The Mesmerist(48)

I close my eyes for a brief moment. Immediately I feel it—?a warm tingling at my forehead. In an instant, a trail of white smoke floats from my head to Malachai’s, but at the same time, a sharp pain stabs me in the stomach, like knives twisting in my gut. I bend in on myself, gasping. I feel as if I will die. My thread of smoke vanishes.

“You have not the strength to compel me, girl,” he says.

I’m not going to compel you, I swear to myself. I’m going to kill you.

And then Malachai opens his mouth.

I shrink back, for it opens wider than any human mouth should. And out of it pours a smoke so foul and thick, I feel as if I will choke.

Open your mind to me, darkling, I hear inside my head. Open up and let me in!

The smoke spills from his mouth and weaves its way toward me. It is full of wriggling shapes and red spots, and makes me think of disease and sickness, a terrible pox.

“If you will not walk with me willingly,” Malacahi threatens, “you will walk by my side as an undead thrall.”

He steps from the circle. I can smell his breath now, hot and coppery, even though he is several feet away. It has the rot of the grave about it.

His smoke brushes my forehead, and pain sears my stomach again. I close my eyes, trying with all my might to remain standing.

“I am going to take the power from your mind, girl,” he hisses. “It will leave you jibbering. Do you know what trepanation is? A small hole is drilled into the skull. Just enough to leave you babbling like the idiot you are, but forever.”

A weak light pulses at the edge of my vision. I narrow my eyes to see Emily stirring on the ground. Her light is still pulsing, spilling around her small body. She reaches out a hand to Gabriel, who touches her fingertips.

I hear a sound, faint at first, but steadily growing louder. Something is running—?something fast and heavy, with footfalls like drumbeats.

Malachai turns away from me and peers down the tunnel.

A shadow leaps from the darkness.

A tremendous weight knocks me backwards. Sharp claws rip at my clothes. A ghoul! I reach out to grapple at the creature’s neck, but I don’t feel human skin. I feel . . . fur?

I look up into wild yellow eyes—?eyes like an animal’s.

But these eyes I have seen before.

“Darby!” I shout. “Darby. It’s me. Jess!”

The creature cocks its wolfish head. Does she know it’s me? Saliva drips from her teeth.

Malachai’s smoke slithers away from my head and coils around the wolf’s body. He is trying to compel her.

“Darby!” I shout again, struggling to breathe, for her weight is crushing me. “Your name is Darby. Come back to us!”

The wild light seems to fade from her eyes.

And at that moment, as if a clock has just chimed, she scrambles away and lunges at Malachai, knocking him onto his back. His cloud of smoke still clings to her wolf body, winding around her paws and muzzle, but Darby is not hindered. Her snapping jaws are just inches from Malachai’s throat.

He is holding her at bay, pressing her neck with his thumbs, trying to keep her jaws from clamping down. I look around for a weapon, something I can use. Anything! But there is nothing. Gabriel and Emily rush to my side. Emily’s light is pulsing stronger than before. The cut Gabriel suffered is worse than I first thought. The wound looks deep, and blood runs down his face in thin rivulets.

“What do we do?” Emily cries. She looks ready to rush in and lay hands on Malachai, but I pull her back. “No! It’s not safe! You could be slashed.”

Slashed, I think. Like me. Not knowing if you will wake up one day with the skin of a wolf.

Yet . . . if Darby is a wolf now, it must mean that I am not infected. If so, I would surely be a wolf too.

Gabriel takes a deep breath, and a low sound comes from his throat. My heart races faster. My hands tighten into fists. A surge of energy pulses through my body. Light flickers at Emily’s fingers and the ends of her hair.

Malachai throws Darby off, and she crumples against the tunnel wall with a sharp whimper.

“Stupid beast!” he shouts, standing up. He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand and turns to me. His thread of smoke swirls from Darby and streams around my closed mouth. I feel it rising into my nostrils. I can’t breathe!

Bloodcurdling screams ring through the tunnel.

Ghouls with skull-like faces and red eyes appear from the shadows. They are coming to their master’s aid.

“For Bran the Blessed!” Emily shouts, and charges into the oncoming horde. She is dancing between them, her hands a blur of motion, lit up as if aflame, and the ghouls burn like thin parchment at her touch, their corpses dissolving to ash.

“Be at peace, darkling,” Malachai says to me. His smoke is curling into my nostrils. I try to breathe again, but my mouth opens and closes like that of a fish on land.

I reflect on the idea of thought made material. I close my eyes and imagine a snake squeezing its prey.

White mist flows from my head—?a long, bright cord, and at the end of it, five spiked tails fan out, just like my own lash. I reach up . . .

And my hand closes around it. I can feel it. It is solid. It is real.

I do not have time to marvel at it, but only to do one thing.

Within you lies strength yet to be discovered. Like your father . . . and your mother.

I grasp the ethereal whip and strike out.