“Fuck off.”
Don’t puke. Don’t puke. Don’t puke.
“Lucy’s right,” Axel said, wrapping a scrap of fabric torn from his own shirt around the cut on his palm. The same cut they’d used to heighten the black magic that now thrummed in Ti’s veins. “Kyra said it would hurt, but you’ll harm yourself until you learn to control the effluence. Being sick is good, it means you’re repelling the bad effects.”
“And not letting it settle into your little, innocent soul,” Lucifer added. “Us Daemons are a unique Breed, as you’re clearly figuring out.”
“There’s nous,” Titus hissed, dragging a hand across his mouth, and tasting copper. His attention slid to the hound, a hole in the centre of its skull that was still burning. A hole he’d created. By accident. “We already know I can hold more arcane, my chi responding faster than anyone else’s. That’s it, there’s nothing else.” Except any time he pulled on the new power, he puked his gut`s up.
Axel reached as if to touch him, and Ti flinched. “Kyra said –”
“I don’t care what Kyra said,” Titus growled, chest tightening at the guilt in Axel’s expression. “I’m not doing that again.”
“But Kyra said –”
“Fuck off,” Titus snapped, instantly regretting his anger. “Shit, I’m sorry. I just… I need a minute.” He couldn’t look at Axel, closing his eyes as he concentrated on every breath going in and out of his lungs, on the distant cars, and general noise of the city. On the wind that teased the strands of hair, and with it the stench of carrion, and rot from the hound.
Axel’s voice was soft. “You guys deal with this, I’ll go catch up with the others.”
Footsteps faded, and Ti swallowed the shame.
Fuck.
Lucy was right, Daemons were indeed a rare Breed. Druid magic was that of the natural ley lines that ran throughout the earth, electrical sockets that enhanced their chis into physical arcane. Both magically stronger, and weaker compared to other magic users, because unless they were standing in a ley line stream, druids arcane was nothing but a trickle at their fingertips. But when they did, their magic was unrivalled in power, until it consumed them. It was the reason his Breed specialised in healing and defensive magic, rather than offensive. And also the reason their ancestors found another way to hold all that magic without dying.
The ritual as a child had already made him, and his brothers, different, their bodies able to call, and control higher amounts of arcane due to the glyphs tattooed on their skin, amounts that would vaporise a normal druid. Syphons that helped them concentrate the arcane in much the same way the ley lines did.
But the new magic, the one that was alien to his chi, noxious, was something else entirely.
A woman walked past, hand tightening on the strap of her bag when she spotted them both hanging around the darkened florist shop.
“For fifty quid, you can watch,” Lucifer purred, and the woman’s eyes widened in alarm before she hurried across the road. “What, not into voyeurism?” He leaned beside Titus, an unwanted presence as he waited until the woman was out of sight.
“What’s wrong with you?” Titus muttered, ignoring the headache that was beginning to thump behind his eyes.
“Many things, but at least we won’t have her calling the police saying we’ve killed an innocent doggy.”
“No, she’s just calling them to say there’s two fucking creeps hanging around a darkened street,witha dead dog.”
A shrug. “I doubt she even noticed the dog.” Lucifer was pensive when Titus turned to face him. “You’re going to hurt yourself.”
Titus didn’t bother with a response, knowing Lucy would continue anyway.
“You’re fighting the black magic,” Lucy said, undeterred. “So it’s fighting you back.”
Titus frowned. “What the fuck does that mean?”
“It means you’re going to lose, and when you do, the black magic will consume you. Why do you think the success rate of the Rite is so poor?” Lucy shook his head. “For such a smart guy, you’re an idiot.”
“Fucking hell Luce, don’t hold back, would you.”
“The magic doesn't control you, you control it. Accept the power and stop trying to fucking expel it, because trust me, it’s not going anywhere.”
Titus spat onto the cobbled stones, clearing his mouth from the vile taste. “I’m fine.”
“That’s my point, you’re far from fucking fine. Axel’s only trying to help, and yet you push him away. I didn’t have anyone when I went through the Rite.”
“I’m notthroughthe Rite, I’m just…” Titus gritted his teeth, staring at the fresh tattoos along his fingers, ones that were trying to help him control his overcharged chi. “I don’t know, I’m not –”
