The cave mouth ahead was wider, taller. The air shifted. A prickle of cold, grasping death settled around like a putrid perfume. I didn’t like this one bit.
Walls flickered brighter as my senses peaked. The wet slaps of my feet on stone quieted. The ground below had transformed into something else entirely. Strange, brownish-green grass folded over, wilting withering rot.
Grass this deep inside a cave?
Then, something came into view. A shadowed mass lay in the grass ahead. No, not in the grass.Hoveringabove it.
I moved closer, my breath lodging in my throat. It was the deepest I’d ever been grounded in my ability. This felt different than any other time I’d used my power before. I wasn’t just sensing, it was a thing of itself, a muscle flexing, being used for the first time. Raw and undiluted force unlocked within me.
My skin went to goosebumps, then burned like I’d been lashed by a whip carved from ice.
It was an effort to hold in the scream, forcing myself forward.
My body unexpectedly locked.
Pogue.
His eyes were wide open, milky-white and hazed over. The lights were on, but no one was home kind of look—mentally checked out. He hovered inches above the decrepit grass. Thick, sickly tendrils wrapped around his ankles, wrists, and throat, like strings on a puppet. They twitched occasionally, jerking, as if . . .sentient.
Not only holding butdoingsomething to him.
Shit. Shit. Shit.
What the hell was this?
I willed my frozen legs to thaw, taking a slow, shaky step forward.
Until a creepy, sharp clicking echoed. Tiny bits of debris started to sprinkle down in front of my face. I tilted my head up.
My. Blood. Stilled.
Every drop drained out of me as icy fear swept into its place.
Just above me, clinging to the roof of the cave, was a night terror in the flesh. The old man . . . or so I thought.
He perched upside down, his cadaverous body unnaturally twisted like a spider readying to feed. His head eerily cocked to one side, eyes like black voids, endless and hungry.
Fear crushed my lungs. I didn’t want to breathe. Didn’t want to move.
Manwas too clean of a word. This thing was anit. Something dark. Or Ancient. Or wrong.
Its bones creaked. Slow, deliberate clicking sounded as it skittered across the ceiling. An arachnid on the move.
What the Fuckkkk!
I hated spiders. Hated them with a fucking passion. And this thing—watching it crawl. I wanted to cry. To scream. To yell. To run. To vomit all over myself. All at once.
“Pogue,” I whispered, my voice cracking.
“Pogue.” I said again, slightly louder, not daring more than that.
Goddamn it, snap out of it!
What had it done to him?
I could’ve really used that cocky asshole right now. The one who blindly grabbed hold of my hand and was dragged through hell with me so I wasn’t alone. That look on his face haunted me. He tried to protect me, to blast the beast away with shadows.Why?
A strange tightness curled around my chest. I’d kept those thoughts at bay, but there was no denying . . . I cared. Prick or not, I did.
