Suffocate In Spirit - Shadows of the Night 4

Chapter 11

Hi!

I hope you had a great weekend! Mine was, but as always it was over too soon. Anyway, it's not Monday yet, and it's time for another update. It was fun writing this one, hope you like it. I loved reading your theories about what was going to happen - some of them were very good and damn close to the real thing! Thank you all for reading :-)

Lara

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Chapter 11

The screams tore into my consciousness, rocked me out of a daze of greater proportions. Sickness. Faintness. The twisted feeling of reverted freefall and disorientation. My body tidal-washed and segmented.

I righted myself, fighting the urge to lie back down again and simply close my eyes. I stopped and stared. Blinked.

My vision was disintegrating. Fading particles of blue, threads that came from heaven and made their way to the ground with unmatched speed. I blinked again and the threads turned into rain. Reality, in all its terrifying beauty, crashed and pummeled into me, knocking my mind back and forth.

The rogue witch who attacked me before was lying on the asphalt ten feet beside me, coughing and sputtering water. He looked like a drowning victim come back to life. The realization came while I watched him vomit water onto the street.

This was my doing. I used the element of water. Again.

The ring of rogues was still there, shadowed faces watching in silence. Staring at me.

"He was right," thin-and-gangly said in voice so low, it barely broke into my consciousness. He was watching the rogue I'd hurt with narrowed eyes. Until his gaze went back to me. "You're gonna pay for this." He jerked his neck, a vague motion pointing towards me. "Take her."

I pushed myself from the ground. The world spun and turned like a defective, dizzying carousel. My stomach heaved and lurched forward as if it had been caught and swept up in a wild tide, a boat rocking back and forth in a deadly sea storm. Pain whirled in my system, raging and raving.

I fisted my hands at my sides, focused on the ring of rogue witches until the world righted itself. I wasn't going to come with them willingly. I was going to fight them. Even if it meant going back into that dark place again.

I would have done so. But sometimes a small flap of a butterfly can cause death and destruction in another place and another time. Sometimes, when chance meets fate, one situation can turn into something else within the blink of an eye. The unexpected happened. Nothing the rogue witches or I anticipated.

A change on a cellular level. From one moment to the other something in that rain-drenched street shifted. A dark force stirred and moved in like an unstoppable, natural force. A cataclysm in the making. Until I realized just what it was, three rogue witches were already on the ground. A shadow moved through the curtain of rain like a sleek bullet. Swift and inhumanly fast.

I turned and watched the fourth rogue fall. I turned again and peered into the dark shadows behind me. There was nothing my eyes could detect, just that feeling I couldn't put a name on.

"Regroup," one of the rogue witches shouted.

The remaining Inri Brotherhood members formed a circle, back to back. They scanned the darkness around them, splaying their fingers wide. Blue-tinged electricity spread from one finger to the other, a tide of power rising like a bewitching singsong.

The shadow moved, a blur in the landscape of rain, and plunged right into the circle of rogues. I blinked. There were only two left. Whatever had torn into their formation took two rogues with it.