Page 39 of Dark Reckoning
Damon nodded. “One, and he's in quarantine. I need you to see if he's infected and if he is, can you help him?”
“Shit, we don't even know how to stop what this is that's infecting them. This isn't like some disease that a spell could cure. This Dark God is creating a new type of supernal. For all we know, there may be no reversal. At this point, all of our attention needs to be on the source, and getting rid of it,” Sage said.
Damon's jaw tightened, which clearly displayed his agitation, but he gave Sage a small nod. “What do you need to perform the barrier spell?” he asked, moving on.
“It's your lucky day, Damon. We'll be performing the same spell on your home as we did on Salino's, but just this location.”
“Since I'll be doing the barrier spells on your other houses, to cut down on time, please have your people prepare these ingredients,” I said, then listed the things I'd need to put the previous barrier spell we recently had on our home on Damon's other safe houses. Simple items that were related to the property, like soil.
“Why not do the same spell for all of my locations?”
“Well, for one thing, we don't have any more Dobinger Ash, which is necessary to seal the magic into the sigil. For another, it takes a lot out of us, even if we could get the ingredients, and we still have other spells to work tonight. Don't worry, the spell that I'll use is also very powerful. We trust it, and it's better than having no protection at all, which is what you have now,” I said.
“Very well,” Damon said, then turned to the griezel to his right and rattled off the order. She nodded, then headed off down another hallway with her cell in her hand. “We're here,” he said, then opened the door. He motioned for us to enter.
“You first,” Sage said.
Damon scoffed, but entered first. “As you can see, it's quite dead.”
Laying on a table in the middle of a room that looked like it was made for torture lay one of those creatures I'd seen in the vision. Its chest had been split open as there was an autopsy in progress. There was a griezel in scrubs and protective gear poking around inside the chest cavity. The three of us stepped closer and Damon began to explain more.
“Leonel barely resembles himself, his features are... distorted. So little of him is left. They found him skulking around his home, about a half mile from it. That tells me he was trying to stay in familiar territory. A little bit of who he was, his memories, I mean, were still there, but according to my griezels, he was like a savage beast as they fought. Fast, his mouth is full of jagged sharp teeth.” Damon looked at his doctor or medical examiner, or whatever the griezel was. “Explain what you've discovered.”
The griezel nodded. “Yes, my Liege.” He looked at Sage and me, then back at the corpse. He used tools to open the mouth and that was when I saw all of the razor-sharp, jagged teeth inside. I couldn't imagine the pain one would feel being bitten by that thing. “These teeth are still forming,” the griezel said. Then he pointed to one tooth that was a fully formed fang, then to another that was crooked, but was still growing in, pushing the old tooth out of the way. That explained a lot.
“Fucking thing is horrible,” Sage said as he peered down at it.
I looked at the corpse and tried to keep my food from earlier down, but I noted what the insides looked like as the griezel doctor explained what he'd discovered. I was impressed that Damon's griezels were able to capture one of these things. I wasn't going to touch it, but Sage was brave. He picked up two tools that were on a tray beside the table and fished around the inside, examining the organs as the doctor rattled off details.
“Those organs, as you can see, have atrophied. Griezels' internal organs still function. We have waste, our bodies produce sperm, our blood still flows. Granted, not like a humans, or even shifters, but you get my point. With this thing, the only thing that works is the stomach. Everything else has or is in the process of shutting down,” the doctor stated.
“A true zombie, but a monstrous one,” I said. “God, it stinks.” The thing smelled like something that had been dead for a week while rotting in the hot sun.
“I can see why,” Sage said, wrinkling his nose. His sense of smell was even more acute than my own. I was surprised he wasn't retching.
“According to my team, he smelled that way when they'd first encountered him,” Damon stated.
I looked back at the corpse. The thing was lethal and nightmare material if I ever saw one. Its skin was pale-ish gray, kind of sweaty looking. The hair had thinned and patches were missing from its scalp. Sage opened one of its eyes and it was black, the whole eye, not just the pupil. The thing gave me the chills and I shivered in fear and disgust. No telling how many more were out there and growing every minute. Jesus Christ, we really didn't have a moment to waste.
It was a good thing that Kakashi had forced other mages to protect supernal homes. Humans becoming one of these things was bad enough, but a supernal? We wouldn’t stand a chance. I mean, Salino said there were a million vampires, and we were only able to protect the ones in Chicago. Who was protecting the others? The horniness I'd felt earlier was all gone and replaced with severe anxiety. My heart began to beat like a piston in my chest and the room felt hot as I struggled to take deep breaths.
Sage took hold of my shoulders, turning me to him, then lifted my face to his. “Breathe, baby. Just breathe,” he said, and his calm tone helped me to center myself. “We're going to get through this, okay?” he asked as he nodded.
I mimicked his movement, nodding my head. “Yeah, we'll get through it.” I hoped we would. Once we got back to Salino's, I planned to scour the grimoire looking for any and every spell to help us prevent what was happening and what might be coming.
I took a deep breath, shook myself off, and then turned to face Damon, who was studying us in silence. “What about the one that was bitten?”
He gave a curt nod. “Follow me.”
We did just that as he led us down on the elevator to what looked like a prison. It reminded me of the one in Sage's tower. Wow, it was so crazy for me to think I lived and worked in a luxurious skyscraper with a jail and torture chamber in it. My life was wild, but it was what I wanted, because I would forever be with Sage. As we were walking, one of Damon's griezels ran up to us, stopping our pace.
“What is it?” Damon asked. I had to admit, I thought his Greek accent was sexy as hell and he had a very commanding presence about him. You could tell he was the king.
“It's Daniel... he's... he's changing,” the griezel stammered in his flustered state. He was sweating and breathing hard and I knew it was simulated breathing. They didn't need to breathe, but almost every griezel I'd ever met did because it felt natural to them, as they were all once human.
“Fuck,” Damon cursed and began walking toward the holding cell at a faster pace, and Sage and I followed. He burst into the room, and behind the cell was a griezel definitely in the state of turning into whatever the hell that other thing was. Damon approached the locked cell, but stayed far enough away so he couldn't be attacked through the bars. “Daniel... are you still with me?”
Daniel twitched sporadically and gripped the bars with fingers that looked like talons with black nails. He hissed and stuck his tongue out, licking the bar. The pupil and iris of his eyes were black, but there was still a tiny bit of white. Didn't make his eyes look less creepy, though. His mouth was open and I could see jagged fangs growing in. Also, his hair was thinning and there was so much of it on the floor of the cell along with his teeth. Clumps of his scalp were still attached to the strands. That explained the raw patches of skin on his head. Though the blood wasn't flowing, as if it had already congealed. There was also a smell like decaying flesh emanating from him. The same scent that was on the corpse. I thought it was just because it was dead, but apparently not. That was just how they smelled. Revolting.
