A&D Book 1: Amulets & Demons (Editing Slowly)

Chapter 17 (Part 2)

Adrian's POV

I lunged towards two of the ice things, stabbing both through the chest. Both of them fell to the ground and collapsed.

A sword was brought down towards me, and I brought my claws up defensively. They were stuck in chunks of ice, and the impact of the blade shattered the chunks. I kicked his chest, and he crashed back into other soldiers. He ended up getting impaled by something, and fell apart.

To my right, I heard a scream, a scream unlike any I had heard before, a scream of death. At first I thought it was just Sarah freaking out from losing more hair. But the reality was much worse.

Jace had been captured by two of the ice guys. A blade was poised at his neck, ready to strike. In panic, I launched one of my blades at the guy with the sword, but it never hit its target.

Without warning, the both of them shattered. Nothing happened, they just shattered. The noise it made was awful, like glass breaking on other glass. The screaming also stopped too. I'm pretty sure everyone stopped fighting to look at what happened.

Jace swayed for a few seconds on his knees, then stiffened. He stood up and looked around him.

"What happened?" He asked, giving us all a look. I raised an eyebrow questioningly at him, and he responded with an even more questioning look.

After a second, Jace stumbled and collapsed onto his back. He was rushed by 10 of the soldiers soon afterwards. I started rushing after them, but stopped after I saw him reach for his sword.

Without warning, Jace rolled backwards and landed in a one of those positions you get in before a race starts. He pushed off with his back foot, and launched five feet towards the nearest enemy, cleaving it right through the middle with his sword.

I couldn't see much after that, but all I know was that he was tearing through those guys like nobody's buisiness. It was like a whole new Jace. He was faster, stronger, and more agile.

Looking at the ice guys, they seemed to fight a lot like the demons. They weren't really good at their job, but they tried to cover it up with sheer numbers. They didn't have very many numbers.

After about, I'd say five minutes, every ice guy was lying broken on the floor. I grabbed my claw out of the wall and shoved it into my backpack, reminding myself to put it back in later.

I walked over to Jace, who was inspecting a shard of ice. He began tossing it up and down as he looked at me and said, "How do you think those guys... lived? It's completely crazy."

"I have no idea." I replied. "Hey, are you okay? What you did back there was-"

"I feel great! Are you kidding?" He shouted, attracting the attention of the others. "I feel so light, so fast. Oh my God, and my headache's gone too! It's amazing! Give me some!" He held out his fist for a fist bump.

I gave him one, and instantly regretted it. It was like I was stung by a bee, it hurt. I started shaking my hand violently, like that might somehow make it better. Fun fact: It doesn't.

Jace gave me a concerned look and said, "Are you okay man?" He placed a hand on my shoulder, and I was hit with an invisible jackhammer there. I rolled on my back and said, "You got a tazer in your hand or something?"

Katilyn ran over and said, "Fascinating." She scanned Jace with some random device she had in her backpack.

"I'm seeing high volts of electricity all throughout his body," Katilyn said, looking towards me. "I belive you were right: he does have a tazer in his hand."

"Lightning powers?" Allani asked. "That's awesome! Give me one!" He held out his fist to Jace, who gave him one. Allani began vibrating with electricity, and collapsed onto his back. "Sweeeeeeeeet," He moaned.

Jace broke into a wide grin. "Lightning powers. I can work with this." In a matter of seconds, he had sprinted to the other exit and was shouting, "C'mon, let's go!" Sarah sighed, and we all made our way to the other side of the cave.

The other side of the cave wasn't much different than the first side. Thick ice, not very cold, not much new happening.

We began traveling down the hallway, watching out for ice shards or ice things trying to kill us. Basically the norm at this point. The tunnel was just as bright at the cave, if not brighter.

As we went on, it started to get colder, like we were slowly walking into a freezer. After a few seconds, I was able to see my own breath.

"It's the middle of August, this can't be possible." Allani said, shaking.

Sarah looked at him dumbfounded and said, "We just fought living things made out of ice. This is what you're confused about?"

After that, we continued walking in silence. We kept like that for about five minutes before we heard a loud crack.

We scanned the entire pathway, trying to find where it came from. A lot more cracks came soon after. We soon saw that the cracks were up and down the hallway, and they all seemed to come together to form several human-like forms.

One of those, which was right next to us, broke from the wall and fell to the ground. It didn't break, though. It just kind of... lay there, face-first.

About 30 others, up and down the hall, did same thing. It was creepy, having 30 ice people just laying in the middle of the floor. It was even creepier when they got up.

They all did it at the same time, like they were some wierd sci-fi clone army. They probably were, for all I knew.

Once they had all stood up, they turned to look at us. Without hesitation, they ran towards us, arms out to grab us.

"Run!" Jace yelled, and Sarah, Allani, Katilyn and him ran down the hallway. I, on the other hand stood my ground.

Once the first one got within a foot of me, I put my hands up and started a fire. It glowed a hot red, and burned straight through the chest of the first ice guy. The walls were glowing from the heat of my flames.

My fire tore through about a dozen of them before my fire went out. I just didn't have the energy to go start another one. Since I couldn't burn them, I ended up doing the next best thing: tear through them.

My claws lodged themselves into one of the guys, and I threw him into another one of them, shattering both. They were surprisingly light.

A body bumped into my back, and I heard Jace say, "It looks just as bad on this side."

The bodies closed in, far too many to hold off all at once. All five of us packed together, continuing to fight off all of them.

Just as I was about to be grabbed by them, I heard an engine growling in the distance...