Chapter 23: Priest of Lost Light
Lyra, knife in each hand, circled wide and pulled Thorin back. Nik went low, left hand shielding his eyes from the spray. The acolytes surged forward, arms extended, their fingers blackening and elongating as they moved.
The priest convulsed again. His spine rose, arched almost to the point of breaking, and the flesh at his shoulders rippled up, splitting the skin like a jacket too tight for its owner.
New arms unfolded, twitching and jointless, slick with birth-slime and studded with pale claws.
His head, now half-molten by Torgo’s powder, twisted 180 degrees, then another 90, so that the mouth faced Apollo directly, the teeth clicking and gnashing in a sick, mechanical rhythm.
The acolytes wailed, but their voices blended into a single, choral whine.
They did not attack as a mob, but as a design: two flanking Lyra, two for Nik, one, heavier, stitched with old muscle, lunging for Thorin, who could barely stay upright.
Torgo raised his stick and swept it in a wide, showman’s arc; a fan of orange fire stitched the air and caught the leftmost acolyte full in the chest.
It burned like paper, crumpling inward, the smoke already thick with the promise of more.
Apollo gauged the distance: three meters to the priest, two to the nearest acolyte. He had no weapon.
He had only the ghost of a song, the lattice of gold just under his skin. He sang, not with his throat, but with the bones behind it.
A single, piercing note, thin as a razor.
The acolyte nearest him staggered, hands to its ears. Its face was melting, the eyes sloughing downward in slow, viscous tears.