Fall from grace, p.21
Fall From Grace, page 21
part #9 of the Preternatural Chronicles Series
“Shit!” I barked between clenched teeth as I struggled to change my game plan before the Ether fully recov—
A shadow burst from the ground next to me, and a pillar of pure Ether solidified in an instant as it smashed into my right hip.
My pelvis crumbled to specks of dust as my lower spine was ripped apart and all feeling was lost below my chest. Wind rushed past my ears, barely being muffled by the hood that acted as armor for the back and sides of my skull.
I tumbled in the air, my brain completely vapor locked as my eyes streamed images of a world that seemed to move around me instead of the other way around.
Something caught what little of my brain was trying to stay in control, and I closed my eyes as Magni appeared somewhere in the direction I think I was flying to.
Another jolt rocked my brain, squishing it against my skull as I abruptly changed direction. I didn’t feel the blow, however, only the jerking of my body as it had its momentum reversed in an instant; that worried me.
I think I hit the ground, based on how the few ounces of oxygen that remained in my lungs were expelled, leaving a burning sensation that stretched from the bottom of my ribcage up to my throat.
The only thought that kept circling around my mind like a news ticker at the bottom of a screen was, holy shit, he hit me haaaaard.
From somewhere miles and miles away, I could hear the muffled blaring of a haunted train’s horn. My mind tried to dissect the familiar sound, but it was as if the part of my brain that handled memory was on lunch break and wouldn’t clock back in for some time, even though the information was sitting on his desk right under the plate that held the sandwich and vending machine chips.
I knew I would recognize the sound once the fat in my skull finished repairing itself from the car crash I had just been in, but nothing mattered right then except to not move.
Pop. Pop, pop. Pop-poppity-pop-pop-pop, my body played a Neil Peart drum solo as countless injuries healed, drawing massive energy from my steadily depleting batteries.
Like a huge wave crashing against a lighthouse, my thoughts returned to me as the last of my brain was set in place and the reboot button was smashed repeatedly.
“Depweg!” I drunkenly groaned as I lifted my head from inside the small crater my skull had formed.
I wanted to take a moment and thank Da’s angelic armor for, once again, saving my life, but now wasn’t the time.
Forcing myself up to a seated position while the rest of my pelvis and spine healed, I looked all around before spotting Depweg slicing his sword at Magni. The blade passed through the Ether’s body like it was made of nothing but light, putting Depweg on the defensive after every attempted, fruitless strike.
I tried to jump to my feet, only to be reminded that the connection between torso and legs was still trying to be recovered, like a phone failing to find the Wi-Fi router after the modem had been reset.
The Ether was playing with its food, telegraphing bland attacks without any real effort behind them. The added smile on its face confirmed my suspicions that the Ether was savoring its assured victory against the helpless were-pire.
The simple fact that the Ether enjoyed what it was doing gave me pause, and I considered the implications. Before, it had simply wanted to destroy everything, emotion not factoring into the equation.
A notion crossed my thoughts, and I briefly wondered if the Ether was somehow being influenced by Magni’s human body; specifically, the hormones therein that basically drove all mortal’s day-to-day decisions.
The right answer smacked me in the face, and I mentally spoke, word for word, Magni is losing the battle over his body, mind…and soul.
“No!” I barked from where I sat on the ground with a bottom half that looked like it had been crushed by a steamroller.
Summoning a slipstream, I let Mjolnir yank me toward the pair as my armor began to spark with raw energy converted from my celestial batteries.
The Ether, having learned its lesson from my first surprise attack, stepped to the side and vanished as if moving behind a cloaked wall.
“Wha—” was all I could get out before a bolt of black lightning outlined in glowing white crashed into my back, feeling like a direct hit from a tank’s devastating barrel.
The slipstream dropped as I was forced unconscious from the flood of dark electricity that danced in my brain, and everything went black.
35
JOHN
“What are you doing, vampire?” a voice I vaguely recognized asked from somewhere in the darkness of my mind.
“Is that you, Hecate?” I drunkenly responded, my brain feeling numb from the dissipating dark electricity I had soaked up. The odd thing was, your brain wasn’t supposed to feel numb, well, because you weren’t supposed to be able to freaking feel it at all.
“Quite right,” Hecate mused with a slight smile in her voice. “Good to see the fat in your skull didn’t cook into a gelatinous porridge.”
“Hey!” I quipped with a finger pointed to where I thought the voice was coming from in the darkness. “I already told Gabriel that there ain’t no fat in this here brain. It’s all muscle, baby.”
“I take it that he didn’t try and argue your point?”
“Damn right.”
“Then neither will I.”
I grumbled under my breath, knowing I had just had my knuckles rapped by the teacher’s ruler. I used my humor as a shield, but sometimes, that same shield could be used to bash me square in the face.
Focusing on where I thought Hecate would be, I rubbed my eyes, pulling my hands away after a moment to see the leader of the Council fade into view.
Hecate was devoid of color, resembling a thick fog that had somehow been sculpted to perfectly represent the powerful wizard.
“Neat trick!”
Ignoring my compliment, she asked again.
“What are you doing?”
“In regard to…”
“Did I, or did I not, instruct you to use your head?”
“Look,” I sighed, frustration surprising me with how quickly it had reared its grotesque head. “There’s a lot going on here, and you’ll have to forgive me if I don’t see the picture clearly while it’s happening. M’kay?”
“You wish to preserve the boy with the broken heart.”
“Ye-yeah…”
“What cost are you willing to pay to see your wishes through?”
My teeth became glued together, and my eyes narrowed almost to the point of closing as I coldly spoke with a jaw that refused to move from how hard I was clenching it shut.
“Perhaps you’d like to enlighten me as to how to solve this little conundrum…”
Hecate took in a contemplative breath as her next sentence was delicately formed, word by word, before telling me what I didn’t want to hear.
“This night will not end well for you, John Cook. But…perhaps…you can mitigate some of the damage.”
“Stop speaking in riddles and lay it out, right now.”
Hecate let a smile that didn’t touch her eyes lift her lips, and she stepped forward while raising a hand to cradle my cheek.
I noticed, then, that I didn’t have my armor on while in the rift of my subconscious mind, which Hecate had somehow infiltrated.
“Dear boy, I do not envy the pain and suffering you have endured—will endure.”
Her words suffocated the fire of rage that had been building under my skin, replacing it with a layer of ice that sent shivers down my spine. Even through the heavy coat, I knew the hairs on my arms were trying to stand on end.
“Just…just tell me how to save him…please,” I begged softly, dropping the pretense of foolish pride that had a habit of mutating my personality at the worst possible times. But I was getting better at defeating it before the leash could slip through my fingers.
Hecate’s smile defied gravity and reached her eyes, making them all but twinkle.
She moved her hand from my cheek and rested her palm on my forehead. After a moment, she let her fingers gently glide down my face.
Suddenly, the grayish fog had a red tinge to it, and I lifted my hands to touch my face.
“Ho—” I tried to say with a tight throat that had become dry when I realized what had caused my vision to change. Swallowing, I tried again.
“How?” My voice had a mechanical tone to it, like I was speaking through a walkie-talkie.
“Director Baker is a friend,” Hecate said as she took a step back and nodded once, signaling it was time for me to rejoin the fight for Magni’s soul.
Removing the mask that had belonged to my friend, which Collin had somehow gotten to Hecate, I managed to squeeze it in one of my side pockets, and looked at the powerful wizard.
“You seem to have recovered quickly…after giving Hayley’s baby a handful of years from your already overextended life.”
I didn’t mean to do it, but my tone had an accusatory inflection. But once it was out, I didn’t see the need to correct the message conveyed underneath my words, like a hunting lioness blending into tall grass the same color as her.
“Do not speak of things you know nothing about, vampire,” Hecate warned, her smiling face melting into a mask of neutrality.
“Fine. But this conversation is far from over.”
“As you wish,” Hecate said with a not-so-subtle emphasis on the finality of the topic, like a period at the end of a sentence that had been made from a drop of blood.
I simply stared at her. Not scowled, glared, or glowered…just stared with an unreadable expression. I wasn’t masking my feelings by choice. I simply didn’t know how to feel at that moment.
“Save the boy, and you save the world,” Hecate finally spoke just before waving her hand in the air between us.
The fog she had been comprised of evaporated, leaving me in complete darkness with only my reeling thoughts to keep me company.
Taking in a deep breath, I decided I would deal with her later, and shrugged off the poisoned thoughts surrounding Hayley and the baby she had lost.
Touching the outside of my pocket, I felt the large mask, knowing it was of vast importance, but not being privy to the specifics.
“Magni,” I exhaled, regaining my focus, and willing myself back into consciousness.
36
With a start, I sucked in a deep breath and threw my eyelids apart as my body contorted in pain. It was as if every joint and muscle was suffering from rigor mortis, but desperately yearning to move to prove that I was not, in fact, a soulless corpse on a mortuary table.
Even with eyes wide open, the blackness from my dream with Hecate continued. I could feel the orbs moving painfully in their sockets, searching for any signs of returning sight.
After what felt like half a minute, the world began to fade into view, swallowing the blackness and leaving behind a surreal battlefield. Following my vision, sound also began coming back in incremental fragments, like slowly turning the volume knob up on a stereo system.
There was a crackling fire nearby that managed to snag my drifting, weakened focus, and I somehow managed to turn my creaking neck to my right.
The aroma of cooking flesh made my stomach churn in disgust, and I understood that I had been cooked alive—well, unalive—by the dark lightning blast.
“Uhn,” I moaned as my healing eyes locked onto several small mounds of hellfire. Ectoplasm was leaking out as the flames continued to devour the creatures from the Ether.
“Uhn?” I asked with a dry mouth and a jaw that refused to function, but what I’d meant to say was, Hellfire?
A sense of dread somehow gave me strength as I pushed myself up onto groaning knees and looked up at the battle raging on without me.
Locke was there, clad in a cloak that resembled Hayley’s, only it was brown instead of gray, though it still had the symbol of the Council on the front. I knew the cloak was warded against most attacks, like a souped-up bulletproof vest.
As I stared at my friend, who was battling a group of Ether monsters, my still recovering brain managed to ask, I thought Locke couldn’t throw hellfire anymore.
Allowing myself a few seconds to watch him as my body continued to painfully heal from the attack Magni had hit me with, I had my suspicions confirmed when Locke didn’t use any Hell magic. Which meant…
Getting one of my feet underneath me, I pushed myself up while searching the sky, almost falling over as I did.
Balls of electrically charged hellfire zipped through the sky like gasoline-soaked tennis balls thrown by baseball legend Nolan Ryan.
Following their trail back to the source, I nearly fainted in my weakened state as my fears were confirmed. Even though I had known to expect Ulric, actually seeing him brought with it a surreal feeling of dread.
Ulric flew through the air on leather wings that looked like they belonged on a dragon, while his crimson battle robes flapped in the wind. Spheres of hellfire exploded from his palms like bullets from a gun barrel, streaking toward Magni, who expertly dodged every attack. It was hard to tell, so I couldn’t be sure if the Ether was yawning from boredom or not.
“Loooooccckke!” I cried out with urgency boosted by agony, making my voice carry across the active battlefield.
With a flurry of alternating elemental attacks, Locke coated a group of wolf-spiders with frost as they spilled out from the castle’s interior entrance. Next, he lobbed a giant sheet of plasma interlaced with crackling electricity over the frozen monsters, cooking them all like deep-fried corndogs left in boiling oil overnight.
Turning toward me as the blackened monsters started to slump into pools of ectoplasm, Locke began sprinting with impressive speed for someone without access to the abilities that I took for granted on a daily basis.
An enormous spider with long, hissing snakes where the eyes should be burst from the ground, throwing Locke off his feet in an explosion of stone.
To my amazement, Locke pivoted in the air like a gymnast and landed on his feet, his wand already up and glowing with blue lightning.
With a shudder, my fight or flight instincts informed me the Ether-spider was the size of a dump truck, reminding me of the creature I’d faced with the were twins while hunting Ulric.
Then I realized it was the same creature, only with horribly augmented features, like the eight gyrating snakes where red eyes should have been.
With my body trying desperately to heal, I dared to give myself a moment to confirm that the Ether could summon any of the manifestations that it had ever been forced to form by anyone. This monster had been of Hell origin, birthed on Earth by the Ether.
The monster spider pulled itself the rest of the way out of the hole in the ground, and immediately lunged toward the much smaller Locke.
Spittle flew from between my gritted, bared teeth as I forced my creaking muscles and popping joints to move despite their protests. I swung my left arm toward the clouds above, grabbing Mjolnir as I did, and poured my focus toward the spider, willing a vicious bolt of electricity from the sky.
Only, nothing happened.
Confusion overwriting my expression of pain, I looked at my hammer and searched for any potential problems, like an on-off switch that I had somehow missed over the years.
Seeing nothing was out of the ordinary, I let my gaze slide off Mjolnir and float toward the sky, where the clouds had shifted from a roiling mass to a singular stony landscape that stretched for miles around the castle.
“Shit!” I barked, knowing immediately that the Ether had canceled my ability to summon powerful lightning with which to smite the bastard’s army.
Pulling Mjolnir behind me like a baseball batter, I poured my own power into the weapon, letting the hammer convert my raw will into a current of pissed-off energy.
Before I could throw my attack, Locke effortlessly flicked his glowing wand toward the quickly approaching spider and sent a tiny orb of blue light soaring straight into the monster’s thorax.
Hope flared in my chest before immediately dissolving into dread as I saw the spider continue its deadly advance.
Locke took a single step backward, pivoting so his free hand was directly lined up with the spider like a boxer ready to deliver a fierce jab. Closing his fingers, Locke seemed to smile before letting his fist explode open as if he had been holding a lit firecracker for too long.
The monster, which was only a few yards away, burst in a shower of gore as the tiny marble of energy instantly expanded to be the same size as the creature, ripping it apart from the inside out.
“Yeah!” I called out victoriously, letting my own building attack begin to reverse course to recover the precious energy I had poured into it.
One of the snakes flew right toward Locke, its mouth gaping with glistening fangs aimed directly at my friend’s chest.
“Loc—” I began to cry out before the serpent smacked into the enchanted armor of the Council and fell to the ground, sizzling from some sort of counterattack I hadn’t seen.
Without missing a beat, Locke resumed making his way to where I stood dumbfounded.
“John,” Locke called out, waving a hand in front of my face as my body finished fully healing.
“Dude! That was freaking awesome!” I gushed, letting Mjolnir vanish as I grabbed both of Locke’s shoulders and shook him once. “I mean, it wasn’t a karate chop, but I’ll take it!”
“Focus, John,” Locke said coolly, not at all perturbed by the battle raging around us.
To emphasize his point, he held up a thick, silver necklace. Etched into every link were distinct markings that I didn’t recognize; though, if I had to guess, I would say there were some celestial symbols scattered throughout.
“Oooohhh, shiny!”
“I-I-I think you need to put this around Magni’s neck.”
I waited for Locke to continue, briefly shielding my eyes as one of Ulric’s hellfire attacks exploded nearby.
“Uh-huh…and then what?”
“I, uh, actually don’t know. But the Elders left me a note saying this would help save Magni.”
