Total pages in book: 114
Estimated words: 109033 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 545(@200wpm)___ 436(@250wpm)___ 363(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 109033 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 545(@200wpm)___ 436(@250wpm)___ 363(@300wpm)
Oh, dear Lord, these guys were ridiculous.
“The air is becoming hot,” a younger cleric noted, his cheeks flushing. “What are you doing?”
“Inwardly laughing at how pathetic you all are, if I’m honest,” replied Naomi. “You can’t truly believe that I’m going to squeeze out the devil’s kid.”
“We know that you will.” The cleric to her left lifted his sword. “We cannot allow the Antichrist to walk this earth, and so you must die.”
“Or”—the burning force within her bubbled, hissed, and snapped—“we have a little fun instead.” And then her power burst out of her in red-violet flames that engulfed her from head to toe.
The clerics squinted, flinching back at the sheer brightness of the flames, shock rippling over their faces—all of which she saw clearly, the fire no obstruction to her vision.
They recovered fast, their lips rattling as they chanted low, the words coming quickly as glowing streams of pure-white magick arrowed at her.
Some hits landed, but the flames surrounding her dulled their impact, so they were more like stinging pokes than blazing-hot stabs. Still, they carried enough of a burn that she hissed.
“Not nice.” She slashed out her arm, tossing a rope of red-violet fire that quickly morphed into the shape of a snake. It looped around Green Eyes’ neck and bit into his face. He screamed as the roasting-hot lethal venom entered his system.
Another cleric came at her from the left, swinging his sword. Hot pain blazed along her side as the steel sliced into her flesh. She bared her teeth at him, not placated by how the flames engulfing her body had melted the tip of his weapon—especially when she felt something foreign trying to push its way into her: a pulsing barb of insidious magick.
The fire that lived inside her rushed upward, incinerating the barb, cauterizing her wound, and neatly knitting her skin back together.
He blinked, his lips parting.
“Well, that was stupid.” Naomi pyroported behind him, grabbed his head, and gave it a vicious twist. Crack. He and his weapon dropped to the floor with a thud.
Yelling out their rage, two others charged at her. She slammed up her hands and released flickering blasts of red-violet fire, lighting up both clerics like they were Roman candles. They screamed and staggered, their blades hitting the floor with a clang, their skin sizzling and blackening as her acidic power scorched them.
Magick crackled as ropes of it traveled through the air toward her again.
She flung out her arm once more, emitting a glimmering wave of red-violet fire that sliced through the streams, making the magick wink out of existence. Glaring at her attacker, she tossed out another red-violet fiery serpent, watching as it wrapped around his head before burying its fangs into the top of his scalp. Yeah, that had to hurt.
A fifth cleric charged her with a battle cry. Naomi snatched a fallen weapon and hurled it at the bastard. The sword speared him, stabbing right through his heart. He stumbled to a stop and dropped to his knees, the life beginning to bleed from his gaze.
Twirling rivulets of magick hit her from the side, stabbing at her so hard so she almost jerked. Naomi locked onto her assailant and retaliated with a shimmering wave of fire that curled around him like a giant serpent; engulfing in flames that began to eat him alive.
She turned her focus back to the last cleric alive—Green Eyes. He was on his knees, his skin pale, his gaze cloudy, his face creased with pain from the snake venom.
She took a moment to toss a red-violet ball of incinerating flames at the other clerics, and watched as fire rushed over every inch of the bodies. It would go to work quickly and swallow its victims, consuming all trace of them until nothing was left—not even ash.
Leaving the flames to do their job, she moved toward Green Eyes.
Resentment briefly blazed in his gaze. “What are you?”
“To put it simply, I’m a person you should have left well alone.” Taking his sword from the floor, Naomi squatted in front of him. “You see, you mistranslated that little sentence of whatever prophecy you quoted.” Thanks to her gift, she had understood the language perfectly. “It does say that I will bear a mark—and I do, yes. As for the rest? You’re off base. I’m not going to birth the child of the devil.” She inched her face closer to his. “I am the child of the devil.”
She deftly swung the sword and lopped off his head.
*
After she’d relayed the incident to a select few in her living room a short time later, Tobe set his hands on his hips. “Unreal. This is fucking unreal. All your life you’ve hidden your connection to Lou . . . and a bunch of clerics just went and unearthed it. Yeah, they mistook its source, but still.”