A Touch Of Lightning (COMPLETED!)

Chapter 46 Torn Apart

       

Chapter 46 Torn Apart

The Torn, prowling like nightmares amidst the shadows, suddenly paused as they felt an approaching telepath. The three of them linked deeper, despite the pain, and with an evil hiss that echoed unnaturally through the woods, they prepared to do battle. They were not afraid. There was no telepath on earth they feared.

"Hello, Hunters." Jacob said mildly, his telepathic voice calm and solid, as if he weren't just touching minds with madness itself.

The Torn darted into a circle, blood flying from their bodies to splatter on the leaves, and wherever it landed, the leaves began to turn gray and crumble. As if something were sucking the very essence of them into never ending darkness.

The Torn twisted and weaved, so fast it looked like a single motion, working in perfect harmony, until all of their limbs, their bloody skin strips, and their powers, were concentrated and woven into one.

They were a grotesque circle of arms and legs on the ground, like a twelve legged spider with six heads facing out in every direction.

"You are incomplete. You are our Weaver, our Ender. Where is our Healer?" The Torn whisper-sent, their combined telepathic voice carried on the writhing winds of insanity.

Jacob anchored his mind within every intense memory he and the girls had, holding tight against the storm battering at his very core. The Torn were not attacking. Just speaking telepathically with them would be enough to flay apart the mind of just about anyone. He doubted he could bear to speak telepathically with them if it weren't for the strength he was borrowing from Raina and Carmen.

"We don't understand. Show us these three you seek." He sent back, once he could bring his thoughts into some semblance of control.

It was perhaps not the best question to ask, as immediately the Torn sent a flood, a consuming torrent, a tidal wave of images entwined with emotion and sensation, to both him and the girls. This time, he used his focus to hold the girls tight to his mind, relying on his own seemingly limitless depths of power, for only the second time in his life daring to reach into that seething well and pull it into his mind.

His walls held, blocking the flood. But now he found himself more curious than ever. He had managed to catch some glimpses during that flood. Momentary images of Carmen, Mirage, and Callin.

"Walls. We show, you block?" The Torn sent, their mental voices somehow seeming to hiss, even though there was no sound when speaking telepathically. Their displeasure was beyond frightening.

"We cannot bear the full force of your minds. Can you filter your thoughts, perhaps?" Jacob quickly sent back, sending the Torn a mental image of the damage their mental voices was capable of.

The Torn shifted slightly as they heard the remaining Flayers suddenly howl in demented harmony, a demonic sound filled with feral victory. The Torn could see Callin in the center of their circle, on his knees, unmoving.

"Fragile. Interesting. Use walls now. Flayers led us here to our Ending, now we Unravel them." The Torn said.

He barely had time to grab the girl's minds and his own and bury them within the sea of his power before the world went black. It was like being surrounded by weaving, waving bands of blackness. Bands that destroyed whatever they touched. They darted around him, deflected by his shield, but etching into it all the same. And even surrounded by Chaos, even surrounded by his shield, Jacob and the girls felt the Flayers begin to scream.

It was over almost as soon as it began. Silence descended suddenly, so unexpected that it felt like a physical blow. Jacob and girls separated, back into their own bodies, opening their eyes in sick anticipation. They didn't know what to expect, but they all felt as if they were about to witness the end of all things and the beginning of infinity.