Seize the Soul: Confessions of a Summoner Book 1
Page 21
“Philo, what are you doing?” Stephanie called to her brother. “You have to let Marcus go. He’s gonna’ get you killed!”
The witch doctor didn’t say a word. He dragged his feet through the water and stood over me. His eyes cavorted an electric blue as lightning flowed through him to strike me again.
Just as I was going to summon, Nathan stopped me.
I reluctantly obeyed bracing myself for another voltage surge. The lightning cracked from Philo’s fingers and wrapped around me…only this time, there was no pain, no locking up of my muscles and joints.
Looking up at Philo, I connected with the æther made by the high-bays and the residual lightning that charged through me, absorbing Philo’s lightning into my body, summoning Nathan into the energy.
Jumping to my feet, I stretched out my arms, and lightning exploded out of me in a wave that shocked everyone around me, flattening each of them to the concrete.
Lyle fell out of his eagle form from ten feet, smacking his had against the cement. “What did you do?” he groaned.
Even Vár was on her back, but she was on her feet in an instant, charging at me with the same fury in her eyes that she’d had before.
Just as the æther took root, Vár’s sword impaled through my gut. My eyes flew open. My back arched, and my hands bent like claws. My breathing came in spurts. I waited for the pain, anticipated the rush of blood to leak out of me. But all I felt was nothing – nothing but Vár…her body, her aura, her very being.
The goddess is made of light energy herself. She’s made of æther. That’s why I was able to summon her. If she’s nothing but æther…then maybe…
Both of Vár’s hands clenched the hilt of her sword. I wrapped one hand around hers, the other gripping my obelisk. Drawing in as much power as my stone could contain, I bound myself with æther from the high-bays, and I commanded Nathan to fuse himself with the goddess.
Nathan swirled out of the obelisk, channeled through my body, and latched himself to Vár. I could feel my grip on her biting down, the bind that I’d hooked to her locking her into my possession as I merged her aura with the æther. I brought the binds together to conjure her once more, to overtake her in my power again.
Vár strove against me, struggling to cry out, but with a thought, I silenced her, peering into her panicked green eyes that had once been so calm, so in control. As if hauling in a massive metal chain, I reeled Vár completely back into my possession, demanding that she bury herself into my obelisk.
I reached up to the heavens and fired Vár’s aura out of my stone and into the sky back to Asgard. A streak of light screeched through the hole in the roof, and with that, she was gone.
Marcus had made his way beside Boyd, near the counter and the vertical warehouse receiving doors. “It seems that ye haven’t made good on yer end of the bargain.” He’d lost his typical poise, his voice slightly exasperated. With the heel of his boot, he rammed his foot down into the side of Boyd’s head.
Boyd clasped his eyes shut, grunting and coughing with his hands still tied behind his back.
“Leave him alone,” I ordered, starting over to him.
“I wouldn’t take another step closer,” Marcus warned. “Ye’ve done nothing but put a damper on me spirits. Typically, I’m not a forgiving man,” he said, “but I might be able to make concession if ye do yerself a favor and call Vár back down to do what it was that I asked of her.”
Lyle struggled to pick himself up from where my lightning blast had snatched him from his decanted eagle form and thrown him to the ground. “Vár just tried to kill us,” he managed. “There’s no way we’re bringing her back so she can finish the job.”
“It’s over, Marcus,” I said, almost smiling. “We won. We beat you. All you said was that we had to summon Vár, and we did. We did, and you lost. I’d say you owe us our three wishes.”
Marcus’s face tightened, furious. “Wishes? The only thing that ye’ll be wishing is for me not to kill ye where ya’ stand. Now summon…the goddess.”
“No,” I said. “I’m not doing it. And you can’t make me, not now you can’t. You lost. It’s over, Marcus.”
“Leprechaun Code of Chivalry,” Lyle said.
Marcus looked at me to see if I agreed. I didn’t budge. “Suit yerself,” he said. With no regret, no shame, no remorse, Marcus grabbed ahold of the unstable iron shelf near Boyd and jerked down on it.
The world stood still for me, watching the enormous rusted shelf screech down as it toppled over. Boyd could only look up, petrified, blood slipping down his face from the knots on his forehead.
To save him, Lyle decanted to bear form and galloped to the corner where Boyd lay to drag him out. But when Lyle drew near, he had to rear back to keep from getting smashed himself. With a crash that ricocheted off every wall, the shelf collapsed on Boyd, crushing him underneath.
Boyd didn’t make a sound when the shelf landed on him. There was only the clamorous din of the metal as it rattled to a hush. Yet, even after all went still, I could hear the ringing of the iron within me.
To make what I already knew to be true a more horrific reality, I saw Boyd’s soul climb out of him – a wobbling orb of brown and red – that lingered just above where his body lay, then drifted on through the ceiling, never even looking at me as if he and I had not at one time been a pair.
I couldn’t watch the soul leave, or I somehow felt that mine might go with it. I just stared blank-faced at the place where the guy I loved had said his last words to me.
Was this how Castella had felt when she’d lost Alex? I didn’t want revenge. I wanted Boyd…alive. But Marcus wasn’t satisfied with what he’d done. He snapped his fingers at Philo and the woman with the long hair who stood not far behind me.
Both of them jumped into action. The woman, once sleek and slender, hulked into a massive beast – a werewolf, fangs leaking saliva that clung to her bark-colored fur in strings that glistened in the bright lights.
With a growl, she charged straight for Lyle who switched to his Wraith form, allowing the werewolf to pass through his body, before resurfacing into a lion and clamping down on her shoulder blade from behind with his powerful jaws.
The wolf howled, clawing at Lyle as she landed on her back, Lyle’s teeth still mangling her.
The witch doctor fired another bolt of lightning at me, which I absorbed with the æther, then snapped it back at him in full force. Philo flew back, kicking his legs as electricity circled his body. Stephanie hurried to him, cradling his head in her hands.
An emerald glow irradiated from Marcus’s fists. He sauntered to Lyle, who still tore into the werewolf’s shoulder, and Marcus smashed both hands into Lyle’s lion skull. The blow was so fierce that Lyle’s paws got away from him, sliding outwards.
Trying to catch his balance, his legs skittered underneath him, too dizzy to stay upright. He fell to his side, blood from the werewolf dripping down his jaws and into his thick mane.
The werewolf grabbed two of Lyle’s four legs and slung him to the other side of the warehouse where the impact was so severe that Lyle cracked the brick wall from the center to the roof before sliding down and landing on the floor.
With gleaming yellow eyes, the werewolf raced towards me, shoulder first, set to send me barreling through a dozen shelves. I summoned the wind and met her head-on, smashing into her at speeds surpassing seventy miles per hour.
There was a bone-chilling crack that echoed through the warehouse. I thought it was something in me until I saw that the werewolf’s neck had contorted backwards in an unnatural t
wist. She lay on the concrete, whimpering as her regenerative powers slowly untwisted her neck back to its original position.
I’d heard that brass was a decent conductor of electricity, though I’d never tried to slay a werewolf with it. But since iron wasn’t good enough for what I needed, brass was all I had. I grabbed the zipper on my parka, conjured the brazen sword, and drove it through the werewolf’s heart so hard that I heard the metal clink against the cement when it pierced all the way from her front to her back.
Sparks skipped up the sword as the werewolf’s body shut down. She uncontrollably altered back to the woman she’d been, though she was dead before her transformation was even complete.
When I dispersed the sword, putting Nathan back into the obelisk which rested in the left pocket of my parka, Marcus wrenched me up high in the air, both of his hands lighting up with emerald Empyrean. “I think I’ve had quite enough of ya’, missy.”
Effortlessly, he threw me straight into the air so high that my back kissed the ceiling before plummeting back to the floor. Lyle decanted to an eagle, but before he could fly to me, Philo struck him with electricity, sending him thrashing into the sidewall.
The concrete came closer and closer until I crashed into it. My left forearm fractured into a ninety-degree angle, the bone jutting out of the skin, exposing blood, torn muscle, and marrow.
I didn’t feel it at first, probably because of how hard my head had hit after my arm broke my fall. I just remember having dull senses – not really being able to feel anything. It wasn’t until I reached for my obelisk that I realized that I couldn’t move my arm. That was when the pain came – so intense that I nearly blacked out.
Marcus stood over me, fists balls of green. He merely scowled at me as I writhed in pain – not smiling – just watching. To keep me from reaching for my obelisk, he stepped on my right forearm – the one that wasn’t broken. That was when the smile came.
“Get away from her!” Stephanie yelled, rushing towards him.
He barely flinched. His radiant hands wrangled around her throat, pressing his thumbs in as deep as they would go. Her legs couldn’t reach the floor. They just kicked over me, fighting for purchase as she helplessly clawed at his hands.
Lyle... But Lyle was too far away.
Dizzy from the fall and the fractured arm, I struggled to kick my leg around at Marcus to get him off my arm. With a painful jerk and twist of my waist, I was able to get my leg up far enough to lock around his right leg behind the knee.
With whatever strength was left, I lurched my leg forward, sending Marcus stumbling. He dropped Stephanie, and somewhere behind my head and to the right, I could hear her gagging and coughing.
My right arm arrowed down to my left pocket, twisting my coat until I could touch my skin to the obelisk. I could feel the hardness of the stone underneath the fibers of the jacket, and frantically I pushed the gem out to expose at least some part of it.
Looking down to my left side, I could see the slight pink of the stone just barely sticking out of my pocket. Almost got it… Just as I went to grab the stone, Marcus’s strong hand caught my wrist.
My heart felt like it was going to rupture it was beating to hard. I strained against his grip to let my fingers touch the stone, even trying with all might to let my broken left arm just rest on it – anything that would allow me to conjure a summon.
But it didn’t help.
“Ya’ had one job to do, and ya’ failed.” The emerald glow around Marcus’s hands burned brighter, and what little strength I thought I had in my right arm felt useless against the power that he exerted against me. With one hand, he pinned my arm to the ground, and with the other, something happened that I hadn’t expected.
With the force of a freight train, I felt his hand tear through my chest, shredding though the skin and breaking through my ribs. His fist compacted my heart like a bailer…and then…everything went black.
Chapter
TWENTY-EIGHT
<…>
<…>
<…You talked to Umara? Told her what happened?>
<…Yeah…>
<…No…>
If you enjoyed the book, please write a review!
Please sign up for my newsletter
where you can expect contests and freebies!
Email me: StadlerVerse (at) outlook (dot) com
Tweet me: @StadlerVerse
NEXT IN SERIES:
CONFESSIONS OF A SUMMONER BOOK 2
ELEMENTAL DAMAGE