DOFAB#3

Chapter Six

~ KINLEY ~

Nerd, you still at the library? Sent 3:57 pm

Where you at?!  Sent 4:15 pm

You with Talrek?  wink face emoji. I wouldn't blame you. Sent 4:21 pm

Seriously, text me back!  Sent 4:28 pm

Ding. A pencil rolls off my palm as I grab my phone. My head throbs with an ache amplified in my grogginess. I curl my arm to read the incoming text. It feels heavy but I'm pretty sure the heaviness is all inside my skull, pounding.

The illuminated sliver of glass shows I've missed a thread of texts from Maya. The last one reads, Don't make me have to come get you!  Sent 4:34 pm

Why does my head hurt so much? I sit up, indentions of raised lettering from a book cover dug into my cheek. Did I fall asleep again?

Pure black orbs, pale skin, and a harsh jawline hoovering inches above me while a cold hand forged from millennia of wars and slaughter clamped over my mouth thunders into my sluggish brain.

I knock the chair over in my haste to stand. Teeth. Ebony webs of veins surfacing. Arctic blue transforming into devil black. The portrait of the two faces of the Beast of the Damned. You have something that belongs to me. I whirl around. No broken shelves or books are spilled onto the floor. There are no signs of any struggle. The third floor sits undisturbed, everything in its place. All that's up here is me and the sound of my racing heart thumping up into my head painfully.

Was I dreaming?

Mentally, I visualize the portrait of Tristan: the oppressive sensation that overtook me, the unpleasant memory I wish his face had caused. Gazing upon his sketched face...those eyes. It was like his energy was drawing my blood out of me through the page. Did something else happen? Could I have gotten another nosebleed and passed out?

There's no evidence of another nosebleed. The books I woke on are in impeccable condition for their age and my notes are smudge-free albeit a bit frantic in penmanship.

The blood pendant with fuchsia.

Where is it?

I feel the slit pockets in the side of my stretchy leggings. Jeans would have been more suitable school attire, but twenty-two years of wearing temple garbs makes wearing any type of pants a difficult adjustment.

Empty.

Moving on, I rummage through the books haphazardly placed. Some opened. Others stacked on top of each other. Anything to keep busy and keep out the conflicted mental imagery battling it out like the angel and Tristan Darkos. I bump the Spring of Evil text over. Resting on the cover of the Gods of Prey is a necklace. I pick up the silver chain, my mind arguing with itself because I could have sworn the pendant hung from black string. It must not have been. It had to be this dainty thin silver chain. Even the shape of the vial is different than what my brain remembers. This one is round, not cylinder. I'm not even sure it's a blood pendant. It looks more like a liquid stone of some sort, inky and black like the string was supposed to have been.

I've read about this. Magic can impregnate books. Demon witches cast spells to protect their grimoires using this method. The types of spells range from hallucinations to mania. The more powerful incantations can create physical ailments like pustules, perceived dysmorphia, or generational curses. Has Rakasha had a witch spell the Gods of Prey to keep people from reading it? Is that what I remember? A hallucination brought on by hex magic?