Chapter Twenty-Three

Doppler

Power radiated off the chimera in waves, subtle at first, adapting to his new body, his new host, home, Hell incarnate, but as he grew in strength, the transcendence of a devil became almost unbearable to handle.

My telepathy, my magic, my being collided with his presence everywhere I turned, locked in this darkness until it buried me deep within a pit of unsurmountable agony. I lay here, immobilized and uncertain if I’d ever have the will to take action. Haunting the subconscious of Dorian’s mind as an empty manifestation never felt like this. There was a satisfaction in the air; I could taste the pleasure the chimera took in drowning my being beneath the waves of his demonic energy.

“You get used to it.”

My eyes snapped open, and I wiped away sludge from my face, searching the varying layers of darkness, the slithering shadows, all so I could locate Finn. His beautiful voice had called out, so soft, gentle, offering a reprieve from this horror.

“If you don’t fight the pain, bear it, he’ll lose interest,” Finn explained, his voice somber and reminding me of every horrible memory I’d tucked away from him while we hid in our own little world, our own little happiness that I’d carved out. Even if it was all a lie. A lie I wanted to make reality.

I still could. I could fix things somehow. “Finn…”

“Here.” His hand found me in the pit, pulling me closer, swimming through tar until his silhouette became bright and clear.

A fabrication of my mind desiring to see him whole and happy.

“It’d be wise not to want things here. He’ll use that against you.”

“My thoughts are less guarded than I predicted.” Especially if Finn could read them.

“Everything is exposed in the shadows,” he said. “Be grateful it’s just us. I’ve had the misfortune of hearing thousands of others all at once, desperate, angry, frightened, hopeful, lost, relieved, forgotten, and every other sensation you can fathom, all weighing down on the bits of sanity you have left.”

“Where is he right now?”

“Working. He often works. If you’re quiet and careful, you can hear him.” Finn glanced up. “Right now, he’s sending a message.”

Try as I might, I couldn’t grasp what Finn saw. Even attempting to listen in on his thoughts with my telepathy, they were so faint and soft, like he’d spent lifetimes mastering the art of whispering his every passing musing.

“Here.” Finn brushed the back of his hand against my cheek, the sweetest and most soothing sensation I’d ever experienced.

I never wanted it to end. I could die now, lost in joy, completely content and forgetting all my failures in my miserable life.

Memories of the chimera blossomed in my mind, exploding so quickly I barely registered the flashes. This was Finn’s retrocognition in action, photo stills of what the chimera had done.

Theodore’s sadistic smile. A wisp of energy. The carnage of Theodore’s near escape. The delight in his eyes as he surrendered. The chimera slinking into Peter’s mind as guards banished fiends and others escaped. Peter’s possession. True possession. Blood. Tar. Magic. The city of Chicago flew by in a haze as the chimera—no, the devil—searched for something. He stabbed his hand. Blood. So much blood. Then, letters etched onto parchment while he whispered words in Latin. The letter burned in blue flames of primal casting, and the ashes fluttered in the air with purpose, thoughts of Theodore as the sprinkled note vanished in the sky.

“What was that?” I asked as the darkness returned.

“Not sure. I’m never sure with the devil,” Finn said. “But I know he’s pushing something sinister in motion.”

“I’m so sorry,” I cried. “I’m sorry I failed you. I’m so sorry I—”

“Took my memories? Let me live a lie? Compromised everyone for what?”

“For you.”

“You should realize from the Hell you washed away from my mind, there’s nothing left to save in me. The devil carved it all away long ago.”

“That’s not true,” I shouted. “That’s why I kept those memories. I needed you to see you had a future. We have a future.”

“The only future we have is in the devil’s grasp.”

“I’ll fix this.”

Finn half-smiled, stifling laughter even in his thoughts as fear the chimera would scold him surfaced in his mind. “For someone who professes not to be Dorian, you’re very Dorian-like. Guess that’s in your nature, right?”

I frowned. Of all the comments, all the accusations, that cut the deepest.

“He always wants to fix everything, too, even if it ends up making things worse. Funny, for someone who acts like he doesn’t care.”

“I care, though. I can be honest and raw with my feelings, something he never learned.”

“You’ll want to be a bit softer with your thoughts here,” Finn warned.

A warning that came too late as tar latched onto my pores like the suction cups on a tentacle, coiling around every fiber of my being and snatching me away from Finn, from the fragment of joy I held in this dark pit, and dragged up into the surface of Peter’s mind. Correction, Peter’s former mind. This inner core belonged to the chimera now, a devil incarnate once again because of my failures. What remnants of Peter remained were shattered, hollowed-out memories barely enough to stitch together one solid recollection.

I squirmed and fought against the tar that oozed over my flesh, sending the fa?ade of scalding suffocation. No amount of reminding myself it didn’t truly exist made these sensations any less painful.

“I find minds are so much more accommodating to my needs when under duress.” The chimera’s hand dug through the sludge. He gripped my face, squeezing my jaw and cheeks to the point I thought my bones would break. They endured as tar funneled its way down my throat, drowning me in rot and filth. “You should be so lucky to feel me inside you, puppet.”

My eyes rolled back as he cast, his haunting magic tearing me apart and rooting through every thought I held. This was a psychic branch. Not his telepathy. Another he held, searching for something.

“Scrying,” he elaborated.

A psychic magic that allowed the witch to locate or message others from great distances. It latched to my every waking memory.

“It’s honestly the best way to locate anyone or anything,” the chimera said, a wicked lilt of joy in his voice. “Only one thing better, in fact. And that’s the guy calling about your extended car warranty. Seriously, best locators in the world.”

I bit down on the chimera’s hand, which continued squeezing my jaw, but naturally, it had no impact on him.

“Come on? Not even a little laugh? A chuckle? I’m being sweet and funny. You like that, don’t you?” The smile in his eyes vanished as his expression soured, venomous disdain for me palpable. “Fine. Be that way.”

He snapped his fingers, and the tar coating my hollow insides stabbed me from every direction, tearing at the magics holding my mind and memories intact. I screamed, resisting the pulse as the chimera siphoned information on each of the students in Dorian’s homeroom coven.

“Always works a bit best when I have an image in my head, or in this case, yours.” Tar splashed around the shadows, obeying the wave of the chimera’s hands.

It funneled and formed into silhouettes taking shape around the muck at our feet. What bits of light remained in Peter’s mind reflected off the etched lumps, creating tar portraits of Dorian’s twelve students. My students. The chimera yanked memories and moments I held of each, events Dorian had me search for, musing thoughts Dorian never registered, and so much more I carried.

The chimera pointed a finger at the images he’d created for each student, shrinking them into tiny, sleek marble-like totems. Even though their silhouettes had faded, even though all I stared at were twelve round black blobs, I distinctly recognized which totem represented which student.

“That’s the scrying in effect.” The chimera smirked.

He channeled magic, more of his psychic scrying meant to pinpoint their locations. Within an instant, a wave of sludge bent and cracked and conjured a map of the city. Tossing the marble totems, we watched them roll throughout the city, whirling down long roads, taking sharp turns, colliding with each other, and making their way to a destination.

I didn’t know where we were, but I worried whichever student was deemed the closest would be the first the chimera slaughtered. The day had passed, so none of them would be at the academy—not that I suspected the damn devil so arrogant he’d attempt an assault so brazen.

“Perhaps after I have a perfect host, I can show young Theodore how one sets a school of witches ablaze.” The chimera tapped my head, mocking the insight he kept as he rooted through my thoughts.

I barred my teeth, practically growling.

“Lookie here.” The chimera’s eyes drifted to the marble totems, smacking into each other one by one, colliding and clumping together in one fixed location.

What were they all doing at Gael’s home?

“Familiar with the place?” the chimera asked. “This is quite fortuitous. I’d intended on murdering them in small batches, splitter Dorian’s sanity in slivers, while evading Enchanter Evergreen, but perhaps I should simply slaughter them in one big go and watch it completely shatter my host’s hopes.”

I pushed myself off the ground, preparing to challenge him, to do something because I couldn’t allow him to harm any of those students.

“Relax, I’ll retrieve you once we reach our destination. You can help me pick which witch to slaughter first.” The chimera chuckled. “In the meantime, enjoy your reprieve with your dead lover, correction, Dorian’s dead lover. But you should find some semblance of happiness in this life before I snuff out your existence entirely.”

I seethed, biting back my words and holding my thoughts behind a thousand profanities to keep them guarded and scattered from his attention. If he suspected what I planned, what I contemplated, he’d stop me the same way I’d stopped him many times before.

With a snap of his fingers, I sank deep into the pit of tar, clawing and scrambling to drag myself back up, but the familiarity of Finn’s soft thoughts lulled me into complicacy.

I sank deeper, finding myself drawn back to him while he studied the shifting shadows in the darkness. I swam toward him, goal in mind, plan unfolding softly between the loud, false thoughts I radiated with fake rage. “While he acts, I can counter his split attention. I can take control. I’ll use the magics he’s cultivated against him, and we’ll bury him in the demonic energy of his own making, lock him in a cage, and then—”

“You’re not the first to believe such things, to believe they can defy a devil, overpower his dominion in this dwelling.” Finn’s fingers moved like playing musical keys, the same way the chimera would, like the act had been ingrained in Finn’s mind from lifetimes bound to the devil. “If he’s allowed to live, you won’t be the last to have such foolish notions.”

“We can’t kill him.” I wasn’t sure either of us had enough magic for a banishment of that level, but our psychic branches together could contain him.

“He’s going to kill those children. Not in some distant future. Tonight. He’ll slaughter everyone in his path, he’ll steal their magics, devour a piece of their soul, bind their being to him like he has with us.”

“I need more time.”

“You don’t. You know there’s a way to stop this now.”

The last thing I wanted was to surrender myself, forfeit the last few months of laborious efforts, or bring about Finn’s death. His true death. But I couldn’t allow the chimera to kill these children. I couldn’t allow him to possess Dorian. I couldn’t allow Milo to suffer because of my failures.

I had our location. I had insight into all his casting capabilities. I had his plan of action. Most of all, I had the ability to grab ahold of the tether linking me to Dorian. I could tug on it, snap his attention toward this horror, warn him, alert Milo, prevent any of this from unfolding.

All I had to do was act. Why couldn’t I act? There was no chance of seeing Finn, saving Finn. There was no chance of surviving this myself; the chimera made it abundantly clear he’d sooner see me dead than bring me with him once he claimed Dorian’s body. Not that I’d want to live in such hellish conditions.

Why was it so hard to make a choice, to follow through? I couldn’t take action, not on a plan that’d see me dead because I’d never truly lived. I didn’t want to die before finally experiencing life.

“I cannot live a life where so much carnage falls upon others so I can avoid a death I’ve already endured more times than I care to recollect. You may not wish to end your existence, but I will not bear witness to tonight. I can’t continue watching the devil destroy lives to extend his own, torture countless witches to taste their magics.” Finn sank into the abyss of darkness, sinking beyond my grasp.

I was a coward. Weak. Pathetic. Worse than Dorian, who I despised.

“Finn, wait.” I dug my hands deep into the tar, searching for his presence and finding only haunting horrors attached to each drop of ooze.

I jumped back, struggling to compose myself. Finn would rather endure his own private Hell of torment than fight for a life rightfully his. It was devastating. This was why I hid his memories from him, knowing it was too much of a burden for him to carry all at once.

But he was right. We couldn’t allow the chimera to harm these children. I couldn’t allow any of them to die.