Page 131 - Hunter - The Vigil

T H E C U LT O F T H E P H O E N I X
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Kimiya vomited. The sands before her threatened to swallow her. The
skies dripped with blood, pouring fresh from the sun, which was not a
sun at all but a cigarette burn. Her throat felt like it was on fire,
a pillar of searing flame whirling about in the tender flesh of her

esophagus. She tried to cry out, tried to plead with the visions to stop,

but she could only manage to throw up again.
Farnad only laughed. Blew smoke in her face, which made it all

worse. He pushed her down and rubbed a cold unguent in her eyes — it

stank of pitch, and felt like acid.
“You can’t handle this?” he chided her. “How will you handle the poison

that enters your veins when an ifrit scratches you with one of its claws?

How will your body react to the venomous blood within a ghul’s body?
Eh? Concentrate, you stupid girl! Do you want to die out there? You

need to harden yourself. Feel the toxins inside you. Turn them to their

proper task. Concentrate. Take but a moment to make yourself strong.”

She tried to concentrate, tried to use her body as a mortar, her will
as a pestle — the monsters had stolen everything, her son, her home, her

country — and for a moment within her, something budged. It was

a tiny thing, like moving a mote of dust with a hammer, but it was

something.
And then it was gone, lost, and the pain was once more everything.

She wept on the ground beneath the hot sun. She heaved.

Farnad patted her on the hip. “Don’t worry. We will try again
tomorrow. And the next day, and the next. I’ll go turn on the

samovar, make us some chai.”

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