Lilly sucked in a lungful of air as the world snapped back into focus around her. Her chest heaved, and the blackness lifted-which was when she realized she wasn't in the mausoleum. Not yet. The vision had pulled her deeper, kept her locked into the very same Grey family member she'd been inhabiting before. Icy ritual chamber air pressed down upon her like a suffocating blanket.
Her hands shook as she looked around at the torches flickering in their sconces, casting long shadows across the chamber. But something was different because there was no longer the chanting. The rhythmic incantations that filled the room were instead replaced with panicked whispers and gasps of fear. The energy in the air shifted, and the once-confident stance of the Grey family members had resolved into chaos.
Her heart was racing suddenly, knowing precisely what had happened: the entity, the thing they had invoked, was still there but no longer at their beck and call.
It loomed in the middle of the room, a mass of writhing shadows, its form flickering between solid and smoke. The air around it crackled with dark energy, unnatural, it seemed as if some storm roared just below its surface. The glowing eyes, two points of light aflame, took in all around the room the terrified faces of the Grey family in their stumbling retreat to regain control.
Lilly's body moved, but not of her own will to drive herself forward. She felt the fear of the Grey family member whose body she had taken raw, primeval terror of realizing they had unleashed something that they could not contain. Her hands shook as she raised them in front of her, trying to do something in the air to somehow help keep the entity from breaking free.
But it was too late.
From deep within, a low growl rumbled and vibrated the very earth beneath her feet. The robed figures that stood around her faltered, their voices shaking as they tried to continue the ritual, tried to bind the entity to their will. But the magic was failing. The balance had been shattered, and the entity was no longer bound by its power.
Lilly's heart was pounding in her chest, her mind racing as she slowly came to the realization: this was it; this was the moment when everything went wrong. This was the moment the Grey family lost control of the ritual.
They didn't know how to bind it.
The thought reverberated in her mind, fully laced with dread. The binding wasn't enough. The artifact-this jagged, dark metal thing still clutched in Thomas's handsn't enough to control the entity. It was powerful, yes, but it wasn't complete.
Lilly's breath caught as the entity shifted again, its form coagulating for a brief instant. Glowing eyes flared brighter, with malice ablaze in them, and the shadows twisted around it in a wild welter of movement that seemed to lash out at the nearest robed figure.
The man screamed as the shadows wrapped around him, yanking him toward the ground with a sickening thud. The energy in the room crackled, and Lilly could feel the weight of the entity's power bear down on her, suffocating.
Panic seized the circle as the remaining figures scrambled in their futile way to be gone, their flapping robes billowing out behind them in an attempt to escape the entity's grasp. But the air was heavy with the working's magic, dark energy welling up through the room like some species of living thing. There was no escape.
Thomas was at the center, his face white and rigid. The artifact was clutched tightly in his hands. His voice rose above the chaos, but it was tinged here with desperation now. Still, he tried to enjoin the thing, still sought to lock it to his will.
But the entity wasn't listening.
The shadows writhed once more, striking out around them, knocking other figures off their feet. The room shook with the force of the entity's power; the ground cracked beneath their feet while the energy of the ritual spiraled out of control.
Lilly felt her body stumble backward, hit by the power of the entity's rage, much like a wave crashing over her. The blurred edges of her vision saddened as her heartbeat quickened. The temperature in the room continued to drop, and Lilly could see the frost building up on the stone walls. Her breath fogged the air in front of her.
They don't have control. They never had control.
And then the thought came again, more insistent this time. Lilly's panic grew, knowing that the Greys had been reckless to think they could contain something so old, so mighty. They had summoned an entity they had no idea about, and they knew nothing about how it should be bound.
Lilly's eyes darted once more to Thomas; her gaze again caught the artifact in his hands. It pulsed with a faint red light, the glow dancing like a dying flame. The artifact was powerful, yes, but not enough on its own.
They need more.
It hit her like a kick in the gut. The ritual had gone wrong from the very start; the artifact was only part of the equation. They needed a living conduit-someone to channel the magic-now to bind the entity with this world. Without it, the ritual would always fail.
Her body moved again, her feet dragging her toward the middle of the room, toward Thomas and the entity. The shadows twisted in heavy violence, and she felt the cold grip of fear circle tighter around her chest as the entity's glowing eyes locked onto her.
Time froze, it seemed, for just one short moment. Everything around her hushed into a dim background and all she could see were those burning eyes staring right through her. The air started to grow cold while the weight of its power oppressed her, smothering.
Too strong, they can't contain it.
With another jerk, the creature's form flowered between solid and smoke once more; the red glow of the artifact dimmed even further. The power was draining from the room, and Lilly felt the magic unwind, slipping away like sand between her fingers.
Thomas shouted something, his voice hoarse with desperation, but Lilly couldn't hear him. There was a deafening roar as the entity sprang again, its shadows stretching in a lashing motion to reach the rest of the robed figures. New screams echoed in the chamber as bodies hit the floor, and the taste of magic in the air became more chaotic and unstable.
The ground beneath her feet shook, and Lilly felt her knees give way as the force of the entity's power shook a shockwave through the room. She fell to the floor, shaking with effort to hold herself together.
The shadows closed around her, cold and deadening, and Lilly felt the edges of her vision blur all over again. The darkness pressed in, wrapping around her with a vice's grip, ready to squeeze the air from her lungs.
You have to run. The thought was distant, muffled like it was originating from deep inside her mind.
Her heart seemed to pound against her chest, her pulse racing while the world wavered around her. The entity's eyes, aglow, burned brighter still, and she felt its power upon her, weighing upon her, crushing her. The air was thick with dark magic, cold and suffocating. Lilly's breathing was so shallow, the vision tugging her deep into chaos as it dragged her deeper in: within the ritual.
She was unable to get away or even move.
Wrapped in shadows, it pulled her down, and she felt she would be wholly swallowed into the entity's power.
Then, in an instant, as suddenly as the vision had started, it broke. Lilly gasped and yanked back into the present, her lungs burning as she gulped in great draughts of air. Her body collapsed against the cold stone floor of the mausoleum, her muscles shaking with the effort to stay conscious. The weight of the vision clung to her, thick and oppressive, and her heart pounded in her chest as she tried to make sense of what she had just seen.
Her hands scraped against the rough stone, the artifact still pulsating weakly in her grasp. The shadows about her seemed to dance, and the air in the mausoleum hung heavy and thick with remnants of the vision. But Lilly knew that wasn't just a vision—it had been real. The ritual had failed; the binding was never complete, and now it was free, feeding on the spirits trapped inside the cemetery, growing stronger with every second that passed.
Her heart racing, she forced herself to stand, her legs wobbling beneath her as she tried to steady herself. She needed to leave now. The visions were getting worse, pulling her deeper into the past, while the presence of the entity was intensifying. But even as she took a step toward the doorway, a chilling realization settled over her.