Chapter Twenty-Two

Doppler

Dark and dank death clung to every fiber of my being, dwelling in the mind of Peter Graham. Since Theodore’s attempt to escape, everyone inside the MDC, from guards to inmates, stood on edge. Festering paranoia and brewing anger ate away at my telepathy, adding a gnawing agony to this numbing darkness conjured by the chimera’s demonic energy.

He allowed me enough magic to witness his plan and gauge his intentions but not enough to break the shackles of slimy tar bound to my wrists wherever I roamed in Peter’s mind. I contemplated calling out to the warlock, warning him of the horrors that’d burrowed deep into his consciousness, yet it seemed a futile effort.

The damn demon likely anticipated such an attempt—toying with me as revenge for how I’d imprisoned him. Even if there was a single oversight to this vile tactician, what could Peter Graham really do about the situation? He lacked magic with the dampener cuffs, so banishment was out of the question. The only thing on his mind currently was avoiding the ire of guards and those on his cellblock long enough to make it to his release.

Parole was the only thing on his mind. Every waking thought revolved around the ticking clock of when he’d finally escape the MDC. He wouldn’t risk alerting anyone of the potential demon inside him if I whispered such revelations because he feared serving his full sentence far more than he feared a monster in his head.

“That’s because Peter still believes beneath the shackles of his confinement, past the beratement of mortal peers, and beyond the years of lost influence, that he is truly still a monster worthy of fear himself.” The chimera manifested behind me, hands pressed firmly against my shoulders as he pushed me deeper into the muck of tar that rotted this mind. “Witness what will unfold because of your hubris, puppet. You believed yourself something grand. Now you can watch someone who actually is perfection incarnation.”

I scoffed. “And you call me arrogant.”

The chimera waltzed by me, practically floating on the gelatinous flooring where I lay stuck up to my waist. We spun round and round, skirting toward the edge of Peter’s mind, where my magic gained a view to observe the world outside of Peter Graham’s head.

He shuffled ahead of two guards escorting him to the same white chamber I’d planned on possessing Theodore, the same room where everything went to Hell. He stood surrounded by six guards, twice the initial protocol. One guard unshackled Peter’s wrists and ankles while another removed the dampener cuff. The minute Peter’s magic was released, a euphoric buzz hit him. Even without channeling, the raw release of his branch made his thoughts hazy. The sludge polluting his head became clouded over by the instinctual need to reverse the effects of an ill-gotten demon lurking in the shadows of his mind.

“Calm yourself,” the chimera whispered to the warlock. “Remember what you heard; remember they’re looking for any reason to shoot you down where you stand.”

The toxic smog that flourished in Peter’s inner core dimmed as he quelled his magic, watching the guards at the ready while one prepared a new dampener cuff. A thinner and not nearly as potent one.

Once the new cuff had taken effect, Peter was ushered out of the white chamber to an empty room where a patrolman stood behind a glass window. He slid an envelope of Peter’s belongings atop a clipboard, which Peter immediately signed to accept. Afterward, he slid his dampener cuff through a small slot beside the window that beeped.

“This holds a three-hour charge,” the patrolman said, securing it to Peter’s wrist after the allotted transition passed. “You’ll be expected to meet with your parole officer to be refitted with your permanent cuff. Any and all property of the Metropolitan Detainment Center must be secured and returned in the condition received. Failure to comply will result in a fine equal to or greater than the price of replacing lost, damaged, or stolen property. Sign here.”

Peter signed the waiver—one he’d signed two times already after violating his parole and finding himself going through the same speech at the MDC release station. It sent goosebumps over Peter’s arms, pin prickles against the back of his neck, and a fierce desire to leave this place and never return.

Not that he would. He knew the future that awaited him if he screwed up again. He knew he needed to go directly to his parole officer, get properly fitted, secure new living quarters, find a job to pay the absurd fees surrounding his early release, and pray to god that he’d finally get rid of the dampener cuffs for good this time so he could taste his branch again without fear of retribution for illegal casting.

Peter’s thoughts twisted to the long-winded protocols and expectations he’d be expected to meet once he left the MDC. Each word ate away at the already tight space inside his surface thoughts where we dwelled.

Ignoring Peter, ignoring the chimera, ignoring the protocol of bureaucratic release I no longer cared to glean, ignoring all the unchangeable things in this world I couldn’t alter, I channeled my telepathy. Sending subtle waves of magic, I kept the ripples contained and did my best not to disturb the black blanket of tar weaved throughout this mind.

All I wanted to know, all I’ve wanted to know since I awoke in this hellhole, was where Finn had gone. Was he okay? Was he buried beneath the demonic energy? Had this foul monster encased him in horrors yet again because of my fucking stupidity? I ground my teeth until the self-loathing passed. I wasn’t Dorian. Guilt and blaming myself wouldn’t change a damn thing, so I wouldn’t allow myself to sink into a pit of despair. Not when Finn was here somewhere. Not when I needed to find him. Help him. Save him.

“How would you do any of that?” The chimera appeared before me in a blink. “You really don’t grasp the fact that nothing in here goes unnoticed or untended by me.”

“Why offer the slack then? Why give me access to my branch?”

“Why not?” He chuckled. “What can you do with it? You can’t overpower me. You can’t escape. You can’t even whisper to other minds without alerting me, and we both know I’m far better at swaying sad, pathetic mortals than you.”

I could reach out this very second and alert Dorian, tell him the chimera still lived. Give him all the details so he could pass the intel to Milo, and then this damn demon would perish for good.

“But you won’t.” The smugness in the chimera’s voice grated my nerves. “You won’t do anything because you’re still hopeful about your plan. Your future. Not that a silly little thing like you ever had one.”

Dammit. I was hopeful. Hopeful, desperate, and pathetic. The emotional sensation synced to the same hope Peter held as he stepped outside the MDC and took his first free breath. My chest swelled, taking in the joy Peter held for the deep, crisp breath that hurt his lungs in the best way. Freedom. But not truly free. There was so much ahead of him, and he knew better than to screw it up this time. However, he had no idea the Hell that awaited him. Neither did I, but I wanted to see it unfold, understand and comprehend the plot the chimera intended to set in motion—as if any insight would help me thwart such things.

“But watching all this, seeing everything unfold, what is the truth of what you want?” The chimera stared down at me, truly placing himself on a pedestal above me, cementing or flaunting his superiority. He smirked, continuing to prove he not only heard my every internal thought but that he found every idea in my head laughable.

“What I want, what I truly want, is to see you dead,” I said through clenched teeth. “Kill you myself.”

“No.” There was a sweet cadence in his voice. “No, no, no.”

I turned my head. Engaging with this monster would get me nowhere.

“I suppose I should practice my benevolence.” The chimera knelt, ensuring his eyes were level with mine. “Gestures of kindness are a complexity I don’t fully grasp but would like to learn before claiming Dorian’s body. Sharing it would be easiest if he were willing.”

“You won’t take it. Even if Dorian doesn’t realize the full extent of his branch, Milo will—”

“Will do nothing. You taught me so much. Even in all my years of walking this world, I arrogantly relied on my demonic presence to obscure magics and detection. Too lazy to properly evaluate a foe. But you, puppet, showed me all the chinks in Enchanter Evergreen’s branch. So long as I follow the roadmap of your successes, I can easily avoid him.” He smiled, dark and wicked and filled with malice. “That is, until I take Dorian’s body and use it to snuff out The Inevitable Future. Imagine the poetry.”

“I will end you before I let you harm Milo.” That wasn’t an idle threat. I didn’t care if he’d weaved my being to him, tethered my magic to his demonic energy. I would never allow Milo to pay the price of my mistake. I wasn’t Dorian. I wasn’t that selfish.

“Would you sacrifice one love for another?”

With a twist of his hand, the tar nearby swirled, unraveling sludgy layers until a human mold appeared. The body remained completely still, frozen—not by force but through years of careful, deliberate practice. Even the thoughts held a soft loll to them, careful not to disturb or distract from his betters.

My eyes welled with tears. Finn.

It was fucking devastating to see him in such a state, returned to the imprisonment I swore I’d free him from. The cage of nightmares I locked away so he could remember what happiness felt like. The life I wanted to give him once again, unbound from the burden of a devil.

“What have you done?”

“Given him back every single memory you denied him,” the chimera said. “Returned to him years of training. You see, I’m used to having more souls bound to my being than your simple, hollow head could ever fathom.”

The tar around Finn’s face washed away, revealing his somber hazel eyes. Vacant. But his thoughts buzzed with compliant terror.

“He knows not to act out. He remembers what happens to those who misbehave.” The chimera strutted toward Finn, placing a hand on his face and daring to rub Finn’s chin. “You won’t do anything, puppet, because you still have hope that things will be better. That you’ll get the happy ending you’ve deluded yourself into believing you’re entitled to. But spend some time in Finn’s thoughts. Learn that no one truly deserves anything they get. Not the good, not the bad. The universe is a vast beast of infinite chaos. You’re cogs while I’m the conductor.”

“I will break you. I will free Finn. I will free myself. I will have the future—” Tar swelled and boiled, funneling into my throat.

Every hollow fiber of my being seared with white-hot pain. Every fabricated receptor ignited with agony brought on by the demonic energy. He drowned me in darkness, keeping me fully aware and silent while he plotted ahead, preparing to unleash his horrors onto the world yet again.

“All thanks to you, puppet.” The chimera’s cackle reverberated throughout this inner core.

Time always moved differently in minds. Having spent so many years of my existence delving into other people’s memories at Dorian’s behest, I could live five lifetimes in a single memory. I could spend five seconds in a lifetime of memories. Sometimes, that passage of time translated to the real world, but mostly, it didn’t. Time was a fabrication my magic ignored when performing the duties of a diligent manifestation.

Now, it served as pure Hell incarnate. In the few hours since Peter Graham’s release, I’d died a million tiny deaths as the chimera stripped away my will, my being, my desire to persevere. Illusions of the mind strong enough to warp my perception of reality into the chimera’s image where he sent every horror that I’d inflicted on him over the course of months back at me a hundred-fold. Brutal and unyielding.

After what seemed an eternity, I floated through the tar to the peak of Peter’s mind.

“Continue following this path. You’re almost there,” the chimera whispered the words so precisely each syllable hit like the key to a piano playing a perfect musical piece.

Against his better judgment, Peter obeyed the whispers. All his gnawing insecurity about missing his first check-in with his parole officer washed away as he took a scenic route through the city. Deep in the South Side, Peter followed a trail of wisps.

Aimless and random as they appeared, Peter understood the pattern, the purpose, and though he didn’t know why, he had to reach the end. He had to know where these desires came from, this haunting need for answers.

“What are you doing?” My throat burned with each word; tar dripped down my chin.

“Watch and see true mastery unfold before you.” The demon’s smugness remained completely intact.

Peter turned the corner and entered an alleyway illuminated by a handful of wisps. At the end of the alley, crouched against a wall, was a fiend. Its body contorted to appear small in stature, but as Peter arrived, it unraveled and revealed itself to be a brutish beast on the verge of ascending into true demon form. So close to the cusp of self-actualization.

“What the fuck?” Peter and I said in unison.

I couldn’t tell if this was his fear or mine. It was one thing for the chimera to skirt the mind of a warlock, casting influence, but if he jumped into the fiend, then he’d regain nearly all his power.

“Not nearly. It’ll take decades to regather so many lost branches, but the few I have, I sent with this lovely fiend.” The chimera shushed Peter, deceiving him into complicitly remaining.

Peter swallowed hard. The lump in his throat hurt my own—sending another wave of pain from all the boiling rot that’d infested my body.

The fiend cast magics I’d failed to remove or contain from the chimera.

It drew more wisps into the area. Ten turned into a hundred, and a hundred burst into a thousand. Soon, every single wisp in the neighborhood was drawn to the casting. A flurry of glowing white lights surrounded us.

“Fun fact, puppet. Theodore’s branch doesn’t control demonic energy. It’s more like he issues commands that must be upheld.” The chimera pulled me closer to him, standing on the edge of Peter’s mind a single step from spilling out into the world. “He gave the fiend made from my energy one simple order: lay low and await perfection to find you.”

“Impossible. They bound Theodore’s magic. You showed me that.”

“Even with Theodore’s magic dampened, binding him from further casting, the command will still run its course so long as the order isn’t too complicated. This base beast merely needed to wait for my arrival, slowly absorbing and drawing nearby wisps.”

The chimera dragged me with him as we plummeted out of Peter Graham’s body. I gasped as Peter choked on the tar and wispy energy pouring from his mouth, spilling from every orifice.

We splattered onto the ground, breaking every bone of my fabricated body once again. Did this action itself break me into pieces, or was that some cruel illusion cast by the chimera who now reigned supreme in my mind?

Tar exploded into a puddle of goop; droplets of my fractured thoughts lay bare on the street. Most of my being clung to the wispy light. I radiated so much luminescence, so much brightness, I hoped it’d shatter my sight for what came next. I didn’t need telepathy to know what would soon unveil itself.

“Come to me, beast. Bring me the power I lent you! Return us to the greatness and majesty of godhood!”

The fiend slinked forward, boundless limbs reaching closer as it crawled beneath the light of bright white wisps attaching themselves to the tar. Peter trembled.

Left awestruck and terrified, Peter contemplated his actions. A few seconds of hesitation. His hand gripped the dampener cuff that held his magic in check, that signaled his location, that determined the rest of his future. One misstep. One fuck up. Everything would end for him. He’d find himself thrown back into prison. Not the Metropolitan Detainment Center, but the maximum-security facility he’d barely survived. No one would believe him if he cast.

Every fiber in his being told him to run, but the chimera’s musical melody continued in Peter’s thoughts, compelling him to remain still for just a minute. A minute. A few more seconds. A little longer, and everything would be okay again.

Peter obeyed as the chimera collided with the field and transcended into true demon form once again. All the energy, random wisps and broken pieces of magic like myself, were dragged into the transforming tar that took form into a monstrosity of a true chimera.

I kept my sights locked on Peter; his eyes were wide with shock and fear as the shadow of a towering chimera darkened the alley. In an instant, Peter’s entire body shattered, bloody and bruised and broken beyond repair.

Had this happened to Jamie Novak when the demon possessed him? I knew that kid endured pain, bound and possessed, but watching the chimera shatter Peter’s entire being as he wriggled his demonic energy into a mortal coil was truly devastating. Every cell of Peter’s body broke apart, making room for the demon, then reformed, not so much as a scratch as tar stitched every limb, muscle, and bone back together.

The agony the chimera greeted me with when gaining control paled in comparison to the insurmountable destruction of Peter losing his body to a demon.

“Not a demon, puppet.” The chimera stood behind me in his preferred human guise, adjusting a sleeve while redesigning every crevice of Peter’s inner core. Before, we dwelled like a cancerous rot at the peak of Peter’s mind, but now that carnage seeped through every pore of his body. Every cell radiated demonic energy. “I am once again a fully-fledged devil.”

He cackled, unhinged and bursting with power as he shattered the dampener cuff that released his new host body’s magic. “I often prefer the arcane. They’re far more durable when containing all my glory, yet this particular branch is unique and appealing. It won’t last forever, but this host should last until I gain the perfection owed to me.”

I pushed off the shadow flooring, unwilling to submit before the chimera. I might be bound to him, locked in here by his magics, but I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of kneeling. “What happens next?”

“Now, we break Dorian.” The chimera smirked, painting images of my plot, my ploy, my desperate attempt to claim a future where I could find happiness.

There would be no unraveling the demonic energy from Finn now, not with Theodore Whitlock locked in the deepest pit of the MDC.

There would be no banishing the chimera with Finn and me bound to his fate.

There would be no overwhelming Dorian with his failures, proving I’d accomplished what he never could, never attempted, and claiming the life I deserved.

This devil revealed every misstep I’d taken, every instance he’d acted, whether subtly or brazen, in an effort to supersede his confinement and bring his freedom to fruition.

“It was a fascinating plot, breaking Dorian’s willpower to live, to resist. I will be using that strategy since it’s unlikely he’ll willingly submit to me. Much like your pale attempt of defiance, Dorian could prove troublesome. But unlike you, I’ll take a more direct approach.” The demon’s cocky tone and smug smile were grating. “You believed you could shame Dorian with his past, break him with grief that he’s already proven to best—albeit it took him long enough.”

“And what’s your plan?”

“I’m going to take away the thing Dorian values most. I’m going to remove his hopes for the future, starting by killing those precious students he holds so dearly.”

I swallowed hard. I hated Dorian. Hated everything he took for granted. Hated how much time he dedicated to those students over his happiness, happiness that he should’ve showered Milo with during all those lost years of grief. But I couldn’t allow the chimera to slaughter his students. My students, too. I cared about them. More than Dorian.

I had to find a way to stop the devil, free myself, and free Finn before he destroyed Dorian’s world. My world.