Panicked, I rushed forward. I moved through the brush like I was running for my life in the mountains again. In spirit form, nothing could trip me, yet I still jumped over fallen logs like they could make or break the situation.
My body stood at the edge of a familiar cliff. The shades flickered all around my body. They each had a hand around my heart, the part of themselves that they were missing. They couldn’t do anything with my arcana so long as Vince was nearby. I could hear Maddox and Vince fighting in the man-made valley below.
“I’m useless,” I told the shades once I stepped up alongside my body. “I can’t give you the vengeance that you want.”
They cut a dark sidelong glare in my direction. I hadn’t been working fast enough for their liking, and it showed. All this time, I’d thought they were nothing more than memories. It seemed that even memories could feel.
“I’m really sorry.” Pity churned in my spirit-gut.
What else could I say? There was nothing that they wanted to hear. They wanted toseeVince struck down.
When the shades shoved my arcana out once more, it swept over the quarry. I gaped, stunned that it worked in Vince’s deadzone. Where I’d failed, the shades succeeded. They shoved my arcana into the earth in search of dead things.
No, not just any dead thing. The shades grabbed at their own bodies. I could feel them, littered in every corner of Vince’s horror-den. The sensation shook me and dropped me to my knees. Gaping, I watched as bodies crawled out of every shadow.
There were more than I’d expected. How long had Vince been here?
The shades didn’t have perfect control of my arcana. They didn’t pull life from the world around them. The only fuel they used in this was their own rage…andmylife. When I tore my gaze away from the horror below, I looked up to find my own skin turning pale. My lips were blue at the edges, and my eyes were bloodshot.
The shades were going to kill me if no one could stop them.
Could I possess my own body? There was no time like the present to find out.
Maddox
The smellof rot erupted all around us. It shook Vince, but only for the barest moment. He jerked, and his gaze slid sideways for a heartbeat. I took the opening and lunged for his chest. If I could break through his ribcage, then I would be able to get to his heart.
Shifters healed too damn fast. Every time I landed a blow on Vince, it pulled back together in the span of a few breaths. My own wounds healed almost as fast. Without Addie’s arcana at my disposal, I was slower to heal, and it was costing me.
Vince ducked and rolled out of the way at the last second. I hit the earth and slid as I twisted to face Vince again. I tried to remember that there was a man in there, but when I looked at him, there was nothing in his stance that even resembled a person.
I didn’t mean that he was in his wolf form. It wasn’t as simple as that. I’d learned in my years as a detective that the eyes could give away everything that the tongue held back. That’s how I knew that Addie and her friends had all taken lives. The truth was in their eyes.
When I locked gazes with Vince, there was no one there. His soul had fallen to pieces, the threads so frayed that they no longer resembled a person at all.
He broke eye contact to stare at something beside me. I smelled it before I saw it. A corpse dragged itself past me. This wasn’t a complete zombie. It reminded me of Bastien’s army that he’d sent after Addie. She could raise extremely lifelike zombies, which meant that she still wasn’t in full control of herself.
The corpse grabbed at Vince’s leg. He jerked back from the one, but another held him from behind. It didn’t matter where Vince went. The bodies of his victims had him surrounded. Out here, I could see the damage he’d done to them.
Each body had a hole in their chest that leaked a black ichor. It wasn’t blood, but perhaps the same kind of corruption that Addie saw in their shades. Vince bit down on a corpse and worried it, shaking his head from side to side. The flesh tore easily, but the bodies refused to relent.
My stomach tossed at the sight. I didn’t dare think too hard about it. Now was my chance. I couldn’t focus on the horror that the shades were wreaking with Addie’s body. I had to use this to my advantage. Maybe then, the shades would release Addie from their grasp.
I braced myself to strike when Vince threw his head back and let loose a world-shaking howl. Beneath the sound, I could hear the snapping of threads. It shook me to the core and filled me with cold dread.
All around us, the world blurred. Darkness yawned like stretching shadows. Zombies plummeted into holes that Vince had ripped.
The ground beneath my feet ripped open. The void sighed and welcomed me as I scrabbled for solid earth again.