Bare Your Teeth, Wicked Ones

31. Wait For Me

Warning: Gore and violence

Nicholas

He couldn't breathe. Pressure weighed upon him. An inky darkness consumed all, blacker than a night sky without stars. Dirt stung his eyes, clogged his nostrils and lungs. He was trapped, encased, buried.

Let me out, he yearned to scream. Soil filled his lungs, weighed him down. He was a child again, taken, terrified, whimpering in the dark. There were no flames to conjure, no tears to cry, no fear to scream into the endless void. This void took and took, cementing around his flesh, creating a tomb where he would rot for eternity, no more than food for the worms.

Back then, Nicholas did not believe he would survive his capture. Laurent would be sorrowful of the loss of a shade, not a son. He had others that could did his bidding, and probably with less effort. He laid there in the dark believing he would never escape, that his life would end before it began and no one would miss him. No one would care. He could scream and scream, but no one listened, and he had never felt so pathetic, so little, so helpless and hopeless and pointless.

He felt the same now, confined by an earth promising an eternity of silence, but then warmth squirmed in his grasp and he remembered; William. Nicholas had lurched for him when Fearworn entered the room. He grabbed William's hand. The ceiling collapsed. They were dying together. In a way, nothing sounded more beautiful, but Nicholas had never felt so determined to survive, to escape, and he was not that child anymore.

Power singed his veins, shrieking, amplified, ready to burst, then it did. A blast sent Nicholas hurtling from the debris. Chunks of earth rained around him. Snow stung his cheeks and hands. He rolled through it, falling to his hands and knees. He spat soil across bloody snow. Noise pounded his eardrums. Explosions. Gunfire. Screaming.

Through shaded eyes, he blinked the soil away. The battle raged in a field like the end of time, beast, mortal, and fae tore each other apart. Blood, guts, and limbs scattered the landscape like bursting roots.

William strangled a cough at his side, shivering on his back. The dirt made his form hardly visible. Nicholas forced him onto his knees so he could spit up the soil he breathed in, then he took an agonizing deep breath. Charmaine laid beside them, trembling under the falling snow and wiping her face clean. William must have had a hold of her, too.

"Fearworn," William coughed. "Where..."

The ground trembled. Dirt rose from the hole Nicholas had created for their escape. As if a monster lived and breathed beneath the surface, the ground shook and swayed, rising ever higher. Then the soil cracked. Fearworn ascended within a turbulent violet mist that matched the fierce glow of his eyes.

"You, again," Fearworn said softly, almost kindly. His gaze fell to Charmaine. "You have come to steal my creation."

"She doesn't belong to you," William snarled. He tugged on Charmaine's arm to hold her against his chest. Her eyes rolled into the back of her head. She tried to speak, but coughed up more dirt instead.

"She was the first. I had many more tests to conduct, experiments to try, and you have ruined her." Fearworn's calm expression twisted into a fearsome rage. The skin of his face cracked like broken pottery, revealing vibrant violet lines the same colors as his wide eyes. "You've ruined her and now I must try again. I shall try on both of you. Yes, you will make wonderful subjects."

The snow came to life around them, icy tendrils that cut and grabbed. Above them, countless knives formed from scattering snowflakes. They descended as a halestorm. Nicholas raised his hands, creating a fuchsia shield. The knives shattered over his power and the tendrils slithered over the shield, searching for a way to break through.