Not that I expect her to care aboutme.
My changed heart is my own cross to bear, my self-imposed calvary.
Eyes forward.
Father strides to the center of the room. “Greetings, Magi, and welcome to the Conclave Scientific Center. Today we celebrate the ascension of a new coalition. This is the beginning step to a new world order.”
The heavy doors at the far end of the room slide open and the two Hart doctors walk in, and being dragged along between them?
A child.
A boy—no older than three maybe?
The kid has the hollow eyes of a broken soul. He slides a little thumb into his baby mouth and the pathos is excruciating.
The overhead lights hit the child’s skin and I see a faint, shadowy movement of dark energy beneath the child’s pale skin.
Just like the kid who was mutilated to ‘gift’methe dark essence.
Shit. Fuck. Fuck them all. I want them all to die.
Behind the Harts follow the two Russians I met at the Capitol earlier; Ambassador Raskolov, and his second-in-command, Ivan Soltin.
The Ambassador looks gleeful.
The fucker.
A lab flunky accompanies them, wheeling a stainless steel hospital cart into the space. Tyrus really should have sprung for something a little more gothic.
"Positions," Janine Hart directs. She looks to my father. “Your Eminence?”
Eminence.
Cocksucker.
“Proceed,” he replies.
And the chanting begins. Jonquil takes the familiar curved knife from the rolling cart and slices into the kid’s wrist. The dragon beneath my skin screams for release.
Kill. Destroy.
My Father begins a new incantation, after a few rounds Janine joins him. They chant as red mist swirls out of the little boy’s bleeding wound.
Jonquil, a little nervously—because he’s a complete pussy, cuts the wrist of the Ambassador.
As the rhythm of the incantation picks up, the air temperature in the room drops.
The toxic taste in my mouth doubles, turning bitter and oily. Strangely, the sigil that binds me to my parent only tingles slightly.
Ever since Theodora saved me from the black essence, its power has faded to almost nil.
Into the hypnotic soundscape, the boy lets out a thin, high-pitched wail, then drops onto the floor.
Before I even understand what I’m doing, I take a step forward.
—DON’T—
Freeze.
