The Night Everything Fell Apart (The Nephilim Book 1)(5)

Well, it was past time now. He dropped the chain over his head. He might have searched for a new touchstone for his magic, but this one, passed down through generations of his line, was the best tool to focus his magic. Now that he’d found it, he would...

He frowned. His goal was...what, precisely? The image of a woman—blond, tall, eyes like jade—appeared in his head. She was waiting for him.

But who was she? Where was she? Why did it matter so damn much? Sod it all, he couldn’t remember. His ancestors’ memories were murky rubbish. Memories of his childhood, however, were unfortunately clear. His gaze darted to the house. Leave, screamed the voice of his terrified younger self. Leave.

He was halfway to the door before he even realized he was in motion. He was on the front step before his brain registered a protest. He flung open the door and stepped into a narrow hall. Parlor and dining room to the right, library to the left. He strode straight ahead into the kitchen.

The shock of it hit him like a slap across the face. The room was in shambles—furniture overturned, floor strewn with shattered glass. Cabinets hung open. The calendar above the icebox, stuck to the wall with a tack, hung askew. His mother’s valise, the one with the embroidered roses, stood upright by the door.

Dark splatters covered it all. Floor, walls, furniture, even the ceiling.

Blood.

He didn’t know what he’d expected, but it wasn’t this. Nothing had changed, except that his parents’ corpses no longer lay in a heap on the floor. Mab must have disposed of the bodies. Maybe she’d returned to search for his mother’s moonstone. Luckily, she hadn’t found it.

Mab hadn’t killed his parents, but she’d shown up soon afterward. She’d claimed Tristan’s diamond touchstone right off his dead body. It had become a decoration on her whip handle. For seven years, each time Arthur had seen his father’s gem, each time he’d felt the lash of the whip’s hellfire, his hatred of his clan’s new alpha had burned hotter. Maybe that was why, while the rest of his brain seemed to have turned to muck, his memory of Mab remained clear.

The farmhouse table lay on its side, a rusty smear slashing across the spot where Arthur had eaten his daily porridge. On the floor nearby, a larger stain marked the place where his parents’ bodies had fallen. Their blood, dead and dry, was all that was left of them.

Anger and grief, helplessness and hopelessness, rushed in on him. A high-pitched tone rang in his ears. The shriek escalated with each labored breath. It twisted inside his skull, scraped through his brain. He pressed shaking hands to his ears. No good. The noise was inside his head.

His stomach turned. Wave after wave of unreality assaulted him. Everything around him turned...strange. Unreal. Where was he? He looked wildly about the room. Enamel sink, copper counter, oak table. Stained floor. Suddenly, none of it looked familiar.

Sweat broke out on his forehead. Where was he? How had he gotten here? Why had he come? Acid panic burned in his veins.

Get out. Get out now.

And go where? He couldn’t think of a place. He didn’t, he realized with lurching dread, even know his own name.

Who the hell was he? What was he?

Air. He needed air.

He crossed to a window. The glass was muddy. He grasped the sash and shoved. It didn’t budge. He looked closer. What he’d thought was mud was blood. A thousand droplets of dried blood.

He balled his fist and smashed the glass. A jagged edge sliced his thumb. He staggered back, staring at the crimson trail running down his forearm. His heart banged. His lungs worked like a bellows. The blood ran to his elbow. Dripped to the floor.

Crouching in the garden, peering in the window. A tall man, a Nephil. Pale and gaunt. The hem of his black cape brushed his knees, the edges of its crimson lining like streaks of blood. A ring on his left middle finger bore a golden face as its signet. It looked like its wearer... Lips pursing, eyes blinking...

Dark gold hellfire, whipping from the Nephil’s hands, sharp as a blade. Slicing through Father’s neck. Blood spurting. Spattering the window. Father’s body, crumpling. Falling, falling...

The murderer and his ring, both smiling...

The scream began in Arthur’s gut. It pummeled a path from his diaphragm, to his ribs, to his throat. His lungs sucked air. His mouth opened, but his cry emerged in silence. Living, shaking silence, vibrating so fiercely his tendons threatened to separate from his bones.

Power streamed through his body. It blasted from his hands. Pure white light, consuming everything in its path. The kitchen, its contents, its memories. For an eternity, or perhaps only for an instant, there was nothing but brilliance.

And then there was only nothing.

He fell as if dropped by an unseen hand from a great height. His hip struck something solid and pain shot down his leg. He lurched to his feet. His knees buckled. He grabbed the edge of the sink.

Long moments later, he righted a fallen chair and lowered himself into it, rubbing the lingering pain in this thigh. When his breathing had slowed and his heart was no longer pounding like a drum, he stood. He looked—really looked—at the room around him. And froze.

His brain struggled to make sense of what his eyes saw—or, more accurately, what they didn’t see. His parents’ blood—on the floor, on the table, on the window—had vanished. The squealing echo in his skull was gone, too. Silence—pure and ominous—remained.

He passed his hand down his face. What the fuck was going on? He’d done magic again, without planning, without knowing, without even being aware of it until it was over. Once again, his memory had failed, reducing his life to dark and ragged fragments.