Tobias’s retching echoes off the stone walls and makes it sound ten times louder than it actually is. And he’s retching pretty damned loud in the first place. The splatter of vomit follows shortly after each heave, and I can’t help but grimace in disgust.
‘Anyone would think you’ve never seen a dead body before.’ I watch him standing by the door as he hunches over and grips his knees, attempting to catch his breath and stop himself from vomiting again. ‘I suppose you were more of a “kill and move on” kinda man instead of the “return to the scene of the crime and gloat” type.’
I walk around the dark and dank cellar that I left Hendrix and Ava to rot in, reliving the last time I was in here with a twisted smile on my lips. I can almost hear Hendrix roaring with pain as he pulled out his own teeth. And I can certainly hear Ava’s screams as I gutted her. Now, the prison is devoid of the vampire, which vexes me greatly. I compelled him to remain in here after all. I guess that was almost three months ago. Perhaps my compulsion doesn’t last that long? Or maybe my wording wasn’t as solid as it should have been? Either way, Hendrix is gone, but the rotting corpse of Ava Sinclair remains in the very centre of the room. The stench of her still decaying body burns my nostrils and the taste of the putridness it creates lingers on my tongue. Flies buzz around her in droves and I cover my mouth and nose with my sleeve to avoid puking myself.
Remarkable, how similar this is to my vision.
Except for the glaringly obvious difference.
Hendrix is gone.
Toby has got himself upright and hesitantly turns to face me.
He’s become very squeamish since I forced him to reverse his Break three months ago, here in this very room!
I wiggle my finger and beckon him forward.
‘Come here, Mutt. Say hi to the girl that loved you so much it killed her.’
I don’t need to use my magic to compel him to obey. His fear of me has his obedience well in hand and he shuffles closer, stopping by my side with his head well and truly down.
‘Take a look!’ I tease, nudging him with my elbow. ‘You can still see some of her hair under all those maggots.’
He retches again and slams his hand over his mouth as I laugh.
‘It’s not funny,’ he whispers once he’s confident he won’t puke again.
‘Excuse me?’ I raise a brow.
‘She died horribly, Lilly. She’s-’
I grab the back of his neck and force him to his knees before thrusting his face into what remains of hers. He starts screaming and wailing as he claws at my hand. He’s heaving and gagging, all the while begging me to stop and let him up.
‘She’s only here because of you,’ I remind him calmly, still holding him less than an inch from her corpse. My Physical strength makes it so easy to move him as I please. He’s like a little doll. One I simply love playing with. ‘Everything she did, she did because of you. If it wasn’t for your influence, who knows what Ava Sinclair would have done with her life. Perhaps she would have married? Perhaps she would have trained to be a doctor and spent her days saving lives instead of trailing around after you, destroying them. Perhaps she would have travelled the world or fostered sick kittens. Instead, you created a creature that laughed as she held me down and celebrated when you killed your unborn child. A woman who raped your brother. I’m glad that she died hearing that the only person she ever cared about didn’t even like her. That she suffered a broken heart after I cut her open and left her to die.’ I shove his face closer, so his nose touches her flesh.
‘STOP!’ he pleads. ‘LILLY! PLEASE, LET ME UP! I’M SORRY I SAID ANYTHING!’
I make her remains twitch suddenly, moving the skull so her hollowed eye sockets meet his horror-filled stare. Her bones click and grind as I manipulate her form, making her arms encircle his neck and pull him into a hug. As he struggles and howls in horror, I make Ava’s grip tighter. Her skeletal arms pull him in further to her foul embrace. As he struggles, her jaw slips loose and comes away.
‘One day, I promise, you’ll be a mound of putrid goo and desiccated entrails too. But not for a long, long time, Toby Smith. Not until I get bored of making you suffer for everything you’ve done to me.’
I yank him back to his feet and grip his neck so tightly he goes rigid and can’t even yell out in pain.
‘I suggest you keep your opinions about what I do or do not find funny to yourself. Unless you want me to rip out your tongue and make you eat it. Or, I could compel you to lay down next to your old girlfriend and wait for the maggots to start eating all of your soft, easily bruised flesh? Am I understood?’
He manages the slightest nod before I toss him across the room. He hits the wall and slumps to the floor in a heap, gasping and trembling.
I return my attention to the room and cast my mind back to the vision I had less than half an hour ago. One that meant I had to return to this godforsaken place. After I saw images of the interaction between Grayson and Hendrix down here, as the rain hammered down and lightning streaked across the sky, I grabbed Toby and materialised here as soon as possible.
‘You had visions, right?’ I ask him. ‘A few years back. That’s what I was told. That you had the gift of Sight.’
Tobias nods as he scrambles to his feet.
‘I did,’ he tells me with a tremble in his voice. ‘I had the power of Sight, but as I aged and as my magic grew weaker, I lost it. You know that. I haven’t had a vision in over a hundred years-’
‘But visions are of what is yet to come.’ I gesture to the empty room and glare at him as if this is all somehow his fault. ‘If I had a vision of Grayson sneaking in here in the middle of the night and breaking out Hendrix with a plan to start a vampire revolution less than an hour ago, surely Hendrix should still be here! Where is he?’
‘It d-doesn’t w-work like that,’ he says quietly. ‘Visions are glimpses.’
‘Glimpses?’
‘Of the past. The present. Or the future. They are just glimpses of single events that need to be seen.’
‘Well, what good is that to me?’ I snap. ‘I didn’t need to know that Grayson and Hendrix had escaped. I needed to know that they were going to! Then I could have just come here, hacked off Hendrix’s head and waited for Grayson to appear and then… and then I would…’
‘Kill him?’ Toby offers. ‘If you kill Grayson or anyone linked to the immortality spell that binds me, my brothers, Collins and Theo, then all of us will die.’
‘I hate to break it to you, Mutt. But that spell isn’t linking you any longer.’
‘W-what?’ he asks.
‘Three nights ago, you blacked out. One minute you were just standing there then the next-’ I click my fingers and shrug. ‘You were out like a light. Ever since then, your magic hasn’t felt the same, and when I saw Collins, his magical aura had the same shift in it. Something about your magic had changed and I am guessing that the method in which Grayson intends to turn himself into… well, whatever it is he plans on turning himself into, meant that he had to sever the link between you all. Sorry, Mutt. You’re all free game now. I’d bet my… well, your life on it.’ I hold up my hand and let my flames dance over my fingers. ‘Shall we put it to the test? If I burn you to death right here, I’d bet my boots that the others wouldn’t even notice.’
Mutt shuffles back and chews his lip. ‘So Grayson may have already turned himself? All of us are vulnerable. Theo will come at us with full force if he has no fear of meeting his own demise right along with us. Lilly, we must warn Gabriel!’
‘DO NOT SPEAK THAT NAME TO ME!’ I yell. My black and white flames erupt on my hands as they ball up into fists and the very ground trembles. Tobias throws his hands over his head to protect himself, not only from my fire but also from the lumps of plaster that start to rain down on us. It takes a few deep and calming breaths to stop myself tearing him limb from limb, or from causing the house to come down on us both. ‘That man has chased me across the country for the last three months! He has hunted me like I’m a fucking animal!’
‘Because he loves you,’ he tells me. ‘He only wants to-’
‘To control me!’ I argue. ‘To take my magic and to use me for his own gains. To take what’s mine. Just like you did. Just as Grayson and Theodore want to do. Every Kendryk man thinks he has the right to own the Hooper Arcane. To use me up and spit me out! To tell me what to do and how to feel. He wants me to finish his spell or help him keep control of his coven or-’
‘Gabriel only wants to help you!’ He gets to his knees and puts his hands together, begging like a mongrel. ‘This isn’t who you are. He can save you. He wants to save you. Please, Lilly, just go to him! Stop this! In the last three months, the things you have done, the people you have killed and now with Collins… He’s your friend! Your family!’
‘He’s her friend. Not mine. To me, he’s leverage.’
‘Against Gabriel?’ he asks, desperate to know what it is that I am planning and why I am doing the things that I am doing. ‘Why do you need leverage against Gabriel? He would do anything for you.’
‘He took control of me!’ I narrow my eyes on Tobias, remembering how Gabriel managed to take control of my actions the last time we met. ‘He had me standing stock-still as he stalked towards me. He forced me to move as he wanted. Had me kneel before him. He made me weak and at his mercy. He took my free will away. I will never let that happen to me again. This way, I will be in control. He will do as I command.’
‘You know that’s a load of shit,’ he says with a surprising amount of conviction. My silence is more out of surprise than anger. He raises his gaze to meet mine. ‘You’re scared because you know that when you see him again, Lilly, the real Lilly, will find the strength she needs to push you back down deep inside. Their love is stronger than your hatred and you know it.’
Perhaps he’s right. I’m certainly aware of the fact that my Unbroken side got extremely vocal last time I saw Gabriel. And his compulsion is undeniable. If it weren’t for Mutt here, Gabriel would probably still have me. He’ll never let me leave if he gets his hands on me again. No way.
Gabriel.
I hear his name and instantly, I feel her scratching away at me from deep inside. Desperate to claw her way out of the hell I’ve locked her in. Her very own mental prison of misery.
Tobias drops his gaze from my penetrative stare and steps away.
‘He must have known that Grayson had escaped. I trusted him with one thing. To keep the man that tried to rape me locked up. To make sure that he suffered for everything he had done. He can’t even do that. He didn’t even warn me that he had got away!’ I gesture to the empty room. ‘How long has he been gone? How many days or weeks or months have Grayson and Hendrix been free?’
Tobias shakes his head. Of course he has no idea. How could he?
‘This wasn’t part of the plan!’ I snap.
I need to calm down. I need to focus. Plan. I smooth down my dress and take a calming breath.
‘What do we do now?’ Tobias asks. ‘Grayson and Hendrix are out there and they mean you serious harm. Not to mention Hunters and Theo too.’
I walk towards him, stopping close before I reach out and tap the end of his nose playfully, for no other reason than to see him violently flinch.
‘I need the journal.’
‘Rebecca Hooper’s journal?’ he asks apprehensively.
‘Of course Rebecca Hopper’s bloody journal. It’s always Rebecca Hooper’s journal. It’s a thorn in my goddamn side.’
‘But… why? You know all of Rebecca Hooper’s spells, right?’
‘Evidently not, seeing as I have no idea how Theo plans on resurrecting his dead mistress and in the vision, Grayson said that he had notes from the journal detailing how he could make himself a vampire. That’s what he is planning, you know.’
‘That’s impossible!’ he insists. ‘He’s a witch. A witch cannot become a vampire, and with the Veil in place and no access to the Arcane realm, Hendrix can’t turn anyone.’
‘Hence, why I need that journal!’ I snipe back. ‘Grayson has nothing more than a load of notes that Connor Quinn has translated. Gabriel still has the whole journal. I want that journal back. There are clearly things written in its pages that were not passed down to me from the knowledge transfer Rebecca Hooper performed after the first stone and I want to know everything that has been written in it.’ I let out an agitated breath.
This is a problem. I’m not too sure where Gabriel and the others are making camp. Their lives depend on discretion, and I’m so out of the loop, I have no idea where they could be and even less of an idea on how to contact them. Not to mention the dire possibility that as soon as I get within earshot of Gabriel, I’ll be dragged under his compulsion. As I ponder as to my next move, Tobis looks on. He seems to be attempting to read my thoughts. A look of deep concentration is etched across his face. He dreads my choices. Each one, he fears, destroys a little more of my soul. Or what remains of it. But with a wave of my hand, I put his mind at ease.
‘I’m tired. Let’s go and get some rest.’
‘Really?’ his surprise is both apparent and uncertain.
I nod and offer my hand, wriggling my fingers as he hesitates. ‘Mutt. Don’t make me repeat myself.’
No other words are needed. He takes my hand and squeezes it tight. Goosebumps erupt all over his skin as his breath hitches at the rare gentle contact. It’s kind of pathetic how his eyes look at me, so wide and besotted. I wonder, did I look at him like that when he was the sadistic tyrant and I, the willing and foolish puppet?
If only seventeen-year-old Lilly Hooper could see her precious Toby Smith now.
How disappointed she would be.
