“What’s new?” I rasped at Van’s comment, throat hoarse from screaming.
He turned to me. “Your eyes. Flickering like lightning. And the skin is red around them.” His gaze locked onto my hand. “So are your fingers.” I pressed the areas with my fingertips. They didn’t feel tender or sore, so I shrugged it off as a side-effect from crying lightning bolts. He lifted his head to see the Huntress pointing her bow in my general direction, and let out a sigh.
“The bow looks good on you.” He smiled before assessing us as a group. “But you people should try talking first. I feel like I walked in on the middle of a soap opera.” He glanced around. “Speaking of, where’s that Butler? Popcorn sounds nice while I watch the upcoming drama.”
“What happened to you?” I asked Van, ignoring the looks my friends were giving me.
I didn’t feel like talking to them, but I needed to know things. One, if not all of them, thought I was crazy. Or on my way there. And I couldn’t confront them about it. Per Shiva’s parting warning. I didn’t even want to consider the long-term consequences of my astral projection. And I was pretty sure asking anyone about it would only further convince them I was clawing by my fingernails to grip the cliffs of sanity.
“I had just concluded returning the werecat. For free, I might add,” he growled unhappily, “when your pet showed up and tried to kill me.” He eyed the Huntress thoughtfully. “In fact, I’m pretty sure he should have killed me. One of you stupid bastards apparently saved me. Idiots.” He grumbled, propping himself up to a sitting position on the couch. Sir Muffle Paws dropped down from a perch and leapt up onto his chest, where he began happily purring and clawing his chest like cats do when they are tenderizing their next human meal.
Othello was watching the cat with a thoughtful frown. I studied the cat for a moment, not understanding her look, but gave up with an impatient sigh.
Then I turned to leave. I had work to do.
Othello’s voice followed me. “You were just dead, Nate!” I ignored her, my vision pulsing blue as I continued on through the doorway.
I slammed the door behind me. I heard a curse followed by a solid thunk as something powerful slammed into the door, and an arrowhead was suddenly poking all the way through the wood. I glanced at it, frowned, and continued on through the halls.
I heard muffled arguing behind the door, but then Othello shouting back for everyone to give me some space.
They must have listened.
Bully for them.
Chapter 43
Unable to find a coat quickly enough, I had grabbed a thick robe from a nearby bathroom, and thrown it on over my tee, deciding a bit of fresh air would do just the trick. To clear my head.
Before I attempted to dry-hump my Beast into submission.
And my friends thought I was crazy.
I now sat beneath the giant silver tree – the Gateway, or huge freaking lightning rod. I closed my eyes to avoid the blue tint to the world around me. Remembering Shiva’s comment about the Elders, I thumbed a piece of broken glass in my palm.
The enchanted glass from Chateau Falco. Master Temple’s Home.
I took a few deep breaths, preparing myself for I knew not what, and began to meditate.
After fifteen minutes or so, I sought out the Dark Presence inside of me. My Beast. In the darkness of my soul, I imagined myself on my knees, calling out to him, pleading, and luring him with promises. I continued this for some time, staring into the black void, fearing he knew my game.
Then, like a gunshot, a form exploded from the darkness, hurtling at me like a blazing comet. At the last second, he snapped to sudden stillness, like a kite catching the wind, but restrained by the shackles of the string.
I stared at him, my face an apologetic mask, remembering that – despite his treachery – he had kept my wizard’s power alive. With a twist of guilt, I held out my arms to offer him a brotherly embrace, and a kiss on the cheek. Like Judas Iscariot.
He watched me warily, and then – ever so slowly – he met me in a spiritual bond that could not be broken.
Brotherhood.
Appreciation.
Love.
And that’s when I betrayed him. In his eyes, I saw the moment that he realized my apologetic mask had not been for what had been done to him, but for what I was about to do to him.
But his understanding came too late.
Purple shackles materialized on his wrists, and he saw with horror and confusion that I had bonded them to my own wrists in identical purple shackles of crackling power. I tossed away the key, and we watched as it sailed out into the darkness, forever lost.
I wasn’t quite sure what I did next, or how I was doing it, but it felt right. An instinct. I let the instinct take over, remembering Shiva’s comment. It’s in your blood…
The Beast gasped, snarled, struggled, and fought, but we were now one, and after an eternity, he quieted, watching me with both rage and trepidation. Waiting.
I dipped my head at him, and then I turned my attention back to the real world, eyes still closed as my body sat beneath the tree. I spent a single moment acknowledging the physical world, feeling the icy bark against my back, the cool, crisp smells and sounds of winter, the taste of a season dying and being reborn beneath the earth’s surface – the taste of life and death. I pulled all these sensations in, relishing them, drinking them, letting them fill me to bursting.
And then I began to dismantle them. I discarded all sensation, slowly removing smell, touch, sound, taste. My eyes were already closed, so vision was by default already out, but I did imagine seeing nothingness – a super-black vacuum where nothing existed. I stayed like this for a few minutes until the void was absolute around us.
But my mind still ran rampant, because although I had dismantled the world around me, a human body – Nate Temple – still existed in that void. As did his Beast. I could still recall the memories of these things: the grass beneath me, the smells riding the breeze of cool air, the taste of blood in my mouth from my recent injuries, the replay of the conversation I had overheard my friends having.
About my sanity.
Judging by what I was about to do, maybe they were right.
I imagined these pains, these memories, my friends, my enemies, my home, the Beast Master, the Academy, my fiancée, everyone, and everything – in full context, for the span of a baby’s first laughter. For a million years’ each. For no time. For all time.
And then I obliterated them from existence.
I was a Tiny God in my own tiny little void. I was All.
The Alpha. And the Omega.
Shiva. The Creator and Destroyer of Worlds.
Of Nothingness.
No life.
No death.
Just Nate Temple. And his Beast.
Sensing this, my Beast began to scream in horror.
Then I committed both suicide and murder, destroying those two last remaining forms of life. The screaming ceased like a snuffed candle.
And Nate Temple and his Beast became Nothingness, in fact.
Nothingness – an omnipotent, care-free construct – remained for an eternity.
For the duration of another Big Bang. For the single flutter of a Hummingbird’s wings.
For no time at all.
Because there was no concept of time.
Nothingness had killed that, too.
Then, Nothingness slowly began to rebuild the world around it. First, the Gateway.
Where it had all begun.
At least for Nate Temple. The Maker that had been transformed into the Nothingness.
Then the Nothingness transformed. It sacrificed itself to build the Maker, the Tiny God, infusing his body with the elements of life: flesh, blood, bone, darkness, light, and his Beasts.
The Tiny God breathed for the first time, and He smiled as the Nothingness died.
Then the Tiny God added his own creations: love, hate, family, enemies, trust, betrayal…
Next, the Tin
y God created a Prison.
Crystal bars of starlight, silver welding, golden locks and chains, obsidian floors and walls, ramparts and battlements melded together with ivory mortar. The Tiny God created raging rivers of flowing ice, formed them into impenetrable moats around the prison, made the air crackle with the pure, elemental power of purple electricity, understanding it fully for the first time.
Outerfire.
It was so simple.
Then the Tiny God filled that air with an erratic clanging sound, pitch, volume, and tempo infinitely random enough to drive a prisoner to madness. The Tiny God filled that same air with scents of brimstone and glaciers, ash and burnt glass, dust and disease, sand and grit, and something that was none of these. He filled his Prison with pain, and hints of love, so that any surface touched was prone to randomly bite or caress, so that a prisoner would never know which he would receive. Pain or pleasure. Forever. He instilled taste in the air – of delicious foods chased by bile and rot, savory decay.
Then the Tiny God gave the Prison its first prisoner, and the Prison growled in gratitude, hungry, sated, and alive. The Beast wailed.
Once complete, the Tiny God rested, and the virgin Maker opened his freshly-minted eyes.
The two had become one – Tiny God and Maker.
Nate Temple.
And he smiled, glancing down at the silver cane on his hip.
His pocket Prison.
The Beast begged and pleaded.
“Submit…” the Tiny God commanded.
And the Beast did.
“Teach me…” the Tiny God commanded.
And the Beast did.
And the Tiny God smiled, filling himself to bursting with Creation’s Chaos, eyes watering in joy. The true power of a Maker. Although currently limited in strength, it now overshadowed such petty things as a wizard’s curse.
Chapter 44
“Master,” the Beast whispered. “You don’t need to do this. We were allies…”
“You are mine to do with as I please. Do not mistake my acceptance of your stained existence as affection,” I whispered, twirling my fingers through gossamer strands of sunbeams piercing the tree above. “Or submission. This is called domination. Mastery.”
I plucked the beam of sunlight free and moved it a pace away, more to my liking.
The Beast gasped, and then flinched in pain as he attempted to move inside his Prison. “All this… for one who has assisted you. This… hell.”
I nodded. “Handing out candy every now and again does not constitute friendship. Or an alliance. You did what you did, when you did it, to attempt to steal my trust. Not to earn it. So that you could eventually attempt a mutiny, of my mind.”
My Beast cowered in shame, but it pressed on. “Let. Me. Help. You.” And the Beast collapsed to his knees, groaning in rapture as his knees touched the Prison floor. Then he began to shake as that comfort was ripped away, and true pain replaced the momentary pleasure. The chaos I had created for him. The constant ebb and flow of pain and pleasure, never consistent, never ending. Just constant, chaotic mood swings of joy and agony, famine and gluttony, war and peace, death and life, pestilence and abounding health.
Hope.
And despair.
His new home.
If he so chose.
“Please… let me help you.”
I ignored his plea, studying the air around me, taking a deep breath with lungs that felt to have never tasted air. And the smells!
I touched the glass in my hand, and the tactile feedback momentarily overwhelmed me, causing my body to shudder.
I spoke softly. “We have work to do.” I told him what I desired. He hesitated for only a moment before complying.
And we tapped into the Gateway behind me. Out of a clear-blue sky, a lightning bolt struck the tree, shooting all the way down through the trunk and into the roots, the leaves and twigs around me bouncing up off of the ground as a single boom cracked the air.
And power raged into me like a tidal wave. But I didn’t move.
Because I didn’t want to. And the world was Made as I saw fit.
I murmured a request to the Beast, and it acted, fearing any answer other than yes, Master.
As was right.
And I felt a small, faint, wavering heat deep, deep, deep down in my soul from a single red coal that rested on a platform of air. My wizard’s power.
The coal flared brighter, hotter, and began to flicker erratically.
Then the flame came to life.
Just one flame. But it grew, and grew, and grew, the coal becoming a bed of embers.
Then a campfire.
Then… a forest fire.
And the blaze consumed me. I let it fill my chest as it raged, building, growing, eating…
Living. My wizard’s power was still weakened, but now growing. I could feel it healing itself deep inside me, blazing old pathways free of metaphysical cobwebs. I opened my eyes, and the world rippled, the two Beasts fighting against each other. I sighed, releasing the connection to the Gateway. My Maker power snapped back, rejuvenated, but still weaker than it would have been without the curse.
But that was okay. I didn’t need it for much longer anyway.
The Gateway hissed behind me, weakened and upset at my trespass, but still alive. I ignored this as my Beast sobbed at what he had helped me do. How he had effectively committed suicide.
I tried to use my wizard’s power to ignite a small flame in my palm, but received only a staggering flash of pain. I stopped instantly, and let out a shaky breath.
Okay, no wizard’s power yet. Maybe give it a minute to recover from resurrection. Perhaps it was too much to use with my Maker’s power still a roommate. Because I still had that. And I no longer needed the Beast to use it. So, I tossed him back in his Prison mercilessly.
I felt the glass in my palm, and smiled. It’s in your blood… Master your home… Shiva’s words whispered in my ears like a lover’s caress. And the Gateway was on my property.
Part of Chateau Falco.
I sliced deeply into the palm of my hand, ignoring the pain as I suddenly realized what I needed to do. I had given it only a taste. Now it was time to give it a big old gulp.
And take care of the Elders in one fell swoop.
I lifted the glass to my eyes to observe my home, staring at it through the crimson-stain.
My world rocked.
And my house purred a welcome.
Chateau Falco blazed like a bonfire in the distance, like Mount Olympus to a mortal. A beacon of truth, an Oasis in a desert, land after months at sea. Flickers of purple power danced from spire to spire on the rooftop.
It spoke to me, welcoming me, inviting me to come inside.
It seemed to let out a sigh of relief that it had held for hundreds of years. Finally witnessing a Master who realized she was a living creature, trapped inside the mortar of the mansion. She was eager to willingly serve a worthy lord who could see her for what she truly was.
Shiva had been right. Who else would have known that the mansion was a living entity? I had awakened Chateau Falco. My blood calling out to her, bonding us. Eternally.
The entity the first Temple had trapped here. The entity the first Temple had dominated.
And my blood had activated her when I touched it to the glass the first time.
But only chose to reveal her beauty after I had mastered my Maker’s power, dominating my Beast. The house had needed a worthy Master. Not a man with only a whisper of magical ability.
But now that we were bonded, I knew it was for life. No matter what happened to my magic. ‘Til Death do us part, I thought with a grin.
I finally let out a sigh, and chose to acknowledge the army before me. The ones I had seen as soon as I lifted the glass to my eyes, but had ignored. The Elders.
But now that I was bonded with Chateau Falco, I no longer needed the glass to see them. The glass was a part of me now. As was the rest of the house. And the property.
&
nbsp; And by default – an added bonus – the Gateway.
I tossed the glass down on the ground, locking eyes with the foremost Elder. He and his fellows were hunkered down on their dinosaur-like paws. One hissed and launched himself at me, ivory blades outstretched.
He died.
Explosively.
I blinked lazily, turning to the next. And Dozens of them stared back defiantly, lords of themselves, lost and forgotten for so long that they had forgotten what it was to serve a worthy Master. But I was willing to show them the error of their ways. And now it was time for me to start burning off my power anyway, so I could let the curse destroy my Maker’s power.
So, I, erm, cut loose.
The one I took for the leader watched me. Then he lifted his hands. Like lemmings, the others threw themselves at me with varying degrees of supernatural strength, speed, power, magic, and agility. And I ended them, with equal variations of chaos. Fire. Ice. Gateways. Obliterating them in such a fantastic symphony of light, sound, and concussive explosions that the scene would have given Michael Bay sweet, sweet dreams.
They.
All.
Died.
Until only one remained. The leader. I would have liked to say that he was the first one I had met so many years ago. Then I hesitated. Not years. Yesterday. My mind rippled for a moment, then quieted. I blinked at the unsettling feeling.
The creature watched me. “What does thee dessssire?” he hissed.
“Your servitude. And a headset to fix your creepy lisp,” I added, grimacing. His voice sounded like nails on a chalkboard.
He cleared his shining scaly throat. “Is this better?” he asked, voice entirely normal.
I blinked in surprise, not having expected such a quick solution, and then nodded.
“You were hearing me too clearly, Maker. Too accurately. Too literally. I have corrected your senses, or your perception of reality. Whatever explanation suits you.” He considered me in silence for two heartbeats before adding, “Master.” The word sounded foreign to his lips, but also as if it lent him strength, as if he had been searching for a time and place to use the word again after roaming the planes of existence as a vagabond for so long. Alone.
Beast Master: A Novel in The Nate Temple Supernatural Thriller Series (The Temple Chronicles Book 5) Page 24