Page 144 of A Bond with the Dark

Hattie unleashes her power of sight to make the grimspawn see things that aren’t there, a few swinging and missing beings with no form.

Contemplating what the fuck I can do against these horrid beings, I summon that new power and thrust it at the beings with the hoods. The orange netting falls over them and evaporates, but there’s no reaction. None of them seem to be hastened by their fears.

In a terrified state, all that is left for me to do is wait for them to come after me.

Everett pierces the one attacking Ollie through the middle with the fireplace poker, and that gut-wrenching, skin-crunching sound befalls my ears again. He morphs into Ollie, confusing the grimspawn, getting it to chase him a few feet away from the actual Ollie.

Bash has yielded a giant shard of glass from the pile of the remnants of the table that had shattered earlier and slits one’s throat, the sight of which causes me to almost vomit. I bite back the bile and watch as the grimspawn falls to the floor, its head wobbling entirely too far back behind himself to recover. Bash then stomps his foot and embraces the Earth’s vibrations, using it to shove one with his power across the room and into a wall.

“Dom, up now!” yells Jasantha.

Dom is still in his siren trance, watching nothing but the floor.He lurches up and shoots for one about to bombard Scarlet, but as he does, another grimspawn shoves a long sword through his back, which runs him through to the hilt, dripping blood.

His scream pierces the air, echoing through the cabin, as an intense burst of light engulfs the space, reminiscent of imprisoned lightning breaking free. Concurrent with the grimspawns’ unrelenting onslaught, a hiss of smoke begins to snake upward. Amidst the chaos, the thick white smoke swirls, creating a gust that tousles my hair.

A pungent scent of sulfur lingers within the billowing fog, leaving a bitter taste in my mouth. Emerging from the haze, a colossal figure materializes, defying the limitations of mere malevolence. Seven feet tall, at least, she exudes a sinister presence, an embodiment of darkness. Her hair, a river of white, flows down her back, crowned with a dark circlet that frames her foreboding horns jutting from her forehead and adorned with intricate black embellishments. Eyes devoid of color gaze into the depths of me, and a word that doesn’t exist in the realm of terror takes over me. Pointed black nails with dark jewels punctuate her eerie presence. Draped in a black dress, her unnaturally pale skin radiates an otherworldly luminescence, surpassing the confines of the ordinary. Describing her as the epitome of evil feels insufficient for the darkness she embodies.

As the smoke dissipates, Bash rushes upon the warlock, jumping on her back and biting down on her neck in such a murderous, animalistic fashion that he looks like a rabid wolf attacking a bear three times his own size. Black blood rushes down her white skin, and yet she makes no motion like she’s in any pain or that his bite is hindering her in any way whatsoever.

Abruptly, he stops his rabid attack. The lights flicker, and when they do, black blood covers his face and drips down his neck, and his eyes take on the same hue, drowning the blue completely. As he slides down the warlock and focuses on me, what’s beyond his eyes terrifies me more.

My death.

Hattie extracts the sword from Dom, and his blood, saturating his shirt, trickles down his front and pools on the floor in front of him. Pressing his hand over the wound to staunch the bleeding, he limps over to Everett. Three assailants are closing in on Everett, who wields an enormous axe I hadn’t seen before, viscously hacking one’s head off.

As Adaline chants her magick words, trying to get the artifact to come to life, wind whipping her hair around furiously, Bash arrives at me, and when he kneels down to pull me up, I know it’s my turn to die.

I stagger to my feet at his hands, yanking me upward, and the last thing I see before I die is the fragments of his shattered blue eyes in the black depths the warlock summoned in him.

Barring his fangs, he turns my head to the side, bites into my neck, and the agony comes.

The searing blaze starts at my toes and rapidly spreads this time, faster than it ever had in the dreams. Quickly, I’m engulfed in flames, seething up before my eyes. The smell of charred flesh and burnt hair flares up my nose, and the unendurable pain ravages my every pore, every sinew of my life, the very molecules that make me burn. Bash backs away before he burns, too, the fractured blue of his eyes coming back together to form the most agonizing look as he becomes aware of what he did.

“No!” Dom’s scream echoes as he rushes to me as fast as his injury will allow, the wound made by the grimspawn not yet healing in his chest. The flames have risen so much and are so intense and hot he can’t get any closer to me.

The eerie part about it is I make no sounds.

As the flames ravage me, there’s a pulling at my soul that lifts me up out of my body. Watching myself burn from above, I can observe the rest of the battle omnisciently.

Feelings of utter sorrow almost plunge me into darkness as I’m being held aloft in that cloud of heat from my own being.

I’m never going to see Gauge grow up.

No pain on Earth can compare to the agonizing thought of not being there for my son. Knowing the loss of a mother to a child, I can’t bear the thought of Gauge having to go through that, too. Sadness rips me apart and I feel that more than I feel myself burning.

But why am I not disappearing?

Down below, Everett is pulling the axe out of the grimspawn on the floor and viciously hacking another one, savagely pulling it out and repeating this action a few more times, spattering blood all over the walls and himself. He truly gives his Viking image that barbaric, brutal, and ferocious air he has about him.

Jasantha parts her lips, releasing her wail; that piercing melody reverberates through the air, and two of the other grimspawns crumple to the ground, subdued by the haunting sound. Adaline remains steadfast, continuing her incantation, her gaze locked into the warlock, who observes the unfolding events with a detached fascination.

My body has finished burning and is all but ash when Dom finally gets to me, bleeding onto my ashes from the wound in his chest that has not yet healed. I feel sad, like the wind on the ocean, cold and lost with nobody around to feel me. No one knows I’m still here, floating above the chaos. I wonder if I would soon see my mama. That thought gives me hope.

Unaffected by the siren song, Bash, with black eyes once more, advances toward Talora. Swiftly, he snaps her neck and begins the gruesome task of draining her blood.

That’s when the strangest thing happens.

As the drop of blood from Dom’s wound descends onto my ashes, an intense pull seizes my soul, drawing my essence back to the charred remnants of my former body. The flames flare back to life, distorting my perception with swirling waves of heat as my body undergoes a mysterious transformation. As my bones and muscles and tissues and fibers sew themselves back together, the swirling notion is euphoric; there is no searing pain; instead, I sense my form expanding, and I find myself standing on my feet once more.

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