Page 49 of Coven of Corpses

And then something inside him shifted hard, as if his entire being, his identity, his individuality, had been scooped out of him, lifted high, and then slammed back down. Vertigo swamped his senses, leaving him dissociated and gasping, on the verge of vomiting. His body felt different, alien. His swollen hands tingled, shoulders and neck aching in all new places, knees sending out gentle waves of pain.

The blinding light went out. Around them, the woods fell silent. He heard nothing from Baron or Heath. Slowly, he let his body relax, easing tightened muscles, spreading his limbs. He was gasping and moaning. He ached, but not in the places to which he’d become accustomed. These aches had selected new spots in which to settle. His body felt heavy, as if gravity had more to work with.

“What the fucking hell was that?”

Cody’s voice sounded tremendously different. Demetrius attributed it to the experience they’d just endured, but it also sounded as if he were somewhere off to his right instead of on his left. Had they been tossed around by whatever spells Heath and Baron had cast? Was that why he ached in all new places?

“Some kind of trap spell?” Demetrius’s own voice sounded rougher, deeper than he was used to. “We’re not possessed, are we?”

“No, but you sound different. What’s wrong with you?” Cody said, then cleared his throat. “Fuck. What’s wrong with me? Why do I sound different?”

“I don’t know. I feel different.”

“So do I.” Leaves rustled as Cody moved around. “What the fuck did that fucking asshole do to us? Are we possessed?”

“I don’t think so. At least not like Heath had been. I’m still thinking like myself even though my body feels different.”

Demetrius sat upright. Movement was more difficult, as if the spell or curse or whatever the hell it had been had changed his mass or the way gravity affected him. He felt like he’d been hit by a bus and then trampled by a herd of horses.

“He shrank my hands,” Cody said.

“What?” Demetrius lifted his hands and stared. His eyes were adjusting from the blinding flash and back to the muted sunlight through the trees, but he couldn’t make sense of what he was seeing. “Mine are huge.”

“You don’t have to be a dick about it.”

“I’m not being a dick. Look.”

Demetrius up held his hands and looked over at Cody. Only he seemed to be looking into a mirror instead, because he saw himself looking back.

“Where are you?” Demetrius asked, his voice pitched lower than usual. He reached up and touched his throat, felt the scratch of beard along his jaw, and jerked his hand away.

Across from him, his mirror image never moved. It just sat and stared. Then it reached up to touch his mirror image face, even though Demetrius himself didn’t move.

“What the fuck happened to us?” his mirror image asked quietly.

“Where are you?”

Demetrius looked around, but when he looked back his mirror image hadn’t moved. Then he watched as his reflection lifted a hand and waved.

“I’m right here,” it said. “Are you over there?”

Demetrius lifted his own hand. “Yeah, I’m right here. But I don’t see you.”

“I don’t see you, either.”

“I’m looking in a weird mirror or something,” Demetrius said. “I’m seeing myself, but the me I’m seeing isn’t doing the same things I’m doing.”

“That’s what I’m seeing, too.”

“I sound different,” Demetrius said.

“Me, too.” There was a pause, then his image put a hand on its chest as it stared at him. “I’m Cody, I know that. But I sound different, and I’m looking at my body sitting across from me and moving in different ways than I am. I don’t feel like I’m the same person I was before.”

“What the fuck happened to us?”

“Let’s try this. I’m going to lift both arms over my head. You sit still and tell me what you see.”

“Okay.”