Chapter Nineteen #3
Hyacinth trembled down to the bone. Images of the very woods that surrounded her filled her skull.
Trees rushing to evade her touch, branches scratching her palms as she tried to escape.
Escape. Blood soaked her feet, but her hands were clean as she tried to fight through the forest. Something got her wings.
She reached back to touch them where they were attached, and her body lurched in pain that no longer existed.
Because the wings they ripped out of her back weren’t the wings attached to her.
Not anymore.
Not her.
No.
“Admit your guilt, Sabine! Come to the pyre willingly, do not make me chase you this time.” The man with a silver eye stepped out of the shield of the city, smirking as he slapped a poster with her face on it against the surface. “There’s nowhere to run now. No where you can hide.”
“Look here, bucko—” Melody snarled, stepping forward to only have a glimmering sword leveled at her face.
Smith put an arm in front of his wife and eased her backward from the golden flames.
They hissed in the misty air of the woods, even with the sun overhead, it suddenly felt negative ten degrees.
Her bones stiffened. The woman stood behind her, holding her in place with long fingers against her shoulders.
Tap. Tap. Tap. She was impatient. The man changed his attention to Hyacinth.
Flashes of the same man with a dagger, raised above her flooded her system.
She couldn’t feel the pain, but she felt the pressure of it.
How his dagger pierced through her body and pressed down onto her chest. Her lungs struggled to inflate.
Hyacinth gulped down air that was only pushed out with another stab.
“I do not know who you think she is,” Smith hissed low, his body elongating another inch than it was before. The sky around them crackled with white and gray static. “But that is not Sabine.”
Tap. Tap. Tap.
“Her kind are all tricksters,” the man growled as he circled Hyacinth, Smith following him step for step.
All the hair on her body stood up on edge.
Tap. Tap. Tap. “They’re liars. They’re mutilators.
But worse of all, they’re carnivores. With each sacrifice they grow stronger.
No wonder death didn’t stop her. A mistake I will not make again. This time…the witch will burn.”
The fingers at her shoulders wrapped around her throat.
Tightening, Hyacinth stumbled like the world was a carpet ripped out from beneath her boots.
Everything twisted and turned, her vision grew spotty.
Sabine choked her. Hard. Hyacinth’s fingers went to her neck, unable to even see the struggle happening behind her.
The only thing important to her was prying herself from the other woman’s grasp.
Fingers clawed out from within her hair, disguised as curls till they were pawing at her mouth.
Hyacinth cried out, panic causing her mouth to open an inch. Two hands dove in, prying her jaw open.
Something crawled in.
Hyacinth jerked one last step before her body stilled.
Every bone in her borrowed body clicked as she changed.
Click. Turn. Click. Twist. Click. Turn. Click.
She finally stared at the scene before her.
A werewolf bit down onto a golden, flaming sword, spilling blood down the arm of the man holding it.
Smith, however, had a hand in the man’s ribcage.
While the silver eyed man tried to heave the blade deeper into the werewolf’s jaws, Smith yanked him and exposed one of his ribs.
NO!
Hyacinth wasn’t in charge. She wasn’t even allowed to suggest. Not as Sabine unhinged her jaw like a snake.
The three struggling in a pile froze. A thousand wings fluttered up her throat.
And they were real. Locusts, green, mud brown, and yellow splotchy insects with glowing eyes, flew out of her mouth with abandon.
An infestation took to the air and filled the forest. A few of them hit the shield over the city and burst into a million little, wet pieces.
However, the ones that dove for the silver-eyed man, were allowed to live.
They chittered and filled the forest with the horrific sound of a hundred wings.
The werewolf dove out of the way, scampering around the trees and dribbling blood on the far side of Hyacinth.
Smith, however, was thrown through the shield, all his limbs turned to limp noodles that pooled around him.
The man screamed in terror. Running away, his black smoke was unable to help him as they followed him into his magic, into his spell.
Hyacinth’s lips split up on her face, exposing bloodied teeth.
She spit out damp soil and turned toward the shield.
Fingers like a seam ripper, she pressed them to the shield.
Like she was capable of breaking through.
Like she was strong enough to pierce its protections.
It flashed red and she was knocked back, her skull hitting a tree…
and she descended into a thick black within her mind.