A Beautiful Saviour

Chapter Eight

His shrewd eyes glared at her for a whole minute before he tipped his hat at her and left the room. She hastily called for help back to her chair when she felt her legs go weak and tears start to brim in her eyes. “I’m sorry Joseph.” She whispered into the air.

*

Joseph lifted up his hand bringing with it little rocks. He did not touch the jagged surfaces of the stones, nor feel the gritty earth on his fingers. This was his magic. It was to him so simple to lift his hand and bring with it stones. He knew he had the power to bring trees with it. To rip up the earth… And it frightened him.

                Stones were one thing; if he lost control they fell back down, they were so small that at most they would graze a little skin if they connected with someone. If he were holding a tree and lost control he would kill those under it. If he ripped up the earth he could send people falling through the cracks and down into the depths of the very planet itself.

                To fight in a suit, for Joseph, would not be completely pointless. Maybe that was what they were getting at; soldiers were naked as a rule and he would stand out and shock his opponents if he wore clothes. He was rarely seen on the battlefield anyway, by any side, he was his own man; scouting and destroying the threats.

                He rotated the floating rocks so they switched places and then plucked a flower from the ground with his mind only. He could feel the flow of magic through his veins, that current of power that slid through his blood and flesh. He had seen Niklas do extraordinary things. As a sorcerer Niklas had the magic full pelt and he had caused an earthquake in the terrible battle years previously between vampires and hounds. He had fell trees and tore the earth up but that had been his greatest feat and he had needed to concentrate whole heartedly on his task at hand. For Joseph that would be a training exercise.

                He let the flower stand in the air in the middle of the rocks so that it seemed to grow up from between them. This was, but a, whisper of his mind, of his concentration. It took up so little strength that he soon got angry. It was irritating more than anything, a niggle in his brain. He kept his darker side hidden for good reason and now they wanted him to let it out?

                The rocks dropped to the floor, the flower fluttering down after them, lighter; falling softer back down to the grass. He had the power to pull the ocean onto land and to drain seas of their water until land was in their place. No one man should have that kind of power and he had not asked for it. It had been forced onto him. No… he had developed it, out of necessity. To keep him alive.

“I have connections.”

                He whipped round falling from his perch which was a rotting tree trunk.

“Enchantress.” He acknowledged.

“I have many connections and ways of getting in touch with people. Let me train you. Let me make you into the weapon you have become.”