Page 168 of Echoes of the Banshee

Just a little, just enough that he can feel it.

He shrieks.

“Do you want to see how black your soul is?” I thunder. The words splintering across the room, layered with a thousand ragged echoes.

Grunt’s knees buckle. His eyes roll back.

His soul shudders free of him like smoke caught in my fist, a writhing, ugly thing, cracked and rotted at the edges.

It squirms, pathetic and broken. A mirror of everything foul he’s ever done. For one long, quivering heartbeat, I debate it. I could crush it between my fingers like ash. But instead, I throw it back into him like trash.

He collapses, sniveling, the last of his pride pissed out on the floor. A hand grips my wrist: shaky, warm and human. B.

I spin. A dozen goblins flinch, their wide eyes round with horror. The air is thick with scorched ozone and the acrid stink of fear. I reach toward them before I realize I’m doing it; their souls lighting up before my eyes.

“Your souls are gray and corrupt,” I snarl. “Fix them.”

“Enough, Thea!” B’s voice cracks. “Stop!”

I freeze. His hand tightens on mine. Barely, just enough to remind me he’s still here. His eyes are wide, bloodshot, and full of terror.

And in them, I see it: my bones, glowing through translucent skin. A walking skeleton wreathed in fire.

Monstrous.

Panic slams into me. For a second, I can’t breathe. I can feel the souls still thrashing in my grip, my magic desperate to punish.

What have I become? I squeeze my eyes shut. Force the storm down. The fire dies first. Then the wind. Silence falls.

When I open them again, the warehouse is wreckage. Goblins lie in sobbing heaps. The walls are blackened. Ash and acid splatter the floor. The taste scorches my throat. I gag again, coughing hard, spit and bile burning on their way out. My hands tremble, still sparking faintly with leftover power.

B sways beside me, still gripping my arm, his body a dead weight. He’s upright, but only just. I shift under him, looping his arm around my shoulders again.

“Come on,” I murmur. “We have to go.”

We stumble through the warped doorway and into the blinding, mocking sunlight. It’s too bright. Too clean. Like the world has no idea what I’ve just done. The street is unfamiliar, dead quiet, the warehouse district eerily still. I glance around. Nothing but broken pavement, rusted fences, and silence.

But under it all, a spark of relief.

We’re out.

We’re free.

I bite down on a cry of pain as we shuffle down the sidewalk.

B laughs or tries to. It comes out choked, brittle.

“I saw you,” he murmurs. “Lit up like bones in fire.”

He sways, legs buckling, and I drag him until we’re a few warehouses away and into an alley. It’s cramped, rank with mildew, but it’ll do.

I lower him gently, propping him against the wall.

He coughs hard, blood bubbling at the corner of his mouth. His pupils are blown wide, his skin chalky. Sweat beads on his brow. He’s burning up and freezing at once.

Shit.

I glance at his wrist; the cuff is still clamped tight.