The Seven (Fist of Light Series) (13 page)

Spots danced at the periphery of my vision, while my neck muscles strained against the immense weight they were being forced to carry. My arms were burning with the strain they sustained, and my useless legs were merely a Jell-O. Although not prepared to put up major resistance, I forced myself into a facsimile of a fighting stance. No way was I going down without taking the whole lot down with me. It wouldn’t bode well for my reputation. The Chosen Elite approached, their onslaught varying in speed and intensity. Realizing that my destiny was slipping through my fingers, I held myself together for the collision course that seemed to be all but inevitable.

Suddenly, Were converged upon me, dashing into the midst of the Chosen Elite. I think I was as surprised as they were. I knew on a subliminal level that Jas was in the pack, standing before me, an avenging angel. Although motley and eclectic, there was a pack standing between me and the bad guys; that’s what counted in my book. Three of them, Wolf, Cheetah, and Tigress, were recognizably female. The remaining five, wholly male defined by their masculine build and form, ranged from Panther, Eagle, Tiger, Mountain Lion, and of course, Skin Walker. Each Were had a distinct flavor, their scent lingered upon the air as their claws and teeth shredded their prey into bite-sized pieces.

They were the embodiment of the hunt. The Chosen fell back from them, burned. The scent of fear was on the air, and the predators, eager in their bloodlust, fell upon their enemies. It was almost their undoing. A definite pressure was building on the air, and I knew instinctively what it was. Fire. It was about to get uncomfortably steamy up in here. They were going to let all of their people roast if they could take us with them.

There was no way in hell to block the Fire that was about to barrage my saviors and myself. Shit. Instinctively, my remaining power was bent toward projecting my voice upon the air. My face was sweating with the effort. My vision was obscured in shades of black and red, and I seized continued consciousness with every stubborn scrap of my remaining will.

The last vestiges of power scarcely at my command, I shook the walls with the power of my voice. “THEY’RE BRINGING THE HOUSE DOWN!”

My vision receded further, contracting to a tunneling pinprick of light that granted me the small allowance of seeing my fate, fast approaching. Falling backwards, the light pin-wheeled sickeningly, following the path of my eyes like Bugs Bunny had just pulled his escape route after him. My nerves were fire. My brain was mush inside of my skull. When my concussed head finally came to rest upon the ground, I could see the extent of the stone corridor. Massed behind our melee menaced the remainder of the pursuing Elite, and the ones in front didn’t look like they wanted to give us a kiss, unless it was the kiss of death. The last thing I remembered before falling into oblivion was maniacal laughter and the spread of fire.

P
ain signaled my continued survival in the world of the living. Straining, I found it was almost beyond my ability to maintain an upright position. Those ever-present spots danced a merry jig in my vision, making themselves comfortable for their extended stay. My clothes were pitted with holes. I did a quick system check and found everything was attached in the right places. Besides some small burns and contusions, everything appeared up to par on the exterior. My insides felt like major crap, and with arms and legs shaking, my guts akin to mummified husks of internal organs, I definitely didn’t feel like doing any calisthenics.

The second I went vertical, Jas was at my side. “Hey, man, you okay? You look like shit. Did you jump out of a car, or something?”

Carefully looking him over with a weary eye, it didn’t escape my notice that he was covered in burns. Jas had taken the brunt of the heat so that I wasn’t charred to a crispy marshmallow like he was. What a sentimental sap. “You look like you went to a tanning salon and turned the temperature up to ‘Full-Fake Bake.’ You know those things give you cancer, right?” My voice was rough and gritty, hardly recognizable.

Jas grinned, though the effort appeared to pain him. “Oh this? It’s nothing. I’ve done more damage straightening my hair.”

“All joking aside, what the hell happened back there?”

Jas itched irritably at one of the gauze pads on his arm. “Well, those Chosen crazies caved in the damned tunnel with that amazingly stupid experiment on the effects of fire on tunnel systems. For all I know or care, every single one of those fanatics is dead or dying underneath the earth. We made it out alive, obviously, though had to take out the rest of the Air users that kept pursuing us. They were a bunch of pansies, anyway. So, you didn’t miss much, not really. I got you back home safe and sound while you slept like a baby, and all the Virgins sang hallelujah.”

My eyes bulged. “Well, I suppose I didn’t, then. Maybe next time you should show up for the premiere, instead of the finale. It was something to be gawked at, that’s for sure.”

Jas finally composed himself and put on a serious face for our discussion. “What happened, man? I thought you were a goner, for sure.”

My eyes clouded over, and I was transported back to the escape from that cold, miserable room, and the confrontation that occurred. “Em… Emily betrayed me. Her head is screwed on far looser than I would have guessed. She had back up. I got sucker punched from behind. The cell they had me in was sucking the juice right out of me, and it was out of my capabilities to combat it. I was dying. There was this Viper… Martin Drake that showed up for a heart to heart, giving me the age-old live-and-serve-or-die-horribly speech. I declined, and… something happened. Though there weren’t more than a few drops of power left in me, but there was something primal inside of me that beckoned and joined the party. The sensation was like gaining the use of an atrophied limb. Lightning, Jas, I called lightning! There wasn’t much more to it after taking down Drake and the goon he brought with him, but getting out of there on the double. That’s when I ran into you, not that any help was needed, or anything.”

I didn’t think it prudent to cue him in on the memory experienced in the cell that revealed the truth of my predicament. Hell, I still felt too unsure about this to do anything productive with it. This was something that would be better off forgotten until there was time to discuss the topic with Jeeves. Most likely, that cell had affected him aversely, if the lifelike recollection was anywhere near accurate. He would need some time to recuperate before showing his grouchy face again, so I might as well enjoy the leisure time while it lasted.

Jas witnessed my face go vacant, my eyelids sag. “You should get some rest, man. You’ve been through a lot. I’ll see you when you wake up again. Want me to tuck in your covers and kiss you goodnight? No? All right, fine!” He backed quickly out of range before a half-hearted swipe could connect.

Despite my best efforts to take in the details of my surroundings, they dimmed to inky blackness as sleep overtook me.

Darkness stretched infinitely. Lifetimes could be spent traveling this place and one wouldn’t find the end of it. Orbiting black holes intertwined with balls of effervescent light ranging from red to deep purple, and the effect dazzled. It seemed I was standing in an undefined and dangerous portion of my brain. To tell you the truth, I was afraid of what secrets might be unearthed here. The black holes, the lights, they all represented my memories, thoughts, and experiences. Who knew what could lurk in the corners of such things, what wisdom one would gain from reliving various experiences in life?

I didn’t know, and wasn’t prepared to discover the truth of the matter. So, I drifted aimlessly, muttering and brooding. It was high time to reflect upon the past few days of my life. What if I hadn’t been able to call the lightning, where would I be now? Dead, or worse, probably. Emily had been working behind the scenes, manipulating me when her implicit actions were least expected. My mind revolved backwards, recollecting every tarnished nanosecond I had spent in her company. She had come off as a straightforward, polite, and emphatic person. Sure, there was palpable tension that arose between her and Jas. But, there hadn’t been undeniable evidence that pointed toward a psychopathic bitch that wanted to bring the world to its knees.

That was the problem with me, finding a girl without a propensity for psychotic breaks appeared out of my reach. Em just had to be psychopathic, of course. I had fallen head over heels for her in the beginning, right into her web of lies. Blinded by stupidity, only half of the image had been clear to my dysfunctional equipment. She had been trying to get inside my guard in order to entrap me. She had power, and whether or not she had more than I did, she had an extended period to hone her abilities. Whoever thought to have girls mature faster than boys? Obviously, someone had it in for all the hapless fellows out there; we didn’t stand a chance.

At this point, it seemed all I could do was react to an increasingly complicated turn of events. Any practice wielding my abilities would require time before I could exert significant control. I was starting to get a little pissed off about the proceedings. Kidnapping, for one, wasn’t on my bucket list, and I never planned on becoming some nuclear powerhouse to be fought over like a bowl of candy. It was taxing, being pulled this way and that, by multiple and opposing sides that all wanted a piece of the pie. My gut informed me that Jas was on my side, and that would have to prove adequate, for now. Jeeves didn’t seem to be on anyone’s side except his own and that comforted me, for some unknown reason. There were no fallacies behind his eyes, nor was there need for them given that he lived in my head.

The scenery around me suddenly shifted, startling me from my ruminations. Blackness was replaced by forest, miles upon miles that stretched into the indeterminable distance. Finding myself within a glade, I was surrounded on all sides by a plethora of trees that were of such varied backgrounds that I couldn’t even begin to identify them. The grass around me shone with vitality, grasping upwards into the air with vibrant tenacity. The sky above me was a crisp, clean sapphire, unblemished and without a trace contamination. Diamond streamers of clouds pranced across the sky, zigzagging about in an unrecognizable pattern. Everything was bursting with a liveliness that surpassed any vegetation in the modern world. Even the sun appeared more alive, a crimson ruby hanging upon the horizon, as if it wished to stay awhile longer in this forest wonderland.

While still gazing around myself, Jeeves jarred me from my studies. “You know, some people knock before they barge into someone else’s room. You can’t just drift anywhere you want in your mind without a care in the world.”

I didn’t exactly agree with all of what Jeeves said, but my mind adhered to the first portion of his tirade. “This is your… room? It’s very… spacious.”

He snorted. “Such is the only analogy that would make sense to your slow-witted, sleeping mind. This is the center of my power, and so it is anything I wish it. It can be fashioned into whatever pleases me. The same could be done in the center of your own power, if you had the focus and determination to do such a thing. Something on this scale, however, is likely out of reach of your mortal competency. This forest stretches on for hundreds of miles, and it is one of my fondest memories.”

I let that seep into my understanding, slowly, and had to agree that my mind wasn’t working at its optimal level, like it was tuned in to a different plane of thought, and, as such, its mode of thinking had altered accordingly.

“As interesting as that all is, there’s some things we need to talk about. Sorry about barging in without knocking and all, but the door was unlocked. You do remember the part where I was betrayed, kidnapped, escaped, and was rescued, I presume?”

Jeeves proceeded to grumble under his breath for a few long moments, pacing around the glade with restless anxiety. When he finally responded, his statement was terse, stoic. “Yes, I recall the events quite vividly, and I recommend you don’t let something like that occur again. You would be pushing the limits of Lady Luck’s obvious endearment for you, if that was permitted for a second time.”