Verena risked a glance at the carnage Emon left in his wake, but also to something beyond it. Back to that bastard corner in the room where light didn’t reach, as if expecting someone to be born from it.
“Where are… the others?” Verena asked as she looked back to me, tears filling her hazel eyes.
Shocked to the core, I opened my mouth to ask her who she spoke about when the room broke apart with the sounds of pure horror.
Growls, hisses and the keening song of claws over stone shattered over the room. Everyone stopped, even Emon who retreated to my side, curling his obsidian body by my knee. The sounds came from every possible place of shadow, as if they were no longer mundane puddles of darkness but doors to a demonic realm.
Deep inside of me, where the light hadn’t touched for years, the shard of wrongness and evil jolted to existence, reacting to the display around me.
Before I could understand what was happening, someone began to scream.
“He’s here!” one Witch Hunter bellowed, drawing the room’s attention towards him. I flinched as a few bullets were shot, cracking against stone. “Someone, help me. Help!”
A tentacle of pure darkness had wrapped around his ankle, dragging him to the shadows where he disappeared. As he passed out of sight, his screams were gagged. Severed as if he’d never even existed.
“Arwyn,” Verena choked as more tentacles burst from the darkness, reaching and clawing for Hunters who were helpless against them.
He’d come.
Besides the way that dark part of me confirmed it, there was something different to the air that was beyond evil magic. Arwynwashere. I sensed it as if his bright eyes graced my skin, or his lips brushed my ear and whispered.
There was no denying how my body reacted to his presence.
I longed to cry out for him, but refused to show weakness. I didn’t need him. Not before, and certainly not now. In fact, him being here was exactly what Tomin wanted which in turn wasn’t a good thing.
Verena shot from in front of me, and placed her body behind me. Emon reacted, fangs bared, but Verena showed no sign of fear to my serpent. Instead, she placed herself at my back, and pressed a cold blade to my throat.
“Sorry about this,” she gasped as the blade nicked my skin.
I couldn’t move my hands anymore without the bindings completely severing them, so the gun was left trained ahead of me. Hunters, frightened for their life, ran around the basement trying to evade the tentacles of shadow. Some stayed stationed around Tomin’s lifeless body, but his protection was thinning the more the darkness attacked.
“When you apologise it should actually come across as sincere,” I replied.
“Listen. If your familiar attacks, youwilldie, and I really don’t want that to happen, Hector.” Verena stiffened as she muttered her warning into my ear, the athame steady and gentle as the sharp edge tickled my Adam’s apple. “Be smart. Call the demon off.”
Emon paused, sensing my own hesitation.
“Now why would I do that?”
Verena took a deep breath in, and listed off her reasonings in quick succession. “You must convince Arwyn to give Bahmet up. Send the demon back to his realm. If we destroy the gates, there will be no more trials, and Bahmet will be stuck. If youdon’t, Tomin will use you to claim Bahmet for himself, and such power in his hands will lead to destruction you’ll never begin to comprehend. He doesn’t want to destroy it, he wants to harness it.”
“Are you suddenly on our side?” I asked. “Clearly you think I’m stupid or something.”
“No time. Consider me Switzerland, Hector Briar, for I have no side.”
I didn’t believe her, not one bit.
I laughed, to the detriment of my neck, because the reaction caused the blade to nick skin. “The knife at my neck suggests otherwise.”
“Ask your demon for the truth,” Verena spat, desperation clinging to her tone. “See if I’m lying or not.”
Emon took his chance to filter into my mind and answer before I could ask the question.“This witch speaks the truth.”
“Tomin wants to destroy Bahmet,”I replied internally.
“Lies. You are suddenly quick to believe the man that took everything from you? Although, until that Hunter comes alive again, I will not be able to confirm otherwise. I can say the witch currently holding a blade to your neck is speaking the truth. Itmightwork if you?—”
“Take your hands off him,” came a voice from the darkness, rough as aged stone and ancient as the deepest parts of the oldest lake.
