Chapter 1: New Life, New Problems
I came awake fighting.
Around me, I could hear the sound of tearing cloth, and my vision was obscured by floating patches of whiteness, colours shifting and changing as sleep and bleariness distorted my sight. Only . . . I wasn’t under attack, there weren’t any colours trying to run rampant, and I was not in any immediate danger.
For a moment I was confused, not recognising the room I was in, wondering where my old movie posters were. Then the previous night came back to me, and my hand darted to the back of my neck, feeling at the spot where the parasite had emerged from. Thankfully I found only smooth skin in place, not even a hint of a healing cut or scabbed wound.
A sigh of relief escaped me as I slumped back, memories of the horrible feeling of infestation the night before running through my head. Without really thinking about it I turned my attention inwards, noting the flow of energies within me, and feeling satisfaction as I found them free of taint or parasites.
Behind and beside me I could still feel my wings tangled up in the remains of my sheets and the mattress. I must have thrashed quite a lot before I woke up because the blade-like feathers tangled in the shredded remains of my bedsheet.
Not surprising, with what happened last night, the fight, the violation and the fear, I had plenty of fuel for nightmares. But, I also remembered winning, reaching my power, using it, tearing that parasitic monster out of me and burning it. I could remember the colours, the colours that had power, that were more than simple shades and hues. I could remember the beauty and the sheer rush of it.
Again, without thinking about it, I reached . . . into? Through? Out of? None of those seemed right. I was extending my mind, and my will, but the direction was something that the English language had never needed to deal with. The colours, my power, they existed both within and without me, both internal components and an external aura. But even that was inaccurate, they were at once both and neither, contradictory yet in harmony.
Honestly, it should have given me a migraine just trying to understand it, but it was the complete opposite. Even if I couldn’t put it into words it felt utterly natural to me, as correct and normal as me moving my hand and arm to scratch an itchy nose. The new power was there, within the weird new channels and systems of mana and chi that were a part of my body.
I reached out to this new part of me, this well of forces and colours beyond imagination. I reached out to it . . . and I just knew!
Power!
It was power! My power! I knew it as clearly as I knew my own name. This wasn’t something that was being borrowed. this wasn’t something I was drawing from an external source. This power was mine, and mine alone. It came from me, it belonged to me, it was part of me.
It had worked! What Emma had risked so much to tell me, the trick to sparking my mana into magic, it had worked! I could feel it, so different from before. There was a vitality now that had been lacking. After my sabotaged Awakening I hadn’t really been able to feel it, the mana had just sort of sat there. Now there was a sense of barely restrained movement, as though it was ready and waiting to roar away like a jet engine. So much power!
And . . . I had no idea how to use it.
The power was there, the colours were there. I had access to them, they were within reach, they responded to me, but I didn’t know how to use that new access. Before it had been like my power was the greatest car in the world, all curved lines, potent engine, fresh wheels, premium fuel. The only problem was that I didn’t have the keys to get it started, so it was just sitting there. Now the keys were in the ignition, the motor was purring, the frame thrumming with barely contained power. I was in the driver’s seat, my hands on the wheel and my foot on the accelerator.
As I sat there, I’d only just realized I didn’t know how to drive. I didn’t know how to steer, I didn’t know how to read or use any of the controls or gears, and above all, I was terrified that if I tried to experiment with driving it then I’d drive it straight into a tree. Bye-bye lovely new car, bye-bye lovely new me.
Of course, I could do the equivalent of stepping on the gas and trying to work it out as I went along, but that didn’t strike me as a good idea. Just drawing on these new connections and sources could work, but it could also go badly wrong. I was excited, but I knew that messing with potentially destructive magic wasn’t something I should be doing in my room, certainly not while still lying on my bed. That could come later, once I had some help from Joan and Hadriel, maybe even Emma. With any luck, they’d be able to teach me how to use my magic without accidentally frying myself.
Of course, I couldn’t do that if I just stayed in bed all day.
Getting off the bed was a bit of a nuisance, my wings being tangled in the mattress and sheets, but I managed it in the end. Once up, since I seemed to be getting a little more used to having wings, I decided I’d try to have a shower. The last decent clean I’d had been at the hands of Joan while I was still out cold, and I was doing my best not to think about that in any great detail.
|The bathroom that was attached to my room was pretty big. Whoever it was that had remodelled the farmhouse had been generous enough to add a few touches of luxury. The bathroom was one of those big open-tiled ones, one that took up a whole half of the bathroom. This worked in my favour since it meant I could have my wings partly spread as I stood under the large showerhead.
As I passed the large mirror fitted above the wash basin I caught a look at myself and paused to take the sight in.
It had only been a couple of days since I’d regained consciousness after my Awakening, and I was still getting used to my new looks. This was the new me, Adam West 2.0, now with improved looks, additional body parts and feature-type magic, here to replace the obsolete old model. That thought amused me, but it made me a bit uncomfortable too.
I was changed. I was a demigod now. Physically I was almost completely changed, even if you didn’t take my wings into account. My weight, height, proportions, my features everything about me had been pushed to the limits of perfection while remaining me.
Honestly, I was glad for the clear similarity that remained, that the change hadn’t gone further and made me into a completely different person. That would have been much harder to deal with than just being divinely photoshopped.
The cold water of the shower didn’t bother me as I stepped in, helping to clear my head as it ran over me. There was one problem though. As it turned out, while I could take a shower easily enough my wings provided for more complications than just getting in my way.
Water went everywhere, and I mean everywhere!
The whole place was thoroughly soaked as my wings sent the cascade from the shower bouncing off in directions water had never gone before. On top of that, it looked like there were still some reflexive actions of my new limbs that I hadn’t learnt about yet, such as them fluffing out and fluttering largely on their own in response to the water. It reminded me a bit of how birds would play in a bird bath. By the time I was even halfway done, the rest of the bathroom looked like someone had taken an uncontrolled firehose to it.
In the end, my shower took longer than it should have done, my wings soaking up lots of water as they fluffed out, drinking it in almost like a sponge. As they got more soaked, they got heavier and made it even harder to keep my balance.
The thing was that despite how cumbersome it was to have my drenched wings tugging at me, it still felt really good. All that warm water having been absorbed by the dry feathers felt absurdly relaxing, as though I was lying in a huge warm hot tub and gently having muscles I never knew I had massaged. I just stood there for a while, enjoying these new sensations. Eventually, and reluctantly, I reached out and turned off the shower.
My decision seemed to trigger some reflex though, because my wings did a sort of shivering flutter, and it was as though all the water that they had absorbed suddenly just lost any hold it might have had on them and just slid off. In an instant and a large splash, my wings went from sodden-soaked to only slightly damp, and a strange feeling of euphoria and satisfaction ran through me, like the feeling of stretching and cracking a few stiff bones back into place, only multiplied ten times over.
As I towelled myself dry, I wondered how I could enjoy showers like this more often in the future.
I’d need a bigger shower, one with multiple shower heads, enough room for me to spread and flap my wings, varying water pressures, lots of different temperatures, steam vents . . .
. . . gold fixtures?
Right, and just how much would that cost to run, let alone set up?
I was just thinking about how much debt I’d have to sink into to set up one stupidly luxury-class shower when it hit me. I was now a demigod. Sure, I still wasn’t quite certain what my specialities or talents were, but almost any demigod could make some serious dough with some smarts and a bit of imagination.
I was sure that I could come up with something to make money if I really needed to.
And if worse came to worst, there was always working as an underwear model with my new looks.
And what looks they were! As entered my bedroom I couldn’t help but step closer to the mirrors that served as my closet’s doors, staring at my reflection. The me that I saw in the mirror was practically my idealization, and I didn’t feel too ashamed to admit that I really liked the change. I’d never considered myself ugly, but I’d never thought of myself as anything too special either. Now . . . now I looked like the kind of guy that could walk into a club and command the envy, adoration and lust of all that looked at him. In other words, I was HOT!
There was an odd contrast between my new darker skin and the whiteness of not only my new hair but also my wings. It was striking, and it was something that was going to take some getting used to. As for my skin . . . I looked as though I could have been on a yacht in the Mediterranean making all the supermodels feel inadequate. At the same time, it was still MY skin, it was just darker.
Ghaagghhh! I couldn’t even put it into words inside my own head! It was so ridiculous it was almost worth a laugh. Instead, I just took a little time to admire the new and flawless me in the reflection.
That was something that I was going to have to be careful of. Since the Black Sun everyone had been more into mythology and I was no exception. I knew what happened to mortals or demigods who got too beautiful for their own good. Narcissus, Helen of Troy, Andromeda, Adonis, every one of them had been beautiful and some had been too proud of it, drawning the attention of the gods in one way or another. Out of all of them only Andromeda got a happy ending, and that was only after she nearly got fed to a sea monster. Hanging onto some humility was looking like something of a survival skill.
Still, I couldn’t help striking a pose, like a model in a magazine. Yeah . . . I might have the looks, but the rest would need some work.
I was just trying to flex my abs when I noticed something odd.
My belly button was still the same pink that my skin had been my whole life. All around it was the darker hue of my new skin tone, but inside my navel, and right up to the lip of the small hole, my skin was pale by comparison, standing out sharply.
What was this? Curious, I tilted my head to see if the inside of my ears was the same, then my nostrils, even my armpits. All of them were darker, the change having reached seemingly every part of me.
Still, I couldn’t figure out why just that part of me was lighter. Was it some sort of birthmark? Was it some sort of rash? Tentatively, I reached down to scratch at it.
A gasp escaped my lips as I stumbled backwards, my wings reflexively spreading in readiness for an attack that wasn’t coming. For some reason, my legs felt weak, as though I’d just been winded by a sudden and violent blow.
It had felt . . . the closest I was able to think of it was to compare it to a sudden electrical shock. The instant my fingernail had scratched at the inside of my navel I’d felt as though a sudden surge of electricity had run through me, and most definitely not in a good way. My muscles had gone slack, my vision blurred, and my whole stomach area felt as though I’d been viciously kicked.
“What the hell?”
Tentatively, I reached down and, with exaggerated care, I gently stroked the paler skin of my belly button. It didn’t hurt, but I could feel it, such a light touch and it still felt as though I was running the edge of a knife across it. It was kind of like when you poke at a freshly healed wound, the newly grown skin is still tender, and it would be so easy to break it and set the wound to bleeding again. It felt . . . vulnerable.
A suspicion began to grow in my mind, but I needed more proof. Reaching down I carefully scratched at the darker skin around my navel, it felt just as it normally would. Moving in I let my nail scrape the edge of the pinker skin and felt that same tremor, as though it was a blade pressed against my flesh rather than just the edge of my fingernail.
Experimentally I gave myself a slap across my belly, the action producing a dull noise as my hand hit my new muscles and flat stomach. That hadn’t hurt, again, there had been no jolt, no increased sensation. But . . . was that because I hadn’t actually hit the pale skin? It was inside my navel, so my slap had hit the flesh about it rather than inside it.
My suspicion was growing as I tentatively flicked at the pale skin in my belly button, the sort of gesture one would use to flick a speck of lint off your clothes. It was a tiny action, one that everyone uses every day without really thinking about it.
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It felt as though someone had slugged me at full force in the belly!
I folded over like a cheap card table, my knees pressing into my chest as I drew in gulps of air in an attempt to get myself under some sort of control. To my sides my wings trembled, quivering with energy but unable to actually do anything with it.
Slowly I managed to pull myself back together, but even so, I was still unsteady. Also, as unpleasant as it had been it had confirmed a theory that I’d been putting together.
Hadriel had compared me to the likes of Achilles and Siegfried, heroes that had gained impenetrable skins that had made them almost invincible in battle, with emphasis on the ‘almost’ though. Each of them had possessed a flaw, a spot where the protection hadn’t taken root and thus left them vulnerable. For Achilles it had been his famous heel, the spot where his mother had held him when she dipped him in the river of the Underworld, the one spot the water hadn’t touched, the one spot where death could get in. In the case of Siegfried, he had bathed in the blood of the dragon Fafnir, the beast’s lifeblood making his skin every bit as impregnable as the scales of a dragon, save for a spot on his back where a single leaf got stuck and kept the blood from touching it.
This . . . this soft spot, was it my Achilles Heel?
I took a deep breath and tried to calm down, but even so, my imagination ran wild with dark possibilities.
Joan, killing me by accident as she jabbed her blunted sword into my belly. Hadriel slashing me across the navel thinking that I could recover from it with a little help from Joan’s healing magic. Hells, I could imagine myself accidentally running into the corner of a worktop, some of those in this farmstead house were at just the right height. Would that be enough to kill me?
I sat back up, leaning backwards and took another deep breath. I couldn’t let this overwhelm me. Yes, I had a weak point. I didn’t yet know how it worked, but it was there. It was a weakness, but it wasn’t as though it was a huge target. The inside of my navel wasn’t an easy target, especially if I knew to defend it.
Should I mention this to Joan and Hadriel? It made sense to tell them, they were meant to protect me and fight side by side with me. If I didn’t let them know about something like this it could only lead to trouble. Hell, they might end up killing me in training if they didn’t know.
So, why I was considering keeping this bit of information to myself? Simple security. The more people knew about this weakness then the more likely it was that the secret would be exposed. That was how Siegfried had been killed after all, despite his invulnerability. He’d told of his weakness, and the one he’d told had later betrayed him. I didn’t think that either of my protectors would betray me, not willingly anyway, but it was a risk.
The hints I’d gotten from Joan and Hadriel had me thinking that the sorts of people I’d be going up against in the future wouldn’t be the sort to be squeamish about using torture. And that wasn’t even taking into account all the options the supernatural world brought into the equation. Mind control, mind reading, divination, illusions, all sorts of ways to force, steal or trick the secret of my vulnerability out of them.
On the other hand, telling nobody meant no support or suggestions on how I could best protect myself. In the end, it came down to trust. Well, trust and fear, if I was to be completely honest with myself. That feeling when I’d touched my pale skin, that sensation of near absolute vulnerability, I would do almost anything to keep an enemy from knowing about it.
So . . . trust or secrecy, which was I going to choose to keep me safe?
Maybe, if I had been able to get all my powers up and running as soon as I had Awoken it might have been a good idea to keep this weak spot a secret. But standing alone was the privilege of the strong, and I was nowhere near that powerful.
Alright, the decision was made. Still, telling them worried me on another level. Would they be disgusted? I was meant to be this super-important demigod, yet every step I took down that path seemed to go wrong. Would this be the last straw for them, a demigod that couldn’t even use his power? Would they just give up on me as too flawed, too weak? In my head, I knew that I was letting my doubts run away with me, but that didn’t really help.
Taking a deep breath I fell back on my tried and true method for dealing with things when they got too much for me, namely; repress, repress, and repress some more. Sure, it might not be the most enlightened or healthy way to deal with issues, but it had let me get through tough times before, so it had to be doing something right.
So, I concentrated on making my way down the stairs with my wings tucked in as tightly as I could manage. It threw my balance off a bit, but I was getting better at managing my new limbs.
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Emma sat under a tree, a small weaving of grass, bones and her hair resting in her lap. At the centre of the weaving were a trio of snow-white hairs, hairs that she’d surreptitiously picked up from Adam’s room when she’d visited him the night before he sparked his magic.
Naturally, as a demigod, Adam possessed a certain natural resistance to magic. Sure, it wouldn’t do much good if someone hit him with a fireball, but it did keep things like low-level curses and spells from latching onto him using weak reagents . . . like a few strands of hair.
No, she had no ill intentions towards him. Instead, she was trying to monitor his progress, a task made damnably difficult by the Hallowed Sanctuary. Still, she had been able to gain something, the sympathetic link between him and the hairs that were once a part of him just being enough to let her spell slip through. In this case, it’s weakness was an asset, since such a small and harmless spell, one devoid of any sort of malicious intent, went unnoticed by the protections of the Sanctuary.
Of course, since it was so weak it wasn’t able to send her back too much information, but what little it had managed was enough for her purposes.
Adam had done it! His magic was fully awakened and he had even manifested a halo! There had also been some confusing impressions of some sort of fight, but since the demigod had completed sparking his magic afterwards it must have been one he or his guardians won. The fact that he’d been attacked at all while under the Sanctuary’s protection was troubling, but it seemed to have been dealt with.
Under her hood, her lips curled into a smile, a genuinely happy smile. This was a huge step in the direction she’d been hoping for. Adam seemed to be finding his pace now. What she had been able to pick up of his new magic gave her the impression of breadth, of scale, a fact that made her heart sing.
He wasn’t some demigod with great power in just one narrow direction, she was sure of it! His reach would be wide, just as she had hoped for. Wide enough to-
Her thoughts and her joy were cut off as she felt something snap at the back of her mind. It wasn’t an injury, instead, it was an awareness of a ward she’d set up around the town, a simple and primitive detection spell as easy to miss as a line of spider’s thread. This ward was meant to alert her if any beings of power came too close to the Hallowed Sanctuary, or the village she was staying in. Unfortunately, all it could do was make her aware, it couldn’t tell her how many there were, how strong they were, or even what they were. It was a simple alert, nothing more.
Weak, that was what all her spells had to be. Too weak to do anything useful, too weak to deter anyone, too weak to be noticed. Too weak to give her away.
With practised ease, she forced down the old frustration and instead concentrated on the matter at hand. The place where the ward had broken wasn’t too far from where she was. It was at the edge of a field just outside the village, close enough that a normal person could have jogged there in fifteen minutes or so. Emma was considerably faster than a normal person though, even if she had to be stealthy.
It took her less than five minutes to get there, a veil of subtle spells that she’d prepared in advance wrapped around her, obscuring her presence. Internally she was reviewing all the resources available to her and trying to estimate just how much she could afford to cut loose. If someone, or something, was here for Adam she couldn’t afford to let them confirm the existence of the Hallowed Sanctuary. Sure, it’d protect him for as long as it could, but a powerful and determined enemy could set up an ambush, hiding or waiting outside it until it went down, then immediately attacking. If nothing else, she had to know so she could let Adam know, if worst came to pass.
The field she moved through was full of nothing but common grass, left to grow tall so it could be harvested for hay. It provided good cover, and between it and her veiling spells, she was sure she was well concealed. Nothing powerful enough to penetrate them had spotted her, she’d have sensed them if they had. So . . . did that mean she was dealing with small-fry here?
Very carefully Emma stood up from her crouch until her head was just above the tall grass. Her eyes darted around searching for any sign of the supernatural intruder, but seeing nothing. Were they using stealth as well? Maybe they were small, like a goblin or a sprite? Or maybe . . .
That was when she saw the insubstantial form wisping through the air. In appearance, it was as though a snake and a man had been fused into an ill-made single being, and that being had been made out of almost black smoke. Reptilian features graced an inhuman head, scales made of smoke outlines covered broad shoulders and long spindly arms that ended in clawed hands. From the waist down it was a serpentine body, the end dissolving into a trail of smoke. The form swam through the air as a snake would upon water, though not very fast.
Oh, and the whole thing was barely two feet long.
Emma recognised it immediately. How could she not? The thing was a damned soul, one of the many wicked mortals that ended up in hell after they died. This pitiful thing was more like part of a soul, a piece that was left over after some truly evil soul was burnt and broken beyond recognition. Those pieces sometimes managed to absorb enough of hell’s ambient energy to gain a separate existence of their own, though it was a weak and pitiful one, weaker than even the lowest imp. Essentially they were ghosts bound to hell, souls trapped in an endless loop of bitterness and torture as the lowest of the low. Here on earth, they were mostly harmless, lacking the power to do more than irritate and unnerve.
That said, they could be useful in some ways. Since they were so weak, and technically human souls, despite their mutated and mutilated state, they had an easier time surviving on the mortal plane. Most demons didn’t belong, and the world rejected them, it didn’t stop them, but it was a constant difficulty, one that these damned souls didn’t suffer. Normally they were sent as scouts or hunters. They might be pitifully weak, but they were surprisingly hard to harm and were stealthy in that few actually noticed them. Emma had only spotted it because she was looking for something, otherwise, it might have slipped by her.
Why was it here though? Was it looking for Adam? Or was it looking for . . . her?
Instantly she knew that she could not let the spirit escape, the risk was simply too great! Fortunately, she’d had a lot of free time on her hands lately, and she’d been using it to prepare as best she could. The large glass jar she pulled out of her bag had once been used to store pickled herrings, but the symbols she’d scratched into the glass with a cold iron needle meant it could serve as a new type of container. She gripped the sides and power shot through her hands, more power than she’d normally use, but she had to risk it. The snake-like ghost jerked in place, sensing her power and frantically looking for her, but by then it was too late.
The lid of the jar flew off, as though removed by invisible hands, and the smoke-like spirit was pulled into the jar, screeching all the way, a sound like tortured metal that only ended as the lid leapt back into place. Emma felt a tiny stab of pain from her shoulder, as though someone had just stabbed her with a needle, but paid it no mind. Her entire focus was on the creature she’d just captured.
For a few moments, the inside of the jar was a roiling mess, like a bottled tornado. Then the smoke slowed and formed a face and hands pressing against the inside of the jar, black pit-like eyes staring out at her. For a moment she and the ghost locked eyes, and then the spirit jerked back, its face lighting up with recognition.
“YOU! You were here? How? Why? Everyone thought you had fled into the abyss centuries ago!”
Emma didn’t answer, even though she was shocked by the question. This tiny thing knew of her? That made no sense, why would she be known to such a lowly servant of the deep pits?
“Is this why we were sent? We were told of you and sent, but . . . nothing else. What . . . why would they . . . ?”
The creature was talking more to itself than it was to her, and Emma had no problem with that. Even its mumbled thoughts were enough to give her some information to work with.
“What is this?!”
The ghost’s attention snapped back to her as its insubstantial claws scrabbled at the glass, trying and failing to scratch it as the wards she’d inscribed protected the jar. Hoping to get it speaking again she answered it’s question.
“A soul jar, a tool used by witches to catch ghosts. Only slight modifications were needed to adjust it to hold you.”
The broken soul stilled again, then it looked back to her, its face now almost leering.
“You know, they have not forgotten about you, not even after all these centuries. He still wants you back, and she still hates you. Did you think that they’d forget, just because you weren’t there? Did you think that being out of sight would let you slip from their minds? Who do you take them for, mortals?”
Emma gritted her teeth hard enough to make them ache, despite her immortal body. They hadn’t forgotten her, they were still looking for her. Damn it all! How could she have expected anything else? She should have known better. She should have known them better!
“Your palace still waits for you,” The ghost’s voice broke into her thoughts, now sounding almost honeyed, despite it’s grating tone. “Your treasures are still there, the souls of the greedy are allowed to see them, the wealth they covet but can never have. Mounds of gold, heaps of jewels, countless chests filled with silks and arts and statuettes to make the wealthiest mortal weep with inadequacy. All of them are there, and any who touch them burn in hell’s fires, as is upheld by the old covenant. They wait for you, the treasures, the weapons, the armours, all wait for your return, shiny and pristine forever.”
Was . . . was this tiny thing trying to tempt her? It would have been absurd if it wasn’t also so dangerous. At it’s words she could feel that old part of her trying to stir, the part of her that she’d brutally buried and ignored for so many mortal lifetimes.
“No one knows why you ran, but do you think it matters? You can return, reclaim your throne, your crown, your position. But what do you think will happen if they find you first? Will you be dragged back, rather than returning on your own? What will you do Emana-”
“Is that why you were here? Looking for me?”
She snapped the question, cutting the spirit off, not wanting to hear that name. It worked, but even so, she still cursed herself! She should have been more subtle, more leading. But its words had unsettled her, stirring up old memories, old fears, old hungers. It was throwing her off, and she couldn’t afford to make mistakes.
“We were sent looking, but not for you, not really. We were shown your image, but all who leave hell are, along with the others who left. We seek them, others too, all that we are told to, we seek, we seek and seek and seek and seek. Seek seek seek seek seekseekseekseek . . .”
Emma watched as the twisted soul’s words devolved into gibberish, its face slackening into what would be called insanity on a mortal. The spells on the jar had worked, forcing the ghost to speak the truth, but it seemed that the pressure had also caused its rationality to fray far faster. Creatures like it, pieces of a soul forced to become their own whole, were intrinsically flawed, incomplete. The result was a mind that could operate, but which broke far too easily. That was why this thing and its kind were regarded as so expendable, even at their best they were damaged goods.
She’d get no more out of it, though what she had was worrying enough. She’d have to chew over it later, think about how it affected her. First though . . .
She drove her mind into the jar, and from there into the ghost. This wasn’t something she could have done normally, not restrained as she was, but the soul jar acted as a bridge, and her will was strong enough to do the rest. It took a lot of will to wait for centuries, to not use the power she could wield, to accept hardship and humiliation, a lot of will. The broken soul's mind was already fractured, and she drove her will in with little difficulty. Ruthlessly she attacked it’s memories, seizing those of it drawing near here, of meeting her, of their conversation. Those memories were torn out, ripped to pieces and then shredded even further. Nothing remained of them but incoherent nonsense, nothing that could possibly be reconstructed.
In the wake of her attack, a hole was left in the ghost’s mind, a hole she filled with false recollections of boredom and tedium. It was a crude fix and one that would cause the spirit’s mind to crumble all the faster, but she didn’t care. It would go from this place having found nothing, having learnt nothing, and would report nothing. Were it not for the fact that it’s disappearance might be missed she would have simply destroyed it outright, or kept it locked in the soul jar for the next few years. This was the best solution, one that would hopefully divert any further investigation into this area.
Undoing the lid she let the ghost spill out. For a moment it dissolved into smoke, and then it slowly drew itself back together. Its face was devoid of malice or fear now. Instead, it was slack, like that of a drug addict or someone on sedatives. It looked at her without comprehension, then turned and started to drift away from the village and the hidden Hallowed Sanctuary.
Emma watched it go certain that it would not lead any back to Adam, but still unsettled by what it had told her.
So long, and they still hated her, wanted her, hadn’t forgotten her. She should have expected it, but to have it so brutally confirmed . . . Damn it! She’d spent so much time running and hiding from her past, chasing the promise that had been made to her, holding onto that fragile hope, and her past hadn’t let her go!
She clenched her fists in frustration, then winced as a spike of pain shot from her shoulder. Her flesh was hidden under her battered clothes and her old hoodie, but she was afraid she knew what she’d find when she checked it later. Irritated skin, and maybe snow-white scales.
Damn it!