Every time I can’t stop looking for you
The ropes get tighter around my wrists
When she opened her eyes the next morning, she was free. Martyna was gone. And Nicholas was gone, too, she realised with a mixture of relief and disappointment. Elodie lay in an empty bed, bathed in the light of dawn, her body sated and her soul starving, bracing herself for a wave of shame and guilt to drown her. And they did, but with them was something else. A feeling she could not bring herself to name, or to acknowledge. On her skin, the scent of ash and fire, the scent of Nicholas.
Memories of the night before flooded her. His touch, his body against hers, his lips on hers . . . All those images and visions that had flooded her while their bodies were one. For a psychic such as Elodie, intimacy of the body meant intimacy of the mind, too. And to wander inside Nicholas’ mind, with all his dark memories and fear, had been terrifying. Some of the doors in Nicholas’ mind had been shut, even to her – and she was grateful for that. She didn’t want to know what was behind them.
Maybe it hadn’t really happened. Maybe it was all in her imagination, somewhere between a nightmare and an impossibly sweet dream. Sweet and terrible at the same time. Yes, it must have been a dream. It didn’t feel real.
Elodie closed her eyes for a moment, probing her mind, but to her immense relief, there really was no trace left of Martyna. Her body was her own again. She concentrated for a moment, scanning the room with her inner eye – but she couldn’t feel anybody there.
Nobody. She was alone. She felt beside her. Nicholas’ place was still warm, so he hadn’t been gone long. Where was he? She sat upright, covering herself with the sheets. She felt a wave of panic freeze her muscles and stop her from breathing. She placed a hand on her chest, desperately trying to breathe, but she couldn’t. Silent tears fell down her cheeks. It had all been too much, it was all too much . . .
She slipped out of bed and got dressed. All she could find was Martyna’s dress and her shoes, but the panic didn’t seem to fade. She knew she would not suffocate, that it was all in her head, but she couldn’t help being terrified. The scent of Nicholas, ash and fire and salt, choked her. And so did that other scent, the one she now recognised as Martyna’s. On impulse, she strode across the room, grabbed the heavy iron handle and pushed the glass out, opening the window as wide as it could go. She closed her eyes and breathed in the morning air – one, two breaths – as her skin puckered up in goosebumps. At last. She could breathe.
It hit her psychic sense at once – a presence, and not Martyna’s spirit, not a spirit at all. A Surari. She took a step back instinctively, then she fumbled with the iron handle once more, trying to close the window. Her lips were darkening.
But it was too late. A black limb – leathery skin with black, coarse hair – had slipped inside and was now stopping Elodie from closing the window. A moan escaped her lips as a terrible realisation hit her. She’d broken the spells that Nicholas had put on the place. She had allowed the Surari in.
Elodie opened her mouth to call for help, but before she could make a sound a black body had squeezed itself through the window and had propelled itself onto her face, blinding her, suffocating her. She fell backwards and felt something sticky, something that was at the same time light as a feather and as hard as metal, binding her mouth, her eyes, her whole face. The Surari moved onto her chest, building its cocoon around her body so fast that she couldn’t move. Her arms were bound to her sides, and then her legs were sewn together, as tight as an Egyptian mummy. Elodie tried to scream, but only muffled sounds came from her mouth, gagged and silenced with silk. From between the white, sticky threads, Elodie could see a little. She moaned and shuddered as the Surari’s grisly face appeared above her – that of a spider, its pincers rattling, ready to pierce.
In horror, Elodie remembered something she’d read long ago: that spiders feed on their victims while they’re still alive.