AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I rolled away.
“Bite him,” Eli yelled. “Worked before.”
And as much as I hated it, he was right. My fangs were ready before my mind was, and I latched on to Chester’s throat.
His blood spilled into my mouth, and the energy from it started to knit my bones.
I realized that Marcus and Beatrice were there, too. Together we managed to hold onto him as I drank as much as I could swallow.
I was gagging on blood, and his throat was healing within the mere instant it took me to retch and be ready. My grandmother leaned in and bit while I was puking up blood.
Not exactly the holiday card image, but I was grateful for her willingness to let me catch my breath.
When she pulled back, Marcus jabbed his fingers in the savaged meat of Chester’s throat and ripped.
Still, it was knitting back.
“Hurry up!” Eli yelled to Iggy and Nora, who were too busy chanting to reply.
Then Eli motioned to Chester’s stomach and shoved the man’s sweater vest aside.
My grandmother flashed bloody teeth and took a bite of his stomach.
As Eli started ripping flesh from Chester’s stomach, pulling out actual organs that were healing as fast as they were severed, I leaned back into Chester’s throat.
34
GENEVIÈVE
When the spell finally took hold, I felt like I was no longer tethered to the world.
Chester froze, motionless, eyes watching me. Beatrice and Marcus stepped back as of they were nothing more than puppets controlled by the magic.
Eli walked backward, as if he no longer controlled his feet.
I briefly thought Chester would topple without them holding him. He didn’t.
The spell seemed to be removing everyone but me from Chester’s vicinity. And once they were gone, the spell circle snapped around me.
I could see that everything around me, outside the circle, was still moving at a normal speed, and both Iggy and Nora were continuing to loop the spell in that sing-chant-whisper thing that they did. It was as if they were one terrifying voice.
I admitted briefly that I didn’t like Nora, trust Nora, or particularly dig the idea that she was this powerful. My only consolation was that she was helping us remove this monster—her husband.
One crisis at a time, I whispered in my head. If I had to deal death to her, too, I would.
I felt as much as saw her look away from Iggy and give me a raised brow. Maybe being looped into the spell meant that my thoughts weren’t as private as I had thought. Just in case, I grinned at her and thought,If you hurt Iggy, I’ll destroy you for that, too.
He might be a manipulative, moody, meddling man, but he was my family now. No one but me was allowed to kill him.
Focus,Iggy’s grumbling voice yelled in my head.Hand of death, Hexen. Get on with it.
Unlike putting Gunnora’s stone heart back, I couldn’t just reach into Chester’s chest. I mean, Eli had been doing that to no avail, but as the spell grabbed me, my mouth started intoning the same words that Iggy and Gunnora were—as if the spell was a living thing that had taken space in my blood-stained mouth.
But all the injuries we had wrought on Chester were gone.
His clothes and skin were bloody, but his flesh was unmarred.
Apparently, heart removal was messy. I shoved his sweater vest up and ripped open his shirt, buttons flying. He was surprisingly fit for a man who wore sweater vests and accountant glasses.
