Instantly, the sensation brought back a visceral memory – one that slammed into me and shook through my body as if I’d received a cannon blast to the torso.
When the darklings had attacked me, they’d lured me into a rundown warehouse covered in blood-splattered, thick, mildew-ridden plastic.
Now I swore I felt that same plastic beneath me.
The sparks began to subside, but that did not mean that I was transported back into the here and now – into the interrogation room and the table scattered with photos of dead women.
No, instead, I opened my eyes and saw a pair of shiny black leather shoes in front of me.
I tried to gasp, tried to shift back, tried to call for Max – but I wasn’t in control of my mouth. I could feel my body, and yet, I couldn’t interact with the world around me.
Someone chuckled – the owner of those expensive black leather shoes. I could tell it was him, because his equally expensive trousers crinkled with the move. I watched as a hand pushed down and pressed against the clear plastic by my nose. On it was a signet ring – a massive gold and ruby affair clasped around his pinkie.
“You’ve been a pain in the ass to get hold of, you know that?” he said.
I didn’t need to struggle to recognize the voice. I didn’t need to scour my memory to figure out who it was. Oh no – instantly I knew it was Fagan.
Fagan. Good god.
He reached down, appeared to grab several strands of my hair, brought them up and inspected them, and then let them drop against my face. I felt a wet splat and realized my hair was covered in blood. With a kicking sensation, I realized the blood had to be my own – my brow felt like it had been sliced in two, and my left arm was wet and completely limp.
Fagan continued to inspect me, clucking his tongue as if he’d just received a parcel in the post with unacceptable damage. “Bit rough on you, was he? Dimitri can be that way. Still, excellent fairy, unlike yours. Pity he abandoned you at the last moment, ha?”
I tried to move my mouth to answer – to scream for Max – but I couldn’t. I still couldn’t control my body. All I could do was remain inside it as I meekly experienced this scene.
“Still, easy for me. And that’s all that matters, isn’t it?” He tilted further down, and finally his face came into view. It was just in time to see a truly sickening smile spread across his lips. Though Fagan was a certain kind of handsome, his features were too intense to be lovable.
He kept picking up scraps of my hair and running it between his fingers. He even leaned down, swiped two fingers across my brow, brought them back, and inspected the dried blood.
He clicked his tongue. “You know, I could have offered you a job,” he began. “But we both know you won’t accept it, right?”
There was a long pause.
I felt myself answering. “Go to hell. Go to hell!”
He chuckled. “Gladly. But I’m afraid I’ll be taking you with me.” With that opaque statement, he pushed to his feet. I watched him shove his hands into his pockets, apparently not caring that his fingers were still caked in my blood. He took several steps back, tilted his head to the side, and smiled once more.
“I was going to leave this up to Dimitri, but he’s busy right now. Plus, even if I don’t get to eat your heart and I have to give it to the Lonely King,” he said conversationally as if we were talking about something as innocent as the weather, “I’ve heard tale you can still absorb a witch’s power even if you’re just the one to carve it out. I sure do hope that’s the case,” he continued in that same apparently innocent conversational tone as he walked over to an upturned milk crate. Sitting on top of it was a sword. A long, shiny one that glinted under the strong lights above.
I tried to jerk back, god did I try to use every muscle I had to get away. There was nothing I could do. Nothing I could do.
My eyes pulsed wide, practically tearing from my skull as I watched him draw the sword up, place it carefully on his arm as he checked the blade, then finally moved towards me.
Thump, thump, thump – the sound of his footfall became everything as fear climbed up and down my back.
No, god, no – I had to get away. Had to get away. But there was nothing I could do.
No more time.
Fagan reached me. He stood above me for several seconds, twisting the sword around in his grip as he stared at me covetously. His brow was smooth, his cheeks slack, and his eyes? Two pinpricks of greed and hatred.
No more time.
He sliced towards me, plunging the sword through the center of my chest. And me? I died.
…
I didn’t have the breath to scream. I couldn’t even figure out where I was anymore.
One scene became overlain with the other – my bleeding, dead body on top of that plastic covered floor and yet my body as it sat there in the interrogation room. A mass of sensations, a cloud of fear – it was the most confusing, awful experience of my life.
I struggled to pull myself out of that vision – struggled to convince myself that I was alive. I
