The next hit broke through my outer defenses. Luckily, I managed to turn the next strike to the side with the air magic I had stored. This gave me enough time to recast my shield. A few more hits, and Ted would break through, ending my life. A quick glance confirmed that there was still no way that anyone would reach us in time to save me. I could feel despair starting to creep into my thoughts. Had I really survived all of this just to be killed by some arrogant douchebag? I didn’t know what else to do to stop what was going to happen. The outcome felt inevitable. I reached inside of my shirt and grabbed my father’s necklace. I felt the energy rushing through me, filling me to the point of bursting. I focused all of it into my shield, my last line of defense. I felt the energy explode, and my shield burst in a rush of power, flowing outward from my body. Before I fell into unconsciousness, my last thought was of my parents, and how I would get to see both of them again soon.
19
Jackson
It was dark, but the battlefield was darker. Spots of blood and ichor decorated the landscape around us. What was left of the witch known as the Spider Queen lay at our feet. Every Demon that had surrounded us was destroyed by the shockwave of my last spell. Sarah had shifted back into her human form, instantly healing from her wounds. I covered her naked body with my cloak, smiling as I did, knowing that this time I was simply doing it to keep her warm and not for propriety. I held her tightly in my arms, and we kissed for the first time. Wiping tears from her eyes, leaving streaks of dirt on her otherwise pristine face, she was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. Light sparkled from her eyes when she looked back at me. Anything she asked of me, I would do without hesitation. I had finally lost whatever had been holding me back; I was in love. To hell with the Council; she was mine!
Standing firmly in the center of my circle of power, I wondered for the first time if I had made a mistake. Voices spoke to me from the darkness, asking me to join with them. The cries for help and the visions of torture quickly clouded my mind. If this was what hell was, surely I shouldn’t be here. My first attempt at summoning a Demon was going nothing like I planned. Maybe I had overestimated my power and traveled further into the pit than I should have. The warlock had made it sound so easy. If he had set me up and I lived, then it was time to pay him another visit. Slowly, the darkness around me faded, and a naked woman appeared out of a thin red mist. She whispered sweetly into the air; her voice penetrated my circle of power with ease.
The silky sound of her voice made me want to do whatever she asked of me. “I will do this favor for you, but one day I will call on you to do something for me.” The Demon before me was a dealer, and something that, even at two hundred years of age, I wasn’t prepared to handle. She pulled me into her sweet embrace, and our deal was sealed by our passion.
I could feel the densely packed sand under my knees give way as the sword blows rained down on me from above. My opponent was merciless in his attacks. The strength he put behind each swing seemed only to grow; the strikes against me felt endless. One by one, my shields fell under his relentless attack. There was nothing I could do except pray for help that would never reach me fast enough. Instead of giving up, I reached out for the spirit of my father. I felt his presence in the necklace he had left for me. The necklace filled me with knowledge of what to do. Pushing all of my strength into my shield, I watched as the force of the spell blasted my shield outward. The look on Ted’s face as his sword disintegrated was priceless. His look of surprise only lasted for a split second before the wall of energy swept through him as well, leaving nothing behind but a pile of ash. I shuddered as I realized what had just happened. All that was left of Ted was the broken glass of the vial he had thrown at my feet.
I was chanting in a powerful circle of Demons, watching as a small pool of blackness bubbled up from the ground. The liquid darkness flowed out of the pit until it reached the very edges of our pentagram. If we had been weaker, the inky blackness would have swallowed us, dragging us back to hell. A smile broke out on my face as the spell took hold, and I knew we had succeeded. The smile fell from my lips as a head started to emerge from the inky black liquid. The face of a beautiful woman appeared as the dark liquid rolled off her pure white skin. She was gorgeous in the way that screamed only danger. Every one of her movements conveyed a sense of ruthless power. Her dark and smoky hair fell just past her shoulders. Her breasts and hips spoke only of seduction. She was Shiva reborn, a goddess from the depths of hell. The voice had only one purpose on this plane. She would raise the Demons from the depths and reshape this world in their image.
I heard someone gently calling my name as the dreams faded. “Jackson, are you awake? Are you ok? Can you hear me?”
My eyes fought to stay closed when I tried to open them, but eventually I succeeded. The room was so bright, I blinked a few times, and the face leaning over me came into focus. April was sitting on the edge of the couch, looking down on me. Concern and worry creased her features. If I was alive, then her concern was probably justified. I must look pretty bad to have earned that kind of attention.
For the first time, it dawned on me that I wasn’t in the arena. The old leather couch underneath me crackled as I moved. I didn’t recognize the room we were in, but having a friendly face there when I woke up helped. The smile wouldn’t go past my lips. Every muscle in my face hurt from the few vicious shots Ted had actually landed. My arms ached when I reached out to put a hand on her leg. That’s when it hit me. Oh my God, Ted, where was he? I tried to scramble off of the couch, but April held me in place.
My voice sounded raspy and hoarse. “April, where am I?”
Before she could answer, a man’s voice spoke from behind her. “You are in my study, Jackson. April, can you leave us for a moment so Jackson and I can speak alone?”
The look on her face was all I needed to feel better. I could see how much she wanted to stay to make sure I was ok. I gave her hand a squeeze to let her know it was all right. I watched her as she walked toward the door.
When she reached the door, she looked back over her shoulder. “I’ll be right outside.”
The man I still had not seen spoke again. “It’s ok, my dear. Jackson isn’t in any kind of trouble. You and your friend Marcus can come back to visit soon. See if you can find that dark-haired girl. Bring her as well. She has spent just about as much time fretting around here as you two have.”
Was he talking about, was the dark-haired girl Britta? I still wasn’t sure what was going on, but I felt better knowing that my friends had come to see me. There was something to be said for having people who would come visit you when you were injured.
When the door closed, the man walked around from behind the couch I was lying on. I couldn’t believe who it was. Adam was standing in front of me. He was a mythical figure around the academy. I had never seen him until I set foot in the arena. Now he was standing in front of me looking down on me as if we were old friends. I knew half the kids in school would die to be having this moment right now. For me, it just felt surreal. Was I really here? The leader of the Ascendancy, the top dog, the man I wanted to work for, and I was lying on his couch.
This closeness gave me a chance to take in his features. He had a weathered look about him, like he had spent many years in the sun or out in the wind. It looked to me like he was in his mid-sixties, but from what Marcus said, he was much, much older. The stories I had heard placed his age at closer to a thousand years. In the line of work he was in, that seemed pretty darn impressive. While the Gifted were blessed with the ability to live longer lives, battle was a way of life for them, so they often died young. His soft white hair was pulled back in a ponytail, and a healthy growth of pure white stubble graced his face. He was dressed in the white loose-fitting fighting garb the Ascended had worn in the arena. Based on his age and his position, I had to assume I was lying in front of one of the most powerful Gifted on the planet.
Adam motioned for me to sit up as he sat in a chair across from me. I h
ad so many questions, but I sat back and waited for Adam to tell me what was going on. It took every ounce of willpower that I had not to jump in and just ask everything that I wanted to know all at once.
Thankfully Adam took pity on me and started speaking. His voice came out soft and reassuring. “Jackson, we haven’t formally met yet, but my name is Adam. I’d like to start by apologizing to you for the interesting time you have spent with us so far. I would say that your experience has been atypical to say the least. Things have moved much faster than I would have thought possible.”
He sat back into his chair and continued speaking. “Eighteen years ago, the Council sent men to attack us. Our power here had been growing, and our continued alliance with the Lycans, despite the Council’s decree, made them nervous. I had thought that they would not dare reach so far, but I was wrong. The deaths that happened that day still weigh heavily upon me.”
Adam had let a small bit of sadness creep into his features. It faded from his face but remained in his voice when he spoke. “Prophecy is a tricky thing, Jackson; those who let it rule them often create what was foretold. There is no question now. You are the chosen one, Jackson; our hopes of defeating the Demons lie within you.”
I almost laughed out loud. That seemed just a little bit too ridiculous to be true. It had only been a few months since I’d found out that I was one of the Gifted. That I had been born with the ability to control magic—and now I was the chosen one? “The chosen one, sir?” was all I managed to stammer out.
The sadness completely faded from Adam’s voice. It was replaced with pure confidence. “I know this seems like a lot to take in. There is no doubt in my mind that you are the chosen one. I choose not to believe that you would ever become the destroyer. Like I said, prophecy is a tricky thing. Often there is more than one path laid out that could lead us to our destiny.”
Destroyer—well, that sounded ominous. I wondered what it would take to lead me down the path to the dark side. Probably better not to think of it at all. It didn’t seem like there was a lot of grey area there: the chosen one or the destroyer. I was going to need more to go on than vague innuendo.
“Adam, I am going to need more than what you are telling me now. I just woke up from the craziest dream I have ever had, to you telling me I’m the chosen one. Not to mention I don’t even know how I got here or what happened in the arena. Let’s not forget the part where I could also be the destroyer. That seems like a lot to throw at someone who just woke up from a fevered dream.”
Adam leaned forward in his chair. His eyes burned with an intensity that I hadn’t seen from him yet. “You had a dream? Tell me about it?”
It came out as a question, but I knew it was more of a command. I guess it didn’t matter if I thought the dream was crazy. If Adam wanted to hear about it, so be it. He was the leader of our order; I couldn’t really say no to him. I told him about my dream from start to finish. It felt good to get it off of my chest. As if I was shedding some kind of burden. During one part, I thought I heard him mumble something, and I stopped.
“Wait, did you say that is how it looked in the arena? Is that why I am here? Did I kill Ted?”
Adam got up from his chair and moved across the room. He started rummaging through a large cabinet by his desk. “Well, to be fair, Jackson, he was trying to kill you at the time. I wouldn’t feel too bad about Ted. All of us thought you were going to be dead when you came out of the time spell. That’s a tricky bit of magic, by the way, something Ted should not have been able to do by himself.”
Shocked might be too kind of a word for what I was feeling. It would have been closer to say I was feeling completely drained. I felt empty. I had just killed someone, a fellow student. Someone who I might have ended up working with a few years from now. Had he really been trying to murder me? Everything Adam had said pointed toward yes. I wasn’t sure if that made me feel better or not. “He didn’t cast a spell; he had a vial of something he threw at my feet.”
Adam continued rummaging around. God, what could he be looking for now? He continued to speak to me, while I heard things moving back and forth in his cabinet. “Well, that explains a lot about what happened today, then. Finish telling me about your dream.”
As I finished telling Adam about my dream, he let out an exclamation. “Ah, here it is! You might recognize this staff from your dream.”
I couldn’t believe it; Adam was standing in the room holding a piece of my dream. How was that even possible? The staff was amazing. The iron center was inscribed with runes; the oak that wrapped around the iron seemed to have grown out of the core of the staff. The staff ended with two crescent moons at the top, leaving the center open. I could tell exactly where I would hold the staff. It was the only place wrapped with leather.
Adam walked over and held the staff out to me. I stood up from my spot on the couch and took hold of it. I felt a small charge run through my arm as I held the staff, almost the same kind of charge I had felt the first time I put on my dad’s necklace. I wondered, had this staff been my dad’s?
Adam seemed to have noticed my face when the little jolt of power ran up my arm. He seemed excited as he started to speak. “Simply extraordinary. I had given up hope that you were alive. We all assumed you had died with your parents. This staff was your father’s; the woman he kissed in the dream was your mother.”
I needed a minute to process what Adam was telling me. Fortunately he seemed content to let me have it.
Adam walked back toward his desk before saying, “Excuse me for a moment. I need to make a call.”
I felt the pressure in the room drop, and my ears popped just like on my first plane ride. I looked over to where Adam had picked up the phone, but couldn’t hear a word he was saying. By the expression on his face, he wasn’t happy with whomever he was talking to. I had the feeling that call might take a while, but that was ok, I had more than enough to think about.
20
Voice of the Abyss
The desert night was cold, and frost was just forming on the low-lying spots in the valley. The circle of five watched as the edges of the pentagram slowly came to life. The muddy red light started to slowly pulse through the lines of the pentagram. The light increased in intensity until the night was bathed in red. A pulse of bright light was followed by five more in rapid succession. Then the light faded until the five were left standing in darkness.
The center of the pentagram started to bubble. Black liquid oozed out of the ground, slowly filling the pentagram. The strain of it against our combined magic was almost too much to bear. The tarry black substance finally filled the entire space. A collective sigh swept through the five. The spell had held. Slowly a shape started to emerge from the inky black substance. First the crown of a head emerged, quickly followed by a face. The black tar melted from the body, revealing feminine features. The liquid continued to fall back to the ground as her body rose into the air. She floated now just above the pentagram, her body fully exposed. Her white skin was revealed as the drips continued to fall from her body. She was beautiful, all curves that spoke to her powers of persuasion. As the last drop of the black tar slid from her toe, the pentagram flashed red again and disappeared from this world.
The newly risen Demon fell back to the ground at the center of where the pentagram had been. Rising from a crouch, she stood naked in her full splendor. One of the five ran forward, covering her with a red cloak laced with an intricate golden design. The remaining members of the five all moved back a step and fell to their knees. They bowed their heads and waited for instructions from their new master.
She spoke her first words on earth in over a century. “So the prophecy has been fulfilled. I am the Voice of the Abyss, a harbinger for change. We must prepare this world for the rise of my master. Adramelech shall soon walk the earth again.”
One of the five rushed forward to escort her to the waiting limo. “Much of this world has changed since you last walked on this plane. You will find things much
different and that the stink of the humans can sometimes be overwhelming. If you would follow me, I have a car waiting to take us back to your residence.”
The Demon reached out and, with a flick of her wrist, sent the man flying away from her into the night. He rushed, limping, back to her and threw himself at her feet. She looked down upon him with disdain.
He looked up, his eyes barely above her feet as he strained to make eye contact. His voice took on the whiny tone of a sycophant. “My queen, I am sorry to have displeased you.”
Snarling, she replied, “You will do well to remember that you serve me in all things. Never will you ask me to follow you again. There will be no further warnings; the next time I am displeased with you, it will mean your death.”
Rising from his knees, the lowly Demon got to his feet. “I am your humble servant, my queen. I merely meant to suggest that you allow me to show you the way to our vehicle. It has been too long since I have served a Demon of any true power; I have forgotten myself.”
A vicious smile creased her features. “It is well that you remember your place. I hope you have prepared in earnest for my ascension. If I find things in acceptable condition, you may continue to serve me.”
The Demon kept his eyes lowered as he began leading the way toward the limo. “Everything you have commanded has been done. We have a host of Demons waiting to meet you. I hope that you will find your accommodations to your liking.”
The queen moved toward the limo, a faint look of disgust firmly planted on her otherwise beautiful features. Her servant opened the door and then followed her inside. A gentle tap of his knuckles against the glass, and the limo started to roll forward into the night.
The queen did not acknowledge her minion in any way. She asked questions, expecting that answers would be provided without any delay. “It is true that I have been gone from this world for some time; tell me about what has changed since I last walked the mortal realm.”
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