Bloodstone

“You think not? But your present predicament is my business, seeing as it’s my doing, and Mab has everything to do with that. You see, I don’t need your life force in particular to revive my son, although as I said, I’m interested to see whether the shapeshifting ability transfers. But a human would do just as well. Further, the process I’m going to subject you to is excruciatingly painful.” He smiled, like this was good news. “It doesn’t have to be. Your death could be quick and clean like the others’. Yet I’m putting in the effort to make it slow and agonizing because of your aunt.”

He leaned over me, his stinking breath hot on my face. His eyes searched mine, looking for a reaction. I wouldn’t give him one; I closed my eyes.

“Years ago, she did me an evil,” he said, close to my ear. “And evil must be repaid with evil, don’t you agree? Your ‘Mab’ deprived me of my family and made me suffer. So I must do the same to her. Nothing personal, my girl. Simply redressing the balance—or making a start, at least.”

He must have straightened, because when he spoke again his voice was more distant. “It’s a pity the Old Ones are so camera-shy. Won’t allow them in the place.” I opened my eyes to see what he was doing. He held a tangle of narrow plastic tubing. He pulled a tube from the mass and coiled it as he spoke. “Colwyn—he fancies himself chieftain of the Old Ones, you know—Colwyn is so unreasonable. I’d love to record this procedure. For science, of course, but also as a gift to your aunt. The Old Ones think they’re eternal, but really they’re quite backwards.” He looked to his right. “Yes, you. I’m talking about you.” He went back to coiling. “Colwyn and I have never trusted each other, so it’s rather awkward to find ourselves in a position where each requires the other’s assistance. I said I’d been away. Colwyn brought me back. He reunited me with my son and is providing support— locations, equipment, minions—so I can revive Pryce. In return, I’ll give him what he wants.”

“What’s that?”

“What else? The secret to eternal life. I have it; he doesn’t. Hah!” He spat that last word off to the side, toward Colwyn. “But the bastard has tried to tilt the scales in his own favor. You see, he released me from . . .” Myrddin’s eye twitched. “From where I was. But only for a limited time. I have ten days of freedom before his spell wears off and I’m returned to that horrible place—unless I share my secret with him. But I won’t share the secret until Pryce is restored, and Colwyn won’t remove the time limit until I give him what he wants. And so we find ourselves at a stalemate.” He giggled. “At least until one of us can figure out how to betray the other. Eh, Colwyn?”

Myrddin dropped the last coil on Pryce’s table. He reached toward me and held open my right eyelid, shining a light into my eye. Then he repeated the process with my left eye. He leaned forward and whispered, “Colwyn thinks he’s in charge, but he doesn’t command me. There’s recording equipment hidden in the mirror above you. You will scream nicely for it, won’t you? Your aunt will want to know exactly what happened to her favorite niece, after all.”

No screaming, I promised myself. No matter how bad things got. If Myrddin sent Mab a video of my last moments, she’d see that I died bravely.

He straightened and spoke in a slightly-too-loud voice. “I do believe you’re ready. Well, you may not be, I’ll grant you that, my girl.” Giggle, giggle. “But the sedative has worn off enough to proceed.”

I didn’t believe Myrddin could stop me from shifting without the drug. If its effects had diminished, it was time to call the wizard’s bluff and change into something powerful, angry, and deadly. I closed my eyes. The image of a grizzly formed in my mind—reared up, roaring, claws raised—and I poured all of myself into it. The image held. Energy buzzed through me. My limbs burned and twitched as the change began. I pushed more energy into it.

A hand settled on my forehead. It soaked up the energy like a sponge. I still held the grizzly’s image in my mind, as vivid as if it stood before me, but my body remained unchanged.

“No,” said Myrddin simply. He held his hand in place as the energy fizzled. I struggled, tugging on the energy, trying to pull it back from him, but I couldn’t do it. He absorbed it all.

When there wasn’t a spark left, the pressure of Myrddin’s hand left my forehead. “It’s time,” he said. “Bring in the Reaper.”

I DON’T KNOW WHETHER I BLACKED OUT OR GOT SWALLOWED up by panic, but I don’t remember the Reaper entering the room. The next thing I knew, a figure stood beside me, holding an evil-looking sickle. The figure was robed, like the Old Ones, but the hand that held the weapon was human. A man’s hand.

I’ll have to tell Daniel he was right, I thought, then laughed hysterically because I’d never get a chance to tell Daniel—or anyone—anything ever again.

Stay calm, Vicky. And don’t scream.

The Reaper’s face was too deep inside the robe’s hood for me to make out his features. A distant cawing sounded. I opened my senses to the demon plane and was nearly deafened by the raucous sound of hundreds of crows. In the demon plane, a huge beak protruded from the Reaper’s hood and ghostly black wings sprouted from his back. He was thoroughly possessed by the Morfran.

Sharp pain yanked me back into the human world. The Reaper had unfastened the ties at the front of my gown and was dragging the point of his sickle along my breastbone, tearing my flesh with the blade.

I gasped. But I clenched my teeth tightly before the pain tore a scream from my throat. I would not scream.

The Reaper cut further, carving symbols into my skin. In the mirror, all I could see was his robed back. I didn’t know what the symbols were; all I knew was how much I hurt.

“Enough.” Myrddin put a hand on the Reaper’s arm. “That will do. This one is different.”

A high-pitched whine issued from the Reaper’s hood. The sickle sliced toward my throat.

Myrddin’s hand stopped its descent. A few muttered words from the wizard, and the Reaper was lifted from his feet. Two seconds later, a grunt and cry sounded as he hit a wall.

“Keep him back,” Myrddin said. “What? No, I don’t need the jar. Didn’t you hear me? This one is different.” Working quickly and silently, he picked up a length of tubing and fitted it with a long, thin, wicked-looking needle. Then he moved between me and Pryce, and I couldn’t see what he was doing. The mirror showed my chest as a mass of blood—so much blood I couldn’t make out whatever patterns the Reaper had sliced into me. Myrddin turned back to me, needle in hand. The tubing trailed behind, somehow connected to Pryce. Myrddin used the needle to trace the symbols the Reaper had carved into my flesh. I felt every inch. He paused directly over my heart.

“The heart,” Myrddin said, “is the center of a person’s life force.” He pushed. The pain sharpened. No, he couldn’t be—but he was. He didn’t stop. The needle slid into my heart and stayed there. My heartbeat went crazy, the muscle trying to push out the invader. “When the heart stops, so does life. Of course, I don’t want you to die at once, so I’ve spelled the probe to minimize its physical damage. What we’re going for here is the slow, painful draining of every last ounce of your life force.”

It hurt. God, how it hurt. Like nothing I’d ever felt before. Sweat beaded on my forehead, and I gritted my teeth against my agony. I would not scream. I would not think about the needle thrust deep into my heart.

“Like the blood,” Myrddin continued, “the life force circulates through the body. Chi, prana, elan vital—call it what you will. Every culture expresses the concept in some form. Now, these acupuncture needles”—he showed me a handful of fine needles with colored ends—“will be inserted at strategic points to slow down the flow of your life force. A sort of reverse acupuncture, if you will.” He stuck a needle in my arm, another above my eyebrow. “The aim being, of course, to drag your life force from you. I want you to feel the wrench of that chi leaving every cell of your body.”

He kept going, turning me into a pincushion. If I’d thought I hurt before, I didn’t even know what pain was. Each needle magnified the agony, spread it throughout my body. It felt like my soul was being slowly pulled out by the roots.

“Now.” Myrddin slapped my cheek to make me look at him. He showed me two thin tubes, each split into a Y shape with a needle at the branch of each Y. “They say, I believe, that the eyes are the windows to the soul. And since you’re donating your soul to my son, that will be the final touch.”

Oh, God. Not my eyes. My heart thumped wildly around the invading probe. I snapped my eyes shut, but his fingers forced the right lid open. I strained at the straps that held me immobile. I rolled my eyes in crazy, random directions.

And I screamed. I screamed and screamed because there was no other way to express the pain and