Toffee's Trick

Chapter 13

The journey through the twisting, forking corridors of the castle was long and terrifying. Star's heart was hammering in her throat. Her mind was in freefall- cold, icy horror and refusal to accept what Toffee had said. She would never accept it until she saw Marco's dead body lying at her feet.

Tom was using his hyper senses to smell where the monsters in the tunnels were. The smell of monster and human blood were very different, and every time he caught a wiff of human, it was infected with monster stench over the top. Any monsters they came across were instantly blown apart by Tom's fire. He was distraught and struggling to control his anguish and anger.

As they turned a corner, a strong stench of human blood hit Tom.

"Star! Stop, I can smell him," he said quickly, flinging out an arm to stop her. They proceded down the dank, cold hallway very slowly. Finally, Tom stopped outside a pair of double doors.

"He's in there," he said.

"Are you sure?" Star asked nervously.

"I'm positive," Tom replied steadily. "I can smell human blood. It's really strong. He... he must have lost a lot of blood already."

"Right," Star said shakily. "Let's do this."

Tom smashed open the doors with such force that the other two were thrown against the wall behind them.

Star ran in first. She stopped dead in her tracks.

She stood and stared at the tiny, tiny figure. It was too tiny, it was not Marco, not her best friend...

Tom followed shakily and stared down at Marco with a slack face.

Star was rooted to the spot, sure that he was dead. But then she saw it: the faintest raise in his hollow chest.

He was still breathing.

Well, not really breathing- panting, unsteadily and uneven. Shallow. Too shallow.

Tom shook his head and pressed his lips together, turning away and squeezing all three of his eyes tight shut, tears shining on his cheeks. He couldn't stand seeing Marco broken like this. It was more than he could cope with.

Star approached, taking it all in with tears filling in her eyes and her hands trembling.

Marco lay on his side in a puddle of his own blood. His clothes- the usual skinny jeans and grey t shirt- hung off him, and Star could see how skeletal thin he was. He had always been lean, occasionally a little pudgy around the waistline, after a big load of nachos, but who wasn't? But most of the time Marco had always been relatively slim, and Star could never imagine why he was always so body conscious, but this... His bones were practically on show and his skin, usually a healthy warm tan, was like off cream and stained parchment. It looked translucent and paper thin.

His face was slack and his eyes were half closed, strips of bloodshot white eye ball the only thing that was visible beneath his slashed lids. His mouth was hanging limply open and blood dripped from it onto the floor.

One of his arms was scrunched up under him and was crumbled and clearly snapped. Badly broken. Star's memory flashed back to when Marco had broken his arm when preparing for the karate fight against his arch enemy. She would give anything to have to deal with that situation again, instead of this one.

The other arm was hugging his stomach, and was covered in both dried and fresh blood from the gaping whole in his hollow belly. Star could see each individual rib through the rips in his t shirt and the deep stab wound was like a black hole: huge, deep and seemed to suck in all light and hope that he was still alive.

Star lowered herself to her knees beside him. Tentatively, she reached out a shaking hand and pressed it gently against his bloody cheek. Her breath hitched in her throat.
The temperature of his skin made Star instinctively pull away.

Icy cold.

As cold as her frozen brain.

"He's lost so much blood," Star said numbly. "Too much." She saw the black swirling in with the red and vomit came to her mouth and she wretched and the last dregs of hope were sucked out of her.

"Oh, Marco, what has Toffee done to you?"

He was infected with dark magic.