Total pages in book: 139
Estimated words: 130619 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 653(@200wpm)___ 522(@250wpm)___ 435(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 130619 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 653(@200wpm)___ 522(@250wpm)___ 435(@300wpm)
I breathe out, relieved for all of a moment before instinct has me looking to my right and rotating to find a man standing there—tall, dark, and quite handsome if not for the yellow of his eyes. Werewolf, I think, but he’s been here so long, he doesn’t even remember how to disguise his eyes. Silver in the heart, I remind myself from my studies, and I spellcast a silver casing over my blade.
“Pretty lady,” he says, inching closer to me, and this is where things get dangerous. I have to be close to him to kill him.
I bury my nerves and rift to stand behind him, but he’s already gone. I whip around to find him perched on a boulder, half-man, half-wolf now. He all but flies off the boulder toward me, and I rift away from him, but he’s fast, so fast, and seems to anticipate my moves. I hit the ground, and he hits me, blasting me backward, my back to the ground as he snarls in my face.
I drive my blade into his heart, or I try and miss. He roars, and his teeth reach for my face—the damn thing wants to eat me. I yank out my blade and rift, climbing onto his hairy back, magically sending my blade to my sheath and replacing it with a sword I drive into his heart. He dissolves into ash.
I use my magic to wash away the ash and stand, ridding myself of the sword and drawing my dagger again, the confidence I’d hungered for starting to form inside me. I move on to the next demon, and the next, my skill and magic flourishing. And then, it happens. A giant serpent slithers toward me, eyes yellow and round as egg yolks but shiny, and I feel a wave of sickness overtake me.
I don’t know how to kill it.
I don’t know how to kill it.
I rift and reappear with a sword in my hand, and it’s already in front of me. I swipe at it, and it dodges and weaves, its long black tongue flickering about disgustingly. I slash it with my blade, and oh my God—it multiplies. It’s two serpents now. I rift to the top of a high rock formation—really high, twenty feet off the ground—and the serpents don’t just slither toward me at rocket speed, they start multiplying in mass.
I can’t breathe. I can’t think. I call out to Micah. Please! Help me!
He doesn’t answer, and I try again to call him, and finally I say, If I live, I will never forgive you for this.
The snakes are halfway to me now, and anything I can think of to battle them, I fear, might make them multiply even more than they already have. There are hundreds of them now, and my heart is pounding against my rib cage. They are close, so very close, and I wait until they are all but on top of me, and I rift away, only to find more of them all around me. Fear overwhelms me, desperation and the desire to live drive me. The magic from the blade radiates through me, fire breathes its hot breath along my nerve endings, and my hands fly up, flames shooting out of them as I rotate and hit all the snakes, over and over and over again, until they are all ash. No more snakes.
When it’s over, I pant, trying to catch my breath, and once I do, anger and hurt ripple through me. Micah sent me in here to face this. He knew what would come for me. I charge toward the exit, somehow knowing the way back when I’m not even sure where I’ve traveled, and not one more demon dares approach me. When I reach the barrier, the gate opens for me, and I step out to stand in front of Micah. “I’m not sure how you thought making me your enemy was in any of our best interests.”
“I’m not your enemy. I’m the man who just gave you the power to walk out of here and not only survive but save worlds in the process.”
“There were other ways to do it.”
“We could have stayed here for months, and you wouldn’t have overcome your fear until it was forced on you.”
“We will never be the same,” I say, and rift to the bay, where the diamonds glistening in crystal blue water offer me an escape from the darkness.
I spellcast away my clothes and wade into the water, letting it wash away the demon blood, letting it make me whole again, but it cannot make me and Micah whole again.
The Sacred Book of Nephilim
Everything is connected, even good and evil.
Chapter forty-six
His betrayal is a monster with fangs and poison blood.
I feel betrayed by Micah, deceived by the one person I’d come to trust, despite a world that has woven a tale for me rich with lies. I know I needed to test my skills and learn to use my fire, but the way Micah tricked me into entering the Underbelly, leaving me there alone, is what has me tied in knots. I have no desire to see or speak to him, and thankfully, he keeps his distance. I’m not even certain of what I feel for him right now, aside from anger.