Paranormals | Book 3 | Darkness Reigns

by Andrews, Christopher

  Continuing their advance, Jaydee whispered under his breath, “Spoetium.”

  The Skygger blinked its large-yet-beady eyes, and cocked its head to one side, then grinned. “Ah. You’re attempting to probe my mind. Did you really think that would work?” It shook its head. “After all the trouble I went through to lure all of you here, I really hope you have more to offer.”

  Jaydee considered asking, If you wanted us, what took you so long? Instead, he replied by trying, “Loetium,” and projected a command for: Peace.

  The Skygger offered laughter by way of a single, “Ha!” Then it grinned some more. “And now you try playing with my emotions. My, you are grasping at straws, aren’t—”

  Jaydee did not wait for it to finish before crossing his gladius swords and shouting, “Cataptis!”

  Once a standard, rather weak spell intended for simple tasks like fishing, he had experimented over the decades with focusing it through his magically-enhanced blades — partially on the chance that they should ever meet the Skygger again.

  More blue energy shot forth, but this time it was tinted green and originated at the tips of his swords, and as he spread them apart, the power spread in turn — the energy expanded until it was broad and high enough to cover the entire far wall of the church.

  The Skygger stopped grinning. It attempted to scale the wall, tried leaping for the ceiling, but in its arrogance had reacted too late. The energy net snagged it an instant before it could get out of reach, dragging it back down and pinning it. The Skygger hissed and erupted into a vicious scrabble to tear free.

  And it would do so very soon; already the net was fraying as though the spell were an hour old.

  But Jaydee did not wait. Pointing both swords at the creature, he called out, “Petiedum!”

  This time the energy beams were as thin as blades of grass; had the Skygger not been inhibited by the net, he never would have struck it. But it was, and he did.

  The Skygger was not paralyzed as it should have been, but it slowed as if suddenly moving underwater. It twisted its head enough to glare at him, and this time he saw no malicious glee in those eyes, just outrage.

  Dryal and Venubis rushed forward, but Jaydee stood his ground and sheathed his swords; it was all he could do not to drop them clattering to the floor. Generating four spells so close together, especially one as forceful as the net, drained him. He would revive soon — he just needed a minute or two — but in the meantime, he trusted his friends to finish the Skygger while he recovered.

  If only poor Akribos had survived to see this.

  Venubis released his arrow, but the Skygger twisted its neck to an unnatural angle to avoid getting pierced straight through its forehead. Unshaken, as always, Venubis readied another arrow.

  Dryal stepped in, her massive sword drawn back for the kill, knowing its inorganic matter would not harm the magical net. The Skygger wriggled its body, but not enough this time — Dryal’s sword failed to cut it in half, but a good four inches sliced through the upper-left portion of its rangy chest. The Skygger squealed like a wounded pig and tucked in on itself, its neck managing another cringe-inducing angle as it mouthed the deep wound, as though suckling at its own nonexistent breast.

  Dryal drew back for another swing ...

  Venubis took careful aim, side-stepping as he passed the backmost pew ...

  And déjà vu struck Jaydee like a thunderclap.

  Fatigue be damned, he lurched forward. “Dryal, watch out!”

  Heeding his warning, Dryal held her strike and shifted into a defensive post. But it was too late.

  The Skygger uncurled its neck and spat, its own blood spraying right into Dryal’s face, into her eyes. She screamed in a way Jaydee had never before heard, dropping her sword and clutching her face in trembling hands. She wavered, about to fall ...

  Venubis fired his next arrow, striking exactly where the Skygger’s belly should have been, but the creature was already on the move, bending its limbs into painful-looking contortions in order to squirm through the gap where the energy of the net was most frayed. Once it had its left arm free, it reached out toward Dryal, its clawed fingers lengthening into hooked talons ...

  Jaydee was still too depleted to try a spell or to bring his swords to bear, which left him with but one option. And he did not hesitate.

  Lunging toward the Skygger and its intended victim, Jaydee shoved Dryal down and took the deep slash across his left shoulder.

  Yup, he could not help but think with dark humor, there it is. At least now I know why I didn’t throw myself to the right.

  The blow, which tore through his enchanted armor and felt bone-deep, drove him to one knee next to Dryal — who writhed on the floor, whimpering and pawing at her face, at her eyes, trying to wipe away the thing’s offending blood.

  “Yesss ...” the Skygger hissed as it loomed over them, both taloned hands ready to strike.

  But just as the Skygger lashed down at them, Venubis’ arrow pierced its short-snouted cheek and shot straight through and out the other side. The Skygger screamed its pig-like squeal, then twisted about and scampered up the wall, disappearing into the shadows once more. Venubis’ next arrow chased after it, but no new cries of pain followed.

  Trusting Venubis to watch their backs as best he could, Jaydee checked on Dryal. He tried to ease her hands from her face, and after a moment, she relinquished; her eyes, as far as she could open them, were an angry shade of pink-red to match the Skygger’s blood.

  “It burns ...” she whispered. “By Simarian, it burns ...”

  “Hold on,” he told her, closing her eyes against the deep pain in his own shoulder. “Sanitasto ...”

  Jaydee felt the magic ripple inside him, like the disturbed surface of a pond, and flow from his center, washing throughout his body and over Dryal’s. His shoulder was still bleeding, but the stream lessened a good deal, along with the pain, and as Dryal blinked her swollen eyes, the inflamation died down a bit.

  “Sorry,” he mumbled, shaking his head against the cumulating fatigue. “That’s the best I can do for now.”

  “It’s enough,” she assured him as she moved to stand; he helped her to her feet, and she wasted no time retrieving her sword.

  From somewhere above them, the Skygger giggled, though its mirth sounded forced this time. “Would you be willing to share some of your tender loving care with me, sweet Gladius?” Then, with no humor whatsoever, it added, “You hurt me, you pediculous gobermouchs. I wanted to have some fun — it’s been so long since I had a real challenge. But now you’ve made this very, very personal.”

  Dryal snarled and growled under her breath, “It kills Tongas, Sevis, and now Akribos, and it acts offended that we hurt it?”

  “Seek no logic from this thing, Dryal,” Venubis commented, his eyes scanning every shadow. “You will find none.” It was a veritable monologue, coming from the taciturn Ralalis.

  “Where is it?” Dryal spat through clenched teeth, turning around in a circle as she blinked to try to further clear her vision. “Where is it? I swear, I will behead that—”

  “Will you, now?”

  Jaydee caught the blur from the corner of his eye, but could not react fast enough. The Skygger scampered along the wall behind Dryal, slashed at her — a minor assault, little more than a glorified feint, but still drawing some blood across her back — then disappeared once more into the darkness as fast as it had appeared.

  Venubis whispered, then shot another flaming-white arrow into the ceiling directly over their heads. It helped, but only a little, the shadows still dominating the archer’s magic light.

  “Where is it?” Dryal demanded again, her voice even tighter than before. “Jaydee?”

  “I’ll try. Watch my back.”

  “Always.”

  Fortunately, his clairvoyance spell was not one of his more draining castings. Closing his eyes, he whispered, “Sentietiam ...”

  Nothing. Just darkness, at first. And when an image finall
y came to him, it made no sense, and was centuries from what he was seeking:

  A young man, muscled and shirtless, some notable scars on his back. He was speaking with someone, an older man, but Jaydee could not hear their words. The younger man turned around, and his face was extremely familiar, a face he had not seen in a very, very long time. It ... it was ...

  What the hell?

  Steve. It was his late brother, Steve. A little older, and in even better shape than when Jaydee last saw him. And — perhaps not the oddest thing but still striking — his eyes were the wrong color. Instead of the hazel the brothers had always shared, Steve’s eyes were now a distinctive blue ...

  The image faded back into darkness.

  Jaydee shook his head. His Sentietiam visions always had a dream-like quality, but this was more surreal than usual. He had been seeking anything he might see about the Skygger — in the here and now — and he suddenly saw his brother, dead for hundreds of years, murdered by the lightning rogue?

  But if Steve died that night ... why did he look older in the vision? And when had he ever been that muscular? And scarred?

  The Skygger. Somehow, its darkness must be interfering with his magic even more than anticipated, turning it in on itself and conjuring and distorting images from his past. The creature had just slashed Dryal across her back, and so it translated into Steve’s back being marred the same way? It was the only explanation that made sense. And even if it weren’t, he didn’t have the luxury of further contemplation.

  “Jaydee?”

  He shook his head again. “Nothing. Nothing useful.”

  From above and (seemingly) further away, the Skygger chuckled.

  “Could we follow that?”

  Jaydee looked to where Venubis had indicated. The Skygger’s blood trailed away to the right, the direction in which it had originally escaped ... but then he saw another trail going the other way, this one from when it had struck Dryal’s back.

  The Skygger giggled this time, sounding closer than moments ago.

  “No,” he decided. “There will be too many zigzags. It will lead us in circles.”

  “So what now?” Dryal asked. “Retreat?” The word dripped with distaste from her mouth.

  “No,” Venubis stated. “Not after Akribos.”

  “Agreed.” Jaydee considered his spells, evaluated which required less magical stamina, but might still prove useful ...

  At the far end, near the ceiling over the left side of the alter, one of Venubis’ flaming arrows snuffed out.

  “How did it do that?” the archer whispered, sounding more uncertain than Jaydee had come to expect.

  The Skygger giggled again.

  “We’re running out of time,” Dryal grumbled. “I don’t enjoy the idea of seeking this thing while it hides in total darkness.”

  Wait a minute, Jaydee thought.

  Venubis shot another flaming arrow to replace the first, but mere seconds later, the one to the upper-right of the alter extinguished. But Jaydee was still contemplating Dryal’s words.

  ... seeking this thing while it hides ...

  Hide and seek.

  Drawing both swords, Jaydee told his friends, “Stay close to one another. Watch for any opportunity.”

  Both Ralalis looked at him with questioning eyes, but also eyes filled with trust.

  “Skygger!” he called out. “You want to dance? Let’s dance.”

  Conspicuous silence was the only response.

  Tightening his grip on each sword hilt, he whispered, “Lisitalia ...”

  ... and an intangible cloak of magical invisibility settled upon his body.

  His perception of the church interior shifted, what little color he could see desaturating toward ash and silver, the contrasts decreasing as the light from the arrows dimmed further even as the shadows rose from blackness to shades of grey. Everything appeared less three-dimensional, distances more difficult to gauge. And the sounds coming from his companions’ movements and the fluttering of Venubis’ magical flames both reverberated and yet flattened.

  He had never before tried this spell for this particular reason, but with any luck, his perception shift might leave the Skygger exposed.

  Swords at ready, Jaydee eased his way back toward the alter, scanning left and right for—

  There! Movement on his upper left, crawling along where the wall and ceiling met, a shape that could only be the Skygger crept toward another of Venubis’ arrows. Jaydee wanted to share this information with his friends, but the creature would hear anything he said, and telepathy was not one of his magical skills — mental probing, yes; emotional persuasion, yes; but thought-projection, no. He would have to settle for stalking the creature until he could get close enough to strike.

  Treading with care, he side-stepped between the pews toward it ...

  The grey-on-grey form reached the arrow, one of its arms disappearing against its own body for a moment. Jaydee had just enough time to wonder what it was doing when it then reached out with an apparently cupped hand and doused the white flames — it had used its own blood to snuff Venubis’ magic.

  Blood, he mused, that stains, stings, and smothers that which cannot be smothered. This creature does not use magic, it is magic — perverted magic.

  The Skygger-shaped mass released the arrow and made to crawl back the way it had come ... and then it paused and turned its head in his direction.

  Invisibility spell or no, it was looking right at him.

  Keeping his cool, Jaydee adjusted his own head so that he was facing the smothered arrow. He turned his neck to the left, to the right — over and past the Skygger — straight up ... and then he made a show of shuffling back toward the center aisle, yet keeping the Skygger within his peripheral vision.

  The Skygger cocked its head as it watched him.

  That’s right ... you’ve spotted me, but I can’t see you ... I’m vulnerable, maybe even more than my friends because I think I’m safe ... come after me ...

  A thunk sounded as Venubis replaced the arrow the Skygger had just snuffed. It snapped its head that way — Jaydee allowed himself to do the same, then looked away again once he had “identified” the sound. The Skygger paused a moment, clucked its tongue with considerable volume, then scuttled in virtual silence across the ceiling to the opposite wall. Jaydee, like his friends, looked toward where the clucking had originated ... then Jaydee rotated in a slow circle, resisting the urge to do it quicker in fear of losing track of his quarry.

  By the time he came back around, the Skygger was already halfway down the wall to his right, its head facing his direction. He continued his rotation, clenching his jaw against a shudder as he turned his back on it...

  He went all the way around again ... and there it was, poised right in front of him, hunched over to remain within the dark shadows between the pews — shadows that did not appear quite so dark to Jaydee in his current state. This close, he could better make out its features, its eyes, staring at him with hatred. It pawed some more blood from the cut Dryal had inflicted upon it; he half-expected it to throw the blood in his face, like it had done to her, but instead it lapped it up like a thirsty dog, its tongue making only the most feathery of whispers.

  He indulged himself by turning his head toward it, as if having caught an unexplained noise, though he kept his line of sight well above the Skygger.

  It froze, glaring at him, waiting.

  He turned further to the right, as though misjudging his prey’s whereabouts.

  The Skygger went down on all fours, inching its way into the center aisle, almost slithering toward him ...

  Come on, you bastard ... look how exposed I am ... just a little closer ...

  On it came, its hunched spine unfurling, its right hand drawing back, its claws lengthening once more, ready to strike, to disembowel him like it had poor Raga ...

  Jaydee kept the creature locked in his peripheral vision, gripping his swords tighter ...

  “There!” Dryal shouted
.

  The Skygger’s head snapped toward his friends, its lips curling into a sneer, its eyes glowering.

  With its focus on Jaydee, it had exposed itself a little too much, leaving the shadows far enough for the Ralalis to spot it.

  Damn it! But it was his own fault; he had told them to watch for any opportunity.

  Venubis let an arrow fly. The Skygger leaped, dodging the projectile while bounding over Jaydee, believing the sword-wielding mage would also now spot it and swing his blade around.

  And he did, but with far more preparation and forethought than the Skygger anticipated.

  Even as it sailed over him, its eyes widened as it realized its error — Jaydee’s right blade sliced through the air, on track to eviscerate it just as it had planned to do to him ...

  The Skygger landed on its hands on the back of a pew, upside-down from his perspective. It arched its back, curling its body away from him...

  Not going to make it, he realized.

  But that was all right; he had a backup plan.

  The Skygger had miscalculated. It was clearly accustomed to dealing with prey who wielded a single large sword, and it was fixated on his right gladius, on dodging that obvious attack.

  It failed to recognize the danger from his left gladius until it was too late.

  The second sword came close behind the first, lower and angled more upward. As its body avoided the expected attack, the Skygger twisted around, its eyes crazed with sudden fear, in a desperate attempt to get away ...

  ... and it screamed in agony as Jaydee’s left sword severed the foremost portion of its short snout from its face.

  Its wail gurgling through the mess, its blood sprayed out like a fountain; Jaydee ducked away from the stream, until the Skygger fell to the floor between the pews. Dropping his invisibility spell, Jaydee called, “Here! It’s down!”

  Dryal and Venubis rushed to join him, but Jaydee did not wait. Rounding the pews — he was tempted to hurtle them, but shunned charging in blind — he strove to strike the final blow.

  The Skygger lay where it had fallen, its hands clutching its wounded face as it rocked back and forth in anguish, rolling in what appeared to be its own excrement; were it not for its numerous, heinous crimes — only the most recent of which being the murder of Akribos — he might have felt pity for it. As things stood, his only desire was to skewer it straight through its twisted heart.