Blessed (5 page)

He sat in the center of yet another charred circle of land. Having decided that he’d need a little more oomph if he was going to break through that thing, he had leeched the patch of earth dry, refusing to admit that the Ward might be too strong for him.

It didn’t take much to convince himself that he was merely out of practice.

While he waited, he drew symbols in the ash around him. The lines and curves formed ancient characters that hadn’t been used since the time when he had been banished from this plane. Druidic symbols that arched and swirled in tight formations surrounded him in a matter of minutes. The story he had carved into the ash covered surface of the frozen earth told the story leading up to his imprisonment.

The world around him faded away as the characters were replaced by his memory of the events.

The Druids who had finally succeeded in ridding this pitiful world of him had been very strong magick users. They had controlled the very Earth and all the powers that came along with it. It had taken centuries for him to regain the energy needed to once again be useful to his master.

The tendrils that had bested him earlier in the day were much like the ones that had whipped around those men and women so many centuries ago. He took little pleasure in the fact that there was no way that they could have been the ones who had erected the ward. However, he wouldn’t be surprised if their decedents had had a hand in it.

He found himself hoping that they had. For no other reason than the fact that it would give him that much more pleasure to tear through it and invalidate their sacrifices.

He enjoyed the train of thought and allowed himself to dwell on it a bit longer. The beast caged inside of the physical shell he had created thrashed around, urging him to get back to work, but he ignored it as best he could as he waited for the timing to be just right.

His mind drifted to the time he had spent in his natural state over the last few centuries. He had only slightly botched his last mission, therefore he had spent the time in relative comfort. After the first hundred years of his cells being scrambled and his energy being stretched to the near breaking point by the Big Bad, he was cast aside and allowed to do as he wished. As long as he didn’t leave the Astral plane.

He had spent the next couple of centuries only existing. Gathering bits of information from those who had ventured to other planes and storing it for future reference. He had wasted no time in finding a nice place to sit quietly and recharge himself until he was called upon again. He knew it was only a matter of time until his expertise would be needed, though he had no idea that it would be such a big order to fill. Being held responsible for keeping the Cosmic scales in his boss’ favor would win him a major power boost.

Failure would have him scattered throughout the Universe.

He pulled himself back to the task at hand as the last bright sliver of the sun sank below the horizon and the sky slowly relinquished its oranges, reds, and yellows to the purples, blues and black of the night.

Being a servant of Darkness, the sun wasn’t exactly his favorite thing to deal with. He much preferred the nighttime when he could drift among the shadows unnoticed.

He did so now, heading back toward the temple. In small towns like the one he was passing through everyone all but barricaded themselves indoors during the harsh, cold winter nights for lack of anything better to do. While there may not have been snow on the ground, it was definitely cold. His breath was puffing out of him in white clouds of vapor.

He drifted past window after window revealing people either sitting down with their families to eat, or watching television in the living room. Some were even exercising. “Times have changed more than I thought.” The statement went unheard by everyone but himself and the shadows.

Many of the businesses were closed for the night and there weren’t very many cars on the road. His plan for privacy was beginning to look even better than he had hoped. He moseyed around the town a little longer, waiting for the sky to fade from dark blue to completely black before traversing the last few blocks to the temple.

Once he could see the constellation Orion in its entirety, his long stride ate up the short distance in a matter of minutes.

The glowing ball of energy surrounding the building brightened as he approached. Green spikes protruding from the entire surface, making it look like a sea urchin on steroids. It did not like that he was in the area and it liked even less that he was there for a second time.

He shored up his defenses by pushing as much energy as he could afford into his aura, and pulling it as close to his body as he could get it. The result was a super-dense, black armor that he could manipulate at will. There were no chinks for a sharp point to stab through, and he could still will tentacles of his own to form outside the armor.

He did so at that moment and rushed forward with unnatural precision and focus. He dodged tentacles, blocked others and minimized the blows from some of the smaller ones that managed to track his movements and escape his own assaults. He ignored the bone crushing jolt of energy that shot through him each time one connected and pressed forward.

He only had another ten yards of hell to go, but the green vines were becoming denser the closer he got to the perimeter of the dome. He took blow after electric blow all over his body as he resolutely pressed on toward the center of the violent, writhing mass. He could feel the shield around him weakening with every devastating blow.

He was only five feet from the glowing white wall of the bubble when the tentacles descended upon him with shocking ferocity. They had him wrapped up like a man on a stretching rack. His arms and legs were restrained; there was one around his neck, and another around his chest. All of them squeezing as one and sucking the power right out of him.

He saw one of the tentacles heading for his chest and knew it was all over. He would be reduced to a pile of ash and blown away by the wind if he didn’t do something. And fast.

With what was left of his flickering shield and the last of his inner reserve of power, he formed a large black thorn and thrust it with all of his might towards the glowing white wall. It shot from his outstretched palm like a bullet but the pain racking every muscle in his body it seemed like he was watching it all happen in slow motion.

As the darkness penetrated the wall of the barrier, he felt the crushing grip on his body loosen and time resumed its normal pace.

He fell to the ground and gasped for air as green wisps of smoke vanished before his eyes. The glow emanating from the barrier pulsed a few times and dimmed before going completely dark.

Drained of nearly all of his energy and disoriented from his physical form’s lack of oxygen, he was having a hard time keeping it together. He kept flickering between his natural state and the physical body that he needed to complete his tasks.

“Do you have a temple recommend?”

Before he could stop himself, a black spine shot out of his aura and reduced the old woman to ash. He hungrily devoured the faint green aura that was left behind, relishing the residual Druidic energy that she had carried within her. He savored the energy boost while regretting the fact that he had let his energy stores drop to that point. He needed to be careful and avoid drawing attention to himself. Incinerating people in the middle of the sidewalk was
not
very discreet and tended to draw a lot of attention.

He used his extra senses to get the feel for the surrounding area to make sure that nobody was around. Thankfully, it was desolate. The only people he sensed were the people tucked away inside their homes with their cheery windows, eating their cheery dinners.

It kind of made him sick to his stomach.

He rose from the ground and double checked that his physical state was back to normal. His suit was firmly in place, no body parts were disappearing on him and his head was clear.

His blood was all but singing as he walked across the lawn to the front of the large white building. He took a deep breath and savored the smell of the old wood.

As he pushed one of the tall green doors open, he actually began to vibrate. The space around his body blurred slightly as the air wavered with the motion. The Chaos inside of him was going berserk and the Darkness was trying to escape in every direction at once, causing his physical form to swell slightly and lose some of its solidity.

He walked to the opposite end of the long walkway and placed his hand on the wall. It was warm to the touch and his physical form began to waver again. Blinking in and out of existence as the beast inside of him fought to break free of its bonds. After a few moments of savoring the sensation of containing pure Chaos with nothing more than his willpower, he took a deep breath and threw open the cage.

Black, smoky strands shot out of his body in every direction, soaking up the energy of everything they touched and leaving behind nothing but ash. Nothing was safe. Windows, furniture, walls and even the I were destroyed in an instant. Even the floor below his feet began to disintegrate.

As the wall that his hand was resting on began to flake away, he used his excitement to encourage the Chaos to consume even more of their surroundings. Thousands of thread-like energy channels snaked out of his aura, ravaging what was left  of the building. His hand sank through the wall and the entire thing collapsed moments later, sending a cloud of gray ash into the air around him.

A soft green glow surrounded the box before him. It had been placed there more than a century ago and forgotten. Its secret had been lost with the deaths of the few who had put it there.

Well, almost lost.

As the upper floors crumbled and ash rained down around him, he remained completely oblivious. He reached forward and the glow around the box dimmed and shied away from his hand.

It blinked out completely as he laid his hand on the box. He traced his finger over the Druid’s knot that wound its way over the surface of the wood in delicate arches and swirls. He could feel his prize calling to his blood from within the oaken container and he slowly removed the lid and tossed it to the side where it kicked up a cloud of ash that had settled on the floor.

Even the Chaos, having razed the building to the ground, quieted and withdrew to its cage as he held his hand over the small green orb.

The world around him seemed to still in reverence of what he had unearthed. The last of the ash that was still drifting through the air settled to the ground and all was absolutely silent.

He allowed himself to marvel momentarily at the power held within such a tiny, delicate instrument. The information he would soon gain from this well-protected secret had the power to, in the right hands of course, tip the cosmic scales far enough in their favor that even the angels would weep. The tiny little ball of energy contained the first piece of information that he would need to trace the Druidic Bloodline to the only person who could bring an ancient prophesy to fruition.

A small black wisp slowly, almost respectfully, snaked its way out of his palm and touched the orb ever so gently as he reached inside to claim his prize.

The information contained within it drove itself into his mind with the force of a freight train before a bright green flash erupted before his eyes and the ball vanished with an anticlimactic pop.

He shifted back to his natural form as he sensed the first person notice that something was wrong and, fueled by the energy contained within the temple, headed west.

The next chunk of the Bloodline was calling to him and he fully intended to answer it.

She woke up to the sound of Piper and her grandma Cooper laughing in the kitchen. She lay in bed, listening to the sounds of the house as she felt her body slowly leave the warm embrace of sleep. After a few minutes, her brain picked up on the fact that her parents’ voices were absent from the conversation that she was only half hearing. She rolled over to look at the clock on her nightstand and saw that it was almost two in the afternoon.

Her parents were at the airport picking up her grandma Smith.

She rubbed the last of the sleep from her eyes and threw the blankets off of her. She remembered dreaming but couldn’t quite recall what she had dreamed about. She had the vague feeling that they weren’t very happy. Another thing she couldn’t remember was the last time she had slept so long. She wasn’t sure she ever had. She felt rested however, so she couldn’t really complain.

As she stumbled her way down into the kitchen, she thought back on the party the night before. Everyone had seemed to be having a good time. The boys had fought for her attention and the girls had expressed their jealousy. Overall, she felt it had been a success.

“Good morning sleepy head!” her grandma greeted her over her cup of coffee.

The woman’s baby-fine hair clung desperately to the curls that, Ardra knew without a doubt, had held for a maximum of two hours that morning. For as long as she could remember, her dad’s mother had gotten out of bed an hour early with the only goal being to run a curling iron through her hair in a futile attempt to give it some volume. And for as long as she could remember, it had always gone flat within a few hours.