My feet skid to a halt on the black marble floor so abruptly I nearly topple face-forward. I try to lunge again but remain rooted where I am.
I cock my head without resisting further, pondering the oddity of just having forced myself to stop. Do I now possess in human form the equivalent of a gut instinct? Did it sense some peril to me I’ve failed to take into account?
I assess the Fae queen, her shadowy outline beyond the Silver. I hold the spear in my hand. There is no peril to me here.
I lunge forward again.
STOP.
My foot returns to the floor, mere paces from my goal. I’m so close I could reach out and touch the Silver.
The voice was mine.
But it wasn’t mine.
Who, then? Is there some other entity inside me that has been cleverly concealed from me all this time? The voice didn’t belong to the sniveling MacKayla. It is fetal, catatonic within me. It crumbled when I let It watch a single one of the glorious murders we’ve committed. It imploded beneath an onslaught of the illusions of guilt, complicity, regret. What the fuck is regret? I’ve never fathomed that muddy mix of emotion. It could never speak with such a voice.
This was a voice of power.
Who is it? WHAT IS IT?
DESIRE, PURPOSE, AND COMMITMENT TO THE PATH I CHOOSE TO WALK, MacKayla says in a voice just like mine.
I’d be rendered immobile if I weren’t already.
What has It done?
HOW has It done it?
My mind whirls, dances, and skids across bits and pieces of the facts of MacKayla’s existence I have tirelessly gathered over the years. I know this puny creature! I know Its limits, Its weakness. I know what It is capable of. AND NOT.
Ahhhhh. I would narrow my eyes and smile if I were in control of our vessel but, at the moment, It holds me motionless.
It has not tried to move my body. Has not tried to back me away. It can’t. No more than It can sustain this emotionless state of temporary power It has achieved. It’s an amateur, a rank pretender, aspiring to a throne it can never hold.
I giggle. “I’m flattered, really, but get over yourself, MacKayla.” It felt dead to me because It had IMITATED me. It did something I’d not thought possible for one born so flawed. Shed emotion like a skin It could doff and don at will.
Did MacKayla study me as I studied her?
No matter.
I AM THE REAL THING.
It is not.
I do what I’ve done so many times before, reach for Its subconscious and feed It vivid images to manipulate and distract. Exploit that oh-so-exploitable part of It. I show It what It did to Christian, to Cruce, and wait for It to shatter.
IRRELEVANT, is Its toneless reply.
Incensed, I flood It with graphic details of the moment I ripped Margery’s still beating heart from her breast.
DISTRACTION, It says without inflection.
I feel my right foot draw up from the floor then move BACKWARD as It dares to try to move me AWAY from my goal, so near, so near!
Behind me, the boudoir door crashes open, and I hear shouts of “Place the stones! Quickly!” Then Barrons roars, “Cruce, you fucking bastard, do it or die!” Snarls fill the air and I hear a scuffle.
I’m filled with fury, apprehending MacKayla’s plan. It doesn’t have to sustain Its emotionless state forever, just long enough to hold me motionless and permit them to contain us. It would see itself locked away with me forever simply to prevent me from achieving my rightful place in this world! How unfair! How positively PETULANT It is!
I play my trump card.
I slam graphic images into Its brain: finding Jo and offering her the poisoned water.
Grabbing her by the shoulder, smashing its fist into her face again and again. Shattering bones. Exploding brain. Kicking and pulping organs.
Sinking to the ground.
EATING Jo SLOWLY and with great GUSTO.
YES, YES, I tell It, YOU ARE CORRECT, THAT IS WHAT WAS IN YOUR TEETH. BITS OF JO WERE CAUGHT BETWEEN THEM. YOU ATE YOUR FRIEND. YOU KILLED HER, AND I MADE MY EYES GREEN FOR HER SO SHE DIED BELIEVING IT WAS YOU.
I feel It then.
The weakness I’ve come to know and cherish in my lovely bird in the cage. The surface of Its false facade cracks and emotion begins to seep in. It is so easy to break, so simple to control. I can never be broken in such fashion. I am superior.
Before they have time to place the final two stones, I recover control of my body and leap into the Silver.
As we pass through the gelatinous membrane, I realize, with utter incredulity, that I am being SCRAPED from MY limbs, MY eyes.
The bitch has somehow taken control BACK!
Then we’re through, mere inches from the queen, and MacKayla yanks me up short, a strike of a spear away from my goal.
All I require is control of my hand to kill the bitch queen and take what is mine.