Davina screamed again, this time her voice layered, two tones fighting for dominance.
He didn’t stop chanting. Jared’s palms glowed so bright they lit the entire room, light battling the shadows pouring off Davina’s skin.
Barnaby was pale, but he kept the camera steady. “This is… unbelievable. She’s splitting at a molecular level. Her aura’s in two places at once.”
Corey’s eyes darted between Davina and Jared. “And that means what exactly?”
“It means,” Jared said through clenched teeth, “if I stop now, she dies.”
The floorboards creaked beneath them as the shadows condensed, forming a single, writhing shape above Davina’s chest. It pulsed once, twice, then plunged downward into her body.
Everything went still.
Jared’s glow faded. The frost on the windows began to melt. Davina’s breathing steadied.
Then her eyes snapped open.
For a moment, they were her usual soft brown. Then black seeped through like spilled ink until her irises were swallowed whole.
“Davina?” Lucy whispered.
Davina turned her head slowly toward Lucy, her voice low and broken. “You shouldn’t have done that.”
Lucy’s throat tightened. “We just wanted to help you.”
“Help?” A smile tugged at her lips, but it wasn’t hers. “You have no idea what you’ve released.”
Byron stepped forward, every instinct on guard. “Who are you?”
Davina’s gaze flicked to him and suddenly, the chains around her ankles began to rattle violently.
“He’s coming,” she hissed “Who?” Lucy demanded.
Davina’s head turned sharply toward her, a single tear running down her cheek. “My Master.”
And then every light in the house went out.
Darkness swallowed them whole.
The silver chains glowed faintly in the dark, until even they flickered out.
The light from Barnaby’s device was the last to die, flickering once before vanishing with a pitiful whine.
For a moment, there was nothing. No light. No sound. No sense of where the walls even were.
Then Lucy’s voice broke through.
“I can see in the dark.” She reached out, her hand brushing Barnaby’s jacket before gripping his arm and tugging him closer. Corey, still standing frozen, stared blankly into the black.
“Are you okay?” she whispered to him.
He swallowed. “I have terrible taste in women.” Lucy could only sigh in semi agreement.
They huddled tighter, breath mingling, heartbeats thudding in rhythm.
“Can you see her?” Jared asked. Lucy scanned the dark, at first, nothing, then the shape of the room stretched, bent at impossible angles, as though it had been folded into another dimension. The air warped in front of her eyes.
“She’s there,” Lucy said, pointing toward the far wall. “I forget you can't see, she's straight in front of you Jared” Her voice faltered. “Davina stood motionless, her body outlined by a faint glow.
