DEATH (The Justice Cycle Book 1) by J Kiefer (best classic books to read TXT) 📗

He had already seriously hurt and even killed a few of the possessed people. He needed to end this quickly before more innocent people were injured.

“You ready for round two?” Jeremy put his back to Jared’s.

The people that Jared had stunned were now stalking toward them. Tendrils leached out from the dark silhouette above him, weaving and twisting into a massive network of threads that connected to each one of the possessed people. His vision dimmed and his thoughts became sluggish and disconnected as Tzedakah invaded his mind. He pushed back vehemently at the intrusion and the blade backed off at his resistance and tried a different tactic. The image of him severing the cords that bound the people appeared in his mind.

“I understand,” he said out loud.

Jeremy glanced back at him. “You understand what?”

Before Jared could respond, the nearest person charged him. It was a freckle-faced teenager with his long brown hair tied up in a ponytail. Red tendrils snaked around the boy’s body; Jared swung Tzedakah at them. They dissolved as soon as the blade made contact, releasing the boy from the possession.

The kid stopped in his tracks, blinking in confusion. “What’s going on?” he asked. “Where am—”

New blood red tendrils of spiritual energy snaked toward him and wrapped themselves around his mind. He convulsed in pain and screamed as he fought the influence of the demonic puppet master. His eyes clouded over, and his body went limp as he lost the battle of wills and was reconnected to the horde.

The young man charged at him again and Jared once again went to cut the spiritual threads, but before his blade could slice them, the boy swung his arm up to block the strike. The sword bit deep into the boy’s arm, severing the hand but missing the tendrils. Jared looked on in horror as blood spurted from the place where the boy’s arm had been. Incredulously the boy did not react to the injury but swung his other arm hard at Jared’s face. He evaded the blow easily and swung Tzedakah, once again attempting to sever the demonic connection.

The boy jinked sideways and backhanded the blade with the same arm he’d just attacked with, once again deflecting the blow away from the connecting threads. This time the blade severed his arm at the bicep, and the momentum from the boy’s swing sent the severed arm spinning through the air, spattering blood across his face and torso.

Laughter echoed from the hovering shadow, and it infuriated Jared. The demon was using the boy’s body as a shield, and at the rate the boy was losing blood, he wouldn’t live much longer. As if on cue, the boy’s eyes flickered and rolled up into his head and he passed out.

Jeremy was hard pressed at his back, using every trick he had to keep the attackers on his side at bay. It would not be long before he was overwhelmed. The boy that Jared had injured hung limp in front of him in the air. His body listed backward and to one side like a discarded marionette as his lifeblood poured from the stumps where his arm and hand had been.

As he watched, the boy’s face twitched and contorted with pain and his eyes flared to life with recognition. The young man looked at him with such fear and panic that Jared’s heart broke. His eyes pleaded with Jared and he mouthed, Help.

“Hold on!” Jared shouted as tears streamed down the young man’s face.

Then the life in the boy’s eyes faded and went out. His head slumped and his wispy spirit slipped out his body.

“Joe,” Tzedakah whispered.

Joe was gone.

Laughter bellowed from above and the horde halted and froze at the sound. He could hear Jeremy panting behind him, but everything else had faded away, replaced by a blinding and all-consuming rage.

“Injustice!” The word roared through his very soul, giving definition and purpose to the seething fury. Everything that Joe could and would have been flared before his eyes and was aborted.

“Injustice!” he heard himself shout. The words exploded from his lips with the force of a thunderclap, emitting a shock wave that sent people, cars, and anything else that was not bolted down hurtling away.

Tzedakah glowed angrily and Jared thrust his arm upward and the people who had been thrown in all directions suddenly froze in place. The cars and debris kept careening outward until it all crashed violently into anything and everything in its way.

Jared stood, his arm raised above his head, in an empty crater encircled by crushed cars and debris. The remaining people who had attacked him hung suspended, motionless and stunned, in the air around him like a twisted mobile. Jeremy, who had not been affected by the shock wave, stood dumbfounded, his mouth agape, staring at the carnage.

Tzedakah flared and torrents of blue-black energy arced from the sentient sword, surging into the suspended individuals. As they trembled and shook, the energy found its way to each connecting strand and used the tendrils as conduits to flow up and into the unseen puppet master. The demon howled in pain as power surged into him from a thousand different directions. Jared swung Tzedakah downward and the tendrils that connected the evil spirit to his pawns evaporated.

Jeremy watched in awe as the people who had been possessed slowly and gently descended back to Earth. Every one of them was unconscious, oblivious to the nightmare going on around them. Up in the sky where the surges of energy had converged, there hovered the monster Dominion.

“He looks angry,” Jeremy commented. “Definitely hurt from your whatever-that-was. But the real battle is only just beginning.”

Jared’s dark eyes writhed angrily as he glared up at the massive demon lord. “No,” he replied in a voice that did not seem like his own. “The battle is already over.”

Dominion roared furiously down at the two men and bared his long dagger-like teeth. His bat wings beat furiously as he fought to keep himself aloft. He clapped