Most likely tired of my gabbing, the Automaton advanced toward me again. I sighed with annoyance. Why couldn’t these things just be content with kicking my ass? Why did they have to capture me and return me to Hephaestus, too?
Now desperate and out of options, I scanned my surroundings in search of my last resort—a shadow. You remember that one song from the ‘90s, I think? Da, da, dah, no breathing, this is my last resort. Is that how it went? Never mind. It’s not important right now.
It was later in the afternoon than yesterday’s encounter with the other Automaton, and the dark pools stretched all around me. A car drove by, holding its horn, alerting me that I stood too close to the street. Well, not just me. The Automaton had stepped off the sidewalk to join me in the bike lane.
I crab stepped—which is flower language for moving sideways—to a shadow cast by a building rising above us. My mind raced. I’d accessed the mysterious and unexplained shadow power three times. Twice against Medea—once as a shield and once as an attack to kill her. Then yesterday morning I’d used it to teleport. Last night, with Dakota’s terrible assistance, I’d failed miserably.
So, what was the worst that could happen?
I stood under the shade of the building and reached for that elusive, mysterious power that I had no idea how to access. And I felt it within me. How do I explain this to a Sheep? Cue the thinking noises of a clicking tongue.
Okay.
The power was like being trapped in frigid water beneath a layer of ice. You could see the distorted version of people standing above you and the trees and the warm sun, and you could taste the gallons of oxygen just outside the ice, but you couldn’t access any of it unless you located that one exit point. I was trapped in a human body that had evolved beyond magic—but I knew I could find the power and access it. Hephaestus had once led me out of the dark, frigid water and allowed me to breathe. Now, with his blessing expired, I was trapped again, but I saw through to the other side. I just needed to find a way out.
Desperate, I found a crack in the icy lining and placed my lips to it, breathing in the dark, cold power. The depths of it were vast—untapped and terrifying, yet with an allure, a beauty that tempted me to shatter through the ice despite the imminent danger. Magic—not filtered through a Nephil—corrupted the human soul and twisted the mind. If I just broke through the barrier, I might shock my body and go insane, or die. I had to allow myself the time to slowly acclimate to my new condition.
The shadows around me turned palpable. They had substance and form within the darkness. I reached out my hand and grabbed a spike three feet in length, similar to the one I’d used to slay Medea. Similar to the one every vampire hunter in every movie has ever used to slay a vampire—except it was made of shadow and not wood. Holding the black, cold spike felt like holding ice.
As the Automaton stepped within range, I didn’t hesitate. I drove the point of the shadowed stake through the Cursed’s skull. The tip punched out the other side, dripping ichor and brain matter onto the street. Amazed and frightened and shocked at what I’d just done, I did the first thing that popped into my head.
I stepped into another shadow and disappeared.
8
Check out this bullshit.
Unable to control my shiny-new teleportation ability, I appeared right back in Xander’s office through a shadow thrown by his desk. I would have surrendered my heart and soul to his Lord and Savior Jesus Christ had I caught him with a bottle of lotion and an old gym sock and something nasty muted on the computer screen. Unfortunately, life doesn’t always provide lemons for your lemonade. Sometimes, you’re just stuck with a pitcher of flat water. He sat behind the computer, with his neck craned and his eyes squinted—both of his hands on the keyboard for God and me to see.
“You know,” I said, watching him about leap out of his chair and draw his Beretta, fixing that bad girl’s spitter right on my face, “I hope you not only go blind from squinting at that screen, but that you also acquire a hunchback and a spinal problem from slumping forward like that. It’s terrible posture.”
“What—how—“ he sputtered in a fearful voice, placing his weapon, placing on the bulky desk. “Did you teleport again? On purpose?”
I ignored his question, still angry at him. I headed toward the sofa and sat down, the afternoon sun glaring through the window, warming my back. Henrietta remained in pieces on the couch cushion. I picked them up with my good hand and continued cleaning my baby in an awkward fashion. Xander eyeballed me the entire time. I wondered what ran through his thick excuse for a brain.
“I don’t have to talk to you,” I said. “So, quit looking at me like a father who just realized his college-aged daughter is a woman after all.”
I was riding a high from expending my power. My body sang with fake pleasure, shoving the black pain of my injuries into a pink ocean of bliss. That reason right there was why most Sorcerers went rogue. They chased a high that ascended them into clouds beyond the reach of any alcohol or drug. Though I was still pretty enraged by Xander’s decision to abandon Gladas’s lead, I had a hard time not spilling everything to
