by Aidy Award
“Fates be on our side.” Black brought the bear as close to the surface as he could without shifting and stepped in front of Kady. He saw Titian do the same with his fox and stand in front of the Gundersons.
“On my mark, ladies, let it loose.”
The spectrals crashed the wards, one recoiling back, but the other two bursting through the barrier. Their soldiers followed fast behind.
“Now, now, now.”
Black shifted fully into the bear and let out a great roar shaking the cave and throwing the soldiers on their asses.
The full power of the soul magic whooshed past him. One spectral swerved to avoid Kady’s light, but got caught by Topper’s.
Lacey’s magic obliterated the other spectral at the same time as Frost turned the soldier to ice and shattered the body.
Black stepped forward gaining ground with each burst of magic and light from behind him. He slashed and tore at the throats of the soldiers nearest to them. A team of three jumped out from behind a boulder and fired their weapons.
This time he was prepared for the sting of the metal projectiles. He rose up to his full bear height and bore the fire, protecting his team behind him.
Titian fired his weapon, taking all three out just as their spectrals were swooping down on Black’s head.
The Gundersons helped even without conventional weapons. Turned out Sigar had a mean Fallenball arm, tossing rocks the size of his head at the soldiers. Margreth erected quick temporary wards, blocking the spectrals paths.
The group tore through two dozen soldiers and their spectrals with their combination of might, fight, and magic. Black suppressed all emotion, only allowing the warrior bear’s instincts to guide him in keeping Kady and the others safe and pressing forward.
“Black, dead ahead,” Titian shouted, “check out the asshole wearing the black suit and sunglasses.”
“That’s not an asshole,” Kady cut in, “that’s a douchecanoe.”
“Whatever he is, he’s the head of this Fates-forsaken hydra. We take him out, the rest will fall easily.”
Black found the target Titian and Kady identified. Tree weasel. A dark hollowness filled his chest. It wasn’t fear, at least not for himself. Something compelled him to do everything he could to get closer and attack the TFO man who they’d crossed paths with too many times now.
A growl grew from the deepest part of his chest. Swirling above was a spectral, that was not any part of the tree weasel man’s soul, but was his mother’s.
A hatred Black had never known before stretched across his muscles and tore at his heart. He didn’t know how, but this lowly, puny, worthless human man had stolen his mother’s soul and now had control of it.
He would kill the bastard.
A new reign of weapons’ fire barreled down on them, striking him in the neck, the chest, his shoulders. His fur became coated with blood, his power to heal not keeping up with the new wounds. Still he pressed forward, knowing Kady had his back.
Her magic slashed out, no longer a shield, but a sword, a saber of light. The spectrals weren’t fast enough to avoid her strikes. The soldiers weren’t cognizant enough to escape his claws.
They were close enough now to see the sweat pooling on the face of the tree weasel. He was scared, and he should be, his death was impending, and it would not be quick or painless.
They had taken out all the other soldiers and spectrals except for the final ten troops surrounding the lone man.
Black would love to charge forward and sever the jugular with his teeth, but he couldn’t leave Kady or the team exposed. One step, two. Closer they crept, Black no longer feeling any pain from the weapons shooting at him.
Tree weasel raised a communicator to his face. Calling for back up now was futile. This day’s battle was nearly over. Victory would be Black’s soon.
A bladed ship dropped down into the canyon, it’s blades narrowly missing the rock walls. Fuck, if they dropped a ladder as they had before, he would miss this opportunity to avenge his mother.
He shifted back into a man and pulled Kady to him. “Lend me your power, imbue me with the strength to take out our enemy.”
Kady stretched up on her tiptoes and pressed a kiss to his lips. It tingled and burned the same as the very first time he’d touched her. Her magic flowed over him, into him, filling his heart and soul, until he was sure he would burst. He broke their kiss and roared into the sky.
“I love you, Black,” she whispered and stepped back, stumbling. Frost caught her before she could fall.
She was pale and exhausted. He moved to help her, be there for her, but she held up a hand and waved him off. “Go. Save the world, mah wah.”
Her words filled him with even more power. He looked to Frost. “Take care of her.”
Frost’s nod was all he needed. “Titian, give me cover.”
“Fuck, yeah. Lacey, Topper, hit those bastards with everything you’ve got left, ladies.” Titian filled the air with suppressing fire, and whips of blue, white, and purple light snapped through the air.
Black put his head down and ran forward at full speed. The bladed ship was dropping fast and the bastard was already moving toward it. Only a few more steps and he could tear the limbs from the man.
The spectral that was his mother’s soul hovered, unmoving, until the tree weasel raised his arm and let a glowing amulet drop and dangle.
Black’s soul ember. The piece of his soul intended for his mate, for Kady.
Bile rose at the back of his throat, filling his mouth with pure bitterness. No wonder the spectrals and the TFO had been able to track them down again and again. It wasn’t just Kady’s powers that attracted them. They literally had a piece of his soul.
The bastard pointed the ember at Black and the spectral screeched, rushing at him. He heard the shouts behind him for Lacey and Topper to shoot the spectral down, but their attempts missed.
If he could get to the ember before the spectral attacked, at least there would be a part of him for Kady to have. A part of his soul to soothe hers when he was gone.
A meter before Black reached the bastard, the spectral flew over his shoulder, skimming his skin with it’s cold touch.
Spectral Warriors didn’t miss, they attacked their victims mercilessly. If his soul was not already ripped from his body, he was not the prey.
A chasm of fear opened in his chest. If not him, then…
He pivoted mid-stride and watched in utter horror as the spectral tore through the air, directly for Kady.
“Nooooo.” The light of his life could not be stolen. He transformed instantly into the bear and bounded forward, overtaking the speed of the spectral in a moment.
It screeched one last time and dove for Kady. Black pushed off the ground, his back legs filled with the power of a thousand bears, throwing himself into the air, blocking the spectral warrior’s path.
For Kady.
In an instant light flashed before his eyes and a pain worse than a thousand cuts lashed through him. His soul was torn from his body and all the hatred and darkness of every being for a thousand millennia overtook him.
He tried to reach out, call to Kady, to tell her how he loved her. In a final fiery blast, his thoughts and free will splintered, his mind, body, and soul shattered.
Chapter
Sixteen: Dark Warrior
“Black!” Kady screamed, pain tearing through her so deep she lost her next breath.
Black’s body dropped to the ground, shimmering back into the form of a man. He lay unmoving in the dirt.
The helicopter swooped down, snatching up the TFO man. Titian fired his weapon, striking the metal. The copter wobbled, but continued its flight path and within second flew out of reach and across the sky.
The spectral warrior that had been Black’s mother, that had stolen Black’s soul, drifted into the air following the path of the chopper.
Titian fired again, but the helicopter was out of range. He raised a communicator to his mouth and shou
ted to his team to intercept the escaping agent.
Kady rushed to Black’s side and dropped to the ground, throwing her arms around him. His chest moved up and down, she could feel his pulse in her tight grip on him, but there was no light in his eyes, no spark of his soul connecting with hers.
Where was Black’s soul, or the spectral warrior it had become? She blinked, holding back the tears, and his form appeared, hovering above her, pulsing as its shape grew, a mass of unformed liquid shadow.
“No no no no no no no. Black, you come back to me right now. You can not do this. You can not leave me alone.”
She raised her voice to the sky, seeking to connect with the stolen soul. It shimmered, growing less translucent and more shadowy by the second.
“Black,” she shouted at the spectral forming before her eyes, “don’t do this. You are mine and I am yours. Please, Black, please come back.”
Kady pulled his slack body into her arms and rocked his form, crying out his name, pleading with the shadow to return over and over.
She’d been abandoned by everyone who should have been important in her life, wounded and scarred by the missing connections, stolen from her before she could even remember. She’d survived on her own, building a lonely independence around herself. She hadn’t thrived. Not until Black.
“Please, universe. Please don’t take him from me now.”
The new spectral warrior screeched like a hurt animal lashing out. Deep in her own broken soul, Kady knew he was in terrible pain. She tried to call up her magic, wrap it around him, soothe him in her light. If only she could reach him, maybe she could pull him back from the abyss forming between them.
All she could manage was a warm glow across her skin, that she wrapped gently around Black’s body.
The new spectral screeched again, louder this time, and dove toward her.
“Kady, look out.” Lacey shot a steady stream of magic at the spectral warrior.
“No, stop!” Kady raised her hand, pulling from the depths of her being to call up the magic that had been there only moments before.
Her hand glowed a deep gold, but the magic wouldn’t go, it wouldn’t do her bidding. She wanted, needed to block Lacey’s blue-white defense and protect Black’s soul.
Without his light mixing with hers, adding to her power, she had nothing. Her heart sank through the emptiness inside of her leaving, only a sad, angry desperation in its wake.
The spectral warrior weaved around Lacey’s magic, bearing down on Kady. Topper added her purple light to the battle, deflecting the spectral a fraction of a second before it could hit.
It recoiled, and dove at her, two, three, four times. Lacey and Topper formed a shield over the top and around her. Margreth reinforced the shield with a new ward.
Still, the spectral beat down, frantic to get to her.
“Black.” Kady reached up, holding his body in one arm, grasping for his soul with her other.
She could see the form of his face in shadow, beautiful, but angry, so angry. He clawed at the magic around her.
He wanted her soul. He wouldn’t have to steal it, she’d readily give it to him. She already had. What if she stood up, pushed through the barriers between them, let him take her?
A calm settled over her, extinguishing the last bit of light inside her. What was the light without Black, anyway?
She lay his head and shoulders down, touched her fingers to her lips, and then to his. Standing forced the shields around her to expand. They fluctuated and thinned. As if Black’s spectral understood her intentions, it doubled its efforts to get to her, shattering the ward.
Kady pushed her fingertips through the open edges of the ward, touching Lacey and Topper’s magic.
They yelled, but their voices were muted, filtered through a thick layer of grief. Didn’t matter what they said, anyway. Kady pushed through the swirls of blue-white and purple light.
Take me, Black. Take me with you.
The spectral Black grabbed her hand, burning her from the inside out. The pain ripped through her, weakening her until her knees gave out. Her body dangled in the air, held aloft by the grip Black’s dark soul had on her.
Her thoughts fell away, leaving a misshapen anger behind. She wanted to scream, but her lungs had seized.
“Kaden.” A strong voice yelled out, reaching through the blackness and she was hit from the side. Her body hurtled through the air, being snatched, torn away from the grasp of the spectral.
She crashed into the ground, her glasses falling into the dirt by her head, her eyes flooded with bright New Mexico sunlight.
The air whooshed back into her lungs and a cool light soothed the injuries to her hand and soul.
“Kaden, m’lady, are you all right?”
A man, a buck-naked one, was sprawled out on top of her, running his hands over her arms, face, and hands.
“Get off me.”
Frost and Stark grabbed the man by his shoulders and yanked him to his feet. But, Lacey and Topper didn’t move to help at all.
Kady rolled away, grabbing her glasses in the process and shoved them on her face. Who was this naked man, and why had he tried to save her from giving up her soul?
She looked him up and down, avoiding his package as best she could. He had spiky hair, a short stubby nose, and brown eyes she recognized.
“I’m not a threat,” he said to the men holding him, “Kaden is my mistress. I was only trying to save her.”
Frost looked to Lacey who nodded. They released him and he reached his hand down, in offer to help Kady to her feet.
She shook her head and he sat on the ground beside her. “Don’t cry, sweet Kaden. You can rub my belly if it will make you feel better.”
Rub his belly? The only belly she’d ever rubbed while crying was…
“Percy?”
“At your service, m’lady.” Percy winked and dipped his head in a bow.
She looked at her hands, but didn’t feel the magic there. She couldn’t have done this. Both Lacey and Topper shook their heads when she asked them with a glance.
“But, you’re a hedgehog.”
“When you needed me to be your companion. I am your familiar, I am whatever you need me to be. Now you need a Spock to your Kirk, a Chewie to your Han, an R2 to your D2.”
He spoke passionately and raised a knife into the air. It looked like the knife-like weapon Agent Douchecanoe had pulled on her.
“Be careful with that.” He might look like a muscled, well-endowed naked man, but he’d been a pet up until a minute ago.
“I was kind of hoping it was a light-saber.” He lifted the knife over their heads and pushed a button, but nothing happened. He sighed and let the knife fall to the ground. “I always wanted to be a Jedi, ever since the first time you played the Star Wars movies for me and fed me popcorn.”
Kady wrapped her arms around herself. “That’s funny. I always wished I were a Jedi too. But, now I have powers just as badass as the Force, and they didn’t do me a damn bit of good.”
“But, m’lady, what do you mean? This is the moment you’ve been waiting for your entire life. You have to rescue your Han from the evil clutches of Jabba.”
She shook her head. The tears she’d held back earlier pooled at the edges of her eyes. “The only way to save Black is to free his soul by killing his body. I can’t do that.”
Percy tsked. “Now is no time to let your fear turn you to the Dark side. Look where that got Anni and Amidala.”
She turned away from Percy. She wanted only to hide from the world again. “Get your head out of your butt. This isn’t a movie.”
Percy stood, towering over her. He pointed and shook his finger at her. “No, you get your head out of your butt. You are a witch, descendent of a powerful line of Gypsy witches. They died defending you and your sisters, so that you might live and fulfill your destiny. You are a warrior. Be one now.”
She shook her head, ignoring his words. It was probably a story he’d seen in a mo
vie anyway. Sounded like one. “I’m no warrior.”
Topper came over, patted Percy on the butt and joined her the ground. “Your name, Kaden, means warrior. It is who you are. There’s power in names, so whether you believe it or not, you are a warrior.”
She didn’t feel like she could fight anything. “A name a family I’ve never even met gave me. It has no meaning, and I certainly don’t have any power, with or without it.”
Lacey joined them, making them into a small circle of women. “You have more power than you know. I didn’t put it together when Topper said your name, when we met, but now I know who you are. You come from a long line of witches, your mother was a witch.”
Kady shook her head. “Did you know my mother? Because, I didn’t, and she didn’t give me anything but an abandonment complex.”
“No. But, your heritage is very clear now that Percy has revealed it. Every witch of my generation knows of the tale of the three Ayinin sisters. You’ve been lost to us until now.”
Wait. What? Percy’s story was real?
“Percy? My family died? I have sisters?”
He scoffed. “Of course, you do.”
“Was my father a witch too? I guess, does that make him a wizard, a warlock?”
Kady’s brain was fried. She couldn’t focus, couldn’t get her mind around this story about her family.
Topper shook her head. “Your father was a bear.”
Percy interjected. “You’re the offspring, the first daughter of the Warrior Anatolian Bears.”
“The Gypsy witches have intermingled with shifters for as long as time. That’s where you get your easy use of Soul Magic, and of course, your name. Ayinin kizi, bear’s daughter.”
Bear’s daughter. Was that what had attracted Black to her in the first place?
“Does that mean there are bear people who aren’t aliens?”
“Of course. We don’t see many in Magic. But, we can probably help you find some of your people, if not your family.”