Chapter 6

There were two of them, people so cursed, so far gone, that they weren't even people anymore. They were monsters.

The Cursed Ones were afflicted with something that no one understood, something magical, something that turned them into zombie-like inhuman things driven by a single desire: to spread the Curse to anyone and everyone on this planet.

Their red eyes—devoid of humanity, full of hunger—shone out from across the open field like demonic lighthouses. Their skin was deathly pale, so pale that their veins stood out like thick black tattoos on a colorless canvas. Hair drooped from their heads in sweaty, knotted tendrils. Their clothes were torn and ripped, their feet bare. Their shoes hadn't survived their transformation into Cursed Ones.

People grew bigger when they were infected with the Curse. Bigger, taller, wider. Their muscles bulged, their strength surged. One of the Cursed Ones demonstrated that enhanced strength now when it grabbed a small tree by the trunk and ripped it out of the ground, like it was nothing more than a wispy weed. Then it threw that tree across the clearing at me.

The tree landed at my feet. Had I been standing a few steps closer to the Cursed One, the trunk would have crushed me. Luckily, the Cursed One had terrible aim. They were both still so far away. And yet I'd never before been this close to one of them.

"They are attracted to the Spirit Tree," the invisible stranger told me. "That's why they've come here."

"Why are the Cursed Ones attracted to it?" I asked.

"They are drawn to Dreamweaver magic. I'd be happy to tell you more, but right now we have a bit of a situation."

He was right. The Cursed Ones were here. In the Forbidden Zone. I glanced down at Dante and Nevada sleeping under the Spirit Tree. The Blending hadn't begun yet. They were still human. Which meant they were still vulnerable to the Cursed Ones' bite.

My throat clenched up, even as my mind sped into overdrive.

Where had the Cursed Ones come from? They weren't supposed to be here at all. This was supposed to be a safe space.

"The Cursed Ones are coming. Please, help me keep them away," I pleaded with the invisible stranger. "If they make it to the Spirit Tree, they'll curse my brother and my friend."

"They will certainly try," the invisible stranger answered. "Which is why we're going to stop them before they ever get the chance."

After that big show of throwing a tree at me, the Cursed Ones seemed to have lost interest in my existence. One was moving toward Dante, the other toward Nevada.

Then both of them suddenly dropped to their knees, clutching their heads. Their bodies convulsed like they were in excruciating pain, but I didn't see any wounds anywhere on their bodies.

"How did you hurt them?" I asked the invisible stranger as I planted myself between the howling Cursed Ones and the people I loved.

"I didn't hurt them. They only think they're in pain, but that pain is all in their heads."

"Will this spell…kill them?"

"No, it will only slow them down for a time. But the Cursed Ones are very resilient to pain—and they adapt quickly."

Sure enough, they were already rising to their feet. And they didn't look happy to see me. They must have thought I was the one who'd bewitched them. As one, they opened their mouths, rolled back their shoulders, and let out a bone-chilling chorus of roars. They lumbered toward Nevada and Dante, picking up speed with every step.

"Stop!" I charged toward them, cutting them off.

And that's when the weirdest thing happened.

The Cursed Ones stopped moving.

Fell silent.

Blinked.

And then they turned around to run the other way, away from me. Away from the Spirit Tree.

"How did you scare them away?"

The sound of the invisible stranger's voice made me jump in fright.

"Sorry to scare you," he said quietly.

My pulse was beating so hard in my ears, I could hardly hear him.

"It's not you," I croaked. "It's the Cursed Ones. Sorry."

"You have no reason to be sorry. It seems your magic extends beyond concealing acne and masking body odor. Way beyond. You repelled the Cursed Ones. How did you even do that?"

I looked down at my shaking hands. "I don't know. Maybe I'm just repulsive."

He didn't laugh at my stupid joke, and neither did I. "Have you ever done something like this before?" he asked me.

"No. I've never been this close to the Cursed Ones."

"You ran at them like you knew they would be scared of you."

The Cursed Ones were scared of me? I tried not to think too much about what that said about me.

"Oh." The word popped on my lips like a bubble. "Well, actually…I didn't know they were scared of me."

"So you threw yourself in their path, not knowing that they wouldn't attack you." He said it like he couldn't believe it.

And neither could I. It was just crazy. Like really, really crazy. I mean, I'd charged at two Cursed Ones. Honestly, I wasn't sure what I'd been thinking.

Or maybe I was.

"I guess I just had faith that it would work," I realized.

"You are a very unusual person."

"Yeah, I know. Everyone thinks I'm unusual. Though they usually just say ‘weird'."

He laughed.

I would have laughed too, but then I saw something that strangled the laughter in my throat. The Cursed Ones were still keeping their distance from me, but they were starting to angle back toward the Spirit Tree. The urge to bite Dante and Nevada must have been too powerful to resist.

"They just don't know when to quit, do they?"

"The Cursed Ones aren't known for abandoning the hunt, no," he replied.

I spotted a huge puddle in front of the Cursed Ones. Their path would take them right through the middle of it.

"I have an idea," I told the invisible stranger. "As soon as both of them are inside of that puddle, zap them with a big blast of lightning."

As soon as I said it, I realized how bossy I was being. I was telling someone with magic—a Knight—what he should do with it.

But all the invisible stranger said was, "Good idea."

The temperature plummeted. Storm clouds rolled across the sky, blotting out the moon. A moment later, a bolt of lightning slammed into the puddle the Cursed Ones were running through, thoroughly electrocuting the monsters. They fell to the ground.

"How did you know I could summon lightning?" the invisible stranger asked as the clouds faded away to reveal clear black skies and a shimmering crescent moon.

"You tipped your hand earlier, when you were showing off your magic."

"Showing off?"

I shrugged. "You manipulated light and shadows to create the illusion that the day was progressing at super-speed. That was totally showing off. Admit it."

"Maybe it was."

His chuckles danced on the air like blossoms in the breeze. And for some reason, I felt the sudden urge to eat something sweet and unhealthy.

Magic was weird.

"I figured if you could control light, you could also control lightning," I told him.

"Oh? And why is that?"

I frowned. Was this a trick question?

"Because light and lightning are the same kind of magic?" I said cautiously.

"Yes."

I released a sigh of relief. It would have been so embarrassing to be wrong about that.

"You're way more confident in the heat of battle than you are the rest of the time." I could hear the smirk in his voice. "And way bossier."

I found myself suddenly desperate for the power to turn myself invisible. A Knight had called me bossy. How humiliating.

"You must really enjoy torturing me," I mumbled.

"I have to admit, meeting you has been the highlight of my day. But not to torture you. To see how your mind works. You're so much more interesting than other people."

"Uh, thanks…I think."

"It was definitely a compliment," he told me in a tone that made me very curious to see the expression on his face.

"Any chance you can stop being invisible for a little bit?" I asked him.

"What would be the fun in that?" he laughed.

I didn't press him. I knew a lost cause when I met one.

Instead, I looked down at the pair of Cursed Ones lying on the ground. Right before my eyes, their bodies dissolved into the puddle.

"Whoa! Where did they go?" I leaned in for a closer look at the puddle, but I didn't see anything but water in there.

"I sent their souls back to the planet," the invisible stranger replied. "They are finally free of the Curse. They are finally at peace."

"Their souls?" I asked. "So that means there is something left of a person who has been cursed?"

I'd always wondered about that. Everyone said a person died the day they were cursed and what lived on was something else entirely.

"Yes, there's something left of the person," he replied. "But that tiny piece of humanity is trapped, buried beneath the magic of the Curse. The Curse has no cure, you know."

"Not yet."

"Not yet," he agreed.

"If I were a Knight, I would find a way to cure all of those people. I'd find a way to return their humanity to them."

"And if that's impossible?"

"Impossible is just a word for something we haven't figured out how to do yet," I declared.

He chuckled. "I like the way you think."

"So…" I sidestepped the puddle. The idea of walking through what remained of the Cursed Ones was too weird, even if what remained just looked like water. "…what other magic can you do?"

"A lot."

I crossed my arms. "That's not an answer."

"Sure it is. It's just not the one you were looking for."

I snorted. This invisible stranger was the biggest smartypants I'd ever met. He was an even bigger smartypants than I was. And that was saying a lot.

But my mood plummeted from one breath to the next—like someone had dropped me into a big bucket of ice water.

A primal, inhuman cry split across the Forbidden Zone. It was like the scraping sound of someone sharpening a blade, a dull gurgle, and some hollow, moaning noise I couldn't describe as anything other than pure, mindless misery.

There were still Cursed Ones out there.