Page 6 of Marked By the Dark Lord
Open me. Use me. Open me. Use me.
The words were coming faster now. Repeating their message.
Free me.
The latch holding the thick leather binding closed shook and trembled.
Open me. Use me. Open me. Use me.
Gain your revenge!
Eyes wide, I reached for the book, the simple action igniting pain all over my body from my injuries. But there was no hesitation in my mind.
Fuck everyone who had ever hurt me.
Chapter Three
Mila
The instant my palm touched the leather around the buckle, an image seared into my brain.
It was a man. He was older, though how I knew that I couldn’t tell. His face could have been twenty-five or fifty, yet it was neither at the same time. Perhaps it was his eyes. They held a bluish glow, but that could have just been a trick from the book itself. What stood out the most, however, was that his eyes were slanted upward. That, and his pointed ears. His skin was blacker than any human I’d ever seen, like midnight painted onto his body.
The image was only there for a second, but the imprint it left on my mind would allow me to conjure it up with perfect clarity any time I wanted.
What followed was a surge of malevolence the likes of which I’d never experienced. My skin crawled with the desire to hurt others, to inflict punishment and revenge, all in the name of some twisted form ofjustice.
That, I realized, came from the book itself. As if it were possessed by some entity.
Now I hesitated. Would I unleash that unknown being by using the book? Who was he? Why did I see him now when the book had been unchanged all these years?
If that’s all it was, you would have tossed it the day the store disappeared. Yet you kept it. Something compelled you to.
And now it was compelling me to let it free. The voice was rising in my mind.
Use me. Free me. Use me. Free me.
With trembling fingers, I fumbled with the latch. I was tired of always being someone else’s punching bag. Of never getting the break that would help me lift myself free of my squalid circumstances. Why couldn’t I be the one to change my life? Why not me?
The light from the book pulsed, lighting my tiny hovel with a wicked glow before fading just as swiftly. On. Off. On. Off.
What should I do?
Revenge will be yours!
That was new. The thing knew what I wanted. It knew what I longed for. The scenarios I’d plotted out in my mind, the violence I’d dreamed against Sarabeth and the others.
Revenge.
The book flew open to a page, the letters on the thick paper foreign to my eyes. They were like nothing I’d ever seen before. Flowing and beautiful yet utterly alien.
As I stared at the page, my mouth started moving, and harsh sounds emerged without my consent. I looked at the words in shock and a tiny bit of horror. Could I somehowreadthe language? How was that possible? I’d never even learned morethanbonjourin French, and it was the second official language of my country! There was no way I could know it.
I tried to back away from the book, to yank my eyes from the pages, but I was held fast, bonds of redsomethingcircling my wrists, keeping my hands glued to the corners of the book.
Pages turned on their own, and I continued to speak. Chant, really. The words rose and fell with a strange rhythm. The red grew more intense, filling every corner of the little brick alcove until I could seethroughmy hands it was so bright. I tried to cry out, but words continued to tumble forth.
Malice and delight danced in my blood, circulating through my arteries and veins, filling my entire body with their eagerness tohurt.
