a tremor quaking through her limbs, blue eyes wide. A breeze skates over my skin, and I recognize the signature chill that comes with it. Eerie, yellow orbs form in the dark, hovering in the starless, inky black sky. I know what they are even before the limbs start protruding, rags sheathing their withered bodies.
Raising an eyebrow, I cluck my tongue. “You lack the discipline to control them. All they’re going to do is kill us all, and it’s going to be your fault.”
Like an image distorted by churning water, the creatures coil downward, mouths expanding on eardrum shattering cries of fury.
“Kill her!” Cupid yells, voice thick with irritation, narrowly missing the bended claws of one. Gabriel takes the opportunity to seize a fistful of his glittering wings and tosses him groundward.
Using my new abilities, it costs me nothing to sweep up an invisible barrier to keep the wraiths out. One less distraction from my target. When we’re done, they can gladly feed from what’s left.
Attention returning to the girl, I’m not expecting to find something has joined her. The apparition stares at me like she knows me. Tresses long and elegant, they frame the loveliness of a youthful face.
“Morpheus?” she asks hesitantly gliding forward, the skirts of her pretty dress moving with a life of their own around her dainty ankles.
“Why do you all keep saying that name?” I snarl in rage, unsure why this spirit invokes a sense of vulnerability. “He’s gone, and so is the other one. I’m the one who exists now. Only me. The Doll Maker. Madness.”
A figure moves into view. Nightmares. The last fragment of my broken soul standing so boldly in the doorway of the house. I sense his anger. Feed from it. He’s become the object of my obsession to become whole.
“We love you. Please you need to fight. Don’t let this madness take you from us.” The ghost’s transparent silhouette begins to glisten and shine with the radiance of the sun. Reaching out to me, her expression is imploring.
Stretching out in the same gesture, my hand passes through her for my real aim. “I don’t want your love; what I want is your pain.”
Robin realizes my plan a little too late. Snatching her by the neck, I jerk her against my chest.
“I’m more powerful than you can ever imagine.” My grip tightens around her throat.
Gasping with desperation for air, she claws fruitlessly at my wrist. I’m fixated on watching her die. See life ebb from those fucking eyes that have caused me nothing but trouble. They bring conflict inside me. A gnawing of other emotions from the pieces I’ve already consumed. The two voices screaming out in my head still struggling to be heard. With her gone, they will finally quieten.
The wind howls around us tearing at my clothes, violent and raw, as the ghost weeps swirling around and around above our heads. Beyond the barrier the wraith cackling in glee already envisioning their first feast.
The hairs on the back of my neck abruptly stand on end with a sensation of unease. Before I can turn, something hard and strong ploughs into me sending me off my feet. Airborne, I hit the ground with an oomph, skidding through the grass. Pitch blackness seeps in stealing the light the wraiths are providing and snuffing out the glow from the house. It’s so thick it’s blinding. Images force their way through my head plunging me into vivid terrors I know are not my own. Or are they? Bad dreams, lingering phantasms experienced by my other selves. Shaking them off, I stand.
Whimpers resonate around me in the primordial void. Others affected by the force holding me in it’s sway. Even the wraiths have quietened, their laughter morphing into childish whines.
I want this.
I’m greedy to have it.
Dominion over sleep, dreams, nightmares.
My reign will be terrible and unstoppable. Who needs other gods when I can have it all?
Calmly walking, I’m guided by the thread between us. That insistent tug that’s there when I listen for it. I find my objective hunched on the floor, the girl in his brawny arms crooning to her tenderly. Whatever visions he’s summoned, they have her curled up like a child sobbing feebly.
Fisting his lanky blond hair backward before he can sense me, I dig my fingers brutally into his chest above his heart, his mouth forming a silent scream. Acting quickly, I suck him dry, depleting every cell of him. Absorbing him into me just like I did with Illusions.