The Seven (Fist of Light Series) (31 page)

Jeeves flashed in at the scene of their collision. “Well, are you just going to stand there like a dumbstruck fool? Lightning, boy! And be quick about it!”

Though I was finding myself disoriented and out of sync with my body, I did as told. My anger sparked and lightning coalesced around my sprinting form, spitting and crackling. Like an avenging angel, I charged the beast before me with no regard for proper safety measures as depicted in section 5 of the survival guide. The problem with such a caliber a fight as this was that they didn’t last long, which Jas had discovered with the brutal demonstration. The shadowhound had turned from Jas, who lay motionless on the ground, and turned to face me. If its attention wasn’t fully diverted from Jas’ prone form, then he was mincemeat.

The hound planted its feet, either preparing to attack or defend. The uncanny intelligence displayed by waiting for me to approach jarred me, forcing myself to think more rationally. Ten feet away and the hound was snarling, opening its jaws wide to swallow little ol’ me whole. Expunging any fear and apprehension, I directed a burst of Air behind and below me. Newton’s laws of motion held true and my body rocketed into the air to land behind the hound, where I took up a defensive stance in front of Jas. I wanted to pat myself on the back for the spectacularly lucky maneuver, but didn’t have the time.

Instead, I packed as much power as could be packed into my lightning beam and aimed it directly at the beast that presumed to eat me for breakfast. There was a pleasing crackle, an emission of light, sound, and power, and then a bolt of cerulean lightning traversed the distance between myself and the shadowhound faster than I could blink. It crashed into the hound, blasting out a huge chunk of its shoulder. My aim obviously left something to be desired, because although the beast stood howling, it was still very much alive. Shadow detached itself in smoking heaps from the shoulder of the mutated canine, dispersing quickly as the sun destroyed it. Although I expected it to charge relentlessly and bring me low, it did just the opposite, disappearing into the undergrowth.

The snapping of twigs and branches alerted me that there was still a fight to be finished. My aim with lightning appeared to be lacking, and my prowess with it clearly needed some work. You wouldn’t think pointing and shooting at something was that hard, but apparently it was. Unless I got near enough to punch the beast, it looked like the next time I took a crack at it, I would be in serious trouble.

“It’s nothing I’ve encountered before,” Jeeves informed me, rather uselessly. “But it is something of a sinister nature. It means to do you harm, although it’s most likely a mere scout, a tool to be discarded. The intelligence it portrays leads me to believe that its movements are being directed.”

“Well, isn’t that just great news,” I snarled.

So rather than relying on my lightning to do the trick, I prepared the Air around me, as the crashing in the underbrush grew steadily louder. The next time it came at me, there was hardly any time to react, even with Air boosting my operating speed. The thing was damned fast, and it was no easy task tracking its movements. But what I had in mind wasn’t fine-tuned or delicate work, all that was necessary for it to work properly was the direction from which my enemy was rushing. Power streamed from my fingertips, wispy threads that began to coalesce in the air above me. A shield of sorts materialized, stretching five feet in diameter. It wasn’t meant to protect, but rather to magnify the sun that was streaming haphazardly through the thickly forested glade.

Funneled through my magnifying glass, the light was much more potent than the rays that regularly shone. While I doubted concentrated sunlight would do much to the average Joe, this beast didn’t appreciate being exposed to it. Swiveling the glass, I tracked the rushing form of the shadowhound, concentrating the sun’s rays into the hounds dissolving face. A concussive blast of darkness knocked me to the ground, sending me reeling.

Tumbling backwards, spinning sideways, tossed around like a child’s toy, I tried to right myself before getting eaten. I stood up quickly and scanned the area for any sign of something readying itself for launch. No sight of the hound, but there was a crowd of Were that didn’t look too happy with the proceedings. Ignoring them for the moment, I dashed to where Jeeves was waiting by a motionless, human-looking Jas.

“He seems to have sustained little injury, though he might have learned more had he suffered additional discomfort,” Jeeves said.

“That’s comforting, coming from you. I’m glad you don’t have any children running around these parts, or the world would be in a lot of trouble.”

His body had curled into the fetal position, most likely a reflexive reaction because he was out like a light. That didn’t surprise me, since he had claw marks down the side of his scalp ending just after his sideburns. Releasing a sympathetic wince, I looked him over for a more serious injury, and, thankfully, found none. That left only the task of staunching the flow of blood running down his face, which appeared a mighty task. Head wounds always bleed like a mother, even if they weren’t very serious. Ripping at my shirt, I tore off a huge chunk near the bottom, leaving most of my stomach bare.

“Someone get the Healer and his father!” I commanded of the immobile onlookers.

Jeeves nodded from his perch, as if everything was going as expected. “Newcomers approach.”

My movements became mechanical as the strips of my shirt were wadded up and held to the side of Jas’ head. Some of the flow of blood was stemmed, but it was obvious that he would still have stitches to endure before the night was through. At least he would have an interesting story to tell to the girls, rather than having to blunder his way through clumsily adapted dialogue. Some sensation on the edge of my awareness caused me to look up briefly. There were indeed two people coming toward us, just as Jeeves had said.

Then I did a double take, because something was wrong with that picture. Rather than appearing from behind me, these two were coming as if they had trekked through the forest. One was a giant of a teen, stretching well above six feet, packed with muscle, and sporting an intriguing razor-sharp spiked collar. Something was off about one of his arms, but it was impossible to discern the inconsistency from a distance. The shortest of the party was of miniscule proportions to the giant, somewhere just broaching five feet. Her brown hair was touched with gray, as if she had aged quickly in a short span of living large. Each of her minute steps were punctuated by the jingling of the bangles on her right arm. Both of them looked as though they had traveled through the underworld and emerged unscathed—well, relatively unscathed. What stood out most to me was their unique power, which resonated with my own.

“Who are they?” I wondered aloud.

As always with the important questions, he was cryptic as hell. “Old friends, allies from a time long left to rot, cake with the dust of the ages.”

“Great. Just as insightful as always, I see,” I mumbled.

Their approach was fairly anti-climactic. They didn’t try to kill or capture me. That was outside the norm. I hadn’t met another Empowered that didn’t want to take me to their leader, and drain me of all my go-go juice. I would have stood up, but couldn’t leave Jas’ side until the Doc arrived to patch him up. There were others, however, that had no such bonds holding them back. A group of men broke off from the crowd, numbering six. I envisaged the destruction the two were likely capable of and found that they wouldn’t be near enough.

I didn’t want to see anyone else get hurt. “Stop.” I raised my free hand at them, which danced with lightning.

“Who the hell do you think you are?” one of them asked.

“We hold no quarrel with you, nor the one you have bonded with,” an older man said. “These two must be evaluated and questioned. We saw the beast. They could have led it here, to our halls.”

“Then give me some time to question them,” I requested.

“You don’t have the authority!” a hotheaded, body-builder type told me.

“You need to see my authority?” I asked darkly.

“There’s no need for that, Travis,” the other man responded, calming his hot-blooded counterpart. “Five minutes will not act as a detriment. There’s no direction they can run that will allow them escape from our grasp.”

“Yeah, Travis. Just take a chill pill and give me a couple minutes.” I winked, imploring.

That almost did it, but the arms of the friends who had just been gearing up to go confront the trespassers conveniently restrained Travis from hasty action. Irony is something that never gets old for me, and this was no exception. By the time I had finished with my persuasion techniques, they were already on top of me. Well, the big one was. The girl had dropped into a squat, pressing the back of her hand against Jas’ forehead.

“I’m Hailey,” she said, while her practiced hands surveyed the damage.

“Razor,” the other one chimed in with a deep baritone.

“Caleb.” I extended a bloodied hand to Razor, who took it unflinchingly.

There was more to them than that, surely. Although I doubted those were their real names, I let the matter be. Wasn’t any of my business really. As there was time, I took the chance to study them more fully. Razor was a piece of work, besides being a slab of muscle and steel, he was missing one arm. You probably wouldn’t convince him of that, though, because his left arm had been replaced with an earthen substitute. I didn’t know the mechanics of such an undertaking but was sure that you would have to employ a lot of skill to pull off something like that. The more interesting topic, of course, would be why he needed to create an Earthly replica in the first place.

Though there was little doubt in my mind that something big and badass in the supernatural community had taken a bite out of the guy. His hard brown eyes attested to that, as well as his crew-cut auburn hair. Hailey seemed to be a very withdrawn individual and I wondered at the connection between the two, besides their abilities. Her alabaster skin partially matched with the strands of her hair, which were now discovered as white, rather than gray. Intriguing hazel eyes came to a decision as I studied her, and she brought my bloodied shirt away from Jas’ skull. Her hands hovered, never coming close enough to touch.

Then, as I watched, she gathered her power, something I had never been able to study from the outside. She wasn’t employing the use of any element I had ever seen, though. Her hands glowed a shade of amber before tapering off and becoming normal once more. The difference in Jas was immediately visible, as he began to stir. His face had been cleared of the mauling and excess blood, and he was whole once more.

“What the hell was that?” I asked Hailey and Razor, as much as the lurking Jeeves.

“Healing at its finest,” Razor said, verifying my suspicions.

“But how?”

“It is a part of her, as lightning is an integral portion of your existence, however, it comes at a steep cost,” Jeeves explained irritably. “What other explanation did you expect?”

“None,” Hailey answered quietly, rising from her crouched position before gravitating toward Razor once more.

I started. It had yet to occur to me that they might perceive Jeeves as well as I did.

“Of course they can see me, boy,” Jeeves scolded. “As you would their counterparts, were they in attendance.”

“It is not polite to address someone of your importance without first being introduced,” Razor rumbled.

I groaned. “No, don’t encourage him,” I pleaded. “I’ll never be able to recover.”

“No, he is correct,” Jeeves preened. “His logic is not at fault, however, your common courtesy could use some evaluation.”

“You would think that we had better things to do than stroking his ego,” Jas commented from his position on the ground.

I knew a lifeline when I saw one. “Yes, I believe we do. First that those guys back there aren’t happy with your untimely arrival, and they’re dead set on questioning you. Second, what the hell was that darkhound doing out here, and third, how did you come to be behind the damned thing?”

“I take it that the blasted beastie is good and dead, then?” Jas asked.

“Dead is relative. That was merely a part of the whole, a counterpart among many,” Razor said.

“Are you kidding me!?” Jas moaned.

“If you have been following the news, you have seen the Shadow, the dark cloud that entered our dimension not that long ago. We know little about it, other than its taste for human flesh and lusts for power. But there is someone who’s commanding the monstrosity.”

My mind ran through the information I had gathered, from the news, and the supernatural demesne in general. The Seven weren’t supposed to all be best buddies. I had already found that out firsthand. There was a tolling on the air, a change in the wind, and I was sure that all of us felt it. It had a timeless, ageless quality of a past time that was coming to fruition once more. If you aren’t careful, history will repeat itself. Battles had been fought, wars been won and lost, forgotten, and forever illuminated in the halls of memory and cemented in history. Standing with two others of my very rare genetic disorder, I felt the urge to move, to fight.

Hailey shared her two cents on the matter. “Those that are forced to serve it can be altered from their intended form into something malignant and powerful. The only reason there aren’t more of what you saw is likely because it is weak, and new to this world. But I am sure Kasper will feed his pet until it has grown obedient to his cause.”

“Casper, the friendly ghost? I wouldn’t think he would do such a thing. He was always such a nice fellow,” Jas said, still disoriented, obviously. “What’s wrong with your hand, dude?” he asked Razor.

“Who’s Kasper?” I asked.

Something flashed through Hailey’s eyes, a combination of pain and admiration. “Kasper is a genius. I met Razor as his powers were emerging, and we found Kasper soon after that. We had thought our discovery of him had been by chance, but I’m not so sure anymore. He brought us in, showed us what it was like to live in the lap of luxury. I—” Hailey put a hand to her mouth. “Caught him in the parlor one night, studying. He said his interest in other dimensions was an idle one. He was always studying something, always learning about the supernatural, ever since he found out what we were. Kasper thought he had pieced together the remnants of prophecy, and that he stood at the center of it. His interpretation was that reform was necessary, that our weakness must be expunged before we could move forward. He said it was unfortunate, but that some people would need to die for the betterment of the remaining. Chaos was an inevitable byproduct, but through his workings, he would be able to bring the world into an era of unsurpassed prosperity. He wanted to bring the world into the light, in his own, sick, deranged way.” Her voice wavered and Razor took over.