A Darker Shade of Sorcery - - (leveled readers .txt) 📗

big as a truck and as scarlet as the cobwebs she produced. She resembled a giant spider, but with a dozen legs and four heads, each bejewelled by six glowing green eyes. Her disgusting body secreted the blue

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lava that coated the cavern, and a scorpion-like stinger swayed above her body with a mind of its own.

“Sel atur,” the Queen spoke in a sibilant hiss, “you were long since banished. I hear you serve Kurrlan now.”

“I seek to make amends, my beautiful queen,” Sellatur crooned. “I present to you a most unusual creature, a creature Kurrlan desperately craves. My former master told me this boy was of great importance. Instead I offer him to you. He has sorcery, Your Grace. His flesh will be blissful y sumptuous, his blood intoxicatingly wonderful. I offer this one to you, my Queen, and beg your forgiveness.”

As Evan listened, he realised death by severe blood loss had to be better than the alternative. Please, let me die now! I can't be eaten alive!

The Queen cooed, “Ah yessss, I can smel the magic on him, but… this is not the sorcery of a hunter. He smells… different.”

The fact she sounded like a normal woman unnerved Evan to his core. He was useless to fight back or escape, he was weaker than a babe. The blood loss had reduced him to nothing.

“A rare treat then,” Sel atur urged, “a tender morsel you’ve never tasted before.”

“Hmmm, yessss.”

This was it, his final moments on Earth- except he wasn't even on Earth, but in some horrible demon dimension.

He couldn't help it. When Sellatur raised him up high, Evan screamed in terror. The Queen giggled like a little girl, opening the mandibles on all of her heads.

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A metal blur careened into view, striking the two legs holding Evan up and cutting them clean off. Evan toppled to the ground, drenched in the black demon ichors that spewed forth.

Sellatur screeched as the remaining halves of his legs vomited blood.

They all turned to see a man standing at the entrance of the cavern, a man with a brutal face and long silver hair.

The blur span back into view, soaring into the newcomer's waiting hand.

Evan realised the boomerang-shaped item was a weapon, with a hilt in the middle and curved blades either side.

Sellatur roared in agony, his maw gaping wide.

The warrior hurled his bizarre weapon again. The blade cartwheeled through the air and hacked into Sel atur's flesh like it was cloth, shearing through his body with a squelch before flying back to the warrior's grasp.

Sel atur croaked as both halves of his body collapsed on top of one another to the ground.

Evan used the last vestige of strength he had to drag himself away from the battle, the Queen's hisses of fury in his ears.

This time silver-hair spun round and threw his weapon back-hand at the Queen. The blade hacked off one of her many legs before the warrior caught it again. Evan was about to call out to him when unbelievably, impossibly, the Queen's leg melded itself back to her body.

“You cannot kill me, Realmer fool,” the Queen tittered. “I'll only regenerate.”

Silver-hair crouched, frantically scrawling a symbol on the ground with a second peculiar tool. The symbol shone bright and two creatures materialised either side of him.

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The creatures looked like winged snakes spliced with mermaids. Seconds later Evan recognised them as beings he’d only seen in myth.

Harpies! He made an indistinct sound of shock. Are they harpies?

The screeching harpies flew towards the demon Queen, distracting two of her heads as the warrior advanced with a snarl. He produced yet more weapons, but these Evan could identify as normal short swords. The queen scuttled forwards, but silver-hair jumped high, plunging his sword through the top of her head as he landed.

Unfortunately, the Queen had three more heads to spare. All of them snapped at silver-hair, trying to sink her many fangs deep, whilst her stinger jabbed viciously at the harpies who dive-bombed her.

Suddenly the stinger squirted out a blob of blue lava, but silver-hair rolled away and beneath her enormous body, slashing at her abdomen with rapid precision. The Queen hissed hideously as he chopped off several of her legs, causing her body to sag to the floor. As the legs grew themselves back, the warrior sliced off one of her abhorrent heads instead.

To Evan's amazement, the warrior tucked one of his blades away to conjure a bal of crackling energy from his hand instead. Before she could regenerate, he threw the bal of magic straight through the hole where her head should be. A second later the giant demon exploded from the inside out, showering the cavern in gobbets of sticky flesh.

Silver-hair inspected the monster’s remains, making sure she was truly dead before hurrying over to Evan.

He demanded in a rough voice, “Are you hurt? Boy, can you hear me?”

Evan felt numb.

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What have I just seen? Huge terrifying monsters. Green fire bursting from his fingertips. Ol ie's decapitated head. Strange warriors with magical weapons.

His teeth chattered, his body shook, and he couldn’t take his eyes off the smouldering corpse of the dead thing that would’ve eaten him.

“How could they have got to you first?” He heard silver-hair scolding himself. “If we hadn’t located you in time…” His words trailed into silence.

The warrior sheathed the other sword at his back. “I'm Tarensen, a Master at Veneseron Fortress. You are Evander Umbra?”

“Y-yes, but Gran was the only one who ever cal ed me Evander.”

It struck Evan how odd it was to be talking about his name when he had a minor hole in his stomach. As if reading his thoughts, Tarensen placed his hands over Evan's wound.

Evan felt an icy sensation wash over him and then a curious itching. He looked down at his stomach and gasped. Where the bloody hole had been was his normal, unblemished stomach.

“How…how did you? I was dying and...”

The demon slayer spoke over Evan in his brusque manner. “C’mon lad, we need to leave this realm. There could be more around here.”

He grabbed Evan by the shoulders and propped him on his feet.

“More monsters?”

Tarensen looked at their surroundings. “Bound to be hundreds of demons in a realm like this. The Queen probably had many subjects.”

“Where? Did you say demon?” Evan cried.

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He knew he'd just seen two, but to hear someone else actually cal them demons almost convinced Evan this wasn’t just his imagination.

“Yes, Evander. Luckily your kidnapper was a lesser demon and his Queen only a minor Dread Lord. I still can’t believe they got to you first. They must be getting better…” He trailed off again, lost in his own thoughts.

Lucky! Lesser demon!

“You mean there are worse things than that?” Evan asked, pointing shakily at the bloated cadaver of the Queen.

“Far worse. Which is why we need to get you out of here,” Tarensen confirmed.

He turned away to rub out the symbol he’d drawn earlier and the harpies disintegrated instantly.

“What was that?” Evan asked.

“Just summoning magic.” Tarensen shrugged, procuring a new instrument from his belt.

“Why?” Evan voiced the thoughts that kept tearing at his mind. “Why is any of this happening?”

“No time,” Tarensen muttered.

An eerie glow burgeoned at the end of the strange instrument. The glow grew brighter and expanded, forming into another swirling portal.

“Let’s go,” Tarensen commanded.

Evan had no choice; no way was he staying here on this volcanic wasteland of a world, or near the body of those horrible things. Evan didn’t know if he could trust Tarensen, but at least he’d saved his life.

With one last look at the smouldering carcasses of Sellatur and the queen, Evan stepped into the portal.

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*

“So shifters are nothing more than bounty hunters now?” Tyrell asked.

“With the rewards the Dark-Venators are offering, we are,” Merak said. “Our pack needs the money, and maybe the Dark-Venators will give us some of their demon pets for free. The vamps have hacked us off for the last time. With Dark-Realmer help, this city will be the shifters’ domain once again.”

It was like they were speaking a different language to Brooke. Had she been caught in the middle of a war between two criminal gangs, where they all talked in code?

She looked around for an escape. Unfortunately, the scrapyard was surrounded on all sides by broken cars and twisted metal.

“Do you realise what you're doing?” Tyrell asked. “Dark-Venators are in league with the demons. All they want is chaos, death and destruction. We're the ones protecting the realms.”

“Save your speeches.” Merak grinned.

An untamed savageness lurked in Merak’s snake-like eyes. The rest of his pack appeared agitated, unable to stand still.

“Looks like they're juiced up on faerie drugs,” Lok whispered to Arantay. “They won't stop until they have her, and they'll probably kill her for sport before they hand her over to the Dark-Realmers.”

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“Enough,” said Merak. “Just give us the girl and we won't rip you to pieces.”

“What makes you think you can?” Lok taunted. “We have more power at our disposal than you could dream of.”

“Stop it,” Arantay hissed.

“Why? They're begging for a scrap, I say we give it to 'em.”

“I'll enjoy clawing your face off,” Merak growled.

Brooke clapped a hand to her mouth in astonishment when the five thugs began transforming.

They grew seven feet tall, their chests and shoulders widening as they ripped their shirts off, revealing scales or fur sprouting over their skin. However, the change to their faces was the most appalling.

Two of their faces shifted to that of a black panther, one to a leopard, whilst another grew horns as his face morphed into a bull. Merak grew the tallest, his visage shifting to that of a lizard.

Arantay was a blur, shooting forwards and kicking Merak in the chest before the Shifter could attack.

Tyrell gestured and a rush of air took hold of the wereleopard, seizing his body and launching it backwards with amazing force. The wereleopard flew into a nearby car, his body smacking into the hood and his head smashing through the windshield.

Lok laughed like a lunatic, balls of purple fire appearing in his hands.

Brooke hid behind a pile of used tyres, peering round the edge to make sure none of them followed.

She watched Lok taunt the werebull, throwing fire at his feet. Arantay and Merak fought furiously whilst Tyrell fell under the onslaught of both werepanthers.

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They pinned him to the ground and one of the panthers raised his clawed paw, about to plunge it into Tyrell's face. Luckily Lok got there first, one hand gripping the panther's chin as the other shoved his purple pipe right in the shifter’s eye.

As the panther yowled, Lok span him round to face the charging bull.

He waited until the werebull was too close to change direction before leaping out of the way, throwing the panther forward instead.

The bull's horns