A cloud of dust filled the air. Too late, I realized he’d flung out shards of bone. They burst outward like a shrapnel grenade and dug into my skin upon impact. Most of the shards hit the bone plates now covering my body. A few stung along my body.
For a brief moment, I wanted to laugh at Bastien’s weak efforts to save himself. Then he twisted his outstretched hand and his power flared. The shards of bone in my skin expanded. Skeletons shoved me off course and sent me crashing into the ground where I skidded along the mud.
“I’m not an idiot like your lady friend over there. I know how to use my power because I refuse to be afraid of it.” Bastien crouched beside me. He grabbed a fistful of my fur along the back of my neck. “I didn’t have anyone to teach me, either. That didn’t stop me. I dove headfirst into the darkness in me and figured out how to bend it to my will. I unravel spirits and devour their essence. I command armies of undead. And I have taken the souls of those too stupid to use this power correctly. I will not be stopped by anyone today.”
“You’re a selfish bastard,” Addie growled from the other side of the cemetery.
I stole a glance in her direction only to find her shakily getting to her feet. Her spine was bent as if she carried the weight of the world upon her back. My beast wanted to share that weight with her. She didn’t have to do this all on her own.
Together, we were stronger.
“You think that everything exists only for your benefit.” Addie raised her hands.
The world trembled from the force of the power rolling out of her. It made Bastien’s arcana look like a small island in a vast ocean. It never stopped, either. Out and out, poured Addie’s arcana.
She was more than just a Reaper. She wasDeathitself in this instant.
Her eyes turned milky white before flaring with a pale blue light. She lifted her chin.
When she spoke again, her voice warped. It was her…but not. It echoed with a force beyond this world.
“I am that which gave the Barghest power over the scales of justice. I am the dark to the fae queen’s light. I am the start and the end of all.”
My heart stuttered. While the beast in me bowed to this display of power, I knew what was coming next. I couldn’t let it happen.
I wrenched control from my beast and flung myself at Addie. A great wave of death washed across the cemetery, killing everything in its way. In an instant, I crossed the distance and forced her to the ground. This close, I could see the burning blue flame of her eyes and she shoved at me.
Addie could have easily used this fathomless power to take ahold of me, but there was a hint of recognition in her eyes. She wasn’t someone else. She was still herself. It was as if a door inside her had been opened. She was herself butmore.
“You know this has to happen, Maddox!”
The longer we fought, the more time Bastien had to get away. I didn’t have the words to argue, and my beast was on her side. Instead of shifting back, I licked her face. My massive tongue nearly covered every inch of her visage.
She laughed. The blue light in her eyes broke, faded to milky white, then vanished altogether. There was still a heavy pressure to the air. All the power that she’d unlocked still hung around, but it wasn’t as angry.
“Let’s get this over with,” she groaned as she wiped my saliva from her face.
I twisted only to come face to face with Bastien. With one hand, he shoved me aside. Bone beads clinked around his wrist before slithering onto me where they expanded to become manacles. Imbalanced, I fell.
Bastien shoved me aside before straddling Addie. I thrashed in the bone manacles that bound my beast’s limbs. They creaked and groaned under my frantic fury.
Addie
Bastien wrappedhis hand around my throat. His rosary slid over my skin. The cold beads rattled and shook this new power inside me. I tried to swallow my fear, but I couldn’t with Bastien crushing my esophagus.
If Maddox had only let me kill him, then we wouldn’t be here. Out of the corner of my blurry vision, I saw Maddox fighting against bone restraints that Bastien had made. Bastien was full of sneaky tricks.
Where did he get the life force for this? Was it from the lives that he’d stolen and forced into his rosary?
“You’re mine.” Bastien’s voice shook.
My soul trembled. His words pulled at me. My arcana poured out of me and into his rosary like a pitcher that had been tipped over. Out and out, it glugged. With this new door open inside of me, a bright blue flame burning inside it, I realized where my endless arcana came from.
Like Vi, I wasn’t completely human. The spark of my soul came from somewhere else.
It was holy. Sacred.
I tumbled through time, through dimensions, until I landed at the base of a great tree. I looked up to see worlds encompassed in its branches. Then I fell again. Tumbling like Alice through the rabbit hole, I plummeted into a dark underworld.