Grave Visions (Alex Craft, #4)(90)

No. I couldn’t have absorbed the drug that quickly, could I? I didn’t know. I’d never used a recreational drug, and this one was a magical drug. Who knew how it behaved. That didn’t stop me from trying. But despite the growing sickness crawling through me, nothing left my body.

There was no help for it. I just had to get out of here. Get somewhere safe—which right now probably meant getting the hell out of Faerie. How long would it take for the drug to begin affecting my senses? I tried to remember anything useful from the victims I’d raised—but they’d all died. How helpful was that? Even the victims who hadn’t died from their hallucinations had died from some sort of magical burnout. I was fae, I had my own glamour, would that save me?

Three vials.

Shit.

I needed to get up. To get out. My head felt like it had been stuffed full of cotton, my thoughts sloughing through thick syrup to reach the front of my mind. I pushed upright and the world swam.

I swallowed hard, waiting for the dizziness clawing its way through my mind to clear. It took longer than I wanted, the moments passing with the pounding of my pulse in my temples.

My dagger was still several feet in front of me, and I crawled to it, picking it up. The familiar buzz against my hand, my mind, was reassuring. But what the hell could a dagger, even an enchanted, semicognizant one do to protect me from a drug?

Nothing. I had to get out of here. But I didn’t put the dagger away, instead I clutched it as I attempted to get my feet under me.

It took two attempts to climb to my feet, and as I finally reached them, a dry crackling sounded behind me. I stiffened, the skin along my spine going tight. I was alone in the room, I was sure of that. Which meant whatever made that sound, was probably created by the drugs.

I twisted, turning in slow motion, feeling like the extra in a horror movie. The stack of bones piled in the corner rustled, the entire pile shaking as if trying to dislodge the icy slush gathering on the bones. A skull tottered and then tumbled down the side of the stack. It rolled across the floor, stopping only a few feet from me, grinning its ghastly smile.

I stared at the skull for several panic-filled moments before my gaze darted back to the pile of bones. They rustled and cracked like dry reeds. Then a meaty hand burst from the center of the pile. A second hand followed, like a zombie clawing its way from a grave.

I backpedaled, trying to ignore the way the room lurched around me. I nearly fell twice, my feet tangling under me, my legs so very heavy.

I reached the far wall and glanced around. Ryese had gone this way, I knew he had. But now there was no threshold, no door.

Damn.

Had Faerie moved it? Or was I hallucinating it away?

My gaze jerked around the room, looking for where the door might have gone. There wasn’t a door. Not anywhere. The bone pile continued to shake as the creature in it pulled itself free.

I was so screwed.

I gripped my dagger tighter. It sang in my hand, but even its ever-ready bloodthirst did little to pierce the fog in my head.

“There is a door.” I told myself, trying to convince myself, Faerie, the drugged state of my mind—I wasn’t sure which—that it was the truth. Despite my words, no door appeared.

A head emerged from under the bones. Blood streamed down the thick, wide face, welling up from the skinned scalp. I recognized the flattened features immediately. Tommy Rawhead.

“You’re dead,” I told the hallucination.

The hobgoblin smiled at me, his long tongue darting out to lick chapped lips.

“You’re not real.”

Real or not, the bones tumbled down around him as he freed himself of the pile. He jumped clear, landing predator-soft on the icy floor. Then he turned, studied the pile of bones he’d emerged from and grabbed two thick leg bones, one in each hand. Lifting them, he swung them in front of him like a pair of bleached-white clubs.

He was a hallucination, conjured by my drug-addled brain. I knew he was. He had to be. I’d seen him die.

Then I’d cannibalized his soul.

Oh crap. Could the drug have found whatever was left of him inside of me? Could it have given it form, life?

No. No, that wasn’t possible. I’d taken his energy until his will alone wasn’t enough to hold him together. But I couldn’t actually absorb his being, just the life force. This was a hallucination. A living nightmare.

That didn’t stop a very real-looking Rawhead from stalking forward, lifting the bone clubs.

My grip on the dagger felt slick, but I didn’t dare switch hands long enough to wipe my palm as the hobgoblin stalked toward me. He was a hallucination given form by the drug and glamour. I knew that. And glamours could be disbelieved.

I dropped my shields.

The pile of bones glowed with the tortured souls still stuck inside. The hobgoblin, on the other hand, had no inner glow, no soul, nothing that should have given him life. He should have vanished with the confirmation that he was nothing but a hallucination, but Rawhead remained just as solid. Just as real. Glamour couldn’t create life, but Faerie had accepted this hallucination as solid, if nothing else. And since it was from my own drug-addled brain, I provided the live feed for his actions and personality.

Which meant I could change it right? Instead of a super-creepy bogeyman determined to rip me apart and suck the marrow from my bones, maybe I could redirect him into something nice. Something harmless. Something fuzzy and cute with a propensity for flower arrangement.