27
ADDIE
Ikicked and screamed. My foot even connected with Bastien’s face a few times. He grabbed me by my ankles and turned me upside down. I was short, but I was stacked with muscle from my hiking. He carried me like I weighed nothing.
For a moment, I wondered if he was already dead. Was that how he avoided his job in the afterlife? Had he already died only to steal the powers of other Reapers in order to keep his corpse fresh?
If that was the case, then that meant I would be able to take over his body. I just had to find out. How did one prove that a zombie was already dead if it wasn’t rotting? The only other walking corpse I’d ever met had been Bez, and I didn’t really spend that much time with him.
Before I could figure out what to do, Bastien tossed me into an open grave. My cheek hit the dirt. The impact rattled my already aching skeleton. He crouched above me.
“Don’t bother trying to find anything dead here,” Bastien said as he reached for the shovel sticking out of the ground beside him. “I made sure that there’s nothing but you here.”
“I’m going to climb out of here and put that shovel right up your ass, spade first!” I shouted from in the six-foot deep hole.
I’d forced the earth to obey my will before. It was nothing but rot, things that had once been alive but were now long dead. I could do it again if I had the right energy source. If Bastien was dead, then I wouldn’t be able to use him as a battery.
I had too much to live for to use my own life force as a power source now. The thought of it made my heart swell and deflate, leaving a hollow feeling in my chest. With no other option, I jammed the toe of my shoe into the earth and started climbing. My nails dragged along the dirt. They darkened as the painful tug of desperately climbing made the tips of my fingers burn.
Bastien laughed. I caught the glimmer of something coming my way as he struck. I had just enough time to dodge the tip of the shovel as Bastien jabbed downward. Dodging sent me tumbling back onto my rear. My teeth clattered and my skull vibrated.
The ground beneath me offered a solution, but I had no way to harness it. Instead, I lifted my glare to meet Bastien’s. The man paid me no attention, though. He was busy, throwing dirt back into the grave. It slapped me in the face and stung my arms when I lifted them to cover myself.
When I turned my face away from Bastien and his dirt, I noticed something stuck in the earthen walls around me. The sight of bone made my skin tingle. However, there was no life in it. My arcana found it vibrating with something else.
Witchcraft.
Bastien feared me so much that he’d resorted to witchcraft to keep me bound to this grave. I shoved my fingers into the earth to pry the bone free. Cerri and I had used our opposing powers to rip a curse apart once before.
I stood on the cusp between life and death. Portals to the afterlife answered to me. I didn’t need Cerri in order to tear Bastien’s spell apart. He couldn’t keep me here.
When I reached into the bone, it made me aware of other ones buried in the ground. Their power swelled. I dropped to my knees to uncover them before the spell snapped into place.
Already, I could feel the spell reaching for my limbs like hands. They tried to drag me down the same way I’d been caught in my dreams. The spell tried to force me down to the earth. It took everything in me, my muscles trembling from resisting, to keep my head up.
I wasn’t sure that the spell would break if I shattered one piece, so I would need them all. The breath rushed out of me once I finally had them all. They made my skin crawl. I could feel hands all over me, trying to keep me pinned down.
Maddox. Hurry up. I can’t do this alone.
Bastien let out a shout for me to stop. I slapped my hand over the bones and looked up at him. His eyes went wide when I sent my arcana flying in two directions. I reached into the death that lingered here, the power of spirits who refused to move on. I reached into the afterlife, where souls went to flourish.
The bones shattered beneath the force of my arcana.
“This isn’t my first rodeo,” I growled up at him.
His jaw tightened. He pointed the shovel down at me. “You’re still not getting out of this hole alive.”
While he was trying to bury me alive, I scrambled onto my feet and started climbing the other end of the grave. Bastien clicked his tongue and came around to stab downward with the shovel again. This time, his attack was faster, his fury behind it.
“Feisty little thing.” He shook his head. “Face it. I’m not letting you out of this hole. You have nothing left in those pockets of yours. Lie down and accept your fate.”
My lip curled. I pressed my hand into the bone dust left over from the broken binding spell. Arcana suffused my entire body until I felt a softtug. It brought a smile to my lips. My expression caught Bastien off guard. I could tell from the way he froze, his mask of confidence slipping.
“Maybe you should realize when you’re beaten,” I said.
Maddox slammed into Bastien’s back and shoved him into the grave with me. I jumped back right as Bastien fell past me.
“Shit!” I spun away from Bastien. “Maddox! What are you doing?”