22
ADDIE
Ifelt awful for beckoning Connor and Catriona back to the world of the living, but they happily responded when I offered them the chance to fight Alvin. This was the exact thing they’d never gotten the chance to do in life. Of course, they were happy to oblige.
They followed Maddox’s lead and picked up where he faltered. Maddox and his beast weren’t in perfect union the way the other two were. They had to support him when the two parts of him clashed. However, he was a quick study. I noticed the way he watched them and mirrored their movements.
I reminded myself that they had this under control. If I stayed there and watched this fight go down, I would lose the last chance I had to find the killer. They were nearby. They had to be in order to send Alvin after us.
At least, that’s what I thought. My opportunity to learn more about myself and this power had been interrupted. That had to be what the killer wanted. They knew that I would be harder to kill if I understood what I was doing.
That meant I had to learn the old-fashioned way. Dad had been a hands-on teacher. Instead of reading about things, he made me do the thing. That meant floundering in the deep end until I learned to swim.
My arcana blanketed the estate. I let it spread further and further in search of a familiar life force. While my power rolled out, I could feel it graze every small dead thing it passed. Once I found the killer, I would grab their life force and send it into all the dead things with the hopes that I would drain him enough to knock him out.
It was a harebrained plan, but it was the best I could come up with in such a short time. However, I couldn’t find the killer. He wasn’t anywhere near here. While I could keep stretching my arcana further and further, there was no guarantee I would find exactly who I was looking for.
I could detect dead creatures way better than living ones. If I found someone that Ithoughtwas the killer and struck only to find out I’d screwed up, then I would never forgive myself. I had to be precise. Without evidence that I had the right person, I could do nothing.
“Shit,” I muttered under my breath.
The sounds of wolves fighting never let up. I tried not to look. If I did, I would puke. The smell of blood on the air made my stomach turn already. Alvin wasn’t alive. No amount of pain or damage would stop him until he got what he wanted. Though the other wolves ripped and tore at him, he kept on fighting.
Maddox yelped. I heard crunching bone and flinched as if I was the one who’d been struck. Frustration gurgled in my core. I planted my hands flat against the concrete beneath me. Tears burned my eyes.
Catriona and Connor both let out noises of pain. Alvin growled happily, though the sound was soon muffled from another strike as he likely bit down on someone else. I could tell that Maddox was fading. We hadn’t rested enough. I hadn’t fed him enough.
We were running out of time. Alvin shouldn’t have overpowered us, but we were drained from everything else that’d been thrown our way. I wasn’t going to let us fall, though.
I refused.
I missed Cerri’s power of life. It would have fueled my new plan. Unless I tugged a soul from the afterlife, I needed a life force from the mortal realm. I couldn’t pull on Maddox’s energy without his consent, which he wouldn’t give.
If I pulled on the life of the foliage all across the estate, Luca might come for my blood. I wasn’t about to risk that kind of anger.
That left one other source nearby.
There was nothing I could do to ready myself for what needed to be done. I wished I could warn Maddox, but there was no time. If I said anything, I would give away my plan and Alvin would take the opening to react.
Here goes nothing.
I reached deep within myself and yanked. Not at my arcana—no, this was a far riskier move. I was tired of this fight. We could do nothing without some sort of danger creeping up on us. I yearned for rest, for a little slice of peace.
That desire swelled inside me and gave me something to grab onto. My own life force poured out of me. I wove it with my arcana even as my limbs started to wobble. My lower lip trembled and my vision blurred, but I managed to stay conscious as I forced my power and energy into the ground.
This shouldn’t work. It seemed so outrageous and beyond comprehension of my own arcana that I doubted myself. Normally, I only ever raised bodies. I kept them true to their original form, but a new door had been opened when I helped Cerri create the undead dragon.
It showed me that I could work outside of the box. When I pulled,everythinganswered. What was dirt other than things that had long since passed and rotted? The ground bloated and cracked open. It split into ten tendrils before lashing out at Alvin.
The other wolves leapt away when my power slammed down onto Alvin. While one earthen tendril yanked him off his feet, the others rose high and hardened. Before my eyes, the dark earth turned white. A cage made of bone formed around him.
Alvin threw himself at the cage. The bones cracked and threatened to shatter. I wavered, the world beyond me dancing back and forth. Or was that me?
There was little left in me, but I knew I had one more thing to do. Shaking hand out, I shoved down. The earth opened and swallowed the bone cage with Alvin in it. Even if he did escape the cage, he would have to dig his way out. The pressure of the earth would bolster the bone bars, too.
It would give us time to esca—
Maddox