Page 15 of Remnants: Disruption
“And I believe you’re right, Arya,” Blair says, their eyes coming up to meet mine. “These are new. As in, they were done postmortem.”
“How is that possible?” I ask, looking at Percy.
“It shouldn’t be,” she says, giving Blair a confused look.
“Who’s the guy?” I ask, looking back at the other uncovered body.
“That is Malachi Blackwood,” Blair says, reaching for a clipboard stuck to the front of the bed. “A DAEMON C-suite executive.”
“Oh fuck,” Percy groans, rubbing a hand down her face. “That’s going to be such a mess.”
“So, who tattooed them?” I ask, glancing between the two marks.
“That’s the other thing,” Blair says, pointing at the lines around Blackwood’s wrist. “They’re identical. I mean every line and wiggle is precisely the same. And there’s no ink.”
“No ink?” Percy asks, glancing at me. I simply shrug. I have tattoos, sure, but they required ink. Pain tolerance of a Remnant or not, those bitches hurt to get.
“I took skin samples,” Blair says as they place Blackwood’s wrist back down. “There are no traces of ink. These tattoos aren’t the traditional kind.”
“Affliction power?” I ask, frowning at the markings.
“Could be,” Blair responds, their eyes shining with incredible intellect. “I don’t know of any Remnant powers that explicitly tattoo, but there are some religious sects that work this way.”
“Oh, good,” I groan. “Cults.”
“Can you try and read him again?” Percy asks, gesturing at Malachi.
I glance at her. Her expression is soft but has this tinge of worry that seems worsen every time she looks at me.
“Sure,” I say, deciding to keep up the act of nonchalance I’ve adapted since lunch. It wouldn’t do to let Percy know just how badly the back-to-back communions had ruffled me.
Nightmares weren’t new. Neither were the whispers of the damned on the corpses we investigated.
What was new was the lack of any activity from these two corpses. Not only had they both messed with my powers, but they’d been silent before and after.
I reach over to Blackwood’s wrist and reach for the power. Of course, things go wrong immediately.
Darkness erupts around me. Where normally the room would disappear, it only twisted and turned. Swirls of the inky blackness that I associate with my powers curled and twitched as they tried, unsuccessfully, to blot out the room. The pain begins as a dull roar—like a threat, rather than a promise.
But as the tendrils of shadow fail to encapsulate the space around me, the throbbing turns into knife-like stabbing behind my eyes.
Then nothingness.
But the wrong type of nothingness. The darkness is full of deathly threats, rather than the calming presence of the dead.
A series of flashes brim in the darkness. Their quick flittering sparks bright splashes of fire in my veins. The burning only worsens as the flashes turn into images. Images of a large machine, tubing and wiring sticking out in all directions. Affliction flows through the tubing, crisscrossing the wiring and flowing into an insanely large tube of the powerful liquid.
Then the flashing stops abruptly. And I’m met with a sensation of falling.
Falling.
My head rebounds off the tile floor with a sickening crack.
“Fuck,” I groan, gripping at my face where the tile had done its best to take out my front teeth.
“Arya,” Percy squeaks, her hands wrapping around my shoulders as she turns me onto my side, then onto my back. “Honey, are you okay?”
“Mhm,” I grunt, not missing the term of endearment, but preoccupied with the way my face hurts.
