Dark Vigil by Gary Piserchio

Author:Gary Piserchio [Piserchio, Gary]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: PulpPerchPress
Published: 2020-04-06T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

Calico blinked at the glare of her basement’s fluorescent lights. Her body was nothing but pain. Blood still pumped from her wound. The dream must have happened in the space between heartbeats.

Even so, it gave her hope. And with hope, she gained the strength to get to her knees. Cait Sidhe stood a few yards away. Calico crawled as her eyesight wavered; it seemed as though the room filled with fog. A thousand diesel engines revved in her head. Blood was a steady stream from her throat. But there was the rock at the feet of the large cat. Good kitty. Cait Sidhe’s tail twitched. Her gold eyes spurred Calico on.

She lunged, grabbing the stone with her bare hand. The engines in her head diminished, and her eyesight seemed to clear slightly. Cait Sidhe faded away. Calico rolled onto her back, using her teeth to pull off the bloody work glove.

The hand holding the rock shook violently. Calico’s other hand, covered in glistening blood, shook just as badly. She tried to press her index finger against the rock, but it was like trying to thread a needle during an earthquake. She resorted to clawing at and grabbing the hand that held the rock. Even like that, her hands juked and jived. She didn’t have much time. Her arms felt so weak as she held them aloft.

She slid the outer hand around until the tip of her index finger rested on the rock’s surface. Carefully, the concentration helping to steady her hands, she drew the rune of release the priest had drawn on the heartwood box. The rock trembled of its own, separate from her own spastic death throes. It struggled against her grip and it was all she could do to hang on. Tendrils of startling bright purple emerge from the stone, cracking its smooth surface like an egg.

The rock fractured and split open. The face of Cait Sidhe emerged, growing and snarling and leaping out like a purple wraith and then disappearing. Calico blinked. The purple light was gone, and she held nothing but a broken rock in her hands. Just a hallucination. The last desperate flurry of electricity firing through her dying brainpan.

She let her arms drop to either side as she faded in and out of consciousness. Little puffs of thought wondered when she would finally die.

After what seemed like hours, she moaned, “Die already!”

She coughed, clearing her throat, and said louder, “Die already?”

Her voice was clear. She blinked. The fog was gone, her eyesight sharp. She lifted her arms again and held both hands out. They were steady. The pain in her body was gone.

Calico whispered, “No fucking way,” and lay still for several moments waiting for—she had no idea what she was waiting for. She felt her throat. It was covered in crusted blood, but she couldn’t find the wound.

Wincing in anticipation, she slowly sat up, but it didn’t hurt. Nothing hurt. Calico twisted from side to side. Her ribs felt fine. She pressed against the cheek Winston had broken.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.