I tried to pull myself up but immediately swayed and fell over again. I pressed a hand to my swaying head as Victoria and Ben stepped closer. As she came closer to the rock she gritted her teeth and fell to her knees.
“It’s almost time,” Ben said as he looked out over the mountain, not bothering a glance at us writhing on the ground in pain.
“You’ve been the most helpful in all my years,” he said to Victoria. “Are you ready for your reward?”
“I’ll get to see the other world?” She gasped out, her eyes opening and closing as she struggled against the effect of the rock. I could feel it too, warbling my mind and making everything dizzy.
“No,” Ben said, finally sparing her a glance. Her face broke into confusion.
“I don’t understand. You said you needed me to get there. You promised me—”
“I lied. Just like I lied to all of them,” he said, waving his hand at the people she just killed. He reached down and tugged her gun from its holster, throwing it into the woods before he pulled out a strange knife.
She gasped and fought halfheartedly as he tugged her over the stone. He slid the knife across her throat as she looked up at him with pleading eyes, her hands on his wrist but no longer struggling. I began crawling away as he watched Victoria's blood paint the rock. It made it hum louder, a deep rolling cacophony of murmuring voices. I grabbed my head and yelled, the sound burying into my skull and trying to tear apart my mind.
Ben grabbed me, pulling me up and over to the rock. He stood on the opposite side, across from me. Victoria’s body laid by my feet, her blood a splattered mess on the rock table. The knife whipped across both my palms and I cried out, looking down at the red lines in confusion. I could barely keep up with what was happening and where I was.
Ben slapped my hand on the rock and I tried to recoil but his fingers bit into my wrist with far too much strength, like he was a tree that had grown around my arm and rooted me to the rock. I tried to scream as vibrations rolled up my arm, making even my bones feel as if they were shivering inside my body.
Ben tried to reach my other arm. I jerked away from him and he growled, the skull side of his face leered at me. There was nothing in the socket but inky blackness but I could stillfeelsomething watching me from within.
He lunged forward and snatched my shirt, tugging it so hard my chest fell into the rock. I cried out as I felt its power vibrate into my chest, making my heart feel as if it wasn’t in control of itself anymore, vibrating in tune with the rock. He grabbed my other wrist and slammed it to the rock so both palms were on it. I struggled but was unable to get out of his reach.
“The initial ritual with Brandon was a test,” he boomed over the winds. “You weren’t the first would-be witch I’ve tried to find but you will be the last.” The cuts on my hands made blood seep from me into the rock. It soaked it up greedily as if drinking it in. Ben began snarling weird words, his voice swept away in the gusts.
It felt like the world was tilting sideways. We were a ship at sea rolling disastrously upside down. Nausea roiled inside me, my head swam. I heard the trees creaking and snapping, limbs breaking off and crashing to the ground. The mountain itself felt like it was cracking open, this world was being torn apart.
Up was down and down was up for a disorienting moment before my sense of the earth beneath my feet snapped back.
I gasped when I saw the creature before me who once was Ben. A dark cloak thrashed wildly on its body. The hands wrapped around my wrists were made of wood. Its head was a massive deer skull, thick horns twisting and tangling. Little strings and bird-like bones hung decoratively from a pair of huge antlers. I felt his gaze from the dark sockets, a malevolent glare that made goosebumps strike up across my skin.
“You’re the key. Your blood was the final ingredient to open the door,” Ben’s voice came from the creature holding me. “A doorway back to my world.” I looked around with wide eyes. I could feel I was in another place, it seeped from the rock under my feet. The air smelled different, alien. The leaves were off-color, teal instead of green. The sky was still that thrashing sea of angry reds. A huge sun lay pregnant in the sky, much bigger than ours but dimmer and a furious dark red instead of yellow. I could sense things in the trees, creatures with sentience coming to look at what was happening.
“And you’re coming with me,” Ben growled, his wooden hands tightening on my wrists, hurting me. He tugged on my arms and I collapsed on the rock again. My cheek pressed into it. It was warm and its power pushed into my skull, scrambling thoughts into nonsense.
“You’ll never see them again. Not your family, not yourmonsters. You’re mine,” the skulled creature said. The stench of mold and rot was thick on his cloak. It thrashed in the wind, brushing my face and making its horrid smell come far too close. I felt sick.
Despair be damned. I would do whatever I could to end this, to win. To kill Ben, whatever the fuck he was. I opened myself up and stretched my consciousness around me, searching for the dead. I could feel my world still. It was here, layered on top of this one—two dimensions that mirrored each other.
I called to the dead followers of Ben, strewn across this ancient rock’s home. Their souls felt me, pulled close, reached out. Their hands pushed in my hair, wrapped around my arms and legs, touching me where they could, wanting close.
I ground my teeth and beckoned them closer despite the chills across my skin.
“Ava,” they whispered, their hands running over my arms, gripping my wrists.
Then I felt something else farther away. Something dead.
Makwa was a dark presence barreling forth—an inky, thriving mass of rage. He was alive or as alive as he could be. He wasn’t alone either, he was riding a cold presence that was growing closer and closer.
The ghost's hands slid to my wrists, their fingers gripping Ben’s wooden hands.
“Ben, Ben, Ben,” they hissed. Splinters broke off his hands. A keening noise of frustration came from him. He was forced to rip his his hands from my wrists as the ghosts frayed and cracked his body. When our connection was lost there was a sudden sensation of squeezing and then a pop. We were back in our world the moment both my hands left the stone. The strange other place was gone with a whoosh and a crack, like the slam of a door.
The hum died off, the dizziness and disorientation weathering away.
Ben was still in his other form though, histrueform. I got the feeling he wasn’t a shifter at all but had used some strange magic to wear someone’s skin as his own. Ben’s fingers grew into long sharpened stakes of wood as he swiped at the ghosts but he couldn’t touch them. He screeched in frustration, the noise grating. He swiped again and went straight through their bodies. He gave up and reached for my hand again.
A frantic howl resounded. The noise made a shiver drip down my spine like a deluge of arctic water.
