“You sit and relax, Miss Vicky. Let me do my job.”

Soon she’d served up everything. She stood by my chair, twisting her apron and watching me. Knowing what she was waiting for, I spooned up some trifle and tasted it. It was sweet and gooey and crunchy and creamy, all in one bite.

“Delicious, as always.”

She clapped her hands together, then bounced out of the dining room. I smiled as I watched her go. I felt a little less like a self-centered jerk when I could make Rose so happy just by complimenting her food.

When Mab and I were alone again, my aunt was ready to get back to business. “We must discuss what happened tonight. Obviously, my suspicion was correct. Pryce knows how to release the Morfran.”

“He said an incantation as he passed his hand over the slate. Then he hit it three times with an oversized walking stick.”

“An oaken staff.” I thought she’d quiz me on the magical properties of oak, but I got a reprieve. “And the Destroyer called the freed Morfran to your mark. We are so fortunate that the attack didn’t progress beyond the first phase.”

I checked my hands. The skin was smooth, not even a scar. Amazing. “You mentioned that before, the first phase. What is it?”

“A Morfran attack has three phases. Initially, the victim feels a pressure inside the head and the Morfran tears out chunks of flesh. That’s the first and least serious phase.”

That sounded way too familiar. But least serious? Given my experience of phase one, I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear about the next two.

“In the second phase, which lasts longest,” Mab continued, “the wounds inflicted by the Morfran become harder to heal, because in this phase the Morfran feeds. The Morfran enters the first-phase wounds, pushing its way inside the victim. The pressure that began in the head fills the entire body and grows stronger. The Morfran invades the digestive tract, from which it forces the victim’s own digestive fluids to the surface of the body. You can tell this is happening when the edges of the wounds begin to blacken and dissolve.”

My stomach roiled. “You’re saying that Morfran victims digest themselves?”

She nodded. “With demonically enhanced gastric juices. The Morfran feeds off this process.”

Now I really didn’t want to hear about what came next. But I needed to know. “And in phase three?”

“The victim explodes.”

My mind flashed back to Creature Comforts, to the mess that used to be T.J. The black goo, the shreds of flesh, bone, and clothes. Exploded. No kidding. It looked like he’d swallowed a hand grenade.

“The internal pressure becomes unbearable as more and more of the Morfran pushes its way inside,” Mab explained, scraping the last spoonful of trifle from her bowl.

I still held my own spoon, but I put it down, my dessert unfinished. Just this once, Rose would have to understand. For a spirit of insatiable hunger, the Morfran sure had a way of killing my appetite.

23

THE NEXT MORNING, I WAS BACK ON THE LAWN FOR MORE practice—if you call three hours before dawn “morning.” Mab said I needed extra practice, and it had to be before sunrise. I didn’t like the sound of that, but here I was. Clouds blew across the gibbous moon, making darker shadows against the dark lawn. Branches rattled like old bones. I zipped up my jacket against the wind. The Morfran had shredded the one I’d worn yesterday, but I’d dug another out of my closet. When you’re a shapeshifter, you learn to keep extra clothes around.

Mab brought me a thermos of coffee, and we began. I’d lost ground with Hellforged. It took ten full minutes of centering meditation before the athame would lie flat in my palm. By the end of the first hour, I was doing super-slow-motion circles and managing to hold on to the dagger most of the time.

Mab watched, occasionally offering advice: “Don’t clutch the grip so tightly; you’re strangling it,” or “Purity, child. Remember purity.”

I was purely sick and tired of wrestling with the damn knife, but I nodded and tried to hold my double focus.

After two hours of practice, I’d made it through the whole routine—decreasing circles with the left hand, transfer to the right, and pointing at the slate while saying the magic words—three times in a row. But way too slowly. Whenever I tried to move with Mab’s lightning-quickness, I lost Hellforged in the transfer.

Mab picked up a two-foot-long stick that lay on the ground by her feet.

“This stick is oak. I’m going to—”

“No!” A sick tide of panic flooded me. “No, don’t. I’m not ready. I can barely get Hellforged from one hand to the other without it rocketing across the lawn.”

“I know, child. I’d prefer to have you work with just the left hand for a month.” Her words were sympathetic, but her tone was steel-edged. “There’s no time. Pryce can release the Morfran. He’s not going to wait until we’re ready before he makes his next move.”

She tapped the ground once with the stick and walked to the tile. Oh, God, please no. Not that pain again. My throat constricted, and Hellforged went crazy. I wasn’t centered. I couldn’t get centered, not when I couldn’t even breathe.

“Mab, wait. I can’t do it!”

“Of course you can. What’s more, you must.” But she paused. “Relax, child. Last night’s attack was Pryce’s first test. I don’t believe the Morfran will attack you again. But whatever happens, I won’t let it hurt you. You must learn this, Victory. Take a moment to collect yourself. Bear in mind, though, you won’t have that luxury in battle.”

Still panicking, I tried to relax, to turn inward, to notice my heartbeat and breathing. Easy. Take it easy. I pushed away all thoughts of pain and fear; muscle by muscle, I unclenched. Hellforged calmed, grew still. The cramping in my fingers showed how hard I’d been squeezing the grip.

Three gonglike chimes rang out as Mab struck the slate once … again … again. My stomach lurched. As the dark mist emerged from the stone, I began to make slow, wide circles with my left hand. The mist rose up and floated in my direction, tendrils reaching for me like tentacles. Focus, Vicky. The mist stopped a few feet away, and the tendrils changed direction, reaching upward, toward the athame. They thinned as the mist was drawn into Hellforged’s orbit.

There was no buzzing, no headache. The dark mist swirled in wide arcs above me, following the motion of my arm.

I was doing it. A sensation of bitter cold passed into the athame as the Morfran locked onto my movement. The coldness traveled into my hand and crept up my arm; as it did, I made smaller circles and pulled my hand closer to my body. The Morfran followed. In another minute, the cold had reached my shoulder. My arm felt like it was encased in ice.

A jolt hit the obsidian blade and shot up my arm like a freezing-cold spark. Now. I switched Hellforged to my right hand; it jumped in the transfer but didn’t get away. I pointed at the slate, pushing the Morfran with my mind.

And forgot the incantation.

I stood on the grass, pointing at the target, my mind a complete blank.

The Morfran energy flowed up the blade, moving into my right arm. My fingers turned frostbite black. My wrist, my forearm, my elbow seized up from the icy energy.

Mab clasped her right hand around mine. She drew back both our arms, then flung the Morfran at the slate, yelling the words of power.

“Parhau! Ireos! Mantrigo!”

The cold shot from my arm. The Morfran hurtled into the slate target. It hit so hard, I thought the slate would shatter, but the tile stayed in one piece.

My arm ached and stung as though I’d mainlined a hypodermic of snake venom. I rubbed it, trying to chafe normal feeling back into my skin. I flexed my fingers, watching as they gradually grew pink, then red. I’d learned something about the Morfran—if it didn’t gouge you to pieces and digest you from the inside out, it froze you to death. I had an image of my frozen-solid body cracking into Vicky-flavored ice cubes for the Morfran to snack on.

Mab waited, holding the athame. I looked in surprise at my empty hand.

“Guess I screwed that one up.” Need someone to state the obvious? Call me.

“Practice the incantation again. I’ll do it with you.”

We said the words, over and over. If we’d been in a school-room, I’d have been writing them five hundred times on the blackboard.

After the fiftieth repetition or so, Mab dropped out, motioning for me to continue. The words began to burn themselves into my brain. I could see them, written in a thin, fiery script. I could taste them. Parhau had a chalky, mineral-like flavor. Ireos was salty, Mantrigo sharp and bitter. After a few hundred repetitions, there was no way I could ever forget those words again.

Until I did. We practiced for another hour, and each time Mab came to my rescue. Hellforged would jump from my hand. Or, fearful of that cold, painful spark shooting up my arm, I’d switch hands too soon. Or else the words tripped me up—I’d leave one out or say them in the wrong order. Maybe I just wasn’t fluent in the language of Hell.

AFTER PRACTICE, I DRANK SOME NO-DREAMING TEA AND FELL back into bed. Sleeping was less like sinking into blackness than it was like wandering through a featureless gray fog. I woke up in the afternoon, feeling like I hadn’t slept at all and wondering if the tea was already losing its potency. Mab was right—time was slipping away from us.

I got up, dressed, and went downstairs. On the kitchen table was a note saying that Jenkins had driven Mab and Rose into Rhydgoch for some shopping. The village’s only retail establishments were a tiny grocer and a shop that sold tobacco, candy, and newspapers, so I wasn’t missing much. Still, I would’ve liked to pop into the Cross and Crow to make some phone calls. Telling Mab about Kane and Daniel made me want to hear their voices. I needed to update Daniel on what I’d learned about the Morfran. And I wanted to find out if the local packs had finally left Kane alone at his full-moon retreat.

Jenkins usually went into town for a couple of after-dinner pints at the pub, so I’d hitch a ride with him tonight. My black eyes were gone, and I was more or less presentable. In the meantime, I’d do what Mab’s note suggested: spend some time with The Book of Utter Darkness. Lucky me.