Chapter 8 #2
Each word felt like a hammer blow, cracking through my walls and thoughts and defenses, their voices weaving into the gaps until I couldn’t find the seam between what was mine and what was theirs.
…A blight upon this world...
…An abomination that cannot be allowed to exist...
An abomination.
…Find him…
…End him…
End him.
…before it’s too late…
…Fulfill your purpose…
Yes. My purpose.
My body moved before I even made the decision, turning toward the hallway, toward the instinct that had taken hold in my chest and was driving me forward. My feet stumbled over themselves, eager and determined to obey the commands slashing through my veins.
“Shit.” Trace’s arms locked around me from behind, hauling me back against his chest. “It’s happening again.”
The words barely registered. I bucked against him, my whole body straining toward the corridor, the pull in my chest so insistent it drowned out everything else whether I wanted to obey or not.
I needed to go. I needed to find him before it was too late. It was my purpose. The reason I was—
“Angel.” Dominic’s face swam into view, his shadow bowing over me as he cupped my face and pulled my gaze to his. “Look at me, love. Focus on my eyes,” he commanded with his special will-stealing voice.
His compulsion laced through the noise, pressing for purchase. I could feel it reaching for me, the trilling pull of his voice against the roar of theirs. But the Horsemen were louder, and they were everywhere, and there was no room left in my head for anything else.
“It’s not working! Do it again!” snapped Trace as I fought against his hold.
“I can’t compel her unless you hold her still,” snarled Dominic, something unkept bleeding into his tone.
Trace exhaled hard against my hair and hauled me up off the ground entirely, his arms cinching around me until my feet dangled uselessly, every kick finding nothing but air. Dominic’s fingers pressed harder into my jaw, holding my face level with his.
“Focus on my voice.” His eyes bored into mine, and this time the compulsion didn’t ask—it pushed, driving down through the chaos like a nail through wood. “Only my voice. Nothing else exists. Be still, angel. Stop fighting us.”
Something in me cracked open under the pressure of it.
My body jerked in Trace’s hold in short, involuntary spasms, the frenzy dulling at the edges and trapping me in a grinding war between the Horsemen’s calls and Dominic’s compulsion.
My arm wrenched free just enough to lash out, more on instinct than anything else, but Dominic caught my wrist mid-motion, his fingers closing around it as his eyes stayed locked on mine.
“Woah. What the fuck is that?” asked Trace, his body going rigid behind me.
Dominic’s eyes dropped to my arm, presumably where Trace was looking, and I followed his line of sight.
The black lines had multiplied, spreading up my forearms in a web of dark veins that looked stark and wrong against my skin, branching in jagged patterns that pulsed beneath my skin like something alive.
“What is this?” hissed Dominic as he squeezed my wrist and turned it over.
Caleb stepped closer to get a better look. “Holy shit,” he whispered, his eyes rounding out in horror. “Spell rot.”
The words sent an icy chill down my spine, the fine hairs at the back of my neck lifting in response.
“What the fuck is spell rot?” demanded Trace, his muscles straining around me. “Are the Horsemen doing this to her?”
Caleb shook his head, still gawking at the black veins spidering under my skin. He wasn’t even blinking anymore. “No, man. She’s doing it to herself.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
Another growl ripped from Dominic. “Explain. Now.”
“It’s basically like…fuck. How do I explain this?
Okay. Imagine your magic as something your body generates and burns through in a cycle.
Input, output, balance,” he said speedily, his jaw tight.
“Now imagine the input side gets opened up like a geyser. Too much power slamming into her system all at once, too many competing sources. Her body can’t metabolize it fast enough.
And having too much of anything is toxic, magic or otherwise. ”
Dominic went deathly still. “Are you implying she’s being poisoned by her own magic?”
Caleb looked horrified when he answered, “Basically, yeah. Her body can’t process all of it at the same time, and since it doesn’t have a way to unload any of it, it’s basically just building up in her system until...” He trailed off, his throat working.
I could feel them all fighting for control of me inside my head then—Dominic’s compulsion driving down from one side, the Horsemen’s voices shrieking from the other, and something that still barely felt like me caught in between, losing ground to both of them by the second.
The pain of it was unlike anything I had ever felt before, like my skull was being stretched tight enough to split wide open.
As if feeling their hold on me weaken, the Horsemen’s voices surged louder, and I cried out, my legs giving out entirely. Trace’s hold was the only thing keeping me upright anymore, every muscle in my body going slack as the pain in my head reached a crescendo.
“Help her,” demanded Dominic, his words muffled beneath the cacophony in my head. “Undo it. Now.”
“I can’t,” croaked Caleb, the anguish cutting through everything else. “I don’t have that kind of power. Not even the Order has that kind of power. This isn’t a curse someone put on her. It’s her own magic turning against her body. I’m not…I can’t—”
“Then find me someone who can,” snarled Dominic, his words cutting through the room like carving knives.
“You don’t understand. This isn’t…” Caleb shook his head and turned back to me. To the black lines crawling up my arms and spreading. To the way I was shaking in Trace’s hold, barely able to stand on my own. “I don’t know if anyone has the power to stop this,” he said.
And it was the very last thing I remembered hearing before the voices took over completely.