Chapter Nineteen

Doppler

Is this death?

I floated in a black abyss, hollowed out of every fabricated sensation that I’d clung to in my short, miserable existence with only a few fleeting thoughts to keep me company.

Dead. I expected it to come with a collision back into Dorian’s subconscious. I predicted if I ever met such an unfortunate outcome, I’d at least have the satisfaction of rattling that weakling’s mind to the very core, breaking it beyond repair as he tasted the memories of ten thousand visions I held, insight on the true extent of his branch, and the truth that his manifestation was twice the man he’d ever hope to be.

“It’s that hubris that brought you here, puppet.” The snark mixed with false sincerity fueled my rage.

Fuck. I wasn’t dead. The fiend had devoured me and brought me into the clutches of the chimera’s new body.

“Wrong,” he whispered from the shadows. Slow, slithering darkness that wriggled across each other with the faintest distinctions in their black shades. Some faded, some sheen. “The fiend didn’t devour you. Merely ate away some of your magic. Couldn’t have you putting up a fight in our temporary home.”

“Why didn’t you just kill me?”

“You already answered your question.” The chimera chuckled. “Can’t chance you tipping Dorian off that I’m still here. You offered me the most fortuitous of second chances, and I intend to see this opportunity through the right way.”

“What are you planning?”

“Currently?” A clawed hand plunged through the darkness and snatched me up.

I gasped, choking on tar filling my lungs as I came up for air on the surface of more darkness. Not the same pitch-black horrors below, but a dimly lit inner core. Dank, rotten, and filled with despair. This wasn’t the demon’s inner core but some tragic, depressing mind.

“Like you’re one to talk. You don’t even have an inner core.” The judgment in the demon’s gaze as he wore the same mortal face I’d kept him confined to for months unnerved me. No, annoyed me. Bastard traipsed about, masquerading himself in the same human flesh he so desperately wanted to make a reality. “More a reality for me than you, puppet.”

“Get out of my fucking thoughts!”

“Make them less transparent, and I wouldn’t read them with such ease.”

I had guarded against his telepathy, against all his magics, yet he still played me. Now, I sat in the mind of someone completely stripped of my strength and bound to the bidding of the very demon I’d tried to purge from Finn.

Finn. I clenched my teeth. How I so desperately wanted to ask what became of him, but I knew the answer. The chimera had buried him somewhere in this pit of darkness, this sea of tar.

Instead, I kept my mouth shut and studied the mind we were inside. This wasn’t Theodore’s mind. It had a haunting hate but not worn with pride. No, the envious sort of hate bottled and pushed to the outskirts of a mind trying not to be consumed, yet the rot of it had done years of damage. That much I could tell with a single glance. The demonic energy circulating inside this mind would only add more horrors once it’d fully seeped through.

The chimera stepped toward a viewing room of his making, allowing us to peer through the eyes of whatever host body he’d picked.

“Not a host body.”

I scoffed. I hated having him in my head, sniffing out every passing thought.

“Consider yourself lucky someone finds you and your shallow thoughts remotely interesting.”

We hovered to the height of the surface, standing at the peak of Peter Graham’s thoughts as he anxiously awaited the guards to check him over. One by one, they cast sensory on every inmate filed in line. They searched every crevice of every cell, with an extra methodical touch on those affiliated with Theodore Whitlock.

I expected to find a bloodbath among the cellblocks, a riot, chaos, and death, but everything had been contained.

“As it should be,” the chimera said. “The best victories in waged wars come after allowing a foe to win a battle.”

“Why jump into Peter Graham?” He had Theodore. He had the exit of the MDC at his fingertips. He had access to my mind and magic. Surely, all of that would’ve allowed him an opportunity to escape, to seek out Dorian, and do the unspeakable—gain the perfect host he sought for centuries of scouring this world.

“That’s your problem. Impatient and arrogant. I knew, even from my limited vantage, there wasn’t a single future in which Theodore Whitlock walked out of the MDC unscathed. I explained if he attempted to break free, something you observed him already plotting, then he’d fail. His plan would fail because Enchanter Evergreen had already predicted it, planned for it, and had put checkmate in motion before the Whitlock moved his first pawn. So, he’s waiting. He helped me, and soon, I’ll help him. Unlike you, he heeds the warnings of his betters, so with my suggestion, he painted a beautiful commotion.”

Tar bubbled and popped, revealing images of fiends causing a frenzy, Theodore boasting against authority, a tiny wisp slipping between the guards back into the trenches of the cellblocks, and finally, Theodore surrendering himself without resistance.

“I believe the magicians of old called it a sleight of hand.”

“Why not flee?”

“And risk being banished with the onslaught of fiends summoned? I think not. Best to maintain a low profile.”

I studied the guards approaching a fidgety Peter, each easy prey for a strong telepath. Not that I possessed the magic to untangle myself from the chimera in my current state. I felt him settled inside the fabric of my being, pulse beating as he absorbed my essence like a slow rot.

“Why not jump into a guard?”

I awaited their sensory to sniff out our presence looming at the surface of Peter’s mind.

A quick search and nothing. They moved on.

“We are but a wisp of demonic energy, barely noticed and requiring the truest of talent.”

Peter watched the guards scrutinize and search those possessing tattoos gifted from Vincent, links that made them allies of Theodore Whitlock. For the first time since arriving at the MDC, Peter Graham was grateful he didn’t have friends.

“I got the idea of housing us in Peter from you. Your comprehension of his branch was thorough, and I can make use of it,” the chimera said. “While you were busy studying Theodore, I was befriending him, searching through the knowledge of our previous host, and feeding your ego with false attempts of escape, mishaps, or arrogance on my part. Mortals—even fake reflections of them such as yourself—are quite simple-minded and easily misled.”

He smiled, his mind unveiling all his wicked machinations.

Peter had a powerful branch, but most importantly, he had no friends and posed no threat to staff or inmates. A soft suggestion to Theodore, and suddenly, Peter found himself off everyone’s radar for the next few weeks. Weeks. The chimera didn’t want Peter’s branch but his access outside of the MDC. He wanted a host that’d walk out the door unsuspecting.

“Now, you’re getting it. Enchanter Evergreen will undoubtedly have himself and others patrolling the guards, the facility, watching and waiting for the other shoe to drop.”

“And when it doesn’t, the interest will shift to more pressing cases, and you’ll stroll out of here then fully possess Peter Graham’s body.”

“Precisely. Soon, we’ll leave, I will be restored, Dorian will be broken, and you can rejoin your body as I claim my perfect host.”

I sank back into the pit of tar at my feet, unable and unwilling to resist. Nothing I did now mattered, not against a demon who’d woven his energy around the crumbling matter of my magic and held all the power.

“This is a true game of patience. Pay attention, and you might learn something, puppet.”