“Oh Brandon, I’m so happy that you can handle me,” I purred in his head. Then I took over, forcing the beast out. Bones broke, fur sprouted, a trembling roar broke from my mouth, and cold seeped out of us making the room’s temperature drop.
Caspian and Mothman were forced out of the room as I did it, no extra space for the giant beast, twirling his long tongue in the air.
It was a shame this wouldn’t last. I really liked this body but I could feel Brandon’s soul rejecting mine already. It would be a slow process at least. There was enough time to save Ava.
“Let’s go,” Caspian insisted and I turned my massive body to look at him. I stepped forward, a chuckle coming from my mouth as I cracked the skull’s teeth together.
“We need to take a detour on the way,” I said, bending my neck to be more at his height. I rolled my tongue up his arm and he jerked away from me.
“Detour?” He snapped.
“The cult’s cabins. They left some people behind. I sensed them when we walked by earlier.” I sniffed him. He smelled good, meaty. Despite being a soul connoisseur, I’d never dined on human flesh. This would be fun.
“Why do we need to go there?”
“I’m hungry,” I growled, fitting myself through the doorway and heading for the front door. “And Brandon is too.” I ran from the house and went to all fours. It wasn't a natural motion to my mind but I didn't interfere and muscle memory allowed the body to basically autopilot in whatever direction I wanted.
I raced towards where I had smelled the cultists. They were gathered in one of the cabins together. I could feel their life force and blood calling to me.
Caspian and Mothman had fallen behind and I didn’t wait for them. I burst into the cabin, startling the people there. There were six. Six delicious bodies and fresh living souls. Guns went off and their wails of pain were like music to my ears as claw and tooth ripped bodies in great bloody gashes. Bullets burrowed into my flesh but as I ate both body and soul, the bullets were expelled and the wounds healed in an ichorous haze.
By the time Caspian and Mothman arrived the only noises were the crunch of bones and sick slurp of marrow being sucked from inside and sliding down my throat. Power sloshed and gushed internally and I was giddy with delight.
They stopped at the doorway and looked on at the carnage. For a moment, I considered eating them too. For a moment, I considered what I could do with all this power.
“Ava,” Brandon hissed in my head. I huffed and pushed those thoughts away.
“Come on,” I said, pushing past the men and taking off back up the mountain one final time.
18
When I woke up, it was to a hollow sensation in my soul. A piece of me was missing—cut off like a limb, the wound cauterized before I even got to mourn the loss. I looked down at my missing finger.
Makwa was gone.
He alone had saved me from what fate had in store with that cursed splinter and he’d done it selflessly. He’d done it all for me—the possession, leaving the cave, fighting this cult, demanding I learn from him, even helping save my men. Losing him was worse than I ever expected.
I wasn’t sure if he was even alive. I wasn’t sureanyof them were alive. The depths of despair were trying to drag me under as I groggily came to.
This felt like the end. We’d tried over and over again to beat this. We fought, killed, and cried. How many people had died? How many wounds had we suffered?
My eyes cracked open. My thoughts felt thick and scrambled. A deep humming was in the air that slithered into my ears and wrapped around my mind. The sound was unsettling and the earth felt like it was vibrating.
We were on the peak of the mountain. A bald spot of earth where the trees didn’t grow. Slabs of rock were beneath me and my shackles had been removed.
I realized gunshots had woken me up when I saw the two men who followed Ben with bullet holes in their foreheads. Victoria slammed her gun back in its holster.
I made a noise and Ben’s head jerked around to face me. My eyes widened at the sight of half his human face torn off. Instead of a gruesome display of muscle, it was bone. A stag-like skull similar to what he’d attached to Brandon’s face and had made all his now dead followers wear for rituals.
A red moon was in the sky like I’d seen in a dream days ago. A flash of red lightning lit up his face and my eyes trailed up the long, jagged horn protruding from the skull half. The only explanation was magic, something he’d done with those strange words. The human visual of Ben was just a full-body mask that concealed and reshaped the truth underneath.
The sky looked like a furious ocean, clouds rolling and crashing like waves. Red lightning sparked like an angry beast. The wind blew cold and hard, taking my breath away.
I’d never seen a red moon like the one I was looking at. Like a pendant full of blood. The wind whipped furiously, and I half expected the sky to break open and weep bloody tears.
Beside me, a rock jutted up from the earth in the middle of this clearing overlooking the rolling mountains. It was the size of a table and solid. Crude curling symbols were drawn into it. A sound was coming from it, a low hum and a high whistling that pierced my ears harshly and made my stomach roil with nausea.
My brain strained as my senses were overwhelmed. I gasped, my hair whipping around wildly. The trees in the surrounding mountains and valleys thrashed wildly, their branches like limbs chaotically moving in panic. They felt alive as if they wished to uproot themselves and crawl away.
