Sepia Blue- Nightmare: A Sepia Blue Novel- Book 3 Page 15
“You bastard!” Wake screamed. “I swear I’ll find you and end you.”
“Not likely,” he said. “I kept my word, and gave her the birthright. She wasn’t supposed to have bonded with an artifact. Nothing I could do about that.”
“Help her—you can stop this,” Wake said and slammed a fist against the barrier. “I’ll kill you.”
“Thank you for this”—he held up the receptacle with the artifact—“this was the only way I would’ve gotten this much.”
“You planned this from the start,” Wake said.
He gave her a short nod. “Either way I win. If she’s a Nightmare Lord, she’ll be the strongest one in the history of the Unholy. No ward will stop her and she’ll destroy the Order. If she is the Jade Demon, it will overpower her and she will go on a rampage, killing everything—starting with you two and ending with the Order.”
“Why? Why do this to her?” Wake asked. “She never hurt you.”
“She and her kind represent all that is wrong with the Order and our world,” he said. “I think it’s time for a fresh start. I told you she was my weapon.”
The room he stood in began to fade.
“We won’t meet again, Sister,” he said. “And if we do, I’ll kill you.”
“Not if I kill you first,” Wake said, staring. “Run while you can.”
He closed the door and the barrier disappeared. Jas ran to the door and opened it only to find an empty room. The thousands of books that had filled the space seconds before were gone.
“Damn, he’s gone,” Jas said. “He took the artifact.”
Behind them, the screaming intensified. They took cover behind a large bookcase made of solid marble.
“I don’t think she’s leaning to the demon end of things,” Jas said, her voice trembling. “I don’t know how a demon of any kind is supposed to make me feel better than a Nightmare Lord.”
Wake calmly checked her guns and knives. “We can’t let her leave here like that,” she said. “You’re a Sister, and we have a job to do.”
“But that’s Sepia,” Jas said.
“That was Sepia,” Wake said. “If she gets out, she’ll kill everyone. You heard him—she’s stronger than any Nightmare Lord in history. That’s not Sepia anymore. I don’t know what she is.”
Jas took a deep breath and tried to calm down.
“I just want to say,” she started, “this isn’t what I had in mind when I became a Sister. This totally sucks.”
“Technically, you’re still a trainee,” Wake said and smiled. “When you shoot, make sure you shoot to kill.”
The screaming stopped suddenly.
“You think she calmed down?” Jas asked.
A roar filled the room as the air charged with energy. Wake grabbed Jas and shoved her out from behind the bookcase. A hole four feet across punched through, obliterating the stone.
“That’s a no,” Jas said, short of breath. “I’m ready.”
They rolled out of the cover and fired their guns. Explosive rounds smashed into the creature that used to be Sepia. When the smoke cleared, the creature remained where she stood—untouched. They jumped back behind a wall.
“Shit, those were ex-rounds,” Jas said. “Any other ideas?”
“If the rounds didn’t scratch her, blades are useless,” Wake answered. “We need the equivalent of a nuke.”
“Sorry, I forgot to pack one of those,” Jas said and smiled. “We’re screwed, aren’t we?”
“Do you remember where the Hall passage was?” Wake asked. “Downstairs?”
“Yeah, but you said there was no way to use it again,” Jas answered. “Besides, I’m not leaving you here alone with that thing.”
Wake grabbed her hand and traced a design in it. She did it again several times.
“Do it on my hand, now,” she said. “Again.”
Jas traced the designs as tears began falling down her face.
“Good, you get downstairs and press those exact designs in that exact order,” Wake said. “I saw Fuma do it several times when his wardlings came.”
“What about you?” Jas asked, knowing the answer.
“I’m going to have a conversation with that thing,” Wake said, pointing in the direction of the creature. “When I get her attention, you run for the passage. Understand?”
“No, I don’t.”
“Someone has to warn the others,” Wake said. “You get to Anna and you tell her everything that happened here. Tell them to get ready. Somehow I don’t think she’ll stay down here too long.”
Wake stepped out of cover and faced a wall. Jas stood to run but found herself trapped behind the same wall. Before they could react, the wall surrounded them rose. It closed into a dome around them.
“What is this?” Wake asked.
She tapped her gun against the wall and was bounced back against the other wall. She landed, sprawled and out of breath, on the floor.
“Stay in the center and don’t touch the walls,” a familiar voice said.
“Calisto?” Jas asked. “Be careful—that creature out there used to be Sepia.”
“It still is,” she whispered as she entered the room and faced off against the creature. Long claws had replaced Sepia’s hands and scales with a slight green tinge covered her body. She was twice her normal size and rippling with muscle. Her eyes, now reptilian, gave off a green glow.
“You need to get ahold of this, Sepia,” she said. “You control it, not the other way around.”
The creature roared and raked its claws across the floor, cutting grooves through it as if it were paper. It leaped in the air and Calisto swiped the air in front of her. A wall of stone crashed into the creature and sent it flying into the far wall. Calisto released more of her power. The debris around her became weightless as the air charged with power.
Calisto unleashed a barrage of stone and forced the creature back. The creature crossed its arms and blocked the incoming projectiles. It hunched down and bounded over the barrage. Calisto was ready. She gestured and excavated a trench the size of a bus. She closed her hand and compressed the column of material. When it landed, she slammed the hardened earth into it.
The creature collapsed in the trench, face down. Calisto brought the column down several times, until she was certain it was unconscious. She opened the dome and released Wake and Jas.
“Is that what a Nightmare Lord looks like?” Jas asked.
“I don’t know,” Wake answered. “I didn’t expect the scales or claws.”
“That—is not a Nightmare Lord,” Calisto said, breathing heavily. “That is the Jade Demon.”
Sepia had turned back to normal and lay in the trench. They made their way to the bottom and Calisto clasped bronze-colored restraints on each of Sepia’s wrists.
“Are those enough?” Wake asked. “Explosive rounds did nothing to her in that scaled state.”
“Those aren’t Hunter restraints,” Calisto answered. “Those restraints were given to me by Emiko, and were specially designed to prevent that change. I just didn’t think I would need them or see that stage again.”
“Again?” Jas said. “There have been others?”
“One other—Emiko, her mother,” Calisto said. “She was the first, and I thought, last.”
“Fuma did this,” Wake said. “We couldn’t stop him. He wrapped her sword around this pendant and then pushed it into her chest.”
“You couldn’t have stopped him, but I don’t think we will see him again for some time,” Calisto said. “Let’s get her to the Keep.”
Wake and Jas picked up Sepia as Calisto traced a golden ward.
“Is that how you got here?” Wake said. “Fuma said he blocked all the ward paths.”
Calisto nodded. “A parting gift from a dangerous enemy and dear friend,” she said. “That will lead you to the Keep. Go in—Mercy is waiting. I just want to make sure what’s left of this Hall is secure.”
Wake and Jas stepped in and disappeared.
> *******
The ward floated in the air, its golden light shining over all the damage. Calisto traced an intricate ward. It pulsed with red energy as it sank slowly into the floor. Red lines crisscrossed the floor and walls of the room. They created an interconnected web of energy. Calisto looked around and nodded in satisfaction.
“Emiko, she’s taken the next step, just like you wanted,” Calisto said to the empty room and shook her head. “I can’t believe the old bastard kept his word.”
She gestured again and all the lines began to thrum with power.
“I’ll get her ready—I promise,” she said and entered the glowing ward.
End of Book Three
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This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2016 by Orlando A. Sanchez
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Orlando Sanchez has been writing ever since his teens when he was immersed in creating scenarios for playing Dungeon and Dragons with his friends every weekend. An avid reader, his influences are too numerous to list here. Some of the most prominent are: J.R.R. Tolkien, Jim Butcher, Kat Richardson, Terry Brooks, Piers Anthony, Lee Child, George Lucas, Andrew Vachss, and Barry Eisler to name a few in no particular order.
The worlds of his books are urban settings with a twist of the paranormal lurking just behind the scenes and generous doses of magic, martial arts, and mayhem.
Aside from writing, he holds a 2nd and 3rd Dan in two distinct styles of Karate. If not training, he is studying some aspect of the martial arts or martial arts philosophy.
He currently resides in Queens, NY with his wife and children and can often be found in the local Starbucks where most of his writing is done.
Please visit his site at OrlandoASanchez.com for more information about his books and upcoming releases.