by D. N. Leo
“Teacher?” asked Keymaster. “I know she calls you Teacher, and I know you’re here. Let me hear you.”
Teacher answered in an old male voice. “Yes, I am here, but I don’t have a physical form to help her. I told her not to come here. The prophecy is about you. You are the one supposed to die, not her. But she’s vicious. She stands a chance against that dark angel.”
“No, she’s too young and inexperienced to fight him. You have to save her. I know you’re a soul trader.”
“You’ve got a deal to make? Because I have nothing valuable enough to trade for her soul.”
“I do.” He used his last drop of strength to pull a talisman from his pocket. “Thousand years’ worth of life. You’ll need this. Protect her.”
“What do you want her to do for you?”
“Protect the Scorpio key. She broke the bloodstone for me to make the key. It has her essence. It will call for her, and she will know where I hid it. Don’t let it fall into the wrong hands.”
From the corner of his eye, he could see that the thunder strikes hadn’t done the angel enough damage. The angel struck back, and Thunder Child had suffered several major blows. He could see that his angel wings had turned into blades, and those blades were flying at his injured little girl.
“Trade! Please! Now!” he called out.
Then his world went black. And in the transitional time when his soul left his body, he saw the same happened to Thunder Child. Her soul left her body, leaving the angel to stab his sharp wings into a soulless entity.
Thunder Child was now immortal. And he was leaving, forever.
She hovered, confused, as she watched her body fall to the ground. She looked at him. He knew she wanted to talk to him but couldn’t. He was now only a flickering image. And that was the end of his immortal life. He knew she couldn’t see him anymore. It pained him to see her cry.
But it was time for him to depart.
Chapter 16
“Oh hell,” Caedmon muttered when he saw the fifty shapeshifters in bikers’ forms. A magical halo glowed around them, a sign they were about to shift. Into what kind of animals, he didn’t know. Caedmon always knew when he might be at a disadvantage in battle. This was one of those situations, no matter what form they chose.
He glanced at Alyna, admiring her tenacity. She didn’t waver in the slightest. She was prepared to fight these coming adversaries to the death.
The difference between Alyna and him wasn’t the number of attackers or the scale of the fight. It was the fact that the battle he was in charge of affected a few hundred thousand lives in the multiverse. He fought for Eudaiz as a whole. Here, Alyna fought only for her clients and Amaraq. She saw Amaraq as a collection of individuals she needed to protect.
Irrespective of their ideological differences, they were now in this fight together, and in front of them were more than fifty fighters. Normally it wouldn’t be a big deal. But Caedmon knew he had to keep his adrenaline levels down, and fighting wouldn’t help him do that. And Alyna certainly couldn’t fight without opening all the wounds he had stitched up.
He had to think fast. He tugged at her elbow before she charged at Lissabel. “She’s not the most dangerous one over there. You’re the best fighter here. You need to save your resources.”
“But she’s leading them. If not her, who’s the most dangerous one? Who should I take down?”
He shook his head. “Right now, I don’t see anyone, but I know it’s coming.”
“Caedmon, she’s leading that bunch of shifters. They’re going to charge at us.”
“Let them.”
“We’re almost backed against the wall here.”
“Do you have more guards coming?”
“Yes, about twelve. There.” She pointed to their right, where her men were coming.
“Good, let them fight. We have to withdraw.”
“But I’m their leader! You’re saying I should send them over there to fight and be outnumbered while I run?”
“Alyna, we have to retreat and regroup so we can gather more forces and fight back. Your presence out there won’t help much no matter how good a fighter you are. If your people lose you, they’re doomed.” He turned toward Alyna’s men, waved at them, and pointed at the shapeshifters. He was surprised to see them take his orders without hesitation.
“You just ordered my men!”
“Well, I did take over all Amaraq business, so technically, I’m their boss, too.”
“Now that you got what you want, why don’t you run? I have to stay here. They’re going to kill my men very soon, and I have to guard the temple door.”
“If this temple is so important, do you have more guards to help watch over it?”
“No. I know I should have more, but we haven’t gotten there yet.”
The mage guards were knocked down quickly, one by one, not by the shapeshifters, but by Lissabel. The woman grew stronger as she fought. It would be only a matter of minutes before she got to Alyna. As soon as the woman had defeated another mage, Caedmon pulled his gun and fired at her.
She stopped, looked down at her chest where the bullet hit, then looked back up at Caedmon and smirked.
“It was worth a try,” he muttered, but he knew that hell was coming his way.
Lissabel left the mage for the shapeshifters and half charged, half flew toward Caedmon.
Alyna jumped up, clashing with her in the air.
When they landed, Caedmon could see that another wound had opened on Alyna’s body. Blood seeped out.
Lissabel lunged at Alyna, and Caedmon jumped to the front. As they couldn’t fight in full capacity, the fight between the three of them was hardly fair. He didn’t know what kind of creature this woman was, but her strength was incredible. Even with the first contact, his adrenaline shot up at an alarming level, and he could feel the strength draining from him in waves.
This woman feeds on the energy of others, he thought.
He moved back several steps and pulled Alyna with him.
“Don’t let her contact you. She feeds on your energy.”
Lissabel smirked. “Very good! I’m glad you now know the reason you’ll all die here.”
Lorcan’s voice came from behind them. “Not too soon.”
Caedmon couldn’t help but smile. He knew what Lorcan was capable of. “Duck!” he shouted and at the same time pushed Alyna, who fell to the ground.
They heard a sound like a small missile, and Lissabel burned like a torch. She screamed in agony and exploded into nothingness.
The shapeshifters were stunned and stopped fighting. Caedmon helped Alyna up. They turned around and saw Lorcan and Orla.
“Lorcan is a walking, talking lethal weapon,” Caedmon said. “He can fire electronic waves from his eyes.” He knew of Lorcan’s ability, but this was the first time he had witnessed it firsthand.
The shapeshifter troop began to retreat. Lorcan advanced, waves coming from his eyes, attacking the enemy. Orla hurled fireballs from her hands.
The bikers withdrew.
Then they heard a whistle. From the fog behind the shapeshifters, another army appeared with twice the number of men. Lorcan kept firing at them, but Caedmon could see it wasn’t working. Lorcan could shoot, but he wasn’t a machine gun. They were outnumbered. The adversaries would soon overpower them. More manpower was needed. Caedmon charged to the front.
“Wait, Caedmon,” Lorcan said and waved his hand in a signal. From their left, a small troop of multiversal mercenaries emerged.
Alyna shouted, “The same group attacked us before! I recognize their movements. They’re the same group. I’m sure of it.”
“They’re mercenaries. They fight for money, and they don’t care who you are. We’ve paid, so they’re ours to use.” Lorcan waved his hand again, and the rest of the mercenaries charged to the front. Lorcan and Orla followed, leaving Alyna and Caedmon guarding the temple gate.
“We’ve been ambushed,” Caedmon said.
Alyna was astonished. �
�What? By whom?” She put her hands on her guns and whirled around.
“Very good, young man.” They heard a clapping sound. A tall man with dark eyes stepped out from the fog. “I’m Hanx from Ethesus. Nathan sends his greetings. And his goodbye.”
He charged at Alyna, shifting into a giant lynx as he did. She fired at him, but the bullet didn’t seem to do any damage. Leveraging from his momentum, the lynx used his front legs to push Alyna to the ground.
Caedmon saw no other option. He darted forward in his human form to fight this shapeshifter. As he lunged at the shapeshifter, he felt the adrenaline inside him surging to the out-of-control snapping point.
Chapter 17
The beginning of time.
Thunder Child looked at the flickering image of Keymaster until he completely faded away. If she’d had a body, she was sure tears would have streamed down her face. But she had no tangible form now. All that was left of her was the dead body of a young woman on the ground. The dark angel lurked around the body, trying to find way to ensure she was truly dead.
The dark angel didn’t see her soul, which suggested he was a condemned angel whose power had been suppressed by his god. In turning to the dark side, he might never be able to regain his angelic power.
Hovering in the air next to her now was Teacher, looking like a kind old man. He smiled at her but said nothing.
“Tell me how I can kill this dark angel, Teacher.” She needed no time to adjust. She wasn’t Keymaster’s crystal vase.
“I will, but not now.”
“I’m old enough.”
“As a human, yes. But not as magical creature. You might have ties to the angels, but this dark angel has lost his morality. He has become a predator, and he is far beyond your reach in dark magic. You stand no chance in fighting him, so don’t even entertain the thought.”
The dark angel knelt down next to her dead body. He wiped the tangled hair away from her face and traced his finger along her jawline. She didn’t know much about aesthetic standards, but Keymaster had told her several times that she had the angelic look of her parents, that she was beautiful.
“What is he doing, Teacher? What does he want to do with my body?”
“Nothing I want to think about. Look away.”
“No. No, I won’t. Even though my body is dead, I can’t let him destroy my dignity. I’m begging you to put me back into anything, any form. I’ll kill him. If I die as a mortal, so be it.”
“Don’t be ignorant, Thunder Child. Keymaster and your parents sacrificed a great deal to keep you alive because they believe you can do something big. Something more than you can achieve with a mortal life. If he wants to destroy your mortal body, let him. It’s soulless. It’s wasted. Your dignity isn’t in that body. It’s in your soul.”
“I can’t let him ruin my body, dead or alive. I can’t. I’m not happy that you turned me into this immortal form. Because now, I can’t even kill myself! I beg you, Teacher. Please help me stop him.”
The dark angel pulled her top open and stared at her bare chest.
“Teacher, please don’t make me curse at you.”
“Thunder Child, he’s not doing what you think he’s doing.”
“What?”
“Just look.”
The dark angel raised his arms, and his hands and all the feathers on his wings turned into steel blades. His eyes darkened, turned red, and sparked with evil. He stabbed his claws into her chest and pulled out her heart. He lifted the heart, its blood dripping and running down the length of his arms. Then he opened his mouth. A halo of yellow light poured out, and her heart was sucked in. The heart disappeared into the giant mouth, vanishing along with the light.
“He didn’t know the body and heart were soulless. He thought he absorbed the essence of the angel’s heart and it would solve his sins and redeem him from whatever issue he has with his god. He was mistaken.” Teacher grinned.
“Does that mean I have a better chance of killing him?”
Teacher smiled and then sighed. “Yes, but still, if you want to kill him directly, you will need a tangible form. Otherwise, you will be forced to do what I do, influence others to do what you need.”
“You mean manipulate people’s minds and make them commit sins for my own gain?”
“You make it sound so complicated.”
“It is complicated.”
“You can’t have it all, child. You’ve lived your life seeking vengeance. That is a sin in itself. And to get that done, you will commit more sins, and others will get hurt, including innocents. But before you get to where you want, Keymaster wanted you to find and protect the Scorpio key. Once you’ve done that, I can help you with your revenge.”
“Yes, Teacher. What’s the first thing I need to do?”
“Set your conscience aside and commit a minor sin.”
Chapter 18
Alyna knew when she was engaged in a fight, just to lose. This was one of those. The Ethesus shapeshifter turned into a lynx and charged at her again. She had fought with Nathan, the leader of Ethesus. Although they were on opposite sides and had totally different mentalities about their businesses and territories, she respected him as a fighter. But it weirded her out that that she had never before encountered this lynx—although he claimed he was at a high rank in Ethesus.
She didn’t know her guns couldn’t damage a shapeshifter. If that applied to all high-ranking fighters in Ethesus, they would be doomed. Not everyone would honor fair fights like Nathan.
But again, she didn’t really know Nathan. Ethesus wouldn’t be here without his command.
She scrambled back up after slipping on the cold snow in front of the temple. Another of her wounds had broken open. She could feel the blood seeping out.
Caedmon charged at the animal from behind. He was strong, but she knew he couldn’t use his supernatural power right now. He grabbed the lynx and swung it around and away from her path so it couldn’t come at her again.
On her right, the fighting between the shapeshifters and her guards and the mercenaries Lorcan had hired was still intense. Lorcan and Orla were totally occupied by the fighting as their adversaries continued to come at them.
Alyna backed up against the temple door and regained her stance. The lynx turned around, trying to bite Caedmon. Caedmon backed out and darted away from her. The lynx went after him instead.
“Look out!” she shouted as the lynx jumped in the air, aiming to land on his back while he was running. Extremely fast and agile, Caedmon turned quickly. Seeing the lynx in the air, ready to pounce on him, he ducked and skidded on the snowy ground in the opposite direction of its trajectory. The lynx landed on the snow, missing its target.
It bared its teeth.
Caedmon charged at the animal head-on. When he got close, the lynx hunched down, ready to charge. Caedmon jumped into the air, over the lynx’s head, and stomped hard on its backbone on his way down. The lynx howled as its back legs collapsed. Caedmon turned around, leaped onto the animal’s back once again, and wrapped his arm around its neck.
The animal wriggled and fell on its back.
Alyna spied a guard’s dagger, a weapon made of an icy red stone. The guard must have died in the fight. Sliding over, she picked up the dagger and ran to where Caedmon battled the lynx. She stabbed the animal’s belly while Caedmon continued to strangle it. It howled, and blood seeped out of its wound.
Alyna was relieved. This weapon worked on the shapeshifter!
With all the strength she could gather, she stabbed again. And again. Her own wounds broke open with each stab, but she didn’t care. She continued until the blood soaked through her shirt and streamed down to the snow.
Caedmon lay beneath the lynx, his arm pressed firmly against its windpipe. The animal wriggled more, but it weakened quickly.
Her blood pooled on the snow, mingling with the animal’s blood.
She heard Caedmon grunt, and the next thing she knew, the lynx’s neck lolled to the side, broken. Cae
dmon crawled out from under the dead body of the animal.
She must have run out of both blood and energy because the dagger felt as if it weighed a ton. She dropped it and flopped onto the snow. She needed to close her eyes for a few seconds to get her strength back.
Caedmon came over and dropped to his knees next to her.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
She opened her eyes, and what she saw was trouble. His eyes were bloodshot, and the skin on the right side of his neck had turned black and scaly. He breathed heavily and braced himself against the snow.
She sat up instantly and held his face in her hands. “Caedmon, look at me. Calm down. Take control. Look at me, please.”
His eyes were distant. Then they focused on her again, but not for long. “I can’t control this. I’m gone, Alyna.”
“No, no, look at me, for pity’s sake. Please!”
He glanced at the bloodstone dagger lying in the white snow. Then he pushed her hands away and reached for it.
“You’re not going to harm yourself, you idiot.”
She grabbed him from behind and pulled him backward. He flopped to the ground but still reached for the dagger. She grabbed him, and they wrestled in the snow. He was incredibly strong. Her injuries were a handicap, but she would go to hell if she let him do what he was trying to do.
She yanked hard, using all her remaining strength, and threw him away from the dagger.
Now the skin on the left side of his neck had turned scaly, too. This was certainly not a lion he was shifting into but something else. She tackled him again.
“Let me go, Alyna. I don’t want to hurt you.”
“You might the hell kill me before I’ll let you get to that dagger.”
He wriggled hard, but she wouldn’t let go. Caedmon flopped to the snow, breathing heavily. “I can’t control this. But I’m not going to accept turning into an animal and killing people. Let me go, Alyna.”
“No, I won’t let you kill yourself, and I’m not going to let you turn, either.” With her last drop of strength, she swung a punch at his temple, knocking him out cold.