War for the Skies (completed) (Book 1 of the Heroes of the Realms series)

Chapter 23

Nothing happened for the next few minutes.

Because we could do nothing to the ghosts.

I slashed with my sword, Aurora jabbed her spear, Theo swung his axe, Lukas shot his arrows, and Skylar threw things with her mind at them, but I could tell that we couldn't hold up.

The volcano was still erupting, spilling out more and more spirits, devouring the sky in green. It wasn't a lovely sight. I blasted wind at the warrior-suited man. He got blown back, and his image wobbled, but he started approaching after her recovered.

"There's no way to take them out!" Skylar screamed over their ghoulish noises. "Find the door! If we can't escape by sundown, we'll become like them!"

I hadn't realized, but the sun was almost setting, toward the west.

We split up, and looked for the door. Since no one knew what the heck was going on, I got partnered with Lukas, who was running, while shooting ghosts with his bow, which showed no success.

I just focused on running, since I knew all I could do was deflect their weapon hits, so I didn't want to waste my energy on working with them.

I couldn't feel any type of energy near any house I was, all I could sense was the ghoulish aura around us.

We continued running from house to house, with ghosts trying to throw ninja stars -though I had no idea what ninjas had to do with Rome- slashed at us with swords, and threw rotten eggs in our faces.

All of us met up at the base of the volcano, which glowed such a sickly shade of green, my face became the same color.

"No luck," Theo shook his head, panting.

"Us too," Aurora pointed at Skylar then herself.

I shook my head.

"Well, then what can we do? We're stuck!" Lukas screamed and threw his hands in the air.

One ghostly grandmother slapped me with a metal tray. I knocked the tray out of her hands, and pushed her far back with the wind. Most of the spirits had lost us in the small town, but a few were coming up to say hello.

Then the volcano stopped. A giant spirit, the easily twenty feet tall, poured out of the volcano, and landed straight in front of us. He looked like the Grim Reaper, if he were real, with his staff, the hood.

He spun his weapon and then leaned on it.

"Well, well," he chuckled under his breath. His voice sounded low, evil, but also hollow. "Five brave Heroes set on a quest for... I'm guessing the Hall of Pandora?"

"None of your-"

I was cut off, when he instantly shrunk to an average male adult size, and also transformed into a human, instead of a green translucent ghost. Without the aura, he could me noticed easier. He had a skull mask on- which looked more like an animal skull than a human- with a dark hood, covering his face, but revealing his chest, where grenades and daggers hung from cords wrapped around him. He had huge black cowboy boots and gray jeans.

"Oh it is my business, since you have passed my territory," he touched my chin with the blade of his reaper axe. "And I will not let you leave here without some explanation."

"Perhaps over tea?" Skylar said, smiling at the man.

I couldn't decide if he smiled back, because of the mask, but he replied with, "Yes, an excellent idea, clever girl. Let's have some tea."

Drinking tea in the middle of a volcano full of dead souls was never on my bucket list, and never would have been, but I did it anyway.