Page 42 of Possess Me at Midnight
Through tear-blurred eyes, I blink at him. Shock gives way and fear sets in, so cold and absolute, like a hard knot in my belly. I shiver. “I can’t hide from reality. None of us can.”
His shoulders tense. Frustration flashes across his harsh features. “No one doubts your bravery.”
“Then stop acting as if I’m too fragile to cope. This is terrible and wretched—the worst thing I’ve ever seen, but we have to move forward. MacKinnett…”
I can’t finish that sentence, and Ice doesn’t force the issue. “Let’s find him.”
My teeth chatter, and I wrap my arms around myself. Swearing, Ice grabs my hand again, squeezing it, bringing me near. His heat warms me almost instantly, and again I’m incredibly grateful for his presence. For him.
Bram would have immediately ordered me away from this horrific scene. Marrok, Duke, and Lucan—all overprotective, too, shielding me from realities they deem too harsh. Shock would look out only for himself. And Tynan? I don’t know him well enough to trust him.
Ice is protective, but he doesn’t treat me as if I’m made of glass. He lets me help, even if reluctantly. Again, it strikes me that in the middle of madness, he’s the one sane person I can rely on.
Leading me to the next door, Ice tenses as he approaches. No sounds, no stirring of life. Just the acrid scent of embers and the sickening smell of death.
Behind the second door, we find nothing but destruction. Furniture, pictures, pottery, draperies all smashed, fractured, shredded. But thankfully, no more bodies.
Behind a third door and a fourth, the same. We’ve reached the end of the hall.
Which leaves only the cellar.
“Is it possible he escaped?” Ice asks.
“MacKinnett had human connections through his late mate. He wasn’t the sort of wizard to leave his wife’s human companions to suffer their deaths alone. I want to think, for magickind’s sake, that perhaps he got away. But…”
Ice draws my cold form against him, clasping his fingers in my hair, soothing me with his palm. Again, I feel incredibly comforted by his closeness.
“Let’s check the cellar, then.”
I don’t want to, God knows. It’s likely to be a chamber of horrors. But I have to be strong. Magickind needs heroes. That’s always been Bram’s role. Without him, Ice and I will have to do.
Silently, we trek down the stairs, back to the foyer, then to the kitchen. This room, too, lies in shambles. Pans litter the floor. Flour scattered over every surface of the counters and stove. An apron tossed over a lamp…and the rest of a cook’s clothes scattered across the counters. The Anarki had rigged ropes at each corner of the nook’s table. Blood darkens one side of the ropes, and I can almost hear the screams still echoing.
A little boy’s toy truck lies under the table in a pool of blood. I look away, shuddering, fighting tears. Ice draws me closer, kisses my cheek. “Go back to the car. Check Bram.”
Bless him, Ice is trying to spare me the horror to come. Shaking my head, I dig down for strength, refusing to give in to fear. I will not leave magickind without hope. I will not stop fighting.
“I’m going with you to the cellar.” When an argument gathers on Ice’s face, I plead, “I need to do this. Please.”
Clenching his jaw and no doubt holding in a curse, he nods and opens the door that leads down to a dark, windowless cavern.
Immediately, I’m assailed by the scents of charred flesh, blood, and hell. A shiver shoots through me again.
“Stay here,” Ice barks.
“If you go, I follow. Do you see a light?”
With a grim shake of his head, he starts down the dark steps into the utterly black room. Hands on the hard ridges of his shoulders, I follow, my legs so weak and shivery beneath me that I fear tumbling down the stairs. But I push on.
At the bottom, I grope the nearby wall for a switch. He does the same. A moment later, artificial light floods the room, glaring and stark. And I scream.
Inches from us lies what remains of Thomas MacKinnett. My scream dies in my throat as the horror registers. The man who once bounced me on his knee as a child, who brought me sweets and told stories of ancient magic, has been stretched across a makeshift grate like an animal for slaughter. His wand—a wizard’s most precious possession—lies broken beside him in a final act of desecration.
The Anarki had set him aflame, burning away his lower half to ash, but deliberately stopped the fire to leave his torso and face intact. His mouth gapes in an eternal scream, his eyes bulging with the terror of his final moments.
Ice’s hand finds mine, gripping with a pressure that anchors me to the present. Neither of us speaks—words are meaningless in the face of such calculated cruelty. But in the silent communication of our clasped hands, a vow forms between us: Mathias will pay for this. We will make sure of it—together.
MacKinnett’s death proves in the ugliest, most tangible manner that Anka wasn’t lying. Whatever her association with Shock, and his with Mathias, it’s obvious Mathias plans to put himself in a Council seat.
