Black Blood (Series of Blood Book 4) by Emma Hamm (scary books to read .TXT) 📕

“No no, it was covered in plants. There were plants upstairs and a… a tub? I don’t know why that’s important.”

Pitch went white-faced.

“What?” Lydia asked. “What is it? Who is it?”

“Wren.”

The girl was important to him. A child, a daughter, the next bright light. It was why she had chosen Wren to be part of the prophecy in the first place. He trusted his own creations, and Lydia agreed.

“We can’t lose her, Pitch.”

“When is it burning? Is she in it?”

“I don’t know.”

“When!”

“I don’t-” she grasped her horns in frustration. “I lost it, I don’t know!”

“Find out.”

Swells of shadows created clouds behind him, great thunder heads which crackled with energy. He knew pushing her wouldn’t work. Lydia knew how to control her power, but even she couldn’t find a vision sometimes.

“I’m trying, Pitch.” The webs of time unfurled in front of her. She didn’t see the life force that made up the dark man. She didn’t see the living magic of the house. She saw only a web she could bend to her will.

The thread was still there, white hot and dripping molten metal. Every time she touched it, the thread sizzled and burned.

Lydia cried out, but continued trying. Each touch unraveled her psyche, but this was important. She had to know. The world had to be saved, Pitch had to get there on time, Lydia needed to do what she was born to do.

Her physical body stopped breathing. Her heart stuttered, thumped once, twice, then skipped a beat. Tingling in her fingers and toes warned failure, but she grasped onto the thread of Time desperately.

And sank into the vision.

The sun set on the horizon, and a man made of dust and desert winds started the fire on worn drapes. She stepped through the ramshackle shop on silent feet. Moths had eaten through the comfortable leather booths, but they were still in use.

A center island glowed with numerous exotic Juices. Lydia glided up the stairs, white light shimmering behind her like the train of a gown. The upstairs was in even worse shape than the shop. Some of the floorboards were missing, a window was broken, and the empty room had little more than a mattress on the floor, a tub in the corner, and hundreds of plants.

It was well loved. She saw tiny imprints of Wren in every corner of the home. The health of the plants. The way the broken floor was clean. Tiny painted drawings on the walls hidden beneath crumbling bricks.

This place would burn to the ground, along with everything in it. There was nothing Lydia could do to stop it.

She sensed the man downstairs disappear in a whirl of power that tasted like a dust storm. Sand showered upon the ground, but would remain unnoticed once the building crumbled to the ground.

Her mind pulled back into her body. Pitch’s hands were bruising on her biceps.

Lydia looked up into his frantic gaze and whispered, “Tonight.”

“Is it too late?”

“It’s too late to save the house, but she’s not there.”

“That house is all she has.”

“You can’t save it.”

He leaned down and pressed his forehead to hers. “I have to try.”

“There’s a Genie there.”

“Not a Djinn?”

“No.”

Pitch growled. “A Djinn I could have convinced to leave it alone, but a Genie complicates things. My sister made them after I created the Djinn, and they are worse than their cousins.”

“Be careful.”

He pressed a kiss against her lips. “I always am.”

Air rustled the unruly strands of hair stuck to her slick forehead as he disappeared. An empty hollow in her chest formed at his absence.

Lydia wanted to help just as much as he did, but she knew the inevitable. Time had a way of taking everything it could. They were too late, and Wren would lose all the things she found important.

Was it because of their afternoon? Had they lost an important piece of their puzzle because they selfishly took a moment for themselves?

She rubbed her hands over her unsettled stomach. What was done, was done. Even she couldn’t change the past.

Wren’s thread smelled distinctly of ashes now. It quivered in Lydia’s mind, shaking with fear or anger. Likely both, considering Wren and E’s thread had intertwined together.

She drifted in the Present, watching Pitch enter the house and leave when he saw the destruction was unsaveable. Worse, she saw Wren rush into the house and see him. She saw the betrayal in Wren’s eyes and the ash swirling like snow around her.

The walls were closing in on her. Breathing became difficult as every inhalation drew too much air into her lungs. She wondered if it was possible to drown on air.

Sheets tangled in her legs as she tried to stand. Lydia crashed to the floor with a cry, but yanked herself up. She bolted from the room, shoulder striking the doorframe which rattled so hard a painting fell to the floor.

“Lady?” Louis shouted from two floors down. “Are you all right?”

She wanted to scream that she wasn’t all right. She wasn’t ever going to be all right again. Instead, she slid down the wall and buried her hands in her hair. Sobs wracked her frame. Hiccups rattled her ribs so hard they ached. Her saliva turned thick and choking.

His footsteps echoed up the stairs. Lydia refused to move, even when he knelt beside her and pressed a gentle hand against her shoulder.

“Lydia, what has happened? Where is Pitch?”

“Off to save the world,” she sniffed. “Not that it’ll help in the end, because I still can’t figure out how to fix this place.”

“Oh, so that is what’s going on.”

She heard him shuffle and ease himself onto the floor beside her. Wiping away the tears burning her eyes and streaking her cheeks, Lydia looked up at him.

For the first time, she noticed how much older he had become. Louis’s hair was almost completely white, even the tips of his tufted ears. Fine wrinkles were now deep grooves that suggested a life full of happiness and laughter.

“When did you get so old?” She asked