Pagan Apocalypse (Wrath of the Old Gods (Young Adult Series) Book 1)

by John Triptych

  Amicus looked confused. “What boy wizard are you talking about?”

  I frowned. “You’ve never heard of—oh, forget it! You need to surrender my sister safe and sound or you’ll get what’s coming to you,” I said as I pointed the silver branch directly at him.

  Amicus sneered. “Oh really, what’s coming to me then?”

  I tried to look as menacing as I could. “Something very bad, that’s what!”

  “Empty threats,” Amicus said as he started to wave the mirror around. “There are so many things this obsidian mirror can do. Take this one for example.”

  As he said those words an exact duplicate of Amicus suddenly appeared beside him out of thin air. I stepped backwards in complete surprise as another copy of the old wizard suddenly came into being to the left of me, just a few feet away. For the next few seconds this continued until there were over two dozen copies of him waving their black mirrors around as they started to surround me.

  I kept on moving backwards until my lower back bumped the edge of the old wooden table behind me. Waving the branch back and forth to try and warn them away, I pressed against the table as the duplicates of Amicus began to crowd tighter; as they held out their numerous black mirrors at me they all began to laugh tauntingly. I cried out in helplessness.

  “You’re finished, boy,” they all said in unison. “Your lone silver branch cannot survive against the onslaught of over two dozen black mirrors!”

  At that moment I heard a loud crash coming from the corridor. All two dozen of them instantly stopped and looked up in surprise. Another loud crash sounded and one of them disappeared. Then there was a third crash and yet another Amicus was gone without so much as a puff of smoke. As I heard the fourth loud crash I soon realized that it was the sound of glass breaking.

  Amicus threw up his hands in the air as the sound of breaking glass continued. “My mirrors! You are destroying my mirrors!”

  I grinned as the old wizard started to retreat backwards. “Looks like the tide has turned,” I said.

  He seemed to be beside himself. “How can this be? You’re here but someone is destroying my mirrors and I can’t see who it is. Who dares?”

  “The ghost of Christmas past has come back for revenge,” I said. “You should have remembered your Dickens.”

  When the sound of breaking glass had finally subsided, I stood in front of a lone, cowering Amicus as the old man tried to keep himself upright. The smashing of his mirror room could only have been done by Ray.

  Just as I was about to take the mirror from his trembling hands, Amicus backed up and hissed at me. “I am not finished yet!” he said before snapping his fingers; his whole body seemed to shimmer for a bit before disappearing completely.

  I started, looking around. The old wizard seemed to have vanished into thin air. As I continued to whirl about the room, expecting Amicus to materialize behind my back, I noticed Ray’s ghostly form entering the hall. My best friend had a sort of mild bluish glow surrounding his shadowy appearance that made him just slightly visible.

  “I got them all,” he said. “I shattered all the mirrors in the other room. I think they might have been linked to other worlds and I was able to disrupt their connections. Where is he?”

  “I have no bloody idea! One minute he was here and then all of a sudden he just vanished,” I said.

  Ray scanned the room as he moved over to the table. “Did you think he went to another dimension or something?”

  “Well, if he’s left the house then it’s time to go find my sister and her boyfriend upstairs,” I said as I started towards the open double doors.

  Less than a second after I said that, Amicus suddenly rematerialized on top of the wooden table at the opposite side of the room, just as I heard the slamming of a door upstairs. As I turned and faced him I realized that he had Amy standing in front of him; he was holding a dagger beside her throat with one hand and had the black mirror in the other.

  My eyes were wide open. “Amy!”

  “Steve, help me,” Amy said softly as she struggled in vain since her hands were tied behind her.

  Mark Loman came charging into the room; he had a silver candleholder in his right hand and his hair was a mess. “Amy! Get away from her, you crazy old geezer!”

  I placed an arm in front of him. “Mark, stay back,” I said. “He’s got that bloody mirror and a knife.”

  Mark was extremely agitated. He was almost jumping up and down as if he could barely contain himself. “He kept us prisoner in that room for months! Then I heard the crash and then the door was open but Amy was gone!”

  “Stay back, all of you,” Amicus said. “One move and I shall cut her throat!”

  Ray was beside the table when the old wizard reappeared and so he didn’t seem to have noticed my friend’s ghostly form. I immediately understood as Ray started to make his way behind Amicus. He needed some time and a distraction. Mark was about to gasp as he saw Ray for the first time but I nudged him slightly with my arm, which was still across his chest, to keep him from revealing anything.

  “Amicus, please leave my sister alone,” I said calmly. “She’s done nothing to you.”

  But the old wizard tightened his grip on her instead. He had a crazed look in his eyes. “Silence! You are in no position to bargain!”

  Mark had some stubble beneath his chin and he smelled a bit. “You’ve been keeping us for so long here, what do you want?”

  Amicus glared at me. “Give me that silver branch, now! Give it to me and your sister shall live; if you refuse then she dies!”

  I pretended I was confused. “What do you need it for? You’ve already got the mirror for God’s sake!”

  “No more talk, give it to me now!” Amicus said as he pressed the blade of the dagger deeper into Amy’s throat; she cried out in terror.

  Right at that moment Ray extended a shadowy hand to cover the mirror as Mark and I dashed forward. Amicus finally saw Ray’s ghostly form and cursed as he slashed Amy’s throat with the dagger. Blood began gushing from my sister’s throat and she slumped down on top of the table.

  I cried out the moment I saw what had happened and threw the silver branch at Amicus. The small limb from the sacred tree of the faeries collided with the black mirror and it was immediately transformed into a ball of energy that cascaded across the room, knocking Mark and me off our feet.

  As I was getting back to my feet Amicus was still upright but he seemed to be suspended in midair. The black mirror that he was holding somehow held him aloft as it shimmered and crackled with released energy. The power of the silver branch had somehow overcharged the mirror and it began to warp the old wizard’s body like a piece of paper in the wind.

  Amicus screamed as his body lost cohesion and he was transformed into a million pieces of darkness that were rapidly absorbed by the mirror. It floated for a bit before falling back down onto the table with a loud thump.

  “Amy!” I screamed as I ran over to the table.

  The energy surge had somehow coagulated the blood that was on her throat. Mark ran up beside me and began sobbing the moment he saw her. As I placed my hands on her chest I noticed that she wasn’t breathing.

  Tears began to form in my eyes. We came so close to success and now this. “Amy! Noo!”

  The power surge had somehow transformed Ray as well and his form was now shining with radiant energy. “Hang on, Steve, let me see what I can do,” he said softly as he knelt down beside her and placed both of his ethereal hands on top of her chest.

  I stood by helplessly, watching as the energy flowing within Ray somehow started to swirl and began to move from his form over to hers. Within seconds Ray was back to his old shadowy figure again while Amy’s body seemed to glow slightly before the bioluminescence faded away.

  Ray sighed and slumped on top of the table. “I’m sorry, that’s all I could do.”

  Seconds later, Amy’s body began to twitch and she started coughing.

  “Amy!” I exclaimed, put
ting my arms around her shoulders before looking back up at Ray. “You did it, Ray! Thank you!”

  My sister opened her eyes. The wound on her throat had miraculously healed. “S-Steve, is it really you?”

  I smiled as I hugged her. “Yes, it’s me. You’re alright now. Everything’s going to be fine.”

  Mark and Amy went back upstairs to freshen up while I held the black obsidian mirror in my hand as I sat on top of the table in the great hall. It looked to be nothing more than an antique curiosity but I could feel the mystical power just coursing through it.

  “I didn’t think we’d actually make it this far,” Ray said softly as his ghostly form stood beside me.

  “All’s well that ends well,” I said. “You were brilliant, Ray. We make one hell of a team, I should say.”

  He nodded. “We did well, didn’t we? So what’s next?”

  “I need to find my parents,” I said. “If they’re still alive, that is.”

  “I’m sure they still are, my own parents said so.”

  “Those weren’t your parents back in the catacombs, Ray. They were some sort of wisps that tried to distract us from the real task.”

  “Actually, Steve, they were really my parents,” Ray said. “When they realized your predicament, they decided to let me go in order to finish the job.”

  “Oh God, I’m so sorry. I cursed them out because I didn’t realize it was them. My apologies, Ray.”

  “It’s quite alright, they understood.”

  I grinned. “Okay then. So are you ready for some more adventures with Steve and Ray?”

  Ray turned and faced me. “I’m afraid not. I’ve got to get going, Steve.”

  My eyes went wide again and I jumped off the table and got so close that I could almost touch him. “What the bloody hell do you mean? Where are you going?”

  “When I died and assumed this form I knew it was temporary,” he said. “I had to find a new material body or else this shape would gradually dissolve. I could only make the transfer to another body once and it had to be in the nick of time.”

  “Well, there are plenty of corpses around, I’m sure we can find something for you to get into—”

  He interrupted me. “No, Steve. I don’t want to be a bloody zombie! Anyway I already spent my life force so there’s no point in finding another body now.”

  “What? But you didn’t possess anybody! How could you have spent it already?”

  “Through Amy,” he said. “She was already dead but I used everything in my power to bring her back. The energy surge from the mirror helped a lot too. I succeeded but now my form is starting to fade out. It’s taking all my concentration just to keep it together and talk to you right now.”

  My mouth started trembling. This couldn’t be happening. “No, Ray! It can’t end like this! I won’t let it!”

  “There’s nothing you can do anymore, mate,” he said. “We had a good run and I think I did my bit.”

  Tears started to form in my eyes once more. “No, Ray! Don’t leave me! I couldn’t have done this without you! How will I find my parents without your guidance, mate?”

  For the last time that evening Ray laughed. “You did most of it, Steve. In the end you really didn’t need me. All these things happened because you stopped being so self-centered and you finally became the hero that I always believed that you would become. You faced danger with more courage than I ever could have. I went along with you because I knew I couldn’t be harmed so I wasn’t scared since I was already dead. But if I still had my body there is no way I could have done all the things that you did.”

  “There must be something I can do,” I said in between the tears falling down my cheeks. “The gods are real and they could maybe help bring you back. If we achieved all of this then there’s no reason why we can’t come up with a solution. Come on, Ray.”

  “Even if there is a way to come back from being dead I would prefer to just move on,” Ray said. “My mum and dad are gone and I would rather join them in whatever afterlife there is waiting for me out there. There’s nothing left for me here. You on the other hand, you still have Amy and I’m sure you’ll get back to your parents. That gives you plenty of reasons to fight on.”

  “Ray, I…”

  His form began to shimmer and grow faint. “Goodbye, Steve. Perhaps we will meet again in some other place and in happier times. Now go find your parents. Bye now.”

  I cried out as I tried to hold him but his form faded away into nothing. The stress and the fatigue finally overwhelmed me and I knelt down on the floor and cried even more. My best friend in the entire world was now gone.

  When Amy and Mark finally came down the stairs they saw me just sitting at the foot of the steps. My tears had pretty much dried out and I was too tired to cry any further.

  My sister sat down beside me. “Mark told me what happened,” she said softly. “I’m so sorry, Steve.”

  I just kept looking down at the wooden floorboards. “I can’t believe he’s gone.”

  Amy put her arm over my shoulder. “He saved my life and for that we’ll always remember him. Do you recall what Dad said about Granny after she passed on?”

  “Yes,” I said softly. “He said that no one really dies as long as you remember them.”

  She smiled at me. “Exactly. You and I will make it a point to always remember Ray and his parents. If either of us forgets, we shall bash each other until we remember again, is that a deal?”

  “Alright,” I said as we both stood up and hugged each other.

  “So, mate,” Mark said sheepishly as he stood on the stairs a few steps above us. “Looks like you know the way and what to do next. So what do we do now?”

  I took the obsidian mirror of Tezcatlipoca from my hoodie pocket and looked at its dark surface. As I saw my faint reflection staring back at me I thought I saw Ray’s smiling face for a brief moment just over my shoulder. I immediately turned and looked behind me but all I saw were the old wooden steps.

  “We go find my mum and dad,” I said. “Then we take back our country from those bloody Fomorians.”

  The Story Continues In:

  The Fomorians

  Wrath of the Old Gods Book 2.5

  Coming in 2016

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