Hellfire

Chapter Sixty-Four

With the utmost care, I gradually poisoned Morrigan.

Five days went by and two batches of the plague turned up in a small pouch in my room with the wisps of Elliot being left in the air. I didn't question how the lamia sisters were producing it so fast and so much - I didn't want to know either - I just cared I had enough that I could inject it into whatever flesh Morrigan demanded or slipped into a cup of blood. It was working though. I knew it was when I was in Lucius' dreamscape with Little One sitting next to me, and I managed to pull the book wider. The strings of blood sizzled beneath my hellfire, whining softly with dislike as I stretched the furthest I'd ever managed. I knew it when I traipsed into Morrigan's soul, finding less and less of her consciousness, saw it in how Morrigan sang to herself and drifted about the house like a ghost, and saw it in how Lucius was growing stronger – an imposing force within the Well and no Gabriel or demon in sight.

The plan was working.

Morrigan was weakening.

So, when Eva's bat stirred and warned me Morrigan was hungry, I almost skipped away with eagerness. The more she ate, the better.

But something...different happened as I slipped up Murien Street, observing the dead and finding ones that had limbs left. I ducked by the zombies and demons; both listless now. Demons hung from streetlamps and rafters, heads ducked under their wings as they slept alongside their mistress, and the zombies were staring at walls, unmoving as they gurgle and choked. I expected them not to move as I hunkered down next to one corpse and began to slice away the arm. They never moved. They just watched with their eyeless sockets infested with maggots and flies, ensuring no one touched the dead and launching onto those Morrigan didn't want to. As she wanted me to bring her food, I was always safe.

Except, this time, as I pulled out a naiad's arm and buried the cleaver clean through the bone, alarm shivered up my spine.

Hurriedly, with the alarm clutched at my chest, I rolled out of the way instinctively and jerked my head up to see the vampire zombie with his congealed blood-claws gouging apart the road. I stared in shock as it rose with that stiff, dead way I knew well, saw its rotting teeth sliding out of his mouth and how everything about it was locked onto me to kill.

It dove forward as I leapt up, kicking at the back of his head and hurtling myself further down the street, just as glass and doors shattered and wet, gurgling screeches began to echo. More zombies stumbled out of the once immaculate cafes and shops - lamia, naiad and vampire alike. Each one was a terrible danger. Most vampries could only summon the corpses of animals or humans, anything magicless, but Morrigan wasn't most vampires. Morrigan was archon. She could raise any dead she wished, sorcerers and their magic included.

I watched with confusion as they shambled forward, my hellfire swimming in my blood as I realised they really were hunting me. I didn't understand why though. Morrigan had asked me for bones, she wanted me here, and she was so lost in dreams and poison that she could barely speak.

But understanding why had to wait when the lamia snatched at the air and the earth beneath me began to rumble. I flourished away, avoided the jagged spikes jutting out of the ground, sharp as steel, and swiftly began to seek an exit as blood and ice began to rush towards me. I loped down the street, back towards the vampire I'd slammed into the pavement. At least they were slow, their movements jerking, but they were still faster than I was used to. I had to leap over the vampire when his claw struck out at my ankle, arcing brown, dead blood to carve in the wall beside me instead of my flesh. By the time my feet touched the floor, I ducked low, tumbling slightly, as a spear of stone whistled over ahead, spraying acid in its wake and stinging my skin.