The sphere in my hand jumped, and I knew I had seconds before it released the energy it contained. I focused on Talin and let it go. I felt the aftereffects of the energy in my palm, as it left my hand and slammed into the unsuspecting Talin.
He turned in my direction at the last second, a look of surprise on his face as the orb punched into his chest, blasting him through the nearby wall, destroying it. Rubble from the damage fell into the Talin-shaped hole, covering his body.
Grey laughed at the scene, except I knew it wasn’t Grey. His laugh sounded like a blending of several laughs. Some were high pitched, others were low, but all of them creeped me the hell out.
It looked like Grey, but it was someone…something else.
Something incredibly powerful and lethal.
“Cursed one,” Grey said in his blended voice, turning his head from the newly redecorated wall and looking at me. His eyes fluctuated from deep red to solid black. Waves of power washed off him. “Have you come to play?”
I shook my head slowly.
“Not even a little bit,” I said slowly, backing up. “Is that you, Grey?”
“My vessel is present.” Grey narrowed his eyes at me. “You hold a part of me within? Fascinating.”
Then Scary Grey smiled.
Oh, shit.
The rubble started to shift, and I saw dark energy form around the debris.
“I’m just going to….you know”—I thumbed over my shoulder and headed back to the stairs—“leave this way.”
“Leave me, cursed one,” Creepy Grey answered, as more tendrils shot out from the sword and into the debris. I heard Talin scream. “We will meet again…soon.”
“Not too soon, I hope,” I said under my breath, as I rushed down the stairs, pulling the trap door closed behind me and nearly crashing into Jessikah. “That’s going to give me nightmares for a few years.”
I saw the fear in her eyes.
“How did you…?” she asked. “What…what are you?”
“Right now? I’m in a rush to get away from this place. You can stay and ‘help’ all you want, but I can guarantee you that Grey, or whatever that is up there, doesn’t need our help.”
“Did he release her?” Jessikah asked as she ran behind me. “Did he release the sword?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said, picking up the pace. “I didn’t see her. All I saw was Scary Grey with black tendrils all around him, and enough power pouring out of him to melt my brain.”
“That was Izanami,” Jessikah said. “I’ve only read the reports, but I didn’t think it was true. She’s a goddess contained within the sword. The sword is sentient and dangerous.”
“I agree on both parts,” I said, still moving fast. “I’m sure Talin agrees, too. He was getting his ass kicked. He probably still is, or he’s dead by now. It didn’t look like Scary Grey was in a hurry to finish him off.”
“If Talin doesn’t escape, she will feed on him.”
“That sounds like a horrible way to go,” I said. “Better Talin than us.”
Jessikah glanced back when we reached another set of stairs at the end of the tunnel.
“They will blame the Night Warden for Henry’s death.”
“I wish them luck trying to make that stick,” I said moving to the stairs. “Grey isn’t in the mood right now to take anything but lives.”
I climbed the stairs two at time. Another door sealed the top of the stairs, and I really hoped it didn’t require some special rune sequence to open. That would defeat the purpose of this being an emergency exit.
I pushed on the door and it barely budged. I pushed again, shoving my shoulder into the door, and it flew open.
A pair of hands grabbed me, the world flashed white, and everything disappeared.
FIFTEEN
“What the hell?” I said as I looked around. “Where am I?”
I was standing in the middle of a mid-sized, green lawn. Surrounding the perimeter of the lawn were large stone globes covered with symbols. Each one pulsed with a subtle white energy. The symbols on the surface moved and rotated slowly around each of the spheres.
“What did you do?” a vaguely familiar voice asked. “Really?”
“You said you needed to speak to him,” another voice replied. “Here he is.”
“I didn’t say right this moment,” the first voice answered with a sigh. “You plucked him out of his stream?”
I didn’t see anyone, but I was hearing voices, which meant I could be going through a few scenarios.
I might still be in the tunnel, and had begun spontaneously hallucinating—a strong possibility after meeting Scary Grey.
Another option was that I somehow made it out of the tunnel, but had been immediately blindsided by a taxicab—not entirely beyond the realm of possibility in my city. If that was the case, I was currently in a bed at Haven and this was all a fever dream. A really vivid fever dream.
Option three was that my brain had finally had enough, had packed its bags and left the building, leaving me to ponder my madness in the middle of a green lawn with glowing globes around me. However, I was really lucid for someone who had just disconnected his brain from reality.
It’s true, I had no context—it’s not like I lost my mind on a regular basis—so I had nothing to compare it against, but this didn’t feel like madness. Not any more than my usual days, that is.
“What did you expect me to do?” the second voice said. “Did you see what he did?”
“Of course I saw,” the first voice said with a chuckle. “The Night Warden is going to be so pissed at him.”
“I’m glad you find this entertaining, sir,” the second voice answered. “His progression is in flux.”
“It’s his signature. He hasn’t used the totem. This is troublesome.”
“Hello?” I said, taking a chance I hadn’t completely lost my
