Chase crossed in front of me, giving a languid smile as he touched the red flower dotted in violent black splotches that sat in his eye cavity.
Behind him, a plume of inky smoke fell from the storm clouds above and hit the ground with a heavy thud, the smoke spreading through the room. White wingtips flared out and powerfully swept aside the fog, dispersing it and revealing a creature of twenty limbs. Each was different: the powerful white wing like that of an angel, a massive arm that smeared reality like a paintbrush, the one full of holes that leaked more of that black fog, and countless others of all Shapes and shades all grasping at the sky and each other.
Each limb connected back to the same torso, expanded and muscular, veins crawling in altered paths to connect these disparate parts to one man, Seth. He had stolen more limbs. He looked at me with the dispassion I knew was reflected on my own face.
Chase strolled past Kay and Jason, before pausing briefly at Quinn, who still kneeled, slack-faced. Then he chuckled and approached Nell, waving a hand in front of her face. She didn’t blink. Her eyes saw something that wasn’t there and she seemed so at peace.
Chase turned back to me and pulled out a switchblade.
“I’m going to release you now.”
Everything came crashing back down inside my head, each emotion making their absence felt, like the clamoring of animals that missed a feeding. Claws once again sunk into my back and it felt like the curse was reaching for my rapidly beating heart.
“We’ve done this song and dance a couple of times now. I think you get how it plays out if you try to stop me. You have to understand I don’t want to hurt either of you.” Chase’s knife caressed Nell’s cheek. “Not like this.”
The look in his eye. He was baiting me. There wasn’t another reason why he gave me back my emotions. He wanted me to try something just so he could prove how superior he was. Nausea rose in my throat as I held myself back.
Seth seemed to rouse as well, but he didn’t say anything, he just moved his massive body laboriously towards the glass case housing the Crawling Skin.
Chase clicked his tongue disapprovingly, gesturing at Kay and Jason. “You brought friends. That’s no good. You should really just be thinking about Nell’s safety, you know. You won’t be able to save them all.”
A chill ran over me. “You’re going to release the Crawling Skin.”
“Yes.”
“Why now? Why not just do it when you had first gotten your hands on it?”
Chase laughed and shook his head. “You have me all wrong, Nick. I don’t want you to fail. The conditions weren’t right for you to succeed. Besides, this Witch knows the failsafe that’s wired into the Skin,” he pointed the knife at Quinn. “We can’t be having such an anticlimactic ending. I appreciate you distracting her for me. Although I’m disappointed I didn’t get to test my new power on her Wolf. Damascus was the only one other than Nell who had found a way to act while under the influence of my Shape.”
He paced back over to Quinn and tilted her chin up with the knife. “Luckily I’ve been experimenting for a while and found myself a new countermeasure. I believe I mentioned a long time ago that my Shape puts parts of the brain to sleep. Well, a few adjustments here and there and now I have some actual sleepwalkers. No perception of the passing of time, no memories, they’ll wake up as if they had blinked and everything had changed.”
“That shouldn’t be possible. You’re a Cast, you can’t modify your Shape,” I said.
“Nothing a Witch under my spell can’t fix. I had to find one that I was sure wouldn’t kill me though.” Chase shrugged and dragged his knife across Quinn’s throat. Crimson blood spilled down her neck like rich paint. The pain seemed to wake her up slightly, causing her fingers to spasm and her eyelids twitched.
“Seth, let’s toss this one overboard, just in case Damascus comes running.”
Seth complied, stomping over to Quinn. The fingers of his Aberrant hand closed around her and he tossed her through the hole in the roof. I watched her limp body vanish into the dark.
Dead? Just like that?
My heart was being squeezed so tightly it felt like I couldn’t breathe. “I don’t get it,” I said. “Are you trying to make some point? Or are you just trying to make us suffer?”
Chase wiped the blade with his hand and rubbed the blood between his fingers. “You’re the only reason you’re suffering.”
He reached over and wiped the mess off on one of Seth’s arms. The man didn’t react and Chase gave me a knowing look. “See, Seth figured it out. You have to just stop caring and suddenly the suffering goes away. You’re always trying to understand people, that’s your problem. Don’t you see that quality of yours is what got you into this mess? If you could just stop butting your head into other people’s issues, you wouldn’t be here. Your heart’s bleeding. I can’t help but poke at it. It’s fun!” His grin widened. “That’s all there is to get. You’re fun to mess with. And you’re useful to me.”
He stepped in close, his good eye widening as it stared into mine. “Did you like the little treat I left for you? Looks like you gobbled it right up.”
I shuddered involuntarily. “This thing is yours?”
“I’ve been traveling around, chasing things that interest me. A came across it amongst a family of incestuous cannibals. An Aberrant with no physical form, at least not outwardly. They believed it to be a seed of divinity. The host would keep it until they were old and then the whole family would feast on them and wait to see who the next host would be. It had been passed down for generations, from host to host, growing along with the host’s fears. It wants to be eaten, so it can grow even stronger.”
There was a burning shame inside me, the part that longed for Chase to reassert his Shape so that this horrible thing would stop haunting me for just a second.
“Oh this is perfect. I see the brave front crumbles once your fears start to become reality. Hold on to that feeling, Nick. We wouldn’t want you to make a mistake here. When you heard about the Crawling Skin I’m sure you felt it. That sneak peek into a terrible future. I just want a taste. It’s a risky proposition for sure, but I live for risk. Plus, I’ve been so impressed by you. You’ve risen to every challenge. I have faith that you’ll make it out alive. With Nell too, of course. I think this will be the last bit of ripening needed to pull off the finale.”
His gaze lingered on Kay and Jason. “Of course, we could always cut a few more ties while we’re at it, to sweeten the deal. But I’d rather see if you know how to juggle.”
The Broken-Neck-Man’s fingers withdrew from my chest and I could feel my emotions slip away with it as Chase reasserted his power.
“Seth, go open the case.”
Seth slackened, the tension leaving his strange body and he stalked over to the machine and hit a few buttons. A warning alarm blared out at a deafening volume and lights on the console began to flash red.
Chase spoke over the noise, “I fed into this conflict for two reasons, Nick. The first is that I wanted you to have a fighting chance against Organ. The second is that I wanted to give you an invitation.”
He wormed something thin through the gaps in my armour and into my pocket. Then he withdrew, his dress shoes clacking against the hard floor.
“Seth, listen to my instructions carefully. When I take ten steps away, you can open that case and touch the Crawling Skin directly. Let’s begin. Good luck, Nick. Be sure to read the invitation when you get the chance. I think it will be a stunning event.”
Chase began walking away.
Clack. Clack. Clack.
The sounds became more distant. I didn’t move. I didn’t feel the need.
Clack. Clack. Clack.
Seth’s arms spread out like the feathers of a peacock, masking the view of the open case in front of him.
Clack. Clack. Clack.
Nell was in danger, but I didn’t feel that worried about it. She was blinking slowly, waking up from a standing reverie. She frowned as she saw me.
Clack.
The sky went quiet. Nell’s eyes widened in abject horror as her sixth sense told her more than I would ever know.
Seth’s body rippled as if a stone had been dropped into him, his skin and bones turning to liquid. A strange escaping of air passed his lips, like he was trying to form a word but couldn’t quite get it out.
“Ruu…”
The muscles on his back and arms writhed like snakes inside of a sack, causing his arms to jerk and wave all around him.
Then his head tilted back. And it didn’t stop where it should have. It kept going, sliding further and further down his back, until it hung from the middle, staring at us upside-down, pupils dilated into deep black pools.
“RuuuuuUUUUUUU-”
Something else seized control of his lips and lungs, stretching the word out into an alien scream.
Run.