Chapter Eight
Drained by the healing circle with the guardians, Sera made it back to the hotel on instinct alone. The oppressive darkness she had sensed earlier still lingered at the edges of the building, but it no longer pressed against her with the same hungry force. Whatever the guardians had done, it had bought her a little time. She showered, slipped beneath the covers, and fell into a sleep so dark and deep it felt merciful. An hour later, whispers began to fray the edges of her rest. Soft, sibilant voices coaxed her toward waking, urging her to open her eyes, to rise out of the blankness. She rolled onto her side, searching for comfort, and forced herself still. The voices came again. Whispering. Calling her name. Sera opened her eyes and sat up slowly. Blue moonlight washed the room. No one stood near her. The faint must of old, locked-away books hung in the air, but beneath it came something else: the sound. The whispers. At first, they seemed to drift from beyond the door, somewhere down the stairs. Then they shifted closer, as if they had gathered at the threshold. She shivered.
She eased out of bed, her bare feet landing softly on the carpet, and crept toward the door.
A cold tingle climbed her spine. She stopped with one hand near the latch and turned. Behind her, where moonlight failed to reach the corner, Caliban crept out of the darkness. Up close, he was too tall for anything human, his body stretched as if some giant hand had pulled him out of shape. His face almost resembled a man’s, but not quite. The nose was too thick, too long, more snout than nose. Coarse fur patched the ears that curved over the top of his head. The left side of his face had been flayed raw since she had last seen him in the cavern, as though Jack had carved away the place where the light had touched. Beneath the missing skin, muscle and veins glistened, leaking dark fluid down his chin. His teeth were canine. His yellow eyes held a wounded, doglike longing that made the snarl twisting his mouth even more terrible.
Sera held his gaze. Fear tightened her throat, but something else rose beneath it: pity, sharp and unwelcome. Caliban smelled of salt, old blood, wet fur, and Jack’s cold rage. He had gone back to his master and returned worse than before. In a low, guttural voice, he said, “He’s coming for you, Sera.” He inched forward, claws flexing against the carpet.
“What does he want?” Sera asked. Her healer’s instinct warred with the warning in her bones. The creature looked both ferocious and lonely, like a feral dog that had learned to expect the belt before the hand.
“Jack wants what he always wants.” Caliban drew his lips back from his teeth, the snarl tightening into something almost human. “A new sensation. A new body. A new way to feel alive.” His eyes shone in the moonlight. “Will you give that to him, Sera?”
“Did he send you to find me,” she asked, “or to frighten me?”
The beast lowered his head. When he spoke again, the words dragged out slowly, as if each one had been taught through pain. “Yesss. I found you. I told him. I do what Jack needs.”
Sera lifted a hand toward the ruined side of his face. Caliban recoiled so violently his shoulder struck the wall. “What happened here?” she asked.
Caliban’s growl thickened. “His punishments are terrible when I disobey. When I came back smelling of your light, he knew.” His eyes flashed, then dimmed. “He knows where pain hides. He knows how to make it last. But sometimes he rewards me. Sometimes he gives me a feast of my own.” A long red tongue slid over his lips, slick with saliva, and for one breath his hunger eclipsed his fear.
Every instinct told Sera to run. Instead, she reached for him again. This time, she did not touch the wound. She held her palm beside it and let the light gather there, warm and steady. Pure energy flowed from her into him. Caliban froze. The torn cheek stopped oozing. New skin drew itself upward from the ragged edge, fresh and pink, sealing over muscle and vein until his face was whole.
Caliban lashed out, his claws raking the air so close to her face that she felt the wind of them. “What have you done?” He pressed both hands to his restored cheek. Terror, not gratitude, widened his eyes. “Jack will be angrier.” Then he lifted into the night and vanished, thinning like mist swallowed by fog.
When he was gone, Sera stood trembling in the moon-washed room, exhausted and too restless to return to bed. She needed to cleanse the fear from her skin. In the shower, she scrubbed herself with homemade honey soap until the scent clung to her like a charm. Then she boiled water in the hotel’s in-room coffee pot and pulled herbs from her bag: fresh lemongrass to purify, ginger to wake her tired body, dill to sharpen her conscious mind, and bay leaf to open the sight she wished she could close. She poured the tea and sank into a chair, breathing in the steam as it curled around her face. For twenty minutes, she sat cross-legged and stared at the blank wall, letting each thought drift in, loosen, and pass gently out again. By the time the tea cooled, she knew what she had to do.
TO BE CONTINUED