Page 188 of Veil of Blood and Bone

The ice inside my lungs solidifies, builds, weighing me down. Glyphs seep into my skin and lodge there, burning, the cold stalling any recovery attempts in their tracks.

Vampire healing and Fae shadow magic don’t stand a chance against this enemy.

And Helene will freeze to death if we can’t find a way to pull victory from defeat.

Chapter 38

Helene

Ahollow cone of light hides vague vestiges of movement outside the wrecked car.

Shadows disobey, floating and freezing. One moment, there’s nothing but darkness. Then my vision narrows to that awful pinprick. Like it did the day my mother died.

The world went black then, too.

It was as if someone opened a pit to the center of the universe, and everything and everyone was sucked down into it, to that place with no air or love.

The sensation hits now, a baseball bat to my head, caving me into myself so all the splintered pieces threaten to fall into the same hole.

The tear in my wrist isn’t deep enough to cause pain. Yet. The placement, though, the memory of how much blood can weep from a person if you clip the right vein…

Those roar back in with startling clarity.

The bedroom, walls closing in. No daylight. Only the gloom splaying around the body on the bed and Mom’s eyes blown open. Audra in the living room, happy to separate her medications for the week, one into each box.

The clink of pills on plastic echoed in my head as I tried to blink the scene clear. But the details remained. Incense burning on the dresser and smoke curling like it would ward off evil.

Pillows kicked to the floor, the flat surface of sheets prepared like an altar.

The roaring in my head. I’m trapped in a cyclone, not recognizing anything now except my racing pulse. Mom still hadn’t moved.

The coppery scent of blood somehow penetrated the fog in my head, but the seeping from the gashes in her wrist had stopped.

Wind whips hair across my face as I stare at the open wound of my own. The tiny triangle of glass had sliced a straight line down my forearm toward my elbow.

Audra reaches for my opposite hand and squeezes. A lifeline. A tether to something outside myself, and I come to, breathing hard and seeing spots.

Whatever hallowed words she repeats in a litany under her breath, they’re too garbled to make out.

I suck in a jagged inhale, and my lungs burn with ice, frozen. Maybe soon I’ll wake up from this nightmare.

Or maybe not.

The messy maze of my mind is a trap, like the Toyota. I’ve got no hope of freeing us from either.

I’m going to die here.

“Hel, please. We have to go. Right now!” Audra screams.

A blinding moment of panic overwhelms me.

I’m not dead yet. But we might be if I don’t get my fucking ass moving.

The creature tightens its hold on the car, still smiling. All those jagged teeth. It shattered the windshield and crushed the hood with its weight.

My chest heaves, breathing made harsh by dread.

Crying out for Nicholas scalded something inside me, but I’ve lost sight of him. Labored movements have me reaching for my scarf.