CHAPTER#131

"A piece of my soul?" He frowned, thinking about what Ratu had told him early. "Like a soul swap?"

No. You would willingly give me a piece of my choosing. In exchange, I would give you the next step. A doorway appeared in the stone wall. Behind it was a long tunnel that vanished into an inky void. Along this path lies a power that is rightfully yours. I could guide you from afar, speaking to you through...

"Nope." He took a step back, his heel touching the top of the stairs. "Not even an option. If you take a piece of my soul, everything gets fucked up inside my head and then you become the pilot. I already know this trick, and have since I was a kid." His mother's voice echoed briefly in his head, but he shrugged it away. He was a different person now, and no longer a scared little child. "The last thing I need is another voice trying to manipulate me."

The whispers became loud and angry, spitting like a pot of boiling water all around him.

Without me, your world will burn Mike Radley! You will watch your beloved...

Mike was already halfway down the stairs, hesitant to look back. What sort of being had he just encountered? And why did it desire a piece of his soul so strongly? Finally stepping out into the room at the bottom, he turned around to make certain that the shadow hadn't followed.

The staircase was gone, the wall smooth as if the opening hadn't existed. Wondering if it was just a dream, he stuck his hand in his pocket and closed it around the metal key fragment he had retrieved. Pulling it out, he inspected it in the gentle glow of the torches around him, and then stuck it back in his pocket.

Not a dream after all. He walked back into the bedroom and woke Ratu, then explained quietly what had happened. A troubled look crossed her face, and she got out of bed, looking at where the staircase had been.

"A staircase couldn't exist here," she explained, knocking on the stone. "This is essentially an exterior wall. Magic was involved here, and I really don't like it. No more wandering off, okay?"

"Okay," Mike promised, his wary gaze on the stone bricks.

Ratu spent a few minutes lying down magical wards, and then proclaimed the room safe enough for them to finally get some rest. She slithered back into bed, letting out a big yawn that revealed her fangs.

When he crawled back into bed, he put himself between Tink and Ratu, thinking about the vision the shadow had showed him. Had it been a vision of the future? Would it happen if he didn't take the shadow's offer, or was it just dicking with him?

Tink shifted and bit down on his arm, and Ratu wrapped her legs around his thigh. He stifled a laugh and held them close, letting the shadow's offer fade away. Maybe the world would come burning down around his ears one day, but, until then, there were more important things to hold onto.

Trying to drift away, he couldn't help but hear the shadow's words once more, as if whispered directly in his ears.

Your world will burn, Mike Radley.

…

They came again in the early hours of the morning, moving silently behind the outer wall. They triggered the wards Yuki had set, causing the kitsune to watch their approach through the window with bated breath. She could see them now, ominous shadows that peered over the wall and then vanished, gathering near the entrance for their next attack.

Yuki had spent hours building her defenses back up, her mind and body tired from the effort, hoping to catch some sleep. Now, she watched with eager anticipation, mentally daring them to come toward the house.

The shadows gathered at the entrance in a silent conference, then moved forward into the yard. When the closest figure had traveled about twenty feet, an ice dragon raised its frosted head and bellowed, summoning a storm of ice and snow that blasted the intruders. The dark figures in the yard were quickly lost in a storm of ice, forced to retreat.

Exhausted, Yuki fell on the couch, allowing herself a quick nap, thinking herself safe until morning. She was wrong.

Twenty minutes later, they came back.

The dragon lifted its head again to summon the storm, but they had returned with a trio of small imps that rushed her dragon. The tiny demons ran beneath the dragon as it let loose with the fury of the storm, and her attackers took cover behind the front wall as the imps exploded near the base of the dragon's long neck. The ice cracked all the way through, and when the dragon took a breath to unleash another storm, its head fell off and shattered on the cold ground beneath.

They made it halfway up the yard before they encountered the avalanche she had set up for them. The night sky was blocked by the low fog over the house, and she had used several of her cards to trap several tons of snow on an artificial ramp of ice. With a snap of her fingers, she watched as the snow flowed over them like a river, burying the front yard in several feet of snow and then freezing along the top. The front porch was now packed in, so she monitored the chaos through the eyes of an ice crow she had planted on the chimney.

Several seconds after the avalanche had been triggered, she scowled in anger at the sight of a protective bubble under the snow. The eerie blue glow suffused the yard until the invaders poked a hole in the ice above them, helping each other out. Snow beasts formed all around them, and they made another run for it, vanishing between the lions who were now level with them.

Thinking they had given up, Yuki was able to get another hour of sleep before she felt a change in the composition of the yard. Beneath the snow, she could sense the beginnings of a powerful magic ritual that summoned a storm of its own, a whirlwind of energy that threatened to undo all her hard work.