“Don’t worry, baby girl. You won’t live long enough to make good on that threat,” he said, his laugh coating my skin.
Gray touched a hand to the bone necklace, drawing my attention back to him with a ragged gasp. He leaned in, whispering in my ear as he smiled. “Do what you’re told, and I’ll let you kill him and raise him as many times as it takes for you to work out that anger.”
“And what about the hatred I feel for you? Do I get to kill you, too?” I asked, wincing when he stepped behind me and wrapped his arms around my waist once again.
He held me, that dark magic that existed within him drawing mine to the surface. He covered my hand with his, raising my palm to face Susannah. Her bones had started to heal, forming back into her original shape just enough that I could make out the horror on her face.
Her bones covered with raw, bloodied flesh as the magic sprang forward in dark tendrils. It wrapped around her as Gray raised his knife to my palm and slashed the skin. My blood dripped down, the dark tendrils swallowing it as it grew.
Susannah’s eye sockets filled with opaque flesh, muscles wrapping around her leg bones. Gray raised my other hand toward George, doing the same as life once again filled his features. Reversing the rot that claimed a body was disgusting work; their bodies a mess of blood and gore and organs.
When it seemed like Susannah would fill out with skin finally, Gray tore my hands down and severed the magic. The freshly grown flesh melted from their bodies, dropping to the ground as liquid. The thick, viscous blood slid across the floor, gathering in a pool just on top of the mirror and filling the space between the pile of organs.
George shook his head as the last of his flesh faded, leaving him as nothing but bones again. They sparkled for just a moment as he turned to face his other half, the Covenant reaching toward one another.
The tips of their finger bones just brushed against one another—the barest of touches—and the Covenant exploded into bone dust. I stared in horror at the space they’d once occupied, only turning my attention away when Gray spun me to face him.
His eyes were on mine as he placed his hand on top of one of my shoulders, steadying me against the panic I felt. Not knowing what he was doing, what was next, was almost too much to bear. The tip of his blade pressed into my stomach, pushing forward slowly as he held me still.
I gasped as it cut me open, sliding into my skin.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered, touching his forehead to mine as he pushed the blade into the hilt. I wheezed, gasping for breath as the white hot burning consumed me. “It will be over soon.”
The betrayal hurt almost as much as the knife. It felt as if it punctured a hole in my heart that would never heal. I stared up at him as tears streamed down my cheeks, whimpering in pain as he dragged the blade up and made the wound bigger.
I couldn’t breathe.
“Gray,” I mumbled, swaying on my feet as he pulled the knife free and tossed it to the side.
“I didn’t expect to regret this part,” he said, slipping his fingers into the hole he’d created in my stomach.
I pulled against his grip, tears streaming down my face as Ash screamed from the side of the room. Gray held my gaze as his hand filled the chasm the knife had made, grasping onto something and pulling it free slowly.
The fabric he pulled from my abdomen was stained with blood, wrapped around something curved and narrow. He sank his teeth into his wrist, pressing the wounds to my mouth and offering me the blood I needed to heal.
To heal the wound he’d inflicted.
Because he’d fucking stabbed me.
I struggled, pulling away as my hands covered my stomach and tried to stem the bleeding. “What is that?” I asked, staring at the rune covered fabric in horror. The symbols were painted in black, standing out sharply against the bright red of my blood. Gray continued to shove his wrist against my mouth, forcing me to drink more and waiting until my stomach healed before he answered my question.
Unwrapping the fabric, he held up a single rib bone and smiled.
“Blood and bones,” he said, turning back to face the pile of organs and blood. He held up the rib, and I watched from behind him in horror as the blood formed a vortex. It swirled around in a circle, getting taller and taller, but staying within the confines of the mirror. Gray glanced back at me once more, cocking back his arm as if he meant to throw the rib.
“No!” I screamed, taking a single step toward him just as he tossed the rib into that storm.
It absorbed it, a flash of purple light erupting through the space. The blood drained to the ground, evaporating and revealing the form of a woman standing on the surface of the mirror. She wore a dress of dark fabric so shiny it looked like liquid.
Her face was tipped toward the ceiling, her chin angling down slowly as I stared at her in shock. Her hair was the same auburn tinted ebony.
She opened her eyes slowly, a spark of pale purple shining out from each. She smiled, the expression softening the harsh lines of her face.
“Hello, Willow.”
39
WILLOW
I gaped as I stared at the woman, as the remnants of the Covenant’s blood dripped from the silk of her gown. She touched Gray’s arm as she passed, squeezing him with a familiarity that made everything in me freeze solid. She didn’t linger as she passed him, her slow, steady strides crossing the distance between us until she stopped just in front of me.
A single youthful hand raised to my face, cupping my cheek as she stared down at me and smiled.
“I don’t understand,” I whispered, glancing over her shoulder to where Gray watched our interaction intently.
“But I think you do,” the woman said, dropping her hand from my face and stroking a finger over the necklace of bones as she lowered it to take my hands in hers.
I paused, staring into those ageless eyes that seemed to see inside of me—that seemed to understand me in ways no one else did or would. I couldn’t explain the connection, or the way the weight of that stare made something inside me rattle.
“Charlotte?” I asked, my gaze dropping to her teeth as her smile broadened.
She nodded, squeezing my hands as I gaped at her. I didn’t understand what resurrecting Charlotte Hecate meant or why it was so important, but she turned to face my father with a glare before I could ask any further questions.
“You swore you’d bring back my sister!” he shouted, his face mottled and angry as he leveled that glare at Gray. The Vessel was unimpressed, cleaning beneath his nails with the dagger he’d since picked up from the floor as if he feared I may try to stick him with the pointy end.
I would, determined to repay that favor.
Charlotte advanced on my father, that slow gait of hers eerie and terrifying as she raised a single hand. My father gasped for breath, releasing the knife he’d held to Ash’s throat and grasping his own as he clawed at his skin. As he tried to free himself from the witch who was suffocating him without ever laying a hand upon him.