Chapter 4

Nikolai writhed and shivered in a haze of misery. He'd lost track of all the different drugs they'd pumped into his bloodstream in an effort to wear down his defenses and release the demon. He even thought they had succeeded a few times, but those had turned out to be hallucinations. He was pretty sure the glimpses of Zoya weren't real either. But the bite of steel around his wrists kept him marginally grounded, and though his vision sometimes warped between seeing scarred human hands to razor talons, he had managed to hold on and not let the demon out. It was the last piece of dignity he had, and he would not give them the satisfaction of finally breaking him.

Makhi paced at the end of the table, her expression furious with the lack of results. "Give him jurda parem," she ordered.

Nikolai jerked his head up at that.

"We don't know if the demon will protect him," one of the scientists cautioned. "It could kill him like any other non-Grisha."

"We're not making any progress, so what's the point?" she rejoined. "Do it."

"No," Nikolai gasped. "Don't."

He had no idea if parem would affect him, but if it had any kind of similar effect on the demon as it did Grisha, then it could be catastrophic.

Makhi leaned over him with a smug grin. "Then let it out."

His eyes pricked as he clamped his jaw shut in refusal.

"Very well."

The scientist prepared the dosage.

With the combination of drugs already messing with Nikolai's mind and body, he began to panic. He strained against the metal cuffs, to no avail, and his chest started to heave erratically as the scientist came over.

"Please don't do this," Nikolai begged.

Makhi came around the other side and grabbed his jaw, pinching his cheeks and forcing his mouth open with a bruising grip. The scientist fed him the parem. Nikolai tried not to swallow, but rough hands clamped over his mouth and nose, cutting off his air. His next convulsive gasp ended up swallowing the drug. Then they released him.

Nikolai tossed his head back and forth, tears leaking out of the corners of his eyes as he waited in dread for the parem to take effect. He could feel something churning in his stomach, a tingle in his nerve endings.

The pain came out of nowhere, burning his insides like dry ice. It reminded him of when the Darkling had first infected him with merzost, the evil substance changing him from the inside out. He arched sharply as the wings tried to punch out of his back, only to meet the resistance of the metal slab. He screamed as the talons exploded from his fingertips. Makhi was grinning with predatory delight.

Nikolai's next scream turned guttural and animalistic. Something was wrong, different… He could feel the demon clawing at his mind in a way it hadn't done since he'd gained control over it. The talons scraped across the metal table, grating his ears. They were growing longer than before, larger. Nikolai looked down in horror at his entire body bubbling and bulging in places as the parem fed the merzost, amplifying its power the way the drug did for Grisha. But this wasn't Grisha power.

Nikolai choked as the merzost flooded his veins, turning them black. The demon screeched this time, now in possession of his voice. With a surge of strength, it snapped the metal restraints around its wrists and lurched upright, unleashing its wings in an eruption of shadow that sent one scientist flying and shattered an overhead light fixture. It grabbed the cuffs at its ankles and ripped them off like they were made of brittle clay. Then with an enraged roar, the demon stood, snapping its wings taut. Nikolai could feel the muscles expanding, the demon growing larger still.

People were running and screaming now. The demon lashed out with its claws, snatching the Grisha Healer up as he tried to escape. The young man frantically moved his hands, but the demon recognized the threat and tore his arms off in one go. The screams reverberated in Nikolai's ears. The demon whirled and spotted Makhi cowering on the floor.

"N-no," she stammered, hands up and shaking in a futile attempt to ward the demon off.

The demon screamed in unbridled fury. It knew everything she had done, had felt it deep within the recesses of Nikolai's mind as he had endured the torture. And it wanted revenge.

Nikolai tried to regain control, if only for his own sanity. But he didn't stand a chance. In fact, his own awareness was being pulled under into a miasma of choking shadows, and the last thing he heard was the echoing screams as the demon ripped everyone apart.

Tamar, Tolya, and Zoya rode hard to reach the border of Shu Han as quickly as possible. Tamar led the way to the base her intelligence contacts had informed her of. Since there were no settlements out this way, they were able to cross the terrain in relative stealth. None of them spoke; they were all anxious to find Nikolai and dreaded what state he might be in when they did.

They arrived at the entrance concealed to look like an old mine shaft. There were no guards posted outside, so they cautiously approached the door, which was locked. Zoya used her Durast abilities to dismantle the lock, and the twins drew their weapons as they swept inside.

The inner hallway was empty and quiet. And dark. Tamar felt a trickle of doubt and fear that her intelligence was wrong, that no one was here. But they ventured down the passage anyway. A light flickered up ahead at a junction, but that, too, was empty. And the light bulb was hanging from a destroyed fixture, the filament buzzing. Tolya's eyes widened, and Tamar looked behind them to see there were huge dents and jagged tears around the entryway. As though something had tried to claw its way out.

Unnerved, they kept going. Further down the hall, they drew to a stop again. Fresh blood was smeared all over the floor. Lots of blood. They found a lab at the end of the corridor and covered their noses at the gruesome scene. Limbs lay scattered about; headless torsos had been eviscerated. Blood was splattered over nearly every surface, even across the ceiling. There was an overturned metal table with broken restraints, and Tamar was getting a very bad feeling.

Tolya pulled a face and said, "I think that's Makhi Kir-Taban."

Tamar moved closer to look, and her gorge rose in the back of her throat. "I think so too."

"Where's Nikolai?" Zoya said, voice cracking.

Tamar's stomach turned as she searched through the mutilated bodies. But no…pieces…seemed to belong to their missing friend.

"Let's search the rest of the facility," Tolya said.

But just as he turned to exit the lab, a hulking shape came charging in from the hall and slammed into him, throwing him clear across the room and into the wall with a bone-crunching impact. Tolya fell straight down onto the counter and then the floor and didn't get up.

Tamar swung her axes up, and Zoya raised her hands to fight. The massive, inky black monster reared up with a screech.

"Saints," Tamar breathed in horror. She recognized the demon from all those months it had haunted Nikolai, but it was three times larger than it should have been. The Shadow veins squirmed under bulging muscles and covered almost every inch of skin, painting him completely black. Its wingspan could barely fit the length of the laboratory, and the shadowy appendages were bent and crooked. It was covered in blood.

"Nikolai," Zoya gasped.

The demon snarled and launched itself at her. Tamar brandished her axes, aiming for the wings to merely distract it, but it backhanded her with a clubbed arm so hard she went sliding across the slick floor.

"Nikolai, stop!" Zoya yelled desperately, but then he was on her.

Tamar's heart lurched into her throat, but a second later, the dragon emerged with a roar, and the two beasts threw themselves at each other in a tangle of slashing claws and gnashing teeth. Tamar grimaced in pain as she frantically tried to scoot out of the way and avoid being trampled. The demon and dragon slammed into the walls and counters, the two nearly indistinguishable in the dim, flickering lights. Then they went plowing straight up through the ceiling and rock above, punching a gaping hole right out of the underground facility and letting blinding light pour in.

Tamar hobbled over to her brother where he lay in a pile of broken glass, horrible sounds coming from his throat. She set her axes down and moved her hands over him in search of injury. Her breath stole from her lungs when she realized his back was broken. He looked up at her with wide, fearful eyes. Above, the demon and the dragon screeched in continued battle.

"G-go," Tolya said haltingly.

Her mouth pressed into a thin line. No way was she leaving him like this. But this type of injury was beyond her meager skills with healing. She cast her gaze around desperately, not knowing what to do. Then she spotted some vials on the floor. Several were broken and the contents mixed with blood, but a few were intact. She recognized the label. Jurda parem.

Tamar scrambled over and snatched one up.

Tolya's eyes blew wider as he saw it. "No," he gasped.

"I'll take the antidote after," she said. "But I need to heal you, and then we need to help Zoya with Nikolai." And given the demon's state, they might need someone juiced up on parem to be able to stop him.

So even though it went against her values and instincts, she forced herself to ingest the drug. It took a moment, but the rush of strength that coursed through her veins filled her with a heady clarity and focus. She could sense every single function in Tolya's body, from each organ down to individual blood vessels and nerve endings. And with that came the knowledge that with just a simple extension of power, she could shut them all down.

But that wasn't what she wanted. And so even though healing wasn't her first inclination, she moved her hands over her brother, focusing on mending his spine. It came easily, and she was also able to heal every shallow cut from the broken glass.

Tolya blinked as he slowly sat up, looking amazed and a little fearful. "Tamar…"

"Nikolai first," she said, picking up her axes and getting to her feet.

They both hurried through the corridor and back out the front door of the facility. Outside, Zoya and the demon were still locked in a vicious, mid-air dogfight. They were just in time to see the demon tear into the dragon, and then Zoya was falling out of the sky and crashing to the ground. The demon dove after her.

Tamar whipped her hands up and reached out with her heartrending. With the boost from the parem, she was able to fully and completely take control of the demon's body in an instant. She made the wings seize up, disrupting its flight and causing it to crash several yards away from Zoya. The demon staggered to its feet, and Tamar gripped its heart and slowed it way down, until the demon was stumbling drunkenly in defiance before it finally collapsed in a wheezing heap.

Tolya hurried over to Zoya, who turned back into human form. He helped her up, and it was clear by the way she held herself that she was injured, though Tamar couldn't see past the dragon scale armor she was now covered in.

"What did they do to him?" Zoya gasped as Tolya helped her limp over to Nikolai, who continued to writhe under Tamar's control.

"I think they gave him parem," she said. "The increased strength, the amplification of the demon's manifestation, it all fits."

Zoya's hand went to her side, only to stop against the scales, and she whipped her head up in alarm. "The antidote I carry is gone." It had been lost in her transformation along with everything else that had been on her person.

Tolya urgently reached into his vest to get his, but then he paled. He brought his hand back out, holding bits of broken glass. He looked over at Tamar in horror. His antidote must have broken when he'd gotten slammed into the wall. Which meant Tamar was the only one of them left with one—and two of them were in need of it.

The demon continued to fight back against her heartrending, and Tamar could feel the merzost inside him roiling and churning like a storm cloud with the strength of a hurricane. Slavering, the demon began to crawl toward her, black eyes devoid of any mind, only the ravenous monster. So Tamar reached out with her enhanced power and took hold of the merzost, cutting off its circulation just as she would blood.

The demon flinched and fell onto its side, choking and twitching, its eyes rolling back. Merzost was its life blood, the very essence of its existence.

"Tolya," Tamar said. "Take my antidote and give it to Nikolai."

"What about you?"

Zoya jerked. "What about her what?"

"Tamar took parem," Tolya said.

"What?"

"It was the only way," she interrupted. "And I wouldn't be able to hold the demon right now if I hadn't. We have no idea what parem will do to Nikolai if he doesn't receive the antidote. He could remain permanently changed like this forever. Give him mine."

Tolya came over and fished out her vial from her pocket, then looked at her in utter devastation. "You'll die."

"No, I won't," she said, shooting him a firm look. "Nina Zenik survived."

"What if it's not parem they gave him?" Zoya asked.

"We can't take that chance," Tamar replied. "Now hurry! I'll survive this."

"You better," Tolya said before approaching the demon.

It was choking and clawing at the ground, and Tamar renewed her focus to render it completely immobile so Tolya could get close enough to pour the antidote into its mouth. He then scrambled away, and Tamar forced the demon's throat to swallow. They all watched tensely as the demon continued to writhe, but then it started to shrink back down to normal size. The black flesh faded to gray, then white; the talons, fangs, and wings retracted into pale flesh. Until finally all that remained was Nikolai, limp on the ground, breeches torn to shreds and covered in blood.

Tamar gasped as she finally released the death-like grip on his internal organs, and they all hurried over. Nikolai was unconscious yet alive, his pallor ashen. But now his entire body was covered in the black scars that used to mar only his fingers. Tamar couldn't worry about that right now, though, and she reached out to feel for any injuries she could heal while still juiced up on parem. But her hands began to shake and a wave of nausea rolled through her. Her power that was second nature suddenly felt wobbly.

Tolya grabbed her shoulder as she swayed. "Tamar?"

"I burned through the parem faster than I anticipated," she said. "It took a lot to restrain the demon." She swallowed hard as she began to break out in a cold sweat. "I fear I'm going to go into withdrawal soon."

"We need to get as far away from here as we can," Zoya said. She looked around, but their horses were gone, no doubt scared off when the dragon and demon had burst up out of the ground.

Zoya helped Tamar up, and Tolya hefted Nikolai up into his arms to carry, and together they hobbled away on foot. Tamar didn't know how far they'd get, and while they had successfully retrieved Nikolai, they had no idea what ramifications the parem would have on him.

Or on her.