hold of a positive memory and refuse to let it go. You can follow it out of the madness, but you have to focus. Focus on it, and nothing else.”
I swatted around my head, trying to dispel the pesky voice that kept disturbing my fun. I tossed the dead bodies one last smirk before I sauntered out the back door.
“Grab it, Lydia!”
Phantom hands grabbed my shoulders and flung me against the house. A pair of manacles clamped over my wrists, so tight the cold metal bit into the full circle of my skin. I lurched forward but the manacles yanked me back, their short chains attached to spikes driven deep into the wood.
A pool of mist coalesced at my feet, growing taller and wider with every breath.
It consumed my torso. Then my chest and face.
I sucked down the wetness with each rapidly increasing breath, my lips and cheeks beaded with ice-cold droplets.
The fog crested the top of my head. The screaming grew muffled, then distant, until an unnatural silence engulfed me.
My ragged breaths were the only shred of sound within the tomb of shadow and mist.
Gnarled fingers slid from the fog, covered with puckered boils that leaked pus over charred and blackened skin.
I whimpered and shrunk away, but there was nowhere to go.
They slithered down my arm, leaving gooseflesh and globs of rotten, sloughed-off flesh in their wake.
The hand snaked back behind the veil, only a faint shuffle of dragging feet telling me where its owner had gone.
The footsteps fell silent just in front of me.
My breath froze in my lungs, but my body shook violently against the cold wood at my back.
A face leaned out of the fog, its lips and eyelids nothing but seared strips of skin.
Melted ribbons of flesh hung off glistening muscle at the jaw and cheeks.
One teetering step on a broken ankle brought its body into view. My eyes flared with understanding.
With recognition. He was the first.
The first body that had collapsed in a charred heap at my feet, his wife bleeding out beside him.
His, the first blood that had coated my hands.
The first corpse that had sent me careening into Beck’s bed.
My gaze snapped to the knife clenched in his gnarled hand.
The frozen breath punched out of my chest. I flung my weight against the manacles, but they held firm as the nightmare in front of me stepped closer.
“I was justified,” I gasped, my breaths short bursts that made my head spin. “Everything I did was justified!”
“No,” he hissed through the flapping remains of his lips. “It was not.” He set the tip of the knife against my gut. “And evil”—he sucked in a wheezing breath—“must be punished.” He leaned his weight into the hilt.
The blade sank into me, every inch of it a burning agony.
A guttural howl shredded my throat and shattered the crushing silence.
The man’s face hovered inches from mine, his putrid breath gagging me with every sharp breath that sawed down my throat.
He tore the blade from my gut and drove it between my ribs.
I flung my head back into the wall, another wail raking up my bleeding throat.
I searched for help. Pleaded for someone to save me.
But only silence rose up to greet my screams.
He hissed, hatred simmering in his murky eyes, before he and the dagger still embedded in my flesh vanished.
I slumped, my weight digging the manacles into my wrists. Every breath was a battle until the pain slowly faded and the wounds knitted shut.
“Grasp onto my voice, Lydia. If you cannot find a memory, hold onto it. Follow it out of the darkness.”
“How?” I begged. “Save me. Please!”
“I’m right here.” The voice grew fainter with each passing word. “Just…follow…me…” and then it was gone, smothered by the oppressive gloom before I could seize it.
Another shadow coalesced in the fog, and I couldn’t contain the ragged sobs that poured out of my chest. It took a step toward me.
Two others swirled in the mist behind it.
As one, the Tablors emerged, their throats hanging open and clothes drenched in blood that pattered to the ground in a steady rhythm.
The skin on Jeremy’s hands and chest was red and bubbly.
“Monster,” Jamie rasped, wind wheezing through her ruined throat. “Monster!”
Jeremy and Macy fanned out to either side of her, their ragged voices joining hers to become a chorus that abducted my mind. “Monster. Monster! Monster!”
“No,” I gasped. “Everything I’ve done has been for justice,” I repeated. “For Them! I didn’t know that you were all innocent. I swear it!”
“You knew I was,” Jamie hissed. “Die, Monster.” She raised her hands, each fingertip an exposed bone filed to a talon-sharp point.
“No,” I breathed. I thrashed against my bonds, shredding the skin on my wrists. “No!”
Jamie gouged each bone shard into my neck like some fucked-up necklace. I tried to scream, but nothing seared its way up my throat. Her eyes bored into mine before she raked her hands down and ripped my throat open. My cry was lost in the shreds, flapping like a ragged cloth in the wind.
“You’re a monster.” They took a collective step back. “A monster.” The fog swallowed them whole.
“Lydia!” This voice was different. Higher. “How much did you give her!”
No one answered.
“Save me,” I tried to beg. But no sound broke through the silence.
“Gods, Griffon. What is wrong with you? You’re going to make it through this, Lydia. Okay? The Lakuro will let you out, as soon as you find a way to quiet the chaos and remember who you are. Think of a memory, okay? Any memory that makes you happy. And find your way back.”
I drew a shaky breath, my tattered throat mostly whole again. I slammed my eyes shut and searched. Burrowed into my mind for some shred of happiness to cling to. But the only things rampaging through my head were pain and blood and death.
I cracked my eyes open. Dozens of shadows waited in the fog, their eyes glowing like hot coals as they hung in the gloom.
“Please, no,” I sobbed, my voice breaking.
“I’m sorry, okay? I’m sorry!” As one, they took a step toward me.
I thrashed against my bonds. “No! I’m sorry!
” I screamed. “I’m sorry!” Tears cascaded down my cheeks, my wild screech lost in the abyss as the mob descended on me.
I shot upright, sending silken sheets pooling around my hips. My chest heaved as my wild gaze darted around and finally registered that I was in my room.
I slowly brought my hands up in front of my face. I huffed out a breath. Clean. Not dripping—stop. The other facet of the ordeal leapt to mind and my hands flew to my abdomen, my face, my chest—all whole, not the shredded mess they had been for an eternity.
My eyes adjusted to the soft darkness of the room and fell on that insufferable beast, folded into a chair against the closest wall. His eyes were puffy, his expression raw as he stared at me. A shudder wracked his body.
His fingers gouged into the arm rests as his eyes fell shut. “I had no idea you wouldn’t be able to find your way out,” he whispered, his voice breaking. He raised tired eyes to mine. An apology he couldn’t be bothered to voice raged in them.
“Get out,” I snarled, the words scouring my throat like I really had been screaming. I struggled to rein in my frantic breaths. A solitary tear betrayed me and I scrubbed it away.
He nodded, his eyes falling to his lap. He pushed himself out of the chair and left the room, the door closing with a soft click behind him.