First Magic - Raven Steele (read along books txt) 📗
- Author: Raven Steele
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Book online «First Magic - Raven Steele (read along books txt) 📗». Author Raven Steele
I began the long walk down the slanted decline to the stage. I was surprisingly calm. I didn’t even try to be quiet when I walked up the steps to May. There was no point.
May’s head was slumped forward, but not in an unnatural way like Tracey’s had been. I breathed a sigh of relief when her chest rose and fell.
I stepped to untie her when all of a sudden the spinning in my head reached a whole new level, and I stumbled. It was like I’d been hit with a poisonous dart, but it was a familiar poison. I tried to remember Christian’s training with the heart monitor.
“You are a vision,” I heard a familiar, smooth accent say.
I fell to my knees. Relax! I inhaled deeply.
Behind me, Mr. Steele laughed. “It’s remarkable the effect I have on you. It’s as strong as it was when you were a child. I had to be so careful around you, withholding my full power. Your mother was the same.”
My mother. I had to clear my mind. All this time, I’d mistaken my extreme, almost dream-like, attraction toward him for silly puppy love when in actuality he was a Vyken in disguise. How many more mistakes would I make?
Mr. Steele moved in front of me blocking May. Dressed in an old-fashioned tuxedo, his normally slick black hair was messy and lay partly in his eyes. He would’ve looked perfect, except part of his right sleeve had been burned. My eyes moved to May.
“Of all the Auras I’ve hunted and killed,” he began. “You’ve been the most fun. Your lack of training has made you reckless and unpredictable. I’ve found it so refreshing.”
Struggling to stand, I concentrated on getting rid of the nauseating effect he had on me.
“It was wonderful playing games with you—the shoe, the nightly visits, the feel of your skin.” He paused and licked his lips. “Actually, I rather enjoyed killing the mother of the boy who painted you. He tarnished what’s mine to destroy, so I tainted his heart.”
He walked behind May and stroked her hair. “But you had your own surprises, didn’t you? What a rare treat it was to find your best friend is an undiscovered Fury.”
I stood up, legs finally straight. Behind my back, I concentrated on creating the tightest ball of light I could, each the size of a bullet. With each one, I focused on a memory of my mother. It helped the process, and I made as many as my hands could hold while he continued to talk.
“I remember the first time I saw you so innocent and full of life as most children are. You were with your mother when I discovered you. It was merely by accident. Ella had no idea you two were being watched.”
At the sound of my mother’s name I froze.
“She was taking you for a walk through the Redwoods, and I remember thinking how strange it was that a mother would be with a child all alone in the dark woods. But then she did something remarkable. Would you like to know what she did?”
I searched for my voice but had none.
“She became transparent, invisible. I watched as you walked right through her. I knew then how extraordinary my find was. Only a powerful Aura would be able to do something like that.”
Invisible? Was that even possible?
He sauntered across the stage, arms behind his back as if he were strolling through Central Park. “It didn’t take much to maneuver my way into her life. She was so naïve and trusting, making for an easy kill.” He turned to me. “I could’ve done the same to you—become your best friend. Imagine all the fun we could’ve had: sleepovers, sharing secrets, silly boy talk. And just when you’re feeling warm and fuzzy, wham!” He smacked his hands together, making me jump. “I rip your head off. But my desires were overruled, hence all the scare tactics. I had to force your Light to develop early.”
I hadn’t heard most of what he’d said. I was still stuck on the part about my mother. Anger raged through me, burned through my veins. It was the spark that lit my Light. It surged through me, overwhelming all my senses.
Finally, I could think past his influence.
“You killed my parents,” I said. My voice didn’t waver.
He tsked me. “Control your temper, Little One. I only did what comes natural to me. If drinking milk was forbidden, would you be angry at a babe sucking at its mother’s tit? And as for killing your parents? I only killed your mother. I did taste your father, but I did not kill him.”
“If not you, then who?” I demanded.
He stared at me thoughtfully, then said, “The shadow that always watches but can never be seen. He saved me the night your father caught up to me. You should’ve seen Mark’s face when he thought he was finally going to avenge your mother’s death and save the future life of his precious Llona. But Mark failed to see the shadow from behind until it was too late. The shadow snapped his neck as easily as one snaps their fingers.” Mr. Steele snapped his fingers. The sound echoed in the large auditorium.
“Show me your true self,” I demanded, wanting desperately for him to shut up.
He tilted his head. “And why would you want that?”
“So I can see the true face of the demon I’m going to kill.”
The Vyken’s deformed lips twisted upward into a cruel smile while I formed three more tight balls behind my back.
“I can see I no longer have an effect on you. You are right. There is no need to keep up this illusion.” He waved his hand in front of his face. His perfectly clear complexion cracked revealing a black interior.
“But are you sure you want to see the true face of evil? I was one of the first created. We were made from the darkest parts of man’s mind where greed, lust, and murder wait in ambush for that one small moment when man becomes weak.”
A chunk of skin and tissue peeled away from his cheek and fell, slapping against the stage floor.
He stepped toward me. “We let this darkness turn our hearts and minds black by the sins of those who claimed to be righteous.”
Another strip of skin, as if a razor had cut it, slid from his forehead to his chin, then flopped onto the lapel of his jacket.
“We would not exist but for these hidden secrets.”
He reached up and tore off the remaining flesh on his skin. It stretched and tore beneath his boney fingers, long tendrils snapping at the bone. Beneath was a black face, if you could call it that. Where there should’ve been a nose was an empty hole, but when he turned his head, pieces of bloodied flesh still clung to the inside of his skull. His leathery skin pulled tight over abnormally high cheekbones, but around his mouth, the wrinkled skin bunched up into black nodules, forming a lumpy, grotesque bottom lip.
All this was horrible enough, but it was his eyes that were the most frightening. Seeing them directly, without Mr. Steele’s mask, filled me with the worst kind of dread and horror I could imagine.
Images appeared in my mind of twisted, broken, dead bodies; murderers killing for the sheer joy of it. I closed my eyes to block the disturbing, soul-sucking images from my mind.
The Vyken laughed. “Evil will not be ignored.”
I collapsed to my knees, trying all I could to mentally block the gruesome images. I gulped for air several times, clutching at my heart that felt like it was going to beat out of my chest. The pain was excruciating. Murders, rapists, thieves. I saw it all in vivid detail. It was more than any person should have to endure.
To combat it, and to save my soul, I focused on the good in my life. I thought of my friends, of Christian and Jake. I thought of my devoted father, remembered him: the time he took me fishing and had hooked his finger, or when he bought me an Easter dress, but it was two sizes too small. I easily forgave him because of his smile. My mother used to say he stole his smile from a sunray. Slowly, the barrage of toxic images began to fade.
My mother. I thought of her now, of what she must have endured. She’d gone against everything she’d been taught to follow her heart. Friends surely had been lost and her name ruined, but she did what she thought was right. She was someone I wanted to be like.
It didn’t take long for the image of my mother to completely take over the Vyken’s disturbing images. The same creature that had taken my mother’s precious life now thought he was going to destroy mine. Never.
I clenched my fists, head down, almost touching my bent knee, and then summoned all of Light’s power to the front of my subconsciousness. It came so willing, I gasped for air.
“Mmmm,” he moaned. “I felt that delicious
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