The Secret of Spellshadow Manor 6 by Bella Forrest (books for men to read .TXT) 📕

individual hands seeking out his life. It was one mass of gripping, grabbing, tearing creatures.

Dragging air into his lungs, Alex knew he was about to die. The mist was like water around him, suffocating him as it took his life.

Something tugged at his hand, fingers squeezing his fingers. It wasn’t the mist, whatever it was.

“With the blood of my enemies, I close the circle of pain.” Virgil’s voice cut through the deadening silence of the mist. Peering through the silver haze, Alex could make out the skeletal man’s figure beside him, lifting the vial to his lips, drinking the remnants.

Alex felt something pull on his other hand, a cold feeling spreading through his arm. Looking down, he saw the unmistakable black vapors of Elias’s hand, grasping his as best he could, given his form.

“With the blood of my enemies, I close the circle of pain,” Elias shouted, drinking from the old vial that had been used in the second attempt.

The mist, now utterly confused, swooped between all three, swirling in and around them, engulfing them, grasping and clawing and taking what it could. The pain was immeasurable. Alex and Virgil’s cries echoed around the trembling walls of the cave as wave after wave of pure agony ripped through them. It was never-ending, the pain growing worse with every passing second, the tearing hands of the mist feeling as if they were shredding Alex’s insides. Glancing down, though his eyes were running with pained tears, he was convinced he was fading away, his skin growing translucent.

Alex knew the end was coming. No person could suffer so much and not feel the warm hand of death upon their face, come to take them away from all the pain.

Yes, death was close.

Chapter 28

Alex felt something tear inside him, like a part of him had been ripped away, the acute searing pain that followed eliciting a scream from his lungs. Virgil gripped his hand tighter, but it was no good—the pain was like nothing he could describe, so unforgiving he could barely catch his breath. It ripped again, feeling like his soul was splitting in two, the sensation so strange and unnatural that he could do nothing but roar through it, hoping it would end soon. In truth, he just wanted it to be over. No thoughts of friends or family could take the pain away, and had they felt what he felt, he doubted they’d have wanted to live much longer either.

With a sudden jolt, Alex’s eyes rolled back in his head, his world turning inward. Flashes of light disrupted his vision, and, deep inside him, swimming through his veins, he could feel energies moving that didn’t belong to him. The flashes persisted, the blank bursts of light morphing into something else. At first, they were blurry, showing shapes and the vague outlines of landscapes, but then the visions sharpened, becoming fully fledged images, flickering across his eyes like slides on a reel.

Only, the images didn’t belong to him either.

A flash of a small boy, running through walled gardens with two friends. The boy was smiling, and the two friends were smiling too, but their expressions shifted a second later, with the arrival of a fourth child. She was older, by the looks of her, with a rock held in her hand. Alex tried to peer closer at the images, but he couldn’t hear a word any of them were saying. Their mouths were moving, but he had to guess the intent. It became clear when the next image showed the small boy on the floor, his forehead bleeding, while the female friend he was with stood in front of the cruel fourth child, raising her hands as if to fight. Alex realized it was Ceres, Hadrian, Virgil, and Alypia when they were kids. It must have been the time he’d heard Virgil and Ceres talk about, when she came to his aid, protecting him from his older sister’s wrath.

With a jarring flicker, the images moved to those of an older boy, standing at the edge of a pit, tears running down his face, blood trickling from the corner of his mouth. All around him, rocks were falling, while silver mist rose in a torrent before him. The next vision showed him fleeing the scene, with the horrified faces of the haven’s inhabitants flashing past, the mist snatching at them, engulfing them, leaving the young Virgil helpless to do anything for them.

Another image showed Virgil standing in the vile chamber with the dangling manacles, where he had removed the essence of so many students. Only, the man in chains was no student, by the looks of his black cloak. He had a striking face, somewhere between handsome and strange, though it was twisted in a grimace of pain. His piercing brown eyes told of a burning hatred, and his jet-black hair was plastered across his forehead with sweat. He was tall, with broad shoulders and a clean-shaven face, making him look younger than Alex had imagined, though he’d glimpsed him before. That was Elias dangling from the manacles. In the frame that followed, Virgil was reading from a red-bound book, magic twisting up around Elias, though the man was clearly shouting for Virgil to stop. Elias’s magic met Virgil’s, and a billowing black cloud engulfed everyone within the room, including the crouching figure of Derhin, who had sneaked in to watch. When it receded, Elias was the shadow-man, and it was Virgil’s turn to grow angry, having failed again.

Later, it showed the Head pacing his office, reading a letter from Julius that told him he was to fetch more essence. The skeletal figure sat down in his chair, holding his head in his hands, then tore up the letter and threw it into the trash. Silently, the man wept, his shoulder shaking. On the desk beside him, he looked over a list of names, moving his finger down the line, mouthing the name of every person whose life he’d been made