Page 143 of Lourdes & the Mafia
I’m looking partially at the stone ceiling and partially at a nighttime silver sky.
“Stay still,” Thuriel orders.
And then he’s next to me, staring down. That angelic halo around him dims and makes way to darkness. Black veins crawl up his neck and chin, his eyes already mad.
Then, he climbs over me, straddling me with his lithe hips and bearing his entire weight down on me.
My body jolts. “W-what are you doing?”
Of everything I thought he’d do to me, I never imagined this.
I’m frozen in fear for a split second, only jolting out of it as his hands come down against either side of my face.
“Don’t move,” he orders.
My body doesn’t obey. I start to struggle against him, pushing to shove his body off, but he bears down as if the use of all my strength means nothing to him.
I suppose it doesn’t when faced with an angel.
“Hold still, seer,” he whispers among my rising panic. “It will hurt less when you do.”
I gasp as a jolt sears straight through my brain. Like someone took a hot poker and scrambled things around. It jolts through my entire body and I jerk against him. My fear is gone, replaced with nothing but agony.
“There we go,” he whispers the words like a reassurance. “This is what I need.”
And then the pain drags me under.
And I open my mouth to scream.
Lourdes
White-hotelectricityfizzlesthroughmy body. Like fingers digging through my mind, reaching with a painful touch through my thoughts.
Scenes float fast through my mind and it feels like my body is falling through each one. Flames. Ocean. The suburb. A city. The clouds. Beats of an angel’s wings. A demon’s horns.
I scream as I fall. Talons dig into my skull, piercing past my flesh to dig into the bone underneath. Suddenly, the angel flies before me, and we are falling together. His fingers grip me tightly, and he stares into my eyes. Searching. Digging. His magic flows through me, a force filled to the brim with pain that has me convulsing against his sharp hold.
I try to keep my eyes open, but even as I close them, images overtake me. They fill through my system too fast until they gradually begin to slow as he seems to find what it is he’s looking for.
“Too much power,” a voice drawls. It echoes across the sky, booming and ferocious. “You have garnered too much power. And for that, you can no longer be a part of us.”
I don’t see what happens next, but I do feel it. I feel the cracking of wings. The exertion as I fall. The hard impact of landing on the ground.
Then nothing but agony.
I’m experiencing Thuriel’s fall like it was my own.
I can feel the rage vibrating through my body, my bones. I see the creatures of the void rise at his command. Just like I feel the flickering power jolting in and out of his body.
“You see it all.” His voice is a caress that I don’t want on my skin. “You are the all-seeing seer, but you do not even know the extent of your own power.”
He rips through my mind like an animal tearing through flesh.
“You will find the future that I want,” he growls, digging his fingers deeper into my skin. “And you will bring it into being.”
Fire flares behind my eyelids. I kick out my legs, but they seem to be tied down by something heavy. “I can’t!” The words are ripped from my throat and I taste blood on the back of my tongue.
“You can and you will,” he orders. “You are a fool for not honing your magic, but you will do as I say.” The images blur together until one appears.
