Page 23 of Kill the Beast
He pointed, and Nadia smudged away the chalk lines he indicated with the hem of her dress, while Rags and Lyssa exchanged a bemused glance. When the little apprentice stood, her hem was white with chalk and her cheeks were flushed. She refused to look at either of them.
Alderic knelt and began adjusting the shape of the glyph on the floor. The difference was subtle, lines shifted slightly in a way that Lyssa would never have remembered, a small stroke added here and there. But she could tell the moment Alderic stood up, brushing the dirt off his knees with a look of distaste, that it was right.
A chill ran down Lyssa’s scalp and along her arms, raising goosebumps in its wake. One glance at Ragnhild and she knew the old witch could feel it, too.
“Well, now,” Rags said, staring at the glyph with a strange expression on her face. “This changes things, a bit.”
“Changes things how?” Lyssa asked her.
Instead of answering, Ragnhild moved back into place and began to chant again, the words of her spell slightly different than they had been before.
This time, black smoke rose from the claw, along with the faint smell of sulfur.
“Does that usually happen?” Alderic whispered.
“No,” Lyssa said, confused.
Then there was a shriek, making them all start violently, and a bodiless voice spat words in a language Lyssa didn’t understand. Dark, poisonous emotions spewed into the air with the black smoke, worming into Lyssa until she felt them as though they were her own. Rage so hot it blinded her, betrayal so painful it doubled her over. Screams tore out of her until her throat was raw with them, but she couldn’t stop.
Ragnhild shouted something; Alderic moved slowly toward the glyph, bent at the waist, hair whipping around him as though battered by a powerful storm. He swatted the claw off the glowing chalk lines, and it all ceased so abruptly that Lyssa stumbled and fell to her knees. Alderic staggered back and braced himself against the worktable, dabbing at his eyes with his handkerchief.
“What wasthat?” Lyssa asked, her voice cracking. Nothing like that had ever happened during a deciphering spell before.
“That was the essence of the magic that created the Beast,” Rags said, her voice hoarse. She was staring at the smeared chalk glyph on the floor. The claw sat innocently beside it, as if it had never belched black smoke or made Lyssa feel the sudden urge to slaughter everyone in the room. “Most of the glyphs have an… amused sort of magic threaded through them. The Wicked Ones had a penchant for cruelty, and took great pleasure in crafting creatures to cause chaos and harm. The magic doesn’t seem to care if it is unraveled and the monster destroyed, because keeping it alive was not the point of making it. As long as it kills even one human, it has served its purpose. But the Beast’s glyph is different.”
“Different how?” Alderic asked before Lyssa could.
“This is dark magic,” Rags said quietly. “Dark even for the Wicked Ones. This is a type of revenge glyph, yes, but not for something simple like a tainted river. The Beast was made in retaliation for anemotionaltransgression, instead of a material one—something I have seen only once before, a very long time ago. Its glyph is one of discord. Heartbreak. Bitterness and jealousy.” She heaved a sigh. “Dark magic is extremely difficult to unravel. Itdoesn’t want to be destroyed. It wants to cause as much suffering as possible.”
“Then how do we destroy it?” Lyssa asked, her heart plummeting. She was closer than she’d ever been to killing the Beast, but now…
“The creation of this Hound was intensely personal,” Ragnhild told her. Her lined face looked haggard, as if deciphering this glyph had taken more out of her than usual. “Therefore, the weapon used to destroy it should also be personal.”
“A sword,” Lyssa said, and Rags nodded her approval. There was no death as intimate as a sword sliding into a creature’s heart, blood spilling out on her hands warm as a kiss.
“Because the Beast’s creation was not tied to anything material, there is no particular water or plant to acquire,” Rags continued. “Instead, we will need items of an emotional nature.”
“What do you mean?” Alderic asked, but the witch’s gaze was on Lyssa when she answered.
“All of our usual ingredientsmusthave some kind of personal connection—to you, to Alderic, or to the Beast’s victims.”
Lyssa rubbed at her scar, grateful that Rags hadn’t blurted out what she meant in front of everyone—make sure your items relate to the person the Beast took from you.She preferred to keep her pain shoved down deep, where no one could see it, like Eddie had always taught her. Not even Rags knew exactly who Lyssa had lost, only that she had come to the Wood distraught and broken and hungry for vengeance. The truth wasn’t any of her business, and it certainly wasn’t Alderic’s.
But the lacy bastard was looking at her in a way she didn’t like. “What?” she demanded.
“Is this personal to you, too?”
“Killing something is always personal,” she said lightly. “Especially when you do it with a sword.” It wasn’t an outright lie, and after studying her for a moment, he seemed to decide that it wasn’t worth prying any further.
“What are the usual ingredients?” he asked instead.
Lyssa ticked them off on her fingers. “We need a faerie repellant, like iron or salt. Three elemental items gathered under a banishing moon—water, dirt or clay, and a botanical curio like a mushroom or flower. We can use botanicals as our faerie repellant item, too, depending on the plant. We also need a personal concern from one of the Hound’s victims, like a scrap of clothing or a favorite toy. And, finally, a piece of the Hound itself, which we already have.”
Alderic turned to Rags. “How can water be personal? Or dirt?”
“Grave dirt is personal,” Rags said. “Gathered from the grave of one of the Beast’s victims, it will be powerful indeed.” She glanced at Lyssa. “The water could be from a place where either of you or one of the Beast’s victims had happy memories.”
“Why happy memories?” he asked.
