AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I cut him a glance and roll my eyes.
“I’m seriously starting to think that you sold your soul in a past life so that you’d get all the best magic in this one,” Rita quips sarcasti
cally, her tone a little disgruntled.
“How would I know even if I did?” I ask, matching her sarcasm.
We drive the mist out of the last two men and they slump down onto the floor. Now we’re surrounded by seven groaning, semi-conscious bodies.
“Only specific magical families get that gift. They call it the All Knowing Tome,” Rita explains. “It’s a magical text that has the answer to any question, but it’s not really a text since it only exists inside the minds of the few people who have the gift to call on it.”
“So I can ask it any question and it’ll have the answer?” I probe, getting excited.
She shakes her head. “That’s not how it works. It’s like an emergency reserve. It only makes itself known when you’re in desperate need of an answer.”
“There always has to be a catch,” I sigh.
Rita’s about to open her mouth to say something else, but she’s interrupted by a frighteningly familiar voice that whimsically agrees, “Doesn’t there though.”
I startle like a baby deer and swing around to look up at the chancel where I’d thought I heard strange laughter earlier. Perched on the edge of the mezzanine is Theodore, one leg casually crossed over the other. He’s wearing an all black suit with white and black loafers and red socks. It must have been the paternal side of her genes that gave Rita her unusual fashion sense.
Finn makes a move to cock his gun, but Theodore tuts and waggles his finger at him. “Nuh uh slayer, you might as well be brandishing a feather for all the damage that thing will do to me.”
Finn’s eyes turn to slits and he grudgingly holsters the weapon.
“What do you want?” Rita asks, her voice harsh but a tiny bit shaky.
Theodore grins at her, his white face cracking into the chilling smile of a circus clown.
“Hello my child. I’m not here for you – yet. I have a bone to pick with your little friend.” He turns his head just a fraction so that he’s now staring at me, and the smile vanishes from his face completely. I thought he couldn’t look any creepier, but I was wrong.
“I thought we had an agreement, treasure,” he says, summoning a pout and folding his arms. “I let you live in exchange for you not telling your friends about my return. Yet you go and babble it all out the first chance you get. This makes me feel betrayed, and when I feel betrayed I get angry. And, when I get angry I want to dole out punishment. The question is, what will your punishment be?”
I swallow hard. If Marcel knew that we’d made an alliance with the vamps then I guess it doesn’t take too much of a stretch to figure out that Theodore would have discovered my little slip. It feels like aeons ago that I found the note he left for me on Sycamore Strand.
“No suggestions, huh?” Theodore chirps. “Well, I do like to be controversial, so what say I pit you against a friend?”
Rita and I glance at each other, simultaneously thinking the same thing. Is he going to get the two of us to fight?
“Wro-ong,” Theodore sings, making the one syllable word into two as he reads our thoughts. I shiver.
He makes the most subtle of hand gestures and then suddenly someone’s big, strong hand is wrapped around my throat, squeezing hard. I turn my head just enough to see that it’s Finn and that his face looks all messed up. He’s sweating heavily and his eyes are strained. They aren’t black, meaning the chaos hasn’t taken complete control of him yet, but I can see his internal struggle as though it were playing out right in front of me. I can’t believe I took my eyes off Finn long enough for the mist to get into him.
I feel dizzy with the lack of oxygen, my body squirming to get away from him. I’m absently aware of Rita shouting and fighting Finn to get him to release me, but Theodore must restrain her with magic in some way because she’s gone a moment later. I gather just enough strength to push my hands to Finn’s chest and the mist starts to leave him. Unfortunately, it only gets so far before gushing right back inside his body.
Theodore cackles. I try again, but it’s no use. Every time I try to push out the mist, Theodore just pushes it right back in. I kick my leg out, clocking Finn right in the proverbials. I’d feel bad if he weren’t trying to strangle me to death. I can just imagine the veins bulging out of my neck right now.
The shock of my kick causes him to momentarily let go and I drop to the floor, whimpering at the pain of my bruised throat. He shrugs off the kick to the balls quicker than I’d have liked and comes at me. I scramble backwards, but a second later his large, muscled body covers mine. He holds me down against the cold, tiled floor and slaps me hard across the face. His panicked eyes are the only indication that he’s in agony at not being able to control his own body.
I press my palms to his chest, pushing out the mist, but again Theodore infuriatingly pushes it back in. Finally I see that Rita is floating in mid-air, struggling against some kind of invisible barrier that Theodore has placed around her. She looks like an angry Goth doll in a bubble.
I try again, pushing at Finn’s chest and in the split second where the mist is out of him, just before Theodore has the chance to put it back in, he coughs out a strangled plea, “Stab me, use the razor.”
Then the chaos is back inside him and his hands return to my throat. Stab him? What the fuck? I can’t stab him. I just can’t. But as his death grip tightens on me and my body starts to go limp with lack of oxygen, I don’t think I have any other choice.
In the distance I hear Theodore laugh. “Are you feeling sufficiently punished yet, treasure? No? I think we’ll let this play out for a little while longer then. I always enjoy a good death match.”
Using my left hand I shakily pull out the blade, unable to see any other option but my own imminent demise. Tears streak down my face and I start to choke. I don’t want to do this, I really, really don’t want to do this. Time is running out. I need to get Finn off me so that I have a chance of running. Stabbing him in the arm or leg won’t be enough of a blow. The chaos has taken over too much of him now. I try to figure out the best place to stab him in the stomach that won’t be life threatening.
