Total pages in book: 93
Estimated words: 88849 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 444(@200wpm)___ 355(@250wpm)___ 296(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 88849 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 444(@200wpm)___ 355(@250wpm)___ 296(@300wpm)
Kellan was waiting for it.
“What—?” Giuseppa struggled to her feet. The shed had blown up and ash, wood, and soot covered her body, mixing with the blood. She shook her head, gazing at us. “Wha—what are you doing here? Shay?” She gulped, jerking around. “Wait. Where’s Vespar?” Panic rose in her voice. “Vespar. Where is he? Where is HE?”
“Shut up.”
Kellan silenced her with that, then we felt the presence from whoever was coming.
I felt its darkness before it said anything. It was evil, and powerful, and I was trembling. I would’ve fallen back or run if Kellan hadn’t been touching me. He wasn’t keeping me in place. He was enabling me to stand there and tolerate what was coming. It was pure evil. I began clawing at his arm. I didn’t want to be there.
“Shay,” he said softly. His hand left my stomach and caught my hand. Our fingers laced together and I was beginning to cling to him like a lifesaver.
Black smoke began to waft in. It coated the ground, filling all around our feet and slowly rising up to cover our knees, our legs, our waists. It rose up to my face, and I began choking. I couldn’t breathe.
Kellan saw what was happening and uttered a word, “Aysh.”
The smoke combusted into fire. Again, we were unharmed, and then the smoke was gone. Giuseppa coughed, falling over behind us. She clutched at her stomach. “What did you do?”
But she didn’t matter. I felt his presence. He was there, right on the other side. I couldn’t talk or move. I could only hold on to Kellan, but I sensed his fear, too.
Black tentacles began to come through the hole, like black snakes, but they were all attached together. A thin sheen of skin covered them. They slithered all around, feeling the ground, the remaining wall of the shed until they touched the bottom of our feet. Instead of heat, I felt cold. Ice plunged through me, and I began violently shaking now.
Kellan bit back a curse, then suddenly, the snakes/tentacles left. They moved past us, leaving a perfect circle in the ground around our feet. They went to Giuseppa and a shrill scream came from them. It wasn’t Gus. It was the snakes/tentacles. Immediately, the rest of them swarmed, overcoming Giuseppa.
I didn’t want to watch, but I couldn’t not watch.
She had been my sister, then half-sister, and now she was an empty vessel of someone I was supposed to have loved as family. I felt none of those feelings anymore, not after seeing her murder Matt and knowing she had been the one to bring forth whomever this demon was. The snakes/tentacles writhed over her body. She didn’t say a word. They swarmed inside her throat, and when that happened, I couldn’t look anymore. I pressed my head into Kellan’s arm.
Then, I heard a hiss, “Son. You are here to greet me?”
Kellan didn’t say a word. His hand had a death-like grip on mine. His entire body was like stone. He was tensing up and I knew something more was going to happen.
“No.” Another hiss. “You’re not here to greet me. You’re here to kill me…for her? You are betraying me for that monster?”
Again, no sound from Kellan. I looked up and saw the torment on his face. His father was in his head, and Kellan’s face had drained of blood. No. His father was assaulting Kellan’s mind, how the snakes/tentacles were still assaulting Giuseppa. They were loving it, whatever they were doing to her. I wondered if Kellan’s father was doing the same to him. Loving whatever torture he was inflicting on his son?
I turned to face his father, and I said the first thing that came to mind. “Stop.”
“It’s you.”
As he spoke, the ice plunged deeper inside of me. I cried out from the pain, almost doubling over. That was him, he was inside of me like he was inside of his own son. “You are what my son loves above all else, why he refuses to return to my side.”
The rest of him stepped through the hole. He wasn’t corporeal. The snakes/tentacles were a part of him as was the ice he had inflected upon us both. The smoke had been a part of him, too. Everything about Kellan’s father was to bring suffering and pain. He was thriving on ours, and I could see that he was getting stronger because of it.
I closed my eyes. I had to block out the pain, somehow. I could get a footing then.
“You think to fight me?” He was laughing. “You are nothing. Even the great Shazaam couldn’t take me on. I am Darkness. I am Evil. You are a small shadow underneath a rock in my world.”
The ice burst through new layers inside of me, tunneling all the way to my core. He was going for my soul. That was the ultimate destination for him.