Luna of Rogues

Part 49 - The Devil Himself

Well, hello again. We've been having an influx of new readers, so if you're only just joining, welcome to the forty-ninth annual hunger--  No, I mean family.

Thank you Sydney Boulter for all your votes and remember, kids, the best way to get a dedication is vote on every part. That way you show up more obviously on my notification list. Mwhahaha.

"Take this," Fion said as she handed a bottle of dark, gooey liquid. "But don't touch it, don't open it, and don't go pouring it into anything without mind-linking me first."

"Because you need to work out the dose," I agreed.

"That's right. Too much, and they'll start dying before everyone's had a drink. Too little and they won't die at all. The dosage is important — and that reminds me. You'll need this, too."

A tape measure was pressed into my free hand. We would need to measure every water container we found and send the dimensions back to Fion so she could calculate the volume and tell us how much poison to add. I didn't pretend to understand much of the process, but I knew Fion could walk us through it.

"I'm not sure I know how to use that thing, Fion," Rhys admitted sheepishly.

"That's because you didn't go to school," Leo retorted. "And that's why I'm coming. I aced GCSE maths."

Fion rolled her eyes, because she had mastered GCSE maths in a month at the ripe age of eleven, so my mate wasn't exactly impressing her. "It's not you three I'm worried about. It's Team Knuckleheads. Emmett has at least proved that he knows his way around a tape measure. Aaron, though..."

"He worked construction for a summer. He'll be fine," I assured her. "I'll fetch him now."

Rhys was on his feet before I could even finish the sentence. "No, it's okay. I'll go."

He had been looking for an excuse to escape the tent since the moment we arrived, so I waved him off without a fuss. I hadn't been keen on the trip, anyway. I'd been edgy around Aaron even before his little brother had died on my watch. Now I was downright nervous of the guy.

I lay back on my bed, letting my legs rest across Leo's lap. The bottle was cold and heavy in my hand. I turned it upside idly and watched the dark liquid slosh about. The scent was strong and sickly sweet, but I couldn't pick out any individual smell. "What's in here?"

"It's mainly a hybrid of monkshood, hemlock and nightshade," Fion said without looking up. She was squinting at a pair of syringes. "But I did throw in a bit of foxglove just to be sure, so don't let it touch your skin."

And, hearing the names of those poisons, the enormity of what I was going to do struck me once again. "Will they suffer?"

She threw me one of the syringes. "They'll have respiratory failure, paralysis, hallucinations and vomiting, so it won't be pleasant, but it shouldn't last very long — a minute if we're lucky, five if we're not."

Well, it would be quicker and easier than ripping them apart with our teeth, and that was what Jace was planning. If they were ordinary enemies, I would agree with him. But they were our own people — fathers, brothers, mates, cousins. Even if we won the fight, we wouldn't be winning. We would just be losing fewer lives. And so I was going minimise that loss however I could, even if it meant sacrificing my honour and every last scrap of my humanity.

"How long until it starts working?" Leo asked.

"I laced it with Tylenol to slow everything down, and it ain't toxic until it's metabolised," Fion sighed. "As long as it's in plenty of water, no one should start dying for three or four hours."