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of Plagued teeth unlatched from my
back, and I was finally free. I let go of my power and nearly
passed out again when the hurt train arrived. This must have been
what going through a meat grinder felt like. There wasn’t an inch
of me that didn’t feel like it had been gnawed on. Even though the
bites wouldn’t kill or turn me, they still burned and throbbed. Now
I was going to have to use the last of my skills to heal
myself.
     
    My arms wobbled when I pushed myself up. I
slid my knees up to get better leverage. I lifted my head slowly,
but still felt some vertigo. I blinked and looked over my shoulder
to figure out why I’d escaped becoming a three course meal.
     
    Simon was standing at the far end of the
pool, his hands swirling with white smoke. His eyes were black
chasms even as he called his power back. Simon was the smallest and
least intimidating of all of us, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t
dangerous.
     
    He let the white smoke slip back into his
skin and sighed. I glanced down at the bodies of the Plagued.
Calling them leathery skeletons was now more accurate. When Simon
unleashed his smoke, the vapors touched the Plagued and evaporated
all their bodily fluids. Blood turned to dust in their veins, the
heart, lungs and brain dried out, the spinal fluid turned to sand.
The body lost half its weight in a matter of seconds, until the
skin became thick parchment and clung to the bones like saran
wrap.
     
    Simon saved my life by starving the dead. How
convenient.
     
    He blinked as he came back into himself,
watching me with an expression that was almost concerned. I focused
on standing up. I got to my feet, only to get a head rush and
nearly topple over again. Simon took a few quick steps toward me,
stopping in his tracks when I swiveled my head to give him a death
glare.
     
    “Fuck off,” I growled.
     
    He looked hurt for a second, then glared
right back. “I saved your life, asshole.”
     
    “After you let me get turned into a chew toy.
Thanks for that, Sime.”
     
    “I didn’t actually think you’d get bitten,”
he defended. “Why didn’t you fight them off?”
     
    I whirled fully, staring at Simon with
furious, blazing eyes. It was a serious effort to hold in my power
and not lash out at him. Given what I was, I could do severe damage
to him. I could even kill him.
     
    I wasn’t at that point, but I was getting
there.
     
    “Because I haven’t eaten in three fucking
days and walked fifteen fucking miles to get here! And that was
after I faced off with some Soulless and fucking Vance!”
     
    My voice could have rattled the walls, but I
didn’t think that was why Simon flinched. Vance’s name freaked him
out as much as it did when I saw the demonic jerkoff.
     
    “Vance was out there? With Soulless?”
     
    “That’s what I said,” I spat. “And yeah, he’s
still Ciaran’s go-to-bruiser-slash-prankster. Know what trick he
tried to pull on me? He said that they were looking for souls.”
     
    Simon squinted, not understanding the same
way I hadn’t. “But nothing here has a soul. Everyone’s dead, or
they’ve given their souls to the demons.” Sure enough, he processed
the same thoughts tumbling through my head. “Unless…”
     
    His dark eyes practically popped out of his
head.
     
    “Yeah,” I remarked, lowering my voice.
“Unless.”
     
    For a long time, Simon did nothing but stare
in my direction and think. It gave me the chance to really take in
his appearance for the first time since I last saw him. He wore an
oversized burgundy hoodie and heavy blue jeans to make himself look
bigger than he really was. A camouflage printed compound bow was
looped over his back next to a quiver of arrows. In reality,
Simon’s human body weighed about a hundred and twenty pounds. He
had the height, but not the muscle. His dark brown hair looked like
it had been caught in a wind tunnel. Simon was older than me, but
he looked like a fourteen year old that never left puberty. The