The Man Who Dies for Fun

My Mistakes

Chapter Fifteen: My Mistakes

    The transformation happened so quick. My skin turned grey, red lines carving my exterior, pulsing with my heart beat. My shirt and jacket tightened from my body expanding. My mind burned with chaos.

    Sara's eyes widened, but she never got the chance to blink. Her throat split open with a red smile, Ever Heart tasting her flesh. The noise she made was gurgled with pumping blood, enough to make Dead Eye glance back. It didn't matter-- it was enough.

    My clawed hand was at his throat, lifting him up high above the ground. The magic strike that I'd hit him with was much worse than I thought, and it was obvious he was in pain. Dead Eye fumbled for his wand as his air became less and less. I broke his hand, shattering bone and skin. The soundless scream he released made me grin.

He batted weakly at my hands, and I growled. "Pathetic. To think just killing you would have made me feel good. But you went after my friend." My grip tightened. "No, a simple death is too easy. The Pool in the Pit for you. A long, torturous existence. Does that sound nice?"

Whatever he tried to say, or really think at this point, didn't matter. I said the spell, while crushing his windpipe. He died as his soul took a trip to the Pool in the Pit, a hellish nightmare that even the hardest men would never get near.

I dropped the corpse, the warlock's neck crumpled to near nothing. Blood covered my hands and arms, staining my nice jacket. Do you guys know how hard it was to remove blood from leather? Not that hard but it was annoying to do.

Hissing out a deep breath, the demon aspect went away, my mind clearing with coherent thoughts instead of pure, unfettered destruction. My nose indicated all three of my attempted killers were dead, ending my worries. I looked around, at what our fighting had done. Streaks of fire and black craters made my yard look like a warzone. Halina was standing there, on the porch, only yards away, very shocked and very afraid.

Then the realization of what I did hit me. And no, not the killings. "Halina, go back inside."

"Ditto--you--"

"Please," I said, my voice as calm as I could make it. "It's important. We will talk here soon."

I got the sense she wanted to either scold or murder me. Both fair reactions. Her dark eyes met mine, then she went back into the safety of my house.

Now that she was gone, I safely freaked the fuck out.

I reached around and broke the shaft off the arrow. Tossing the shaft into the brush, I dug my fingers into the wound, and yanked the head out. Muffling my own scream, I applied a small healing spell to stop the bleeding.

"Ahhhhhhhhhhh," I whispered as I dragged the warlock's body into the woods. I then found and put the shifters body next to it. The next spell turned them both to ash, both body and everything on them. Then I myself shifted into my mild demon form, summoned the blood off me, and flung it into the earth.

Ahhhhhhhh went through my head as I did a partial raising of Sara. A rule of necromancy is to make sure soul and flesh never combine back after one dies. But you could instead do the next dangerous thing; basically drug the soul into a state that made it think it was neither alive nor dead. The ritual to do this was complex and desperate. Time consuming. 

I did it in a minute.

Sara's body rose, and half blinked like she was stoned out of her mind. I spoke slowly. "Did anyone else know you came here?"

She shook her head. "No."

"What are the Witch's plans?"

Red Sara rubbed her head in confusion. "I--I can't remember."