Chapter 56

CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX

MAEVYTH

D rip. Drip. Drip.

Sharp pain throbbed in my skull. I groaned and winced at the ache there. Cold. So cold. A relentless tremble vibrated across my bones, my body failing to find warmth. The gnawing cold locked every muscle into an endless shiver. A horrible stench assaulted my nose, like that of a rotting animal, and I opened my eyes to a glass shield, beyond which I could see wooden rafters and shadows flickering across them. Surrounding walls closed in on me in a suffocating clutch.

Drip. Drip. Drip.

The ice box. What Aleysia and I used to call the ice casket that Uncle Felix used for showing and storing bodies before embalming them.

A gnawing cold chewed deeper into my flesh.

Above me sat about thirty pounds of ice scattered over a metal lid, with an opening through which to see. Enclosing the ice to keep it chilled was the wooden lid with a glass shield over the face–often locked in place.

I gasped a breath and pushed against the metal panel on top of me. “Help me! Help!” A numbing ache swelled in my fingers and toes. Worse than that, though, I had an intense fear of confined spaces, and I could feel the prickles across my chest, as panic burrowed its way into my head.

Fire zapped up my wrist when I banged harder against the lid of the coffin. “Help me!”

A shadow slipped past, and I quieted, breaths shaky as I peered through the glass in search of whatever it was. “Uncle Felix?”

The figure slowly stepped into view of the glass shield, and my heart caught in my throat. Half of his face looked as if it’d been melted away, just like that of the captain’s whom Moros had chained in his basement. Nothing but a blank canvas of pale skin. His neck had shortened, his head merged with his shoulders, and I could just make out what reminded me of long, spindly spider legs sticking out from his back, shadowy limbs seen over the top of his head. Macerated lips looked to have been chewed away by something, his skeletal teeth bared. He tapped a finger to the glass, the bone exposed as though something had chomped the skin and flesh there, too.

I let out a gut-wrenching scream, and twitching, he slammed his fist against the box, releasing a grunt. Shallow, panted breaths escaped me when he stepped out of view again, and my mind spun in chaos, trying to imagine how I might escape.

At the click of what I presumed was the lock, the wooden lid flew back, and my stomach curled with tension and terror. “No,” I whimpered. I fought to hold the metal lining closed, as a force tugged hard against me. Using every ounce of my strength, I clutched the ice-laden lid, so cold a white-hot pain streaked across my hand.

Uncle Felix snarled and pounded his fist against my fingers.

I let out a scream when the crushing pain radiated across my hand, and I curled my fingers into my chest. The ice clattered to the floor as he tore back the metallic lid, and I stared up in horror, taking in the whole of his deformities. The exposed ribs on half his chest, the pale and bony state of his body, as though he’d starved for months. And his exposed genitals that hung between his thighs.

He leaned over me and ran his chewed-up finger down my cheek in a gentle caress, but my whole body quaked with cold and fear. His hand drifted further down, to the bodice of my dress.

Tears sprang to my eyes, my thoughts spinning back to the night I found him fondling the Lyverian girl’s corpse. He ran his mutated palm over my breast, and I clenched my teeth.

“No!” I slapped his hand away.

A terrifying roar ripped out of him, vibrating his bony ribs, the sound skating down my spine. He gripped my hair, and a blistery pain licked my scalp.

One hard yank nearly threw me out of the casket, but I clung to the edge of it, fighting him. I punched at his arms, trying to loosen his grip, which only seemed to enrage him, as he snarled and snapped his teeth at me.

“Uncle Felix! Stop!” I screamed, wrestling with him until I tumbled out of the casket onto the floor. The impact dislodged his grip of my hair, and I scrambled backward, noting the state of his legs, the bones sticking out in odd places, as if they’d been busted.

He lurched toward me, and on instinct, I held up my hand, imagining the spine glyph. Nothing but a pile of bones spewed forth, clacking against the floor.

Uncle Felix stared down at them for a moment, and in his distraction, I pushed to my feet, backing myself away. He staggered closer. Closer.

Desperate for escape, I trailed my gaze over the room in search of somewhere I could run. Nothing but walls of specimens and strange fluids, and his grotesque tools that I imagined he’d planned to use on me. The only exit was beyond him.

I had to get past him, somehow.

He lurched again, and I lifted my palm for the Aeryz glyph. An invisible force blasted him backward, slamming him against the adjacent wall.

Seizing the opportunity, I darted for the door, leaping over him.

A tight yank of my throat thew me backward, as the scorpion necklace bit hard into my flesh. I dropped to the floor, smacking my tailbone against the concrete. A jagged flash of light spiraled up the back of my neck, and stars exploded in my eyes for a second time, the pain rippling through my spine. On a groan, I turned in time to see him scramble over top of me.

A scream ripped past the dryness of my throat, and I kicked back. Bony hands clawed at my legs, and with a tight grip, he pried them open, pushing the skirt of my dress aside. His manhood dangled perilously close to me, and in a panic, I glanced around for something to use as a weapon. Suspended above me was the embalming needle, set beside the edge of the casket. In my struggle, I reached up for it, knocking it away, as he wrenched my body closer to him, wedging himself between my knees. A burning tension surged through me, and I reached again, the tip of the needle dancing around my jerking fingers.

The sound of tearing fabric hurtled me into hysterics, as he ripped away my undergarments. “Please!” I choked back a sob. At last, I took hold of the needle and, with a quick strike, jabbed it into his ear, lodging it deep and yanking its curved tip downward.

He let out another roar that shattered my courage, but as he pushed up from me, I gripped the handheld pump and squeezed the fluids. He screeched again, tugging at the needle ordinarily meant to pierce the carotid artery. I kicked myself away, watching him tear it from his ear on the sound of squelching meat.

He swiped out for me, just missing my leg, and fell forward.

Urgency pounded through my muscles, and I pushed to my feet and dashed out of the room, down the long, dark corridor. I could hear him chasing after me, the heavy thud of his footfalls closing in.

To my horror, he crawled over the walls beside me with the ease of an enormous spider, the legs protruding from his spine a vision of absolute terror, and I came to a skidding halt as he leaped in front of me, once again blocking my exit.

Tears formed in my eyes, exhaustion weighing heavy on my muscles.

His lips stretched to a smile, his ear oozing a black liquid that dripped down his face. He hobbled toward me again, but there was no exit at the opposite end of the corridor.

I was trapped.

For the second time tonight.

Let me help you, the familiar voice inside my head chimed, and I closed my eyes to the blackness. In that space, I heard the heavy clunk of his footfalls advancing toward me.

When I lifted my lids, through the haze of white that clouded my vision, the spinal glyph burned in my mind. I threw out my hand, and a long, bony whip lashed out on a wicked snap, just missing his skull.

In absolute bewilderment, I stared down at the stretch of bones that must’ve reached five meters in length, the end of it captured in my trembling palm. I drew back my arm, and the bones scraped over the concrete floor, retracting back into my hand.

Uncle Felix paused only a second before hobbling for me again.

Again, I threw out my hand, and the bones unfurled toward him at lightning speed, snapping against his chest.

He froze in place, trembling. Not a breath later, a loud splintering sound crackled down the corridor, and his body slumped into a pile of loose skin, his head landing on top of it. The haze over my eyes lifted, and I yanked at the bone whip, drawing it back. It retracted into my hand on an aching throb, the spinal glyph glowing impossibly bright in the dim surroundings. A frigid tendril of disbelief crawled over the back of my neck, and I lifted my gaze to where Uncle Felix lay snarling, nothing but a pile of broken bones and flesh.

Tears slipped down my cheeks, the cold spreading across my chest in frosty tingles as I stumbled toward him. Only his eye and mouth moved, absent of teeth that lay scattered around him.

Breathing hard through my nose, I made my way to the staircase, but halfway there, a hard pounding caught my attention, bringing me to a halt once again.

I desperately wanted to ignore it and escape the house, but all I could imagine was Aleysia, trapped inside another ice box, begging for escape. I followed the sound to the main morgue, where Uncle Felix used to store the embalmed bodies in the small compartments that lined the walls. Those ready to be buried.

Still trembling, I padded carefully toward them. “Aleysia?”

“Maeve?” she answered, and with a blossom of hope stirring in my chest, I yanked open the doors of the narrow-bodied cabinets in search of her.

One of the doors beside me flew open on its own, and I backed myself away, frowning. A body crawled out, its pale white skin stretched over sharp, spiny bones. Silvery gray hair lay straggled over its shoulders as it climbed down the wall of compartments. Clutched in its arm was the decaying remains of what appeared to be a severed head. Only the few features that remained intact–the teeth, nose and small patches of fur—told me it belonged to a cat.

I backed away to the door, as the body crawled toward me, and when it finally lifted its head, I held my breath.

Agatha.

A spine-tingling yowl rattled past her lips that were carved with long black cracks.

She scuttled toward me on all fours, and I threw out my palm toward her. The bone whip wrapped around her neck, and before she could reach out for it, I retracted, tearing her head from her body in a spray of viscous, black fluid. At the same time I pulled back the whip, her head rolled across the floor toward me, the rest of her body collapsing.

My muscles locked up as I stared down at her mangled face, and something black crawled over her milky white eyeballs. With long, black legs, it stepped out onto the bridge of her nose, revealing itself to be a black spider.

As I backed myself toward the door, it slowly crawled over her nose to the floor. More black spiders erupted from her nose, her eyes, her mouth. They poured out of the neck of her headless torso.

I spun on my heel and dashed down the hallway toward the staircase. As I clutched the rail, I looked back and wheezed a breath on seeing hundreds of spiders scuttling toward me. I jogged up the staircase, slamming the door shut behind me.

Backing away, I took long, heaving breaths, and to my horror, the spiders slipped beneath the crack of the door.

“No!” Sapped of energy, I raced out of the house, into the darkness, but managed only a few short feet before I felt something crawl up the hem of my skirt and across my ankle.

A scream ripped out of me, and I stomped the ground and lifted my skirt to swat the spider off of me. Eyes wide, I nearly choked when a glance upward showed hundreds more scampering toward me in a horde of black against the white snow. Before I could so much raise my hand for the aeryz glyph, they leapt onto my dress, skittering up to my bodice. Through hoarse screams, I swatted and flailed, feeling their tiny legs and bulbous bodies scuttling across my skin.

“Maevyth!” the voice inside my head called out, but it was futile. Any glyph I might’ve used in defense was smothered by the cluster of spiders that scurried up my arms.

At the first prod of a spider leg against my lips, I clamped my mouth shut, as my body erupted into a wild frenzy. I swatted at my face and arms, and fell to the ground, kicking and rolling. The more I fought to dislodge them, the more they swarmed me.

So lost in panic, I didn’t even notice the moment that they’d finally stopped moving.

Not until every one of the spiders shot upward, into the air and I stilled, gasping for breath when they no longer covered my face. My head fought to make sense of what I was seeing.

Above me loomed a hideous cloud of black carapaces, as if suspended by an invisible force. I didn’t bother to investigate why, or how, but just scrambled to my feet and blindly ran in the opposite direction. When I glanced back, I plowed into something hard and unyielding.

A scream rattled out of me, and on instinct, I pounded my fists against the wall of a body. “Let me go! Let me go!” I looked up to see Zevander staring down at me, and in that instant, my muscles sagged in relief. A heavy sob wracked my body, and I wrapped my arms around him. It only lasted a moment, though, before another wave of panic washed over me.

Before I even spoke a word of the ensuing spiders, a blast of heat warmed my back, and I turned in time to see Zevander send a torrent of black flames over the floating cluster of arachnids, which he must’ve been holding suspended the whole time.

They let out a hiss as their bodies burned, and he directed the flame onto the cottage, which caught like dried kindling.

As I watched, the home I’d grown up in blazed in flickering waves of black and violet, a mesmerizing pyre that turned it into crumbling ash as it devoured the structure in seconds.

“Are you hurt, at all?” His question prompted me to focus on any part of my body that the spiders might’ve bitten. All I could feel was a numbing cold that spread across my limbs and into my chest.

Seeming to sense my distress, he ran his hands over my exposed skin, purposely palpating, as if for any sign of injury. As he checked me over, he paused on a cut I’d sustained when Uncle Felix had dragged me out of the ice box.

I could feel the faint burn on my scalp where my uncle had pulled my hair and the bruising on my thighs where he’d pried them open. Scratches on my back flared with the memory of struggling to fight him off with the gritty floor tearing across my skin. Wincing, I forced those thoughts away by focusing on the gentle sweep of Zevander’s palms.

Once finished, he hooked my chin with his finger, drawing my eyes to his, and as if he could see right through the shadows of my thoughts, he asked, “Maevyth, are you okay ?”

Emotions snapped inside of me when I nodded, and choked back a sob, while my head tormented me with visuals of those spiders swarming me, ready to finish me off. Strong arms enveloped me, and I melted into the warmth and safety of his embrace. Fighting to calm my breaths, I trembled against him, clutching him so tightly, I refused to let go. “I was so scared.”

He removed his cloak, wrapping it around my shivering body, and the comfort of his scent radiated a calming balm to my fear. “Come on. Let’s go back.”

I wanted to. Every part of me wanted to return to Eidolon with him, but I shook my head and stepped back. “I can’t. I’m sorry. I have to find her, Zevander. She’s here. I can feel it.” I couldn’t bring myself to look at him. Perhaps he thought I’d lost my senses to cling so tightly to the belief that I’d see her again, but I didn’t care. All I could imagine was Aleysia in the same place I’d been moments before, but without the power to fight back. “I’m sorry. I know you must think I’m … ridiculous for such a thing.”

He pushed a wavy strand of hair behind my ear. “I think you’re the bravest mortal I’ve ever met. And perhaps the most fucking stubborn, as well.” His comment brought a tearful smile to my face. “Regardless, I’ll stay and help you find her.”

The relief of his words left me weak in the knees, but through a mist of tears, I shook my head. “I can’t ask you to do that. Not when Rykaia needs you.”

“Rykaia will always need me.” He rubbed his thumb across my cheek, capturing the fallen tear. “This is about you.”

The unspoken words lingered between us, and something electric moved through me when he removed his mask and lowered his face to mine. Butterflies took flight in my stomach as his hands gripped either side of my face, and he paused a moment, as if to ask permission.

I tilted my head back, and a flickering in my periphery caught my eye. Distracted, I turned away from him, focusing on the wavering light from the cottage across the field and puffs of white smoke drifting upward from the chimney. “The Crone Witch,” I whispered, instantly regretting the diversion when he released me and stepped back.

Turning toward the cottage, he nodded. “We’ll need shelter for the night.”

Disappointment filled the cold space between us, but he jerked his head and took the lead toward the cottage.