Page 36 of Of Flame and Fury
Celia’s next growl is more terrifying than the last and promises death. We scramble away, placing ourselves as far as we can get from her in the crowded space.
“It mocks me,” Celia thunders.
Shayna sighs. “Does it, Ceel? Does it really?”
Celia’s maw protrudes, and she hisses. Shayna’s eyelids practically peel back and over her head. She holds out her sword. “T. Just kill it before Celia eats us.”
“She’s not going to eat us.” Yeah, Celia’s more than a little feral. But aren’t we all when we’re hungry and—
I almost scream when she rises and prowls forward.
Celia is no longer my sister. She’s an extremely hungry and famished predator.
Chapter Thirteen
I knock over a stand of flowerpots when Celia stalks forward, her keen gaze set at my throat. The pots land in a booming crash that doesn’t quite muffle the sound of my pounding heart.
Celia charges, leaping over me and barreling down the path between the plants. The rest of us exchange stunned, yet relieved glances, and take off after her. Shayna easily takes the lead, and even barefoot, I make longer strides than Emme.
We ground to a halt when we find Celia crouched low, her long nails protruding into long, thin claws. I don’t initially notice the snapdragons until they click their little mouths open and closed, demanding a sprinkling of magical water. The closest ones stretch out their leaves, tugging at what remains of my dress.
I slap them away. “Knock it off,” I bite out.
Their clicking intensifies, drawing too much attention for my comfort. Except right now, they’re not my priority. My hangry sister is.
Directly in front of Celia stoops the rat. It swipes at its face, disregarding the growling tigress watching her. I expect Celia to gobble the pathetic-looking thing right up. My sister is justthathungry. Instead, Celia tilts her head, examining her meal a little too closely.
I start toward her when a sense of wrongness and death fills the air. The intensity is strong and tries to shove me away. I lift my hands, ready to act. Like with all things tonight, this rat is not what it seems.
“What the hell is that?” I ask.
The rat glides its beady eyes from me to Celia and sneers, a pretty ballsy move given its withering state. Its response alone would give me pause, but it’s that extra whiff of sickness and gloom that fires sparks from my fingertips.
“Celia, Taran,” Emme warns. “Don’t approach it. There’s something wrong with it.”
“Oh, yeah, there is,” Shayna agrees. “The little critter is sick, and I’m guessing a bit evil.”
I hold up a hand when Shayna yanks a knife from its sheath and takes aim. “Wait,” I say. “Not yet.”
“You sure?” Shayna asks. She holds tight to her knife. “Master Splinter it’s not, T.”
A horrible cracking sound interrupts the nasty hiss building in the rat’s throat. Its back bows in the wrong direction, snapping the spine as it crumbles to the ground.
“Oh, this isn’t good,” I say.
Celia backs away, so do we. She scans our surroundings. “Is something else here?” she asks.
“No,” I reply. “It did that to itself.”
The rodent lifts its head, its body trembling in pain. The small bones along its back shift and move in odd and grotesque patterns beneath patches of scraggly gray fur. Slowly, its limbs expand. Tendons and joints stretch and pop into place. What remains of its fur dissolves inward into dirty and grossly wide pores.
The rat’s form alternates back and forth between animal and subhuman, whimpering in torment. It takes time for the body to stop changing from what we found to what it ultimately becomes.
The whole thing…is damn hard to watch. More than once, I look away, the sickening effort churning my insides and making me nauseous. When awerechanges, the process is almost instantaneous. When Celia alters parts of her body into her tigress counterpart, it’s mesmerizing. This, what’s happing before us, is disturbing. There’s no strong beast resuming its equally strong human counterpart, nor is there beauty like with my sister’s unique magic. The animal we found was sick and injured, and the naked woman who reveals herself is even more so.
Large lumps of torn and matted hair droop over emaciated shoulders. Deep cuts are sliced into the skin covering her breasts, stomach, and inner thighs. Whoever had her had fun making her bleed. Some of her injuries are old, others fresh enough to trickle blood.
This woman is a relatively young witch despite the harsh lines wrinkling her face. I recognize the spell she used—Mirror. Either she was close to graduating the program, or strong enough to pull off a spell this advanced.