39. Favor #2
I was unwilling to look away from Malefic for long as he approached me with the knife.
In the background, I could see robed figures careening around, making loud noises, crashing into one another, screaming.
A few explosions went off on walls, sparks of magic from the ends of hands and tunneling through various primals.
Even the primals seemed to be acting crazy. I saw them fighting one another on the floor, climbing curtains, hanging from their Magical’s clothing.
I ducked my head instinctively when one wayward spell flashed right over my head.
I heard a scream as it slammed into someone on the other side of the ring of flames. I didn’t see who it was.
Things were falling apart.
Alaric, Luc, and I knew this would happen.
We’d even done a few experiments, so we already knew the drug had a bizarre, disproportionate effect on wizards and witches.
It made them erratic, increased their levels of emotionality, gave them wild and very vivid hallucinations, made them paranoid and anxious.
I’d even boosted the potency of the drug, using the alkekargis plant from Blackstone’s nightshade garden in one of the school greenhouses.
I’d meant for this to happen, even if I’d envisioned it at the Black Tower, not here, at Malcroix.
I’d also thought I wouldn’t be in the room for it.
Malefic staggered closer, until his dagger swayed only an inch from my face.
“What is this?” His voice came out thick, slurred, distorted, even apart from the screaming that was growing louder on the other side of the flaming runes. “What magic is this? What spell did you cast on me, cur? What have you done?”
I stared at the dagger, which now aimed between my eyes.
Now that I wasn’t freezing cold from my magic being leached out of me, I was sweating from the green-blue flames. I still felt sick and exhausted, and now I was pretty sure I was about to die all over again.
Maybe that’s why I told him the truth.
“Lysergic acid diethylamide,” I enunciated clearly. I backed up, trying to get away from his dagger, but he followed. “…It’s L.S.D., moron. It’s not a spell. But if you got a full dose, it should last about twelve hours. And it definitely looks like you got a full dose.”
He blinked down at me with those unfocused, silver eyes.
From his expression, I highly doubted he’d understood a single word I’d just said.
“I imagine you’ll have an extremely bad trip,” I added coldly.
I braced herself for being struck, or stabbed, or having my throat cut, or possibly another attempt at a curse.
I wondered if he’d forgotten he still gripped the jewel-encrusted dagger in his hand.
As soon as that occurred to him, I was probably dead, so I didn’t look at it, not wanting to give him any reason to remember.
Another stray spell whizzed through the space between us.
I gasped and jerked back.
Malefic moved too, but not fast enough. Part of the spell caught his artificial arm, and that elbow and bicep got smacked sideways.
He let out a pained gasp. His knife hand and the dagger itself were both forced off me, at least for now.
He hissed in fury even as his metal arm went limp, right before the dagger left his white fingers.
He dove for it, and snatched it back up.
I watched as he aimed stared at his artificial arm. He stumbled out a series of complicated-sounding phrases I guessed were meant to heal the broken parts from the spell, including the line of blood running down his shoulder and over the silver metal.
He couldn’t seem to get those spells out right, either.
A gold-green cloud ran up his arm, but it didn’t seem to do anything.
Spitting in fury, he threw a blue-green ball of magic outside the circle. That time, he managed to make contact; the fiery ball slammed into a form to the right of the fireplace.
Hermione thought it looked like Orrin Senior, Christian’s father.
Whoever it was, he screamed, and fell into one of the Hall’s massive fireplaces.
Malefic’s arm continued to run with blood down to his fingers. He’d switched dagger hands after the failed spells, and now blood covered his good arm, as well.
He staggered back up to his feet.
He loomed over me again.
My crawling had only gotten me to the edge of the innermost circle, and when I glanced back, I saw his pupils contract and dilate unevenly. The dagger remained tightly gripped in his good hand as he stumbled and staggered towards me.
Then the fingers of his free hand were wrapped around my throat.
He snarled, teeth bared, into my face.
“Your filthy, disgusting, mongrel blood has poisoned me,” he hissed, spitting the words. “You’ve defiled your blood even more and fed it to me!” He spat into my face, and I gasped out a horrified cry at the nearness of his silver eyes and bared teeth.
He shook me by the throat, roughly.
“How do I get it out?” he screeched. “How do I get it out of me?”
I couldn’t pull in a breath to speak. I couldn’t raise my hands to pry his fingers from my throat. I doubted anything I said would have mattered, but if he’d wanted a real answer, he’d made it impossible for me to give him one.
He shook me by the throat again, harder.
It felt like he might crush every bone in my neck.
“Tell me, or I will remove your spine and take it to my dungeon and beat your disgusting mongrel brother to death with it…” he shrieked. “I’ll let my followers defile your husband in ways you cannot possibly imagine! I’ll chain him to the floor and make him my slave––”
His fingers clamped harder. Spots began to dance in front of my eyes.
He shook me violently.