Page 7 of Worshipped By Monsters

A swirl of furious, panicked anger blasts up from the pit of my stomach and out through my limbs. It’s helpless anger, hysteria manifesting through my nerve endings. But—in slow motion, as if it’s happening to someone else—the most unbelievable thing happens. Ice shards fly from my palms, rushing outward in a spiral of blue-tinged spikes that pierce the beast’s throat again and again.

WHAT?

When my fingers twitch, a second round shoots out like bullets spraying from a machine gun and pepper the giant worm. The second they collide with its skin, cyan veins erupt along the surface, feathering out like the cracks in an icy lake or the filigree edges of a snowflake, spreading outward until they touch. And wherever those blue lines merge, the creature stiffens.

Freezes.

My mind glitches for a second at the chaos, at the craziness of what’s happening. It shouldn’t be possible.

But I slowly register what I’m seeing as the worm turns a powder blue.

Poised above me like a giant, bald, killer caterpillar, the tooth stops moving completely, its great maw open. A trickle of its saliva hardens as it falls, becoming an icicle that hovers just above my forehead.

In less than three seconds, the sandworm has become an ice sculpture. And I have no fucking clue how.

Too scared to breathe, I slide one foot back slowly, then the other—just in case this temporary insanity stops, just in casethere’s a monster behind the sandworm freezing it so it can become their own snack…just in case one of the million jumbled thoughts of death flickering through my head comes to pass.

But when I lean around the flabby sandworm to spot my new enemy, there’s no one behind him. No ice-wielding fifth Terror. Even if there had been, how could another monster make ice appear from my hands? How could ice even appear from my hands? I’m human! It’s not possible…

Unless I’m possessed.

I stop breathing and look down at my body, examining myself to try to determine if there’s another entity inside of me.

I don’t feel possessed.

But could Empty have flown out of Chase’s body and entered my own? Would I have felt it? I’m uncertain, and I furrow my brow. If Empty took control of my limbs, would that have given me a momentary burst of power? Do poltergeists have ice power?

“Empty Man?” I turn and glance at Chase’s bruised and battered face, at the lips that are swollen from both my kiss and from any number of beatings before that.

“Yes?” Something flickers in Chase’s mossy-green eyes, and his head tilts at an angle I’ve never seen him use before as I become fully aware that I’m speaking to the Empty Man.

It’s an eerie thing to know that Chase isn’t Chase. That the pompous ass I grew up with is currently controlled by a ghost.

If Empty Man’s there…then he’s still stuck in Chase’s body, and he can’t be possessing me. Not unless…

“Can you extend your possession beyond the body you’re in?” I ask softly.

A single shake of his head. “Not now.”

Fuck.

I start to cover my mouth in dismay, but I stop short of touching my face, staring at my fingers. I’m not quite sure what they’re currently capable of, or why. Or if I’ll hurt myself or Chase.

I lower my palms, suddenly viewing them as weapons, even though they look completely normal.

Flicking my gaze back up to stare at the Empty Man, I notice how he rubs Chase’s fingers together in a motion the former rebel would never have used.

“Are you the only poltergeist? Or are there other monsters like you?” It has to be possession, what just happened to me. It has to be. The idea that there’s another being underneath my skin sends shivers across my shoulders.

“Yes.” The Empty Man’s response is nearly a hiss, just as horrible a sound as any snake ever makes.

I’m not prepared for his answer because I immediately tense at the thought of another creature inside my brain, wrapping invisible strings around my limbs, toying with me like I’m a puppet. My knees tremble for a millisecond before I lock them stiffly.

I open my mouth to ask how to banish one, but then Empty adds, “I’m the only.”

Asshole.

If I didn’t hate him before this, I certainly do now. My internal alarm swivels and transforms into outrage. “You could have led with that, fucker.”

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