Chapter 3 The Thing Inside Him

Lucien's scream tore through the darkness, and before I could reach him, something slammed me against the kitchen wall hard enough to knock the air from my lungs.

I tried to call his name, but the words caught in my throat as black shadows spilled across the ceiling, twisting into long fingers that reached toward my face. The silver charm around my wrist burned against my skin, and the voice inside my head returned, whispering with the same familiar tone I used whenever I spoke to myself in moments of fear.

He will destroy you again.

I clenched my eyes shut and forced my magic into my fingertips, drawing a small blue circle in the air. The shadows recoiled, releasing me so suddenly that I dropped to my knees, coughing as I struggled to breathe.

"Lucien!"

Something moved near the broken doorway.

For one terrible moment, I thought the creature had returned, but the figure that emerged from the darkness was much taller, its shoulders brushing the ceiling and its limbs stretching beneath a body made entirely of black smoke.

Two golden eyes opened in its featureless face.

I knew those eyes.

They belonged to Lucien, but the thing looking at me was not the man I remembered.

"Adrian," it said, using Lucien's voice, although every word sounded as though several people were speaking at once. "Come here."

I pushed myself upright, my heart hammering against my ribs.

"Where is Lucien?"

The creature tilted its head, and a row of sharp teeth appeared beneath its eyes.

"He is tired. He has been fighting me for so long, and all because he cannot accept what you did to him."

"I don't believe you."

"You should." It took one slow step toward me, and the floor cracked beneath its feet. "You were the one who opened the gate, little witch. You were the one who called me into his body."

A flash of pain tore through my head.

I saw the basement again, the flames licking the ceiling, and Lucien kneeling before me with blood running down his chest. I remembered the silver knife, the strange markings carved into the floor, and the terrible feeling that something was watching me from the other side of the world.

But I also remembered Lucien reaching for my hand.

Don't let it take you, Adrian.

I stumbled backward as the memory broke apart.

"What are you?"

The creature's smile widened.

"I am the reason your beloved is still breathing."

A sudden burst of golden light erupted from its chest, and Lucien's body appeared inside the smoke, suspended as though invisible chains held him in place. His eyes were closed, and dark markings covered his throat and arms.

I reached for him without thinking.

The creature caught my wrist.

Pain shot through my arm, and my magic flickered as the shadows tightened around my fingers.

"Your power belongs to me," it whispered. "Your blood opened the door, and your blood will open it again."

I gritted my teeth and pulled against its grip.

"My power belongs to me."

The creature laughed, and the sound made the windows tremble.

"You sound just like him."

Then a voice rose from somewhere inside the smoke.

"Adrian, don't listen to it!"

Lucien's eyes opened.

For a moment, the creature's hold weakened, and I saw the man I had loved staring at me through the darkness. His face was strained, his golden eyes filled with pain, but he was still fighting.

"Run!" he shouted.

I could have obeyed. Every sensible part of me begged me to escape the apartment and find someone who could explain what was happening, but I had already spent five years running from memories I didn't understand.

I was not going to abandon him again.

Instead, I raised my free hand and pressed my thumb against the scar on my neck, where a faint line of magic had begun to glow.

I spoke the first words of a binding spell my mother had taught me when I was a child.

The creature shrieked as blue light spread across its smoky body.

Its grip loosened, and I tore myself free, stumbling toward Lucien while the floor shook beneath my feet. The spell was stronger than I expected, but every second I held it in place sent a sharp ache through my bones.

"Lucien, look at me!"

His eyes found mine.

"Adrian, stop! You don't understand what you're doing!"

"Then explain it to me!"

"I can't!"

The creature twisted violently, breaking one of the glowing lines that held it. A wave of darkness struck me in the chest and threw me across the room.

My shoulder hit the floor, and pain flashed down my arm. The binding spell dissolved, leaving only a faint blue spark above my fingertips.

The creature turned toward me.

"Such a stubborn little witch," it murmured. "Perhaps I should take your memories first."

It reached for my forehead.

Before its fingers could touch me, Lucien moved.

He tore himself out of the smoke with a roar, his body changing as he landed between us. Black scales spread across his neck, curved horns emerged from his hair, and his hands transformed into clawed fingers that dug into the floor.

The sight should have terrified me.

Instead, I saw the man who had once stood between me and a group of older boys who wanted to hurt me, the boy who had given me his coat during a storm and pretended he wasn't cold, and the friend who had promised that nothing in the world would ever make him leave me.

Lucien faced the creature, his whole body trembling with the effort of resisting it.

"You will not touch him."

The creature's expression darkened.

"He belongs to me as much as you do."

"He belongs to himself."

Lucien's voice shook the room, and for the first time, I heard something in it that was stronger than possession or anger.

Fear.

Not fear for himself, but fear of what might happen to me if he lost control.

He attacked.

The two figures collided in a storm of shadows and golden light, smashing through the kitchen table and sending broken glass across the floor. I scrambled toward the door, searching for a way to help without making the situation worse.

Then I noticed the symbols carved into the wood beneath the dead woman's body.

They formed a circle around a single name.

ADRIAN VALE.

My blood turned cold.

The murder had not been random. The woman had been killed because of me, and the message on the floor was part of a ritual designed to draw my magic out.

I knelt beside the symbols and touched one of the markings, hoping to discover who had created them.

The moment my skin met the wood, the room disappeared.

I stood in the basement of the Blackwood house five years earlier, with fire roaring around me and Lucien lying at my feet. A man in a dark suit stood behind him, holding my wrist as he guided the silver knife toward Lucien's chest.

I tried to pull away, but my body would not obey.

The man's face remained hidden, although I could hear his voice clearly.

"Once he dies, the creature will have a vessel, and the boy will forget everything."

Then Lucien looked up at me.

His lips moved, but no sound came out.

I watched the knife enter his chest, and the vision shattered.

I fell backward onto the kitchen floor, gasping for breath as the apartment returned around me.

Lucien stood several feet away, his monstrous features slowly disappearing as he regained control of his body. The creature had vanished, leaving deep cracks in the walls and a strange black stain across the ceiling.

He rushed toward me, then stopped when he saw the fear in my eyes.

"What did you see?" he asked.

I struggled to my feet, refusing to let him help me.

"You weren't the only person in that basement."

His expression changed.

"I know."

"There was a man behind me. He controlled my hand, and he made me stab you."

Lucien closed his eyes briefly, and the silence that followed was more frightening than any monster we had faced.

"You remember him?"

"No, but I saw his face clearly enough to know that he was standing right behind me." I swallowed hard. "You knew someone else was there, didn't you?"

He looked at me, and the golden glow in his eyes faded until they appeared almost human.

"Yes."

My chest tightened as I waited for him to explain.

"Who was he?"

Lucien reached into his coat and pulled out a small silver pendant, its surface blackened by fire. I recognized it immediately because I had seen it hanging around the stranger's neck in my vision.

The pendant bore the symbol that had been painted in blood on my door.

Lucien placed it in my palm.

"The man who made you kill me," he said quietly, "was your father."

I stopped breathing.

My father had been dead for twelve years.

And according to the official report, he had died long before Lucien and I ever met.