Hellfire

Chapter Fifty-Six

I strummed at the threads of blood of that hideous book I'd found as I sat in my chair, getting a feel for how the book breathed and pulsed eerily, and traced the spine to coax a wisp of a memory to come loose for just a second, promising me it held what Lucius needed. I tilted it about, then just tried to burn it. I poured all my heat into it, my desire to rend it in two, yet nothing happened to it.

'It's a puzzle.' Little One announced to me.

I glanced at her, finding her at my side and peering at it, those big icy eyes watching it.

'How do you know?'

'That's what daddy thinks. He's been looking at it when you're not here.' She glanced at me and smiled with that vibrant innocence of hers. 'He doesn't think you'll be able to open it and is going to do it himself.'

I smiled tightly, my teeth thickening with annoyance and suddenly finding the need to see him was now to burn him more than kiss him.

'Does he now?' I hissed out with a menacing breath. 'He's suddenly forgotten I'm great with puzzles then?'

Little One took a moment to think, feeling Lucius' thoughts. 'He thinks this one will just make you too angry.'

I snapped my teeth, spraying sparks of hellfire out. Fuck him. I could do this. I was calmer than ever, and puzzles were my calming tool. I could open that fucking door, I could open this.

With a huff and rush of ash, I made myself comfortable and gripped the book. I tried to take my time in my work, humming to myself and trying to see every problem I face as a puzzle as my fingers burned with silver flames, stroking the threads and the writhing flesh. I was beginning to feel the reset now, a snap shivering inside it when I grew impatient or made the wrong move. It required tact and patience, control of my hellfire to ensure I burned bright without alerting Morrigan.

But, even after days of tinkering and surrounded by notes of the pattern I was figuring out, I wasn't getting close to get opening it. I knew there were layers and layers more to go by the fact no even one of those threads had snapped. Morrigan was too strong and the protections on this bundle of memories she wanted buried too deep. I could throw whatever I had at her. I wasn't going to get rid of those commands or reach whatever she was hiding within that book in time to stop her waking.

In a spurt of overflowing rage, after eight days of trying to tackle this fucking thing, I leapt to my feet and threw it on the carpet, slamming my foot over it and just letting myself burn with a vicious roar.

'Fuck you!' I shouted with ash and sparks erupting from my mouth, silver flames rising from me like a pyre.

I hated it. I hated Morrigan. I hated what she was doing to Lucius and the knives she had against the throats of my family. I hated she was asleep and still proved much too strong. If we could do so little while she slept, what could we do when she woke? It made me so fucking scared of her.

I left Lucius' dreamscape then and dove to Morrigan's, stalking through the starry tunnel and trying my best not to grow alarmed at the growing number of demons drifting in the sky. I just focused on clawing my way through to her and throwing my fire at the first sign of her consciousness I found oozing out of the wall like a gross infection. I burned her. It was all I could do.

I eventually wound up in the Well, where Morrigan's hulking, mismatched shape was still encased in ice and surrounded by the commands she used to ensure no Vortigern could harm her. My focus remained on Lucius however, his presence overwhelming hers with such ease – sleeves up to his elbows, his predatory attention fixed on his job and on nothing else. I approached him and touched his chin and, while he didn't open his eyes or break his concentration, his phantom touch caressed the back of my neck with purring welcome and a whisper of hunger that made me shiver.