Fallon sputtered. The blade plunged into his stomach and Nathan felt warm blood spill onto his hands, slicking the grip of the sword.

The ruby shield shattered like glass around him, exploding into thousands of glittering red bits that shimmered in the Echo’s emerald firelight.

“Get David and run!” Nathan yelled, ripping his sword free from the vampire’s gut.

Arnold didn’t have to be told twice. The weathered man leapt up onto the altar, no longer trying to be careful. With a light spray of blood, he ripped the tubes from David’s arms, picked the lad up, and started to book it out of the hall.

Fallon bared his fangs, one hand clutching at the large gash in his torso, the other raised, swirling with burgundy energy. The negative pressure had worked on the ruby barrier, why couldn’t it on Fallon’s other ability?

Nathan lunged, swiping his blade toward Fallon’s hand. The metal collided with the whirling smoke, and the energy puffed away. Gone.

Fallon’s eyes widened with shock. He looked from his hand, to Nathan, and back to his hand, expression growing angrier by the second. Nathan’s mouth split into a wide grin.

Something about that thick Thread in Nathan’s chest. Arnold hadn’t understood it, and Nathan most certainly didn’t, but it somehow inverted magic. Pulled instead of pushed. And when it met other forms of magic, the two canceled each other out. Like destructive interference.

With a furious growl, Fallon leaped backward, fluttering into twisting shadows before reappearing a good twenty feet away. He raised his hand again, and this time, Nathan was too far to stop him.

Tendrils of viscous blood lashed out like a hundred whips. They bit into Nathan’s skin and flashed through the Echo. Each time the Echo was cut, it quickly reformed, but its fire dwindled ever so slightly. The Echo howled in fury or pain – it was difficult to tell which, maybe both – and dashed toward Fallon.

Nathan’s sword spun in the air, slicing through tendril after tendril. They dropped with each cut, not getting up as they had before, but more kept coming, threatening to overwhelm.

The Echo charged forward, ignoring the licks of blood as they split its fiery flesh. It was on Nathan’s side, but it didn’t seem to fight with much intelligence. It was more like an allied beast than a partner. Single minded with no care for its own wellbeing. It just wanted to kill.

Part of Nathan was waiting for the Echo to die so that he could absorb a portion of its power and use that to beat Fallon. But the last Echo had given him nothing, who was to say this would be any different?

So he didn’t leave the Echo to fight and die on its own. Nathan sprinted forward, blade slashing, tendrils falling. He wasn’t able to cut them all and by the time he was within striking distance of Fallon, his arms and legs were scored with dozens of wounds.

Nathan roared, thrusting his blade in a downward arc. He’d timed the strike to coincide with his Echo’s own strike. The Echo couldn’t think, couldn’t strategize, but Nathan could. And that was better.

Fallon raised his arms to block, magic swirling protectively around him. The two blades collided with the energy, creating a shower of sparks. For some reason, Nathan’s blade didn’t nullify this time. He could the negative pressure subsiding.

With a roar, Fallon released the stored energy in a wave that threw Nathan backward. He flew through the vast room, cracking his head against one of the pillars, and landed in a crouched position.

“Put your dog back on its Gods’ damned leash, Arnold!” Fallon screamed, a thick vein bulging through the middle of his forehead, eyes furious.

The Echo wasn’t so lucky. Energy ripped through it, scattering it to bits of flame and sparks that fizzled away, leaving nothing but faint trails of light that shot toward Nathan.

Echo Ushered.

Power gained: Increasing all physical capabilities permanently by 2%

The author's content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

Ability temporarily gained: None

Echoes Stored: [0/5]

Total Echoes Ushered: [3/5]

A wave of heat surged through Nathan’s body, and he felt some of his wounds closing themselves. Like getting a shot of adrenaline. He felt alive with energy. An energy that raged in his veins, his lungs, his chest.

A cry sounded from behind. Nathan spun and saw Arnold fall to the ground, David’s hands clawing at the man’s throat. The boy wasn’t in his own mind, he writhed and thrashed like a rabid animal.

Nathan groaned. Every time something looked to finally start going their way, another wrench was thrown into things.

The boy’s eyes were puffy and red, skin pale as a sheet, veins bulging across his skin. Had they failed?

No. Nathan would not allow it. He couldn’t. Not when they’d gotten so far. Not when they were so close to getting David home.

Maybe it was the trauma of having died and come back to life. Maybe it was a cruel reminder of who he had been. Maybe it was the frustration at himself that a part of him wanted to kill.

He forced that part of himself down. That wasn’t him any longer.

A calm sounded in his head. It overpowered the Echoes in his mind. Blood pounded in his ears, drowning everything out like the white noise of a rushing river. His vision narrowed into focus on Fallon. The thumping of his heart was like a drum beating in his chest. Once. Twice. A third time.

Memories of his past flashed rudely in his mind, but he banished them. And replaced them with thoughts of who he was now, who he could be. Cold fire welled within his palm, forcing back the darkness as it surged into a roaring inferno.

Nothing else matters right now. I’m gonna save them.

Flames poured from Nathan’s hand, licking down his fingers, up his arm, across his cheeks as they billowed up. Higher and higher. Hotter and hotter, yet not burning him.

“You are a representation of everything wrong in the world,” he growled, voice echoing in the high hall. “I am going to do what I should have done long ago.”

Fallon smiled sickly at Nathan, his fangs stabbing out from behind his blood stained lips. His mouth was moving, but Nathan could hear no words. He could hear nothing besides the blood pounding in his ears, the flames screaming beside his head, the voices having gone quiet within his skull. They were afraid. As they should be.

He would kill Fallon. But not because he wanted to kill. Because he wanted to protect David.

He’d been controlled in his past life, forced him to become the killer that he was. Fallon was no different than those that had done that to him. He’d stolen David away, a boy, and tried to turn him into something he was not.

Nathan hurled himself forward, soaring through the still air like a hawk. He landed without a sound, light as a shadow, his fist swinging the screaming flames in a wide arc. It crashed into Fallon’s side and he felt the rush of breaking bones, then doubled back and hit Fallon’s other side.

The vampire gave a muffled cry as it was thrown back against the wall, its head cracking backward hard on the stone.

A clawed hand whirled forward, fingers like knives, hissing through the air. It struck into Nathan’s shoulder and he stepped into it, feeling the blood seep down his skin.

Fallon bared his teeth in a feral snarl and Nathan snarled back. He grabbed the guild leader’s wrist in his flame wreathed hand, claws still embedded in his skin, and squeezed.

Fallon’s snarl dropped, fading to a frown, then terror. He screamed as the flames seared his flesh. Boiling and bubbling, bones fracturing. Nathan screamed back. A better man might have pitied Fallon in this moment, stopped the pointless pain for pain's sake and just gave him a swift end. But Nathan was not a better man, not yet, at least.

He wrenched the claws from his shoulder with a spray of dark crimson blood, and threw the vampire across the room. Fallon hit the stones and slid against the wall, his wrist a mess of red and wet. There was life in his eyes now. Lots of it. Alive with fear.

This felt good. Natural. Like a fire burning down a too dry forest, or a storm toppling a stack of stones. He had to control himself.

“Are you done already?” Nathan snarled. He stalked toward the bleeding, heavily breathing body. The body of a man that didn’t know he was dead yet. “Compared to the pain that you have caused, you have experienced nothing.”

Fallon raised his non-mangled hand, his face twisted in a knot of pain. A deep swirling mass of energy floated before the man’s palm, the color of burgundy wine.

The burgundy shot forth, like tendrils of bloody rope and moved to twist around Nathan. Nathan’s sword flashed in the air, slashing through the tendrils in a clean stroke. They fell like cut strings.

Then they were up again, writhing like snakes. They lunged at him, coiling round his body, stabbing into his skin. He burned and cut them away, but each time they came back, stabbing and slicing. His skin was raining with dribbles of blood.

Fallon moved to strike with his strange tendrils again. But before he could, Nathan was upon him, crushing grip held fast around his remaining wrist.

“This is for the boy,” he hissed. Spittle dripped from his lips.

And then he started to squeeze, flames bulging around both hands.