Shadow of the Apocalypse

by D. L. Harrison

  When she first got there her schedule was morning physical training, then witch training. Then she’d relax and unwind in the afternoons, and then hunt at night if there were any evil rogues to take down. That hadn’t changed at all the last two weeks, and she smiled at Allison as she walked in and took a seat on the couch.

  Allison said, “Rumor is you heard about the legends last night?”

  She froze for a second, but then shrugged.

  “Yes. I might have to hurt you if you call me mom though.”

  Allison snickered, “Noted,” and then smiled back at her brightly.

  She was getting the usual shy smile and mischievously happy feelings from Allison, but there was more there this morning, an excitement with sensual overtones.

  “So, what’s going on with you? Got a date tonight?”

  It was also a good change of subject as far as she was concerned. She’d talk to others about it, maybe, but she needed to work it all out in her head first.

  Allison gaped for a second, and then blushed, “Maybe?”

  She grinned, “Who’s the lucky man?”

  Allison replied, “Not sure if he’s going to be lucky yet, but his name is Sam. He’s a little younger than me actually, under thirty. He seems like a good one, but we’ll see. I’m… excited, but I’ve been there before.”

  She was a little surprised by Allison’s first rather earthy comment, but she shouldn’t have been. Allison was quiet and shy, but she knew the witch well enough to know she was also mischievous and bit wicked at times. She almost offered to check him for her, with her empathy it’d be easy to find out if he really liked her, or if he was just trying to score with the lissome sexy witch passing through or not. She resisted the urge to meddle.

  “Well, you’ll have to tell me about it tomorrow. What’s the next step?”

  Allison said, “Keep studying, and I have a lot of nature spells to teach you, but I thought I’d teach you a little about using magic on the web itself today, and in transporting your awareness over it. The first can be a little difficult, the latter part can be incredibly dangerous.

  “The easiest thing is shielding someone from the life-web. It’s very similar to the sphere we use to block out attacks. The hard part is you cast it in the real world, so it’s an aura reactive spell, except, the visualization is about the web itself and the person’s node on the web. You want to imagine trapping their node in a sphere that not only stops magic, but the flowing life force line of the web itself. It doesn’t matter if your target is shielded from magic, because your magic is targeting the web strands around him. Make sense?

  “To expand that, you could visualize a much bigger sphere that contains all the life nodes in this room, which is how I cut us off the larger web during our first lesson. The trick there, is to keep your own connection, while cutting off mine and the plant’s and fichus’, in the visualization. The trick is how to do that. You can’t do a separate sphere for each of us, because that would cut us off from each other, yet how do you cut off ours without cutting off yours?”

  That… sounded impossible, or at least impossibly complicated. She didn’t see how to sphere shield the room’s life forms from the web, while keeping her own intact.

  She shrugged, “You tell me?”

  Allison smiled, “That’s where the subtlety of advanced filters and concepts come in. You have to make the large sphere pass through all of the web connections connected to you, and only cut off ours within the sphere’s area. Think of the sphere like a water filter, where your lines are the water, and ours our dirt. You have to visualize it. Some of the newer witches use the concept of network routers with firewalls and visualize filtered rules that allow you to pass through the sphere wall and the rest of the life in the room is denied access. Others visualize something else entirely, decide what you feel comfortable with, and then give it a try.”

  She frowned, “Hold on a minute. The witch blocking Emil had his aura tight against his body, how was he maintaining an aura reactive spell in the real world without his aura expanded.”

  Allison replied, “More advanced concepts. He most likely cast the spell in the real world, but then maintained it by feeding it life energy through the web on Emil’s line. It’s called a hybrid spell, a joining of two of the four different types. Don’t worry about it for now, you’ll get there, and things get a lot more complicated at that point. One step at a time, remember?”

  She blew out a breath, and then nodded. It was a pointed reminder she had a long ass way to go as a witch. She visualized a large metal sphere surrounding the entire room and cutting off every life in the room from the web, and then she willed it into her spell. Then she visualized her own web connections creating glass windows where the green light hit the sphere, allowing them to pass through, and added that to the spell by willing it. She thought that should do it, so she expanded her aura to fit the room, and then released the spell as she willed it active.

  The web didn’t feel any different to her, or even look different when she closed her eyes for a second and brought it up in her mind’s eye.

  “I’m still good, are you blocked from everyone outside the room?”

  There was no real way for her to tell. She could see the web lines that left her to all other life in a fifty-mile radius or so, but she couldn’t see the connections between others.

  Allison smirked, “Not telling you, this leads to the next part of our lesson. Travelling the life-web with your mind means you lose all awareness with your body’s senses. It’s dangerous, because an enemy would find you completely helpless and unaware. It’s also dangerous, because a clever witch could trap your mind outside your body. It is rarely done, but there are times it comes in useful. To travel the web lines to another node, you merely have to visualize it, and will it. I also suspect this is how you were able to survive for thousands of years being buried alive. Try the Fichus.”

  That idea shocked her, but she pushed it away for now.

  She visualized her mind and awareness moving down the web line to the fichus, and she willed it to happen. The feeling was strange, and there was a moment of disorientation as all her senses cut out. She could still visualize the web in her mind, in fact it was about all she could do. There were no other senses or input, except the impressions from the web.

  Of course, she was seeing the web from the Fichus’ viewpoint, which was probably the whole reason she was there in the first place, to learn that little tidbit. Most of the life-web was gone, she only had a connection to her body, the plant, and to Allison. Which was both kind of interesting, and also told her the spell worked to cut the room off from the web, except for her, or rather her body as a lifeform node.

  More than that though, she had a sense of the room, the sun’s warmth on her leaves, and the rich soil her roots dug into deeply. That opened up all sorts of possibilities. She could see through another’s eyes, or even ride the thermals in a bird’s mind. It wasn’t like shifting, she was experiencing life through the plant, so any witch could do this. She could see the danger too, traveling the web was a web reactive spell, meaning a stream of life force was running from her body to where her mind was. What would happen if Allison shielded the fichus from her body on the web, that would cut off the spell, and her mind would be stranded inside the fichus.

  That was… a horrifying possibility. It also told her why Allison had designed the lesson this way, she was safe because the room was cut off from the web. Even if there was an evil witch looking for an opportunity to take her out, she was relatively safe as the witch couldn’t get to the fichus. She knew Allison wouldn’t hurt her.

  She looked down the line to her body, and then willed herself to return to it.

  She gasped in a breath, and then opened her eyes. It felt good to be back in her body.

  “That was… cool, but I can see how it’s dangerous.”

  Allison said, “Cancel the other spell now, I hate being blind.”

  She nodded, and simply
pulled in her aura tightly around herself, and the spell died from lack of magical energy, which was really just life force energy organized to a purpose.

  Allison smiled, “It is cool, but we don’t do it often, and never unshielded which cuts down on a lot of fun possibilities. Even a web reactive spell is much safer, and can accomplish many of the same things, except for seeing the web from the target’s point of view and linking directly into their senses, feelings, and thoughts. Those things are possible through magic, but to feel them directly as a whole is a more intimate experience. Still, it’s worth knowing about even if you never web travel again, if only so you’ll know what’s going on if an enemy ever tries it. There are darker spells that will evict a person’s spirit, there’s been more than one rogue witch who extended their life by taking over another younger witch’s body permanently.”

  She nodded soberly, that was disturbing.

  Allison asked, “Any questions?”

  She shook her head.

  Allison smiled, “Fast lesson then, you pick things up too quickly.”

  “Lunch? Or you could tell me more about your date tonight?”

  Allison tilted her head, “Or you could tell me how you’re doing with the whole mother of the supernatural world thing.”

  “Lunch it is.”

  Allison giggled, and they got up to see what was up.

  Her food week was last week, and it was Jacob’s week. Jacob… was hot, but his cooking wasn’t the best. She hoped he went with sandwiches, it was hard to screw that one up.

  Chapter Four

  Everyone looked her way with curiosity when her and Allison walked into the dining room. She wasn’t sure she was happy with Jacob telling everyone what they’d talked about last night, but it was obvious he had. Even Caroline looked her way, though unlike the others she had no compassion in her eyes. She kind of got that, Caroline wanted to magic her memories back, but everyone else thought that would be a bad idea.

  She sat down with a self-conscious smile, the table was covered in plates of cold cuts, different breads, rolls, and wraps, along with potato salad and macaroni salad as sides. All the other fixings as well, lettuce, tomato, onions, mayonnaise, and mustard. She started to pile together a couple of large sandwiches.

  She had slowed down on the food intake a bit, but not all that appreciably. With her powers and workouts, not to mention the hunting on some nights and the witch magic, it took about five thousand calories a day to maintain her body the way she wanted it. Not to mention just energy. She didn’t really count calories, she just listened to her body.

  “So, what’s new?”

  Jacob replied, “Team meeting after lunch. Something’s come up.”

  “What?”

  That was new, and she was curious. Especially when she noticed the scowl on Allison’s face that cleared rather quickly with a blush.

  Carl teased, “Don’t you listen? After lunch, Lily.”

  Jace elbowed Carl, “Road trip. Most likely. Jacob doesn’t like talking business over meals, but whenever he asks for a meeting during our personal down time, it means the shit hit the fan out there somewhere, and we’re going to fix it.”

  Oh… crap. That explained Allison’s scowl, she was going to miss her date.

  She had a million questions, but she held them for now. At least she was on the same page as all the others, it was clear everyone else in the room expected a road trip as well, and they just didn’t know where, or why.

  She gave Jace a nod of thanks.

  “So, this is really good. Lunch I mean.”

  Cinna giggled at the suspicious look on Jacob’s face.

  She took a big bite of the roast beef sandwich as if to prove her words were true.

  Carl snickered, “So, you seem okay?”

  She rolled her eyes, since her mouth was full and she couldn’t talk. Did they all expect her to lose her mind now that she knew the truth? Actually, that did seem to be an option, but so far she was holding it together. She swallowed.

  “I’m okay so far. I don’t think I really believe it yet, not in my gut. I didn’t even have nightmares last night either. I’ll let you all know the firsthand truth though, I think, when I get my memories back. I’m hoping the fact that I’m starting to accept what I did when awakened from my dirt and stone prison, and knowing at least the legends of the past, it will shake things loose soon.”

  She was even considering the memory spell more seriously now. She already knew what caused the amnesia, and she’d never like what she did and would always feel guilty for it, but she suspected she wouldn’t completely shut down once her memories were restored. Or at least, she hoped she wouldn’t. Still, she would wait to see if her learning the legends idea would pan out.

  She narrowed her eyes, she’d forgotten to ask about it before.

  “Alli, what did you mean when you said it was probably how I survived?”

  Allison looked confused for a second, and then said, “Soul eaters need food to keep their bodies healthy, but they can survive off of and even somewhat maintain their bodies by consuming life force. I would guess you travelled the local life-web and consumed life force to stay alive. Barely enough, it probably made you feel guilty, otherwise you wouldn’t have been skin and bones.”

  “But… no humans when I was buried there.”

  Allison asked, “Are you sure? Regardless, there were trees and animals.”

  “Wait, we can eat life force from other than humans?”

  Cinna frowned, “Not really. It might’ve kept you alive, barely, but we need human sentient life force to thrive. I suppose it’s possible, if you didn’t move around much, your body would atrophy. Actually, that might be the reason you were so close to death yet hanging on.”

  Carl cleared his throat, “It sounds like torture.”

  Yeah, to her too, maybe it was more than just losing her mind and massacring humans that made her lose her memories. Who’d want to remember being buried alive for thousands of years, possibly tens of thousands. Humans appear in the fossil record around a hundred thousand years ago, if she was the first woman, how many of those years had she spent under Samael’s thumb? How many years with Uriel, before her beloved team of hunters were massacred while she watched helplessly with a broken body before being buried alive.

  She wasn’t sure what would be worse, more years being Samael’s puppet wife, or more years buried beneath stone. There was no telling how long she’d been with Uriel either, she had the first shifter with him two hundred years in, but how many years or perhaps even centuries after that had she lived her own life as a hunter of evil before she was entombed?

  Of course, she hoped she’d been under Samael’s thumb, it would be far worse to her if in her early life she’d been a vengeful psychotic bitch and murderess of humans. That idea was so foreign to how she felt now, but then hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, and she’d been ejected from paradise. Although, even that was in doubt, and just a creation myth, wasn’t it?

  It didn’t matter, she needed to remember. She thought she was a good person now, and she enjoyed being a part of the group, but it was clear that she was just living as a shadow of her former life. If she wanted to truly connect to Jacob she’d need to remember first, and there was far more to it than just her desire for a love life and intimate connection with the alpha shifter. She was also sure she had untapped power and experience within, if nothing else as a witch.

  Jacob said, “Eat, Lily.”

  His voice had been stern, clearly an order, and she tossed him a glare even as butterflies set off in her stomach. Clearly, she was insane. Maybe not, it was his confidence, obvious caring, and deep rumbly sexy voice that turned her on, not the being ordered about part of things. Yet, he was alpha and team leader. It also seemed dumb to argue about it, because she was starving from the magic practice and intense morning workout and sparring.

  She also hadn’t realized she’d been all caught up in her thought process, and grudgingly started t
o chow down the rest of her sandwich, and then started on her second.

  Fortunately, the lunch turned to different subjects at that point, much lighter ones. She didn’t begrudge them their curiosity, not when it was accompanied by worry and compassion, but she was truly tired of talking and thinking about it.

  Jace said, “They had fun last night, does that mean us guys can go cut it up too, and leave them in charge?”

  Carl snickered, “Maybe when you’re twenty-one.”

  Jace growled, as everyone else laughed.

  Jacob cleared his throat, “Actually that might not be a bad idea. Maybe we can take in a hockey game or something. Or go hunting in other forms. But, not until we get back.”

  Shifters didn’t feel the need to hunt, not like in the books or Hollywood movies, but it was still a fun thing to do she imagined. Although, that wasn’t entirely true, they did feel the need to hunt, it was just what they were called to hunt were evil soul eaters, and rogues of the other races.

  She frowned, “That second one sounds like fun.”

  Carl shrugged, “Next girl’s night out then, obviously you can’t come with us.”

  The silly banter continued for the rest of lunch…

  They were all in the lounge, it was cozy and there wasn’t much room left in there with the eight of them. Five on the couch and love seat, two sat on bar stools by the bar, and Jacob sat in the lounger. She was actually on the love seat, next to Allison.

  “So, what’s the emergency, and are we going somewhere warm?” Cinna asked.

  Jacob grunted, “San Antonio, I imagine it’ll be in the sixties this time of year, it’s still early March after all. The report came in mid-morning, and I just read it before lunch. The team down there have all been killed, and the shifter house down there was burned to the ground. With Lily’s help, Chicago is clean of predators right now, so I volunteered. Our flight is in two hours. We’re staying at the Hyatt Regency, since there’s no house to move into. I booked four rooms. Cinna and Jace, Carl and myself, Caroline and Allison, and Lily is with Meri. I booked them for a week, but hopefully we’ll be done sooner.”