Nightmare Realm Summoner

Alex was still midway through letting out a slew of curses when the ring of white flame searing into his wrist blinked out of being as quickly as it had formed. He yanked his hand out from the dark lake, the lingering traces of the pain still stinging his mind.

His wrist looked exactly as it had a few moments ago. Even though he could have sworn he’d seen his flesh warping and melting under the paradoxically freezing heat of the fire, his skin had become smooth and unburnt once again. It was as if nothing had happened. There wasn’t even any more pain in his arm. It was all contained to his mind, burning within his memories alone.

Alex glared up at Berith, grabbing at his hand and running a hand over it to make sure there wasn’t some kind of illusion hiding the damage. He could find nothing. It really did feel as if nothing had happened.

But he wasn’t anywhere naïve enough to believe that to be true.

“What did you do to me?” Alex asked.

“Exactly what you asked me to,” Berith replied. The demon watched him from where he sat several paces away. And that, more than anything else, set Alex on edge.

He hadn’t come anywhere close to touching Berith. The restraints should have kept him from closing the distance between them. But, even in spite of the heavy white chains, Berith had somehow done something to him.

Berith can affect me at a range. He’s never done anything like that before. I thought those chains would keep him from being a threat until they broke completely, but reaching Adept must have changed something. Shit. Is it possible he was just holding himself back?

Alex dismissed that possibility almost instantly. It made little sense for Berith to hide this ability all the way up until now, only to reveal it for something relatively inconsequential. No, this was new.

And Berith had gotten it because he’d gotten stronger.

Which means the more powerful I become… the stronger Berith gets as well. I can’t just keep him contained and push off our fight up until the day all his chains shatter and we fight for real. He’s going to be able to start affecting things more and more.

“Is something wrong?” Berith asked, amusement dripping from his words. “I only gave you what you asked for, Alex. You should be thanking me.”

“I don’t see much of anything at all beyond a threat,” Alex replied. “But it’s not going to work. You need me alive — and I do what I want. I’m nobody’s pawn. Not yours, and not the System’s. You don’t control me. You never will.”

“Good,” the demon replied simply. A warning note entered his voice as it dropped an octave, power thrumming through every word like the beat of a massive heart. “I do not want a pawn. I do not needone. That holds no interest to me. What I want is a challenge. And I will sooner break you and let this fragment of myself return to nothingness than I would let you sully the chances of me getting that.”

Neither of them spoke for a long second. Then Alex set his jaw.

“What did you even give me? I don’t feel any different.”

“Nothing that wasn’t already in your soul,” Berith replied. He settled back against his chains, his voice returning to normal. “Just a little taste. Think of it as an appetizer to keep you focused on the main course to come. But I would suggest bringing our little conversation to an end. It’s been fun, but my patience runs thin… and you’re out of time.”

“I’m out of time?” Alex asked, his eyes narrowing. “What’s that meant to mean?”

“It means,” Berith replied, a wry note of amusement curling through his words like hazy smoke, “that somebody with a rather nice weapon is about to put it to use by driving it through your skull. Should be pretty soon. Right after he finishes off that other Incarnation traveling with you.”

Alex’s eyes went wide.

Shit! We’re under attack?

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Then he thrust himself from his Mind Palace without another word, Berith’s laughter following him all the way back to the real world.

His eyes snapped open just in time to see a form blur past him like a meteor. He caught a brief glimpse of the dozen or so weapons protruding from their form before they shot past him. A resounding crash echoed through the room.

Derek dropped down to the ground, coils of black smoke twisting up from his body like a snuffed candle. He fell face-forward to the stone. Many of the weapons protruding from his body were shattered and broken.

The berserker didn’t rise again. His chest moved in large, heavy snores that threatened to shake the room.

He was asleep.

And that meant somebody had been strong enough to defeat him enough times to run his magic out.

Alex thrust himself upright, drawing on his magic as he spun in search of whoever had just attacked Derek. The blood drained from his face in the brief instant he had to register everything around him.

The scene around the room was bad. Swathes of color painted the ground as if someone had dropped an entire pallet paint. Alyssa was slumped against the wall, her huge brush on the ground beside her.

Wess was just a few feet away from her. He was out cold, a huge cut running from his right shoulder all the way down to the top of his hip. Blood had soaked into his clothes and pooled around him. He wasn’t dead yet — his chest still rose and fell with weak breaths — but he was down for the count.

Standing in the center of the room, her wings arched behind her, was Claire. Her thorned black whip coiled at her side.

And across from her was Absolution.

The bald man watched her with dead, black eyes, his scythe held in a casual grip at his side. He sported a number of deep lacerations across his chest and a savage-looking cut across one eye.

There was even a dagger lodged near the hole in the center of his chest that he hadn’t bothered removing. It didn’t seem like he’d even noticed it. Despite all the wounds, there wasn’t a flicker of fear in his stance. He observed Claire silently.

Alex didn’t waste an instant longer. He blurred into motion, drawing deeply on his magic. His monsters were still dead — he’d kept them that way in case they ran into someone from one of the Great Families — but his power reserves were filled to the brim.

The ground blurred beneath him as his step took him nearly twice as far as he’d expected it to. Alex nearly lost his footing, his sudden speed foreign to his body, but he managed to catch himself and skidded to a stop beside Claire, power hissing through his body like a snake rising up to strike.

“You took your time,” Claire said as she fought to catch her breath. “What took you so long? We’ve been fighting for nearly ten minutes!”

“Why didn’t you wake me up?” Alex hissed. Adrenaline pumped through his veins as he watched Absolution warily, but the other man hadn’t made a move forward. He just watched them silently, his dark eyes unreadable.

“We tried,” Claire said. “You were out cold. We didn’t exactly have the luxury of sitting around to coax you up. Absolution showed up out of nowhere.”

“You are in an Ancestry,” Absolution said. “Your defenses should have been better. And you certainly shouldn’t have been meditating while so unprotected… and separating from the boy will make you easier to kill, Dhampir.”

Alex blinked.

Holy shit. He actually believes the disguise? I know the mask is changing the way I sound, but damn. Absolution is one of the few people that knows us well enough to actually have a chance at realizing who I am.

I might have to give Barb a raise — though the chances of us getting through this fight without him realizing who I am aren’t very high. I don’t know if there’s any chance of defeating him without going all out and giving myself up.

Not having my monsters is going to make this really difficult.

“And yet you’ve still failed to kill me. That seems to be becoming a habit,” Claire said. “You’re weaker than I thought, Absolution. For someone who should have been so far ahead… you still can’t kill a few weak Nativeworlders.”

“You are not worth the risk of expending more energy,” Absolution said simply. He raised his scythe and purple-black energy slithered along the blade’s length. “It is preferrable to conserve my strength for more powerful enemies. Your death is already inevitable.”

Shit. How do we handle this? If I use my domain, Absolution will know who I am in an instant. I’m not confident we can actually beat him. Half our group is down and Claire has been fighting a while without me.

But if I don’t go all out, he might just kill us. What do I—

And then something prickled against his right wrist. It was in the exact spot where the white flame had burned it. In an instant, power brushed across his mind. It was familiar but strange, as if it were something he’d seen before but never quite touched. But there was one thing he was absolutely certain about.

It was strong.

Berith.

He could feel the demon’s presence like an oily patch of death staining into his soul. Alex could practically picture the excited look in Berith’s eyes. The demon had promised him a weapon. It seemed that he wanted Alex to make use of it.

Alright, Berith. I’ll play your game. Show me what you’ve got.

As the demon’s laughter grew louder, echoing through the back of his mind, Alex reached for the new power lurking within him.

And the magic responded.