DARK SOULS (Dark Souls Series) (36 page)

“Emily, am I dreaming?” she finally asked. “Why have these kids tied us up? Where are their parents?”

“I’ll get you out of this, Mace,” I responded, hoping against hope that I could. If I could only get out of my restraints. If I could only locate my power.

I had been inconspicuously rubbing the restraints around my hands against the sharp edges of the crumbling steel, but to no avail. I felt no slackening in the rope, no loosening of the ties despite using any remaining supernatural strength I had. I tried not to cry out in despair. What kind of magic rope was this?

The girl reached Macy and was quickly loosening her restraints. Were they going to let her go? I quickly stomped on that hope. No, they were preparing for something else.

The girl picked Macy up like she weighed nothing and dragged her in front of me, her legs trailing uselessly behind her. Fury flashed through me as I realized that they had hurt her.

When they had her centered in my line of sight, the other girl fastened her hands onto Macy’s other side, her talons digging into Macy’s skin and drawing blood. She cried out with the pain, and my heart cried with her.

I saw a flash in my peripheral vision, and to my horror observed that the boy was now holding a knife. He smiled at me, twisting the knife back and forth against the light of the fire before dragging it along his fang so it made a sound like nails on a chalkboard.

“If you do not do as we say,” he said, “we will slowly and painfully kill her.”

“Emily!” Macy cried, her panicked eyes boring into mine.

To emphasize his point, the boy dragged the knife across Macy’s exposed chest, just above her pink V-neck sweater, drawing a horizontal line of blood. She screamed again.

I pulled as hard as I could, fueled by my overarching need to get my friend out of this mess. She didn’t deserve to be here. I deserved to be in her place. I deserved to suffer for her.

“Nice try, Cambion,” the girl to the left said. “Our venom has weakened you. You will not break free so easily.”

“What do you want?” My voice trembled. “Just tell me what you want.”

“Your blood,” the girl to my right said, tilting her head and smiling. “We want to drink you and drain you and consume your very essence.”

Was that even possible?
My broken mind wondered. I hadn’t been told of any such possibility, but then, I hadn’t been told much. I was shocked the Leiches could even figure out what I was. I could have sworn both Ettie and Derek said all texts had been destroyed with the belief that all Cambions had been made extinct.

“Then
take it
!” I roared back at them. “Take it and let her go!”

The girls actually took a step back at the power in my voice, but the boy, he remained still and calculating, his gaze focused on the blood dripping onto Macy’s shirt.

It was then that I knew why they hadn’t just killed me and drained me as soon as they had sunk their fangs into me, why they dragged me deep into the subway tunnels and brought my friend’s suffering along with them. They wanted me to watch; they wanted to have a torturous show, filled with blood and knives and mutilation. They loved to brutalize their victims before killing, and they loved it even more when they had a petrified audience. I tried to hide the horror of that realization from my face and let the anger come instead. Power spiked through me as I let my anger build, and I soared with elation because of it. I could still feel my power.

I became distracted when, suddenly and inexplicably, I felt a cool pressure in my hands. It was cold as steel, so sharp that my fingers instantly nicked on the blade, droplets of blood slickening my grip.

“I’m sorry,” came a voice behind me, barely above a whisper.

The Leiches didn’t seem to notice it. The idea of torturing someone had distracted them, drugged them to excess. One girl was twirling Macy’s hair in between sharp pulls, smiling with pleasure at her yelps. The other was dragging her fang across Macy’s forehead. The boy remained stoic, observing his sisters casually, but I knew he was merely awaiting his chance; he wanted to inflict the most pain.

After a cool breeze against my hands, the voice behind the pillar disappeared.

But the sharp object didn’t.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

Keeping my gaze furious, forcing the Leiches to focus on me, I yelled and provoked them as I frantically ripped into my restraints with the sharp blade in my hands.

“You want my blood?” I asked them, baiting them. “Come get it! Come dig those fangs into me like I know you want to!”

“No,” the boy said, sharpness finally replacing the unnerving monotone in his voice. “We want you to watch first. Watch the human die.”

The girls looked confused. “But...”

“I’ve changed my mind!” the boy Leiche screamed, his true self beginning to shift underneath the boy’s body, his baby-fat cheeks caving in and his eyes sinking into hollows.

I moved the knife faster, understanding that it was only a matter of minutes before Macy really would suffer horribly.

I screamed as one of the girls whipped towards Macy’s neck, her fangs digging deep into her flesh as Macy cried out like an agonized, wounded animal.

“No!” I shouted as I dug the knife deeper into the bindings, not even wincing as the blade cut into the skin of my fingers as I frantically moved the knife back and forth, back and forth.

“You fool!” the boy screamed at the girl as he shot toward her, knocking her off her feet with a glancing blow of his arm. “What did I just say? What did I just tell you? Now she will die, and we cannot even use her for what we need!”

The voice that came out of the boy was too deep to ever be mistaken for a human voice, and the other twin who had still been steadfastly holding onto Macy released her grip and stepped back into the shadows, away from her leader’s fury.

I screamed again when Macy’s body slackened, her arms and legs twitching as the venom began to make its way through her body and she slumped forward onto the ground.

“Fight it, Macy!”  I yelled to her, my shoulders nearly dislocating with my struggles to get closer to her. “Please!”

The twin that was sprawled on the ground stood back up, facing the boy with stubborn bravery. She moved out of his shadow and back to Macy, latching onto Macy’s weakening body and lifting her up, holding her out to the boy as an offer. “You still have time,” she said, pleading. “I only used a little. I just wanted to play.”

Her voice had taken on a whimpering tone, and I could see that it calmed the boy. The twin that had retreated into the shadows scurried over, holding on to Macy’s other side as soon as she realized they were back in the boy’s good graces.

Macy looked up at me then, her hollow brown eyes glazing over with pain. “Help...” she whispered. “Help...”

I was desperate to save her. Every second that passed filled me with more terror as I flailed against my restraints, digging the knife deeper and not caring if I cut one of my own hands off. I needed to get to her. I needed to save her.

Finally, with a quiet snap, I felt the restraints give. I forced myself to keep my arms back behind me in order to maintain the illusion that I was still bound. The boy had turned his attention back to Macy, his own knife making its way slowly back to her neck as he attempted to get at least one small pleasure in before the venom killed her. But in his distraction, he had stepped closer to me.

Using the rage coursing through my veins and nursing it, cultivating it, I used my right foot to smash the tip of my boot into the boy’s legs, sending him sprawling, the knife tumbling from his hands and onto the forest floor. In that same instant I leapt up and out of my restraints, my hands moving to the front and slamming into the faces of the two girls, sending them toppling in opposite directions and leaving Macy reeling on her knees, suddenly on her own.

I grabbed her by the shoulders and mouthed “Sorry,” before I threw her forcibly behind me and screamed, “Run! Macy, run!”

She didn’t have to be told twice. She scrambled up to her knees and began a broken, feeble run, but not before the boy caught her by the ankles, sending her toppling forward and cracking her chin against the steel subway track. Her sagging form told me that she had been knocked out. I considered that a small mercy as I turned my attention to the boy and ran at him, body-slamming him to the ground and locking him down with the strength of my thighs.

The mysterious blade that was gifted to me was still in my hand, yet I refused to use it. I wouldn’t hurt the child within. Instead, I focused inward, mentally separating the thick, venomous liquid that had settled upon me and cloaked my powers. Now more than ever, I wanted to use what had been implanted in me long before my existence, growing slowly but deeply over the years, the source that had refined me into the weapon that I now was.

I wanted to be a Cambion.

The twins got back up to their feet and dove upon me, covering me on all sides. I knew their fangs were raised in anticipation of mauling me, draining me out of existence, my dark blood cascading onto the forest floor in hot streams.

That thought, the thought of me dying so quickly and easily before I even knew my own true powers, before I had even accessed my true capabilities, left me with nothing but pure wrath. The anger fueled me and pumped through me like a raging river, sending waves from my core and crashing into my arms and legs so hard that I practically felt the impact of the red fury as it rocketed forward and dissolved the poison in my veins.

The darkness roared, freed from her venomous chains. She was back.

I roared in kind as I felt her heat behind my river of fury.  I threw my arms out, sending the girls tumbling like weightless twigs. I clamped the boy on the ground with my legs so hard that his eyes widened with sharp pain. Knowing that time was of the essence, I bent over him so a hand rested on each side of his head.

“Who has the power now,” I whispered to him, my eyes scorching hot and ready.

His eyes widened, and I saw the fear. I pounced upon it.

The more demons you consume, the more evil you will become,
Ettie’s voice whispered through me, the words so clear it almost felt like she was there, watching in sorrow as I was about the consume the three most powerful demons I had ever encountered—watching as my darkness would use their powers to consume me. The part of me that was still human pushed her warnings up and into my mind, pleading and urgent.

But Macy. I had to save Macy.

I would do whatever was necessary to save her.

I gathered the stale air around me, feeling it as a tangible thing, sucking it in and feeling it form into a circular sphere inside of me. I used it to push at the demon within the boy, feeling him struggle against my force, but knowing it was futile. With one forceful blast, I sent an explosion of energy towards him and inside him, expelling the demon out of the boy in one fluid motion.

The demon rolled out much like the last one had, and I gave him no time to right himself as I let go of the child and pounced on him at the same time I sent one leg out and kicked at one of the twins who had been brave enough to try and dive at me again.

I grabbed onto him, holding him by his slimy shoulders and smiling as he shrieked with pain. Locking my eyes on to his, my jaw opened, and I dove.

He crumbled beneath my grip while that sweet, succulent bliss flowed into me, and I greedily sucked down more.

When I was finished, I straightened out of my crouch and faced the other two, both of whom were frozen in place and watching me with frightened awe.

“
Only I get to have this power.
” My voice, filled with dark melody, carried to them like an index finger curling upwards, beckoning. “
You want to come to me...”

And they did. They walked over to me, my power drawing them to me like flies to honey. I gripped each of them with my hands as I forced their demons out, sending the children falling weakly to my feet as the demons stumbled out behind them.

I had never taken two demons at once, but I relished the thought, the darkness thundering like a storm inside me. I took a giant leap, high into the air, my knees bent up and into my chest, my feet pointed like a dancers’ with my arms spread wide, and I landed upon them, my hands finding their foreheads.

They writhed in pain, but not for long. I held them down and inhaled their blue smoke before they even had time to utter one final sound.

NO! Emily! Not you. NOT YOU!

I cried out in pain as the voice tore through my mind once again. I raised my hand to my head in confusion and pain as I began to register that this time, the voice didn’t sound deafening and furious like I had come to expect.

It sounded anguished.

Gasping and breathless, I slowly made my way through the dark fog of my thoughts, like treading water in a thick swamp. I lay back on my heels, my hands held out behind me and sinking into the damp ground for balance.

“E...Em...”

Macy had woken up. Her head rested sideways on the ground, facing me. Though she hadn’t moved from her slackened position, her eyes were alert and focused in my direction.

I used my tongue to check for my fangs. Were they still there? Was Macy seeing me as the monster that I really was? Her petrified gaze told me that this could be so. I could still feel the warm trickles of black blood on my chin.

“Macy, no. It’s not what you think,” I said as I crawled to her, trembling and bleeding.

“You’re a...you’re a monster,” she said, tears welling in her eyes. “Please don’t hurt me. Please.”

A sob reached up and ripped through my throat as I registered her sheer terror.

“I’m not, Macy. I don’t know what I am, but I know I’m not going to hurt you. Ever. I swear. Please.”

Now it was my turn to beg, my hand reaching out for hers. Though too weak to sit up, she recoiled from me, her trembling arms skidding against the soiled floor as she tried to get away from me. Her eyes were glazing over. I knew I had to act quickly, before the venom completed its job. I didn’t know what I was supposed to do—I felt so lost and ignorant in the face of such limitless power. But I did know that if I could do anything, if I had to give up every single droplet of power in order to do one last thing, I would do it. I would give up everything I possessed in order to save Macy.