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“Why do you come to me?” Lana cried, a puppet, nothing but a tool for the Darkness to use.
“The coyote…,” Drake managed.
“Faithful Pack Leader,” the Darkness said through Lana. “Obedient, but not yet equal to a human.”
Open your eyes, Lana told herself. Be brave. Be brave. See it, face it, fight it. But the darkness was in her skull, pushing and prodding, peeking inside her secrets, laughing at her pathetic resistance.
And yet, she opened her eyes. A lifelong habit of defiance gave her the strength. But she kept her eyes cast down, strong enough to force them open, too terrified to look on the face of the thing itself.
The rocks under her knees glowed.
She was touching it, touching the hem of it.
Pack Leader groveled, lowering himself to the floor of the cave beside Lana, crawling on his belly.
Suddenly, Lana felt an electric shock of terrifying force. Her back arched, her head went back, her arms flew wide.
A pain like an icicle stabbing her eye and searing her brain.
She tried to scream, but no sound would come out.
Then it was gone and she fell onto her back, legs folded beneath her. She gasped like a landed fish, unable to fill her lungs.
“Defiance,” she croaked in a voice not her own.
“She’s supposed to fix my arm,” Drake said. “If you kill her, she can’t help me.”
“You are bold to make demands,” the Darkness said through Lana.
“I’m not…it’s…I want my arm back,” Drake shouted raggedly.
Lana found she could breathe again. She sucked in oxygen. She pushed out against the floor, scooted inch by inch away from the Darkness.
Drake shrieked in agony. Lana saw him as she had been, like he’d grabbed a power line. His body jerked like a marionette.
The Darkness released him.
“Ah,” the Darkness said, and twisted Lana’s mouth into a rictus. “I have found a much better teacher for you, Pack Leader.”
Pack Leader had dared to stand up. He kept
his tail and head aligned in a submissive posture. He glanced at Drake, who had now been released and was doubled over, clutching his arm in pain.
“This human will teach you to kill humans,” Lana said.
Drake spoke as though each syllable was an effort. “Yes. But…my arm.”
“Give me the arm,” Lana said and, unwilling, crawled to Drake.
Drake stood up, shaky but determined. He extended the burned, sawed-off stump.
“I will give you an arm such as no human ever had,” the Darkness said through Lana. “You have no magic within you, human, but the girl will serve.”
Drake moved with surprising speed. He pivoted and yanked Lana up by her hair. “Take my arm,” he hissed.
She placed her trembling hand against the melted flesh, feeling the fresh-cut bone beneath it, wanting to throw up.
The glow deepened. Lana felt her entire body filled with it, not hot but cold, as cold as ice.
