by Richard Amos
It took a moment for my brain to catch up with what I was seeing. First, the combination of Greg’s strength and Dean’s help should’ve been enough to keep Luke down. It wasn’t. He roared and pulled himself free of both their hold as if he were possessed.
Shit. Had Nay’s concoction had the opposite effect?
She came running back into the fold at that moment. “I have more! Oh, crap!”
“Fucking grab him!” Greg roared.
Luke shifted and sprung into Nay’s face, raking at her skin. She dropped the syringe as she fought Luke, punching his feline form.
Before Greg or Dean could get a hand on him, he was off Nay and gone.
Blood pouring down her face, Nay scooped up the syringe and gave chase, Greg and Dean in hot pursuit.
“The little bastard!” she screamed.
My sparks died away at Luke’s absence.
Here I was, a useless spectator. It was great watching your friends struggle from a place of safety. Not!
Rather than moping like a teenager, I closed the balcony doors and sat on the bed. My fingers went to my mouth, and I started my usual nail-chewing. All I could do was wait this one out. They had this, the three of them. A witch, a golem and a half-fae—they had it covered.
My sparks sprang to life.
The meow came next. I shot round to see Luke pawing at the glass.
Bloody hell!
He became Luke the man, panting with rage. He banged on the window with his fists, every hint of madness on his face.
Oh, bollocks!
Before I could make it to the door, he smashed his way in.
“YOU!”
The sparks spat viciously. I dove for the bathroom. If I could hole up in there long enough for my guardians to get there, I’d avoid an incident.
“He’s in here!” I cried.
Luke was on me. We tumbled to the carpet. I struggled against him, keeping my hands away from his head. He sat on my chest and grabbed my throat. Who knew he was that heavy and could squeeze that hard?
“Luke!” I choked. He tightened his hold.
“YOU!”
His face was scarlet, and when he spoke, he sprayed me with spittle. His eyes were horribly bloodshot.
“YOUYOUYOUYOUYOU!”
I couldn’t make a sound, my windpipe on the verge of being crushed to nothing. My hands were free. I could easily reach up and grab him.
“FREE ME!”
Where the hell were my guardians? By now they’d be feeling the SOS thread we shared. I just had to hold on.
Luke hissed at me and looked down at my hands. His grip loosened, and he started to sob.
“You …” he said.
I gasped for breath as he let me go. He was still crushing my chest, but at least some air was getting in now. My throat blazed with ache.
“You …”
“Luke …”
“YOU!” He punched the floor beside my head. “YOU!” Punch, punch, punch—every one of them was a mere hair’s breadth away from my face.
The door crashed open, and Dean was soaring above me, crashing into Luke.
The beast howled, and I sat up. The green energy flooded me and fixed my throat up as good as new.
Greg and Nay dove on top of Dean and Luke, a tangle of wrestling limbs.
“Bloody hell!” Greg boomed as Luke went feline once again, slipping out of the scrum.
The cat leapt at me, claws spread, coming right for my face. I rolled, and he just missed me. He went in again, clawing at my arms.
Greg was up and making for a grab when Luke leapt again, hitting Greg straight in his iron chest. The cat ricocheted off all that muscle and smacked me in the face. My head whipped back, and Luke rolled into my lap, his head skimming my hand.
That was all it took.
“No!”
I was in the place of fog.
“No!” I ran the other way through the choking white, away from the golden light that was Luke’s essence.
The light was that way too.
I ran left, then right, with no difference—all roads led to the light.
“No!”
This wasn’t fair. How could this have happened? Shitshitshit! I had to stay and figure out a way to get out without killing Luke.
“There has to be a way,” I said aloud desperately. “There just had to be.”
No one answered, not even the creepy version of the goddess’ voice. Because there was only the one answer that I already knew. Once I was here, the beast was doomed.
“I’m not leaving.”
There was no objection from the fog or the gold, diamond-shaped light rotating in the distance.
Could Luke feel me here? I’d never seen the other side when I was in this place and probably never would. Was he going even crazier now that I was feet away from his essence?
Bollocks to this.
I searched every chasm of my brain for a solution. There was none. I was cut off from my friends here, a place only I could come to.
“Hecate?”
She didn’t answer.
“Please, help me. I can’t do this. The moment I touch that light; the shadows are free. Help me, please.”
Nothing.
Where was she when I needed her? “Please …” I said weakly. “Hecate …”
I waited and waited, walked around some more, tried to find something inside me that would set me free and help Luke to live. I even felt the ground for any sign of a trapdoor, some emergency exit that would make all of this better.
It wasn’t going to be better. I couldn’t stay here.
The sparks on my hands shone bright, eager to devour. So was I, despite my horror. I wanted to draw in that beast essence like hot soup, savor every moment of it.
I licked my lips.
“Bollocks!” I grabbed my hair. “This isn’t happening.”
I couldn’t stay here.
When all of my resistance had failed me, with hunger driving my plodding footsteps, I reached Luke’s essence.
There was a lead balloon in my chest, but also a raging desire to kill.
I reached out a hand, the light spinning in desperation.
“This isn’t happening,” I said, licking my lips again.
I couldn’t wait to taste this beast.
I hesitated, and the sparks hissed.
Staying here was not an option.
Life was about to get really bloody crap.
“Goodbye, Luke.”
I gave my touch of true death.
Chapter Fifteen
Twin snakes of shadows spiraled around me as the golden shards fell from my hands.
Luke was dead.
My sparks were going wild with rage. I reached out, and the shadows darted out of the way.
“Killing machine,” they whispered. It sounded like two male voices, raspy and cruel. “Set us free, set us free—you and me.”
I lunged at them and froze as red eyes blazed in their smoky forms. They entwined and spun around the room before zipping outside.
I was running downstairs before I could so much as think about doing so, my guardians hot on my heels.
I ran into the snow, looking for them in the sky. One of them was floating some feet in the air, the wards flashing as black tendrils tapped at them. The other was nowhere to be seen, but Mr. Douglas was floating above the snow facing the wards.
“What the hell?” I said.
“Set us free,” they hissed. “Set us free.”
We ran for Mr. Douglas.
“Let him go!” I bellowed. “You’ll never get out of here!”
They laughed. Where the hell was the other one? “Are you sure, killer?”
“Is the other inside him?” I asked.
“Oh, my God,” Nay said.
Mr. Douglas groaned as he was lifted higher into the air.
“Put him down!”
“Wait, killer.”
Mr. Douglas groaned and said, “O-op-open …”
Nothing
happened.
“Other way,” a shadowy voice said.
The floating shadow twisted through the air as a snake, its form rippling. It entered Mr. Douglas through the mouth. He coughed and gagged as it slithered in.
Nay was casting a spell, stumbling over her words in panic. “Fuck!” she cried.
Mr. Douglas shot forward, straight into wards. They burned red, resisting him but letting him in slowly, confused by him.
“They’ll kill him!”
Nay’s magic flashed, but did nothing except bounce off Mr. Douglas. “That was meant to pull him back! KARLA!”
Mr. Douglas’s clothes started to fall away as ash, his exposed skin bubbling with heat. The stench of his burning flesh stung the back of my throat.
“KARLA!”
And he was through, his body landing in the snow on the other side. I ran out there, crashing through the gates to get to him. Dean had darted past me and got to him first.
The shadows burst from his body and spiraled into the air.
“You have seen, killer. We are free.” They shot off into the city, their voices still in my ears as they vanished into the gray morning.
Oh. My. God.
Mr. Douglas was horrendously burned up, his body nothing but red sores, every hair on him singed away. But he was still breathing.
Greg scooped him up. The man was unconscious and made no sound as he was carried into the mansion. Nay was already running back inside for Karla.
“I fucked up …I fucked up …” I collapsed into the snow on my knees, the white stuff swallowing me up to my ribcage. “I fucked up …”
“Get up, Jake,” Dean said. “Come on.” He took my arm.
The shadow twins were free.
I didn’t want to move. “I set them free. I did this.”
“Jake, you have to get inside before something else happens.”
I looked up at him. “They can do that again, come back and forth as they please. They got out, Dean. They’ll get in again. We’re fucked.”
The hysterics were floating to the surface.
Needaline …
I had to cool the fires of anxiety and panic before it all consumed me.
“Jake, get up.”
“I …” I had to get up. I had to be strong. “Mr. Douglas …”
Dean pulled at me. “Come on.”
I had to be strong.
I got up with his help. “Mr. Douglas …”
“Let’s get inside.”
He had my hand in his—so soft and warm against my freezing palm. I let him guide me inside.
Mr. Douglas was submerged in a milky solution in a bath made of marble. It had come out of the floor, a hidden trick I was witnessing for the first time. There were wires and tubes sticking out of him. His face was just above the surface, covered with a white mask.
It’d been an hour since the shadows had been freed, and Karla had now let us into the medical room as she and Nay carried on with their work.
“I’m so sorry,” I said. Bloody hell! I sounded like a child who’d just drawn on the walls!
Karla attached another tube to Mr. Douglas, clear fluid travelling down from a bag on a stand. “No one could have foreseen this,” she said.
“I should’ve been more careful, better aware of Luke.”
“It was an accident,” Greg said.
“Will he be okay?”
“We will have to see,” Karla answered. “He has sustained sufficient burns all over his body.”
“He’s a strong bloke,” Greg said. “He’ll fight his way back if only to stop Nay using the cooker.”
Nay, mixing something in a bowl, didn’t laugh. “He had a reverse reaction to what I gave him,” she said. “That goblin potion was stronger than any of us anticipated—and we anticipated it would be.” She shook her head.
“It breached the wards,” I said.
“It is ancient magic,” Karla said. “It operates on a different spectrum to the magic of today. There is no cure to the effects of that potion because of this.”
“And the shadows? What sort of magic do they have?” I knew she didn’t know, but I still asked the question.
“They are not made of flesh,” she said. “Therefore, the rules are different.”
“Still avoided my hands, though,” I said.
“That is good. It means you can still stop them.”
“What’s the plan apart from killing them?”
She stroked the side of the bath. “You must hunt them down as soon as possible. Who knows what chaos they have brought to the city this past hour, or if they have helped Lilisian with her goal of restoration.”
“Then let’s go,” I said.
“Wait,” Greg said. “We don’t know what we’re facing.” I hadn’t noticed the cream on his face, or on Dean and Nay’s, for the cat scratches. “Let’s sort some weapons out.”
I couldn’t touch the swords or axes we had at the mansion. They didn’t like me, or my power didn’t like them. Whatever. The fact was, they went flying across the room if I tried to pick one up. It was just me and sparkly hands.
Greg strapped his hammer to him as we all stood in the gym—he had a cool leather sheath for it. Karla remained with Mr. Douglas.
Nay scooped up an axe, and I saw she’d added some vials to her potion belt. She caught me staring.
“These puppies go bang real nice.”
“Good.”
Dean attached his knuckle-dusters—his favorite. In fact, everything my guardians wielded were favorite weapons. Good. I wanted them comfortable and ready to fight.
Bloody hell! Since when was I the general? I cracked my knuckles. All I wanted was those shadows stopped before they could make Purple happy, as well as Lilisian. The Supreme beast needed to stay locked away in that old body.
“We ready?” Greg said as he pulled a beanie hat on his head.
We were all wrapped up. The temperature was really starting to nosedive.
“I’m so fucking ready,” I said. My hands balled into fists.
“Gonna be interesting driving in this,” Greg said.
“If anyone can do it, you can,” Nay said.
“Let’s go,” I said, charging out of the gym.
Chapter Sixteen
The drive had been slow, but Greg had soldiered on through the snow to Rainbow Mile.
I got out of the vehicle, taking in the scene before me, the lights of the amusement arcades flashing colors across the carpet of white. The shadow twins could be anywhere, but this would have to be the place to start as it was the busiest part of Coldharbour in general.
A silence had fallen over the city that made me shiver from more than just the bitter cold.
The wheels of parked cars were buried in the snow. If the snow kept falling at the rate it was, everything would soon be swallowed by a massive blanket of white. There were people everywhere, all as still as statutes—down on the beach, up here on the road.
A woman near to me was breathing heavily and watching me with unblinking eyes. No part of her moved aside from the rise and fall of her chest. She was as frozen as the icicles hanging from the roofs of the buildings. I didn’t like the way she watched me, like a lioness stalking her prey.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
It was then I noticed that all eyes were trained on me.
Shit.
“What do we do?” I said.
“Get to Nay’s shop,” Greg said. “It’s the closest.”
Greg and Nay both had businesses in the city from their lives before—a car garage and a candle shop respectively.
“Yeah,” Nay agreed. “That can be our base.”
“You hear that?” Dean said.
“What?” I wondered. But then I heard it for myself.
Boots crunching on snow. We were right near Baby Rainbow, where the sound was coming from, and the cruncher soon stepped out into view.
The white eye guy.
“Well, you’ve really done it now,”
he said, heading over.
My guardians immediately closed rank around me. He paused some feet away.
“What happened to protecting Luke?” he said.
“Get lost,” I snapped. “Since when do I answer to you?”
“Since you’ve screwed up so royally.”
“There were complications,” Nay said.
“Ah, yes, ancient goblin crap.” I saw his white eye narrow into a demonic slit. “You should’ve tried harder to stop this from happening.”
“And what’s happening?” I threw out.
“Who knows right now? But look around you. Doesn’t look good, does it? The twins were locked away for a reason.”
My sparks came to life as one of the shadows arched over the building and spiraled above us.
“While my brother works, I shall play,” it whispered. “Such fun I will have.”
The white eye guy pointed above his head. “You see? Now we have to deal with all this bullshit.”
I reveled in his fear. He was in the same boat as the rest of us. No more arrogance and throwing his knowledge of things in my face.
I’d take small wins over him where I could.
Still, that whole idea of the shadow beast having fun made me shudder. What sort of fun was it gonna be having?
“This city is lost to you now,” the shadow hissed. “We are free now.”
“Yeah, we’ve established that.” I pointed a sparking finger at it. “And nothing’s lost yet.”
“Foolish killer. You have no idea what you’re dealing with.”
Dust hit me in the face, stinging my eyes. Dust? Really? I rubbed at them vigorously, blinking like crazy to clear them.
“Jake?”
“I’m okay. I just—”
Wait.
“Jake?”
That wasn’t the voice of any of my guardians. It was male and so damn … no. It wasn’t wonderful, because it wasn’t real. There was no way it could be real.
I rubbed my eyes again. The gritty sensation of dust was gone. No blurry vision, no haze.
Michael was standing there in the snow.
I swear my heart stopped. “M-Michael?”
This wasn’t real. The beast had done something to me with some kind of evil dust.
“Jake …” Michael said.
It was him, my angel. His mop of dirty blond hair I loved to run my hands through, his sparkling blue eyes, his olive skin. Every part of it was him.