Like Father,Like Daughter - Hugs.And.Kisses (best novel books to read TXT) 📗

eventually, into a homunculus that she could control, but only part of the time because of her weakened state." He turned and grinned at us. "Everything else simply fell into place."

I growled. I had heard enough, and boy was I pissed. A strange pulsing started in the middle of my forehead, and it spread all over my body. I gritted my teeth painfully as it began to feel as though fire was flowing through my veins.

Then something wet tricked down my arm. I looked up to see that the chains holding my wrists were melting. I concentrated harder on that pulse. The chains practically liquefied, and I dropped to the ground. Reaching up I grabbed Shock and Barrel's chains, melting them as well. Raphael, whose back was still turned, hadn't noticed us yet.

Glancing at my friends, a wordless agreement passed between us:

This bastard was dead.

The three of us charged, and we managed to hit him once, obliterating his shirt with a combination of my fire, Shock's magic, and Barrel's pure brute strength. But that's about all we managed to do. The skin underneath the cloth had remained unmarred, and Raphael was pissed. With a nod of his head, he sent Shock flying into Barrel and into me if I hadn't ducked.

I jumped up to charge him again, but quickly found a hand wrapped around my throat. I ripped at Raphael's fingers, stopping when he tightened his grip. He locked his eyes with mine, a snarl on his lips. "I should just kill you now, boy." He hissed. "But I have a world to take over, so it will have to wait.

What happened next is a little blurry. What I do know is that Raphael tossed me into a wall (not the one he'd used Shock to smack Barrel into) and a burning pain laced through my head and back before I blacked out completely.

When I came to, Shock and Barrel were getting Sally and Jack down. I tried to sit up, to help them, but I had barely twitched my finger and it felt like a hundred swords were cutting into my back. I let out a cry of pain, which diverted all attention to where I was laying. "Lock!" Shock and Barrel yelled, and I heard them run over.

Then Shock gasped, and I knew something was very wrong. "What?" I rasped, and then winced. My throat hurt. A lot.

"Lock… I think Raphael broke something… a lot of somethings…" That's when I realized that she was talking about my back. "Barrel, help me turn him over." I felt two pairs of hands begin to lift me, and I let out another scream of pain. The hands disappeared.

I heard light footsteps and realized that Jack and Sally had come over. "Oh no…" Sally whispered.

"Shock, can you do anything?"

"No… this is nowhere near as bad as anything I've ever done, not even Aubrey after Oogie tried to kill her. I could see the wounds then… if I tried to heal Lock, even if I had enough energy, I could fix something wrong and make it worse." She paused. "But Barrel might be able to."

"What?" Barrel asked her, surprised. "Shock, I can't use magic."

"Barrel, you're the best white magic user I've ever seen. If you can't do this, no one can." I think that, had I opened my eyes, I would've probably gagged, so I kept them shut.

"All right…" Barrel said hesitantly. I felt his hands on my chest and heard him mutter, "Laeh." Warmth fell over my body, and the pain in my back and head faded away. Barrel pulled his hands back and I felt Jack lift me up, back onto my feet. I looked at the wall that I was lying beside to see a five inch hole in it.

I grinned down at Barrel, who seemed a little shell-shocked. "Well, looks like we've got ourselves a mage, eh Shock?" After realizing that this was a compliment, Barrel grinned.

"Lock, Shock, Barrel." Jack said sternly. Our joking demeanors fell like dead flies and we turned to him. "I'm going after Raphael."

"We're going with you." I said before he had a chance to protest.

Shock walked up next to me. "Yeah. Aubrey was- is- our friend."

"Besides," Barrel added as he appeared at my other side, "We'd just follow after you anyway."

Jack smiled at us, proudly if I wasn't seeing things, and turned to Sally. "Sally…"

She smiled. "I know Jack. I'll be all right here. Go get him." I had to look away as they kissed, an ache passing through my chest. Shock put a hand on my shoulder. "We're going get him, Lock. And then we're going to fix up Aubrey."

Barrel put his hand on my other shoulder. "Trick or treaters stick together forever, right?"

I couldn't help grinning at them both. "Right." We turned to the hole Raphael had blasted in the wall. "Let's get this pig."


Chapter 16

Chapter 16

It's Over

Lock, Shock, and Barrel ran were several feet behind Jack, dodging and weaving through the Graveyard and then the Hinterlands trees like the experts that were. "Where's he going?" Lock called to the skeleton ahead of him.

"It would take too much time to create a new door to Living World, so he's headed to the clearing where Aubrey destroyed the first door, to resurrect it."

"How much time will that take?" Shock asked.

Jack closed his eyes, sighing. "Not nearly enough." His eyes snapped open as a pillar of light shot up far ahead of them. "No… he's already started!"

He was somewhat surprised as Lock, Shock, and Barrel raced past him, heading straight toward the pillar. They disappeared out of his sight, into the trees. Jack groaned. He knew that they were trying to help, but Raphael was just too powerful for them! Hadn't they realized that earlier when he tossed them around without even trying?

But then again… Lock had seemed different when he was going against Raphael, more powerful almost. If Lock could do that, then maybe Shock and Barrel… Jack smiled to himself, despite the situation. If anyone had a chance at beating Raphael, it was them.

Speaking of whom, the trio had just about reached the clearing where the door had stood once upon a time. They cleared the last ring of trees to see Raphael standing in the center of the pillar, which had shot through the hard, dead earth in the spot where the ashes of the old door still surprisingly sat.

Lock growled and took a step forward, but a tug on his arm stopped him. "Lock," Shock whispered. "Look at the light." He looked at her curiously, but did so. He saw that, as Raphael's chanting filled the air with more and more force, that the pillar of light no longer glowed uniformly white but changed color constantly from white to gray to black to a marbled white and black.

"What's happening?" Barrel asked.

"I don't know." Lock whispered back. "But I'm stopping him, right now!" Lock charged into the pillar, his shoulder connecting squarely with the middle of Raphael's back, knocking him out of the pillar.

Raphael knocked Lock off of him with a burst of energy, sending him into one of the dead trees surrounding the clearing. "You! You just don't know when to give up, do you boy?" He raised a hand in front of him, and a sword appeared in it. "Apparently, almost killing you isn't enough. Well, I certainly won't make that mistake again." He raised the blade, and moved to bring it down on Lock's neck, but was rudely interrupted by being tackled again, much like he had earlier, only twice as hard.

"Lock, get up you idiot!" Shock yelled, fighting to keep Raphael pinned to the tree next to the floored devil.

Lock shook the fuzz from his head and scrambled over, his elbow going into Raphael's back to hold him.

"I was only going to kill you boy!" Raphael spat, his eyes wild as blood trickled down his forehead. "But now none of you will receive any mercy!"

"Glad to know." A voice from behind them commented coldly. "Now I won't have to pretend to show you any."

"Jack!" Lock, Shock, and Barrel exclaimed.

Raphael laughed. "Ah, Jacky! Here to finish me off, are we? Or are you going to chicken out again, like last time?"

"I've grown up since then, Raphael. I won't let you get away this time." Jack said, his eyes narrowing.

Raphael just laughed. "You didn't have the guts to stop me then. And every chance you've had to kill me, you've hesitated. Why should I believe you now?"

Lock, Shock, and Barrel hardly had a chance to blink before Jack had taken Raphael out of their grasps and was holding him up by the neck. "You threatened to kill my wife, and you killed my daughter. Now, look really hard, and tell me that I wouldn't kill you."

Raphael's black eyes scanned Jack's eye sockets, and his face paled. "Jacky… Jack, please! You know how I get once I start on something. I- nngh!" He choked as Jack's hand plunged into his chest, pulling the key out.

Jack dropped Raphael to the ground. He looked up at the Pumpkin King, clutching his now bleeding chest. "Jack…"

Jack punched Raphael hard in the jaw. "Goodbye, Raphael." He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. "I, Pumpkin King Jack, sentence you, Raphael Peterson, to death after death. An eternal sleep from which you shall never wake, and your soul will remain in cold darkness for all of eternity."

Raphael twitched and screamed as Jack spoke, white mist flowing from every pore of his body. Shock recognized what was happening immediately, remembering when Oogie tried to take her own soul. But it was happening so much more quickly than it had with Oogie, maybe because Jack was actually using magic to do it and Oogie never really had any magic to speak of. The mist took a vaguely humanoid form for a moment, just before it was sent flying toward the graveyard with a noise that sounded eerily like a scream.

"Is… is he dead?" Barrel asked. Jack nodded, his hands falling to his sides. The four stood in silence for several minutes before a low rumbling reached their ears.

"What the hell?" Lock exclaimed.

"The castle!" Shock pointed over their heads, and everyone turned around. In the distance, Raphael's castle faded away into nothing.

"Aubrey and Sally were still in there!" Barrel yelped. All four rushed back to the graveyard.

"You don't think that they would've…" Lock trailed off as they reached the area where Raphael's palace stood moments before, seeing nothing but dirt and rock.

"Jack!" Sally cried, running out