Beauty's Beast(37)

“Traitors!” he bellowed.

Nagi searched the field for the leader of these traitors and found the huge Ghost Child fighting beside a Skinwalker grizzly. That one, he decided. Then, he did a double-take, blinking away the film of smoke and grime in his eyes. This world was very dirty, he thought. His second look confirmed the impossible, a violet aura glowing all about the bear that stood beside the biggest of his offspring.

The third Seer!

“Get her!” he screamed. “Kill that bear!”

The horde turned toward the Skinwalker grizzly. He did not need to win this battle. He only needed to kill the Seers to ensure victory.

Soon he recognized two things: his numbers were inadequate because of the traitors, and he would not reach any of the Seers. Nagi billowed with fury, unwilling to accept what he saw.

He had hoped to avoid this step. But really, how could he? The Seers were all within his sight. All he need do was remove their souls and, poof, problem solved. And while he was at it, why not take the souls of the traitors and of the rest of the fighters, alive and dying? Simple, clean, foolproof.

Such a blast would mean that his loyal children would also perish, but who had time to sort them out?

Nagi summoned all his powers to tear the living souls from their living bodies. He had never reaped so large a harvest, and he was not strictly allowed to take souls from the living, but once done, he’d control the Living World. Then he’d make his own rules.

* * *

Alon’s fighters turned the battle. He sensed the malicious ghosts still hovering over the battlefield. The Seers had expelled them, but they waited for their hosts to recover to repossess them. His kind and the Seers still needed to send them to face their judgment.

But that must wait until after the last of Nagi’s forces fell. Alon gave them opportunity to run, keeping his forces from pursuit, but it did not matter. Nagi forced them back into the fighting. They would die at the hands of their siblings or die at the hands of their father. The entire battle made Alon sick.

It would not be long now. The wolves and bears chased the last of the Ghostlings.

Beside him, Samantha, bloody and weary, engaged a female of his kind as two of his own leaped in unison at him.

His claws ripped into the torso of one, finding the soft cartilage between the ribs. His attacker crumbled. Alon turned, lifting his spines, and heard the scream as the second’s soft underbelly contacted with Alon’s hundreds of knifelike quills.

Alon found Samantha had defeated another challenger and now bled from a wound on her shoulder that was terrifyingly close to her jugular. Alon felt fear lance him once more. Samantha’s injuries and the danger she faced overshadowed his own peril. He would give his life to save hers, even to get her to run. But she wouldn’t. He was admiring and furious in equal measures.

“What’s that?” asked Owen, one of his compatriots, a Beta twin just six years younger than himself.

Owen’s twin, Ophelia, turned with him to look in the direction Owen indicated. Samantha reared up to look.

Before them, the Skinwalkers were falling, rolling backward, crumpling to the ground and cascading facedown.

Samantha bellowed and fell sideways. Alon caught her as she toppled, feeling the blast of invisible energy that passed through him an instant later. It took his wind, leaving him unable to draw breath for a moment. Samantha, unconscious, shifted into her human form, her upper body draped in the great bearskin cape.

Owen recovered first. “They’re all changing back.”

Alon scanned the field. The Skinwalkers dropped in human form. The wolf pack toppled, naked in their hunting formation, still as death, and the pride of lions crumpled in the grass, their lion skins spread out about them like tawny wings. Even the great herd of buffalo now lay naked, their pale limbs poking out in every direction from beneath the curly-haired buffalo robes. The Owl, Raven, Eagle and Hawk Skinwalkers began changing and falling from the sky.

“Catch them!” Alon cried.

His men rushed to snatch them from the sky. Alon spotted a woman falling. His mother. He changed to his ghost form and flew as fast as he ever had along the ground, reaching her in time to change back and catch her in his arms. He lay her beside the fallen buffalo shifters and ran back to Samantha, leaping over the prone bodies.

“The Spirit Children!” shouted Ophelia.

Alon retrieved Samantha, clasping her to his chest and holding her.

“They’re dropping, too,” cried Owen.

Alon patted Samantha’s pale cheek. “Wake up, Sam. Please, wake up.”

Instead he watched her soul seep from her body, like mist rising from a meadow.

“No!” he howled. Alon was on his feet in an instant. He knew now what had happened. Nagi had done this. He had broken every law in both worlds and harvested the souls of the living.

Nagi had gone too far. And he would pay for this outrage. But how to defeat one who is invulnerable? Now, there was the crux of it all.

“Look,” said Ophelia. “Their souls are all escaping.”

Before them a mist of souls slipped from the bodies of the fallen.

“Why aren’t we dead?” asked Owen, patting his chest to assure himself that he was still corporeal.

“It doesn’t work on us,” growled Alon.

“Why not?” asked Owen.

“Don’t know. Don’t care. I’m going to kill him and then I’m going to retrieve their souls.”

The twins spoke at once.

“All of them?” squeaked Ophelia.

“He’s immortal,” reminded Owen.

“He’s already tried to kill us and failed. Maybe we don’t die, either.”

“We die,” said Owen. “I witnessed our enemies kill Gail and Gregory. And I saw Nagi murder the deserters among his ranks. We die, Alon.”

“How do we kill him?” asked Ophelia, ready to join Alon.

Alon was already flying across the distance that separated them. He summoned all his remaining energy, determined to take his father’s soul—if he had one.

In the valley, Nagi’s troops turned to watch him. The silence of the battlefield added to Alon’s fury. Nagi would win. He knew it. Still he raced over the uneven ground, straight at the billowing rain cloud that was his sire.

So this was the great Nagi, Ruler of the Realm of Ghosts, stealer of innocent souls. This was the creature that had forced his essence on innocent humans and created him. This monster.

Alon struck at his sire with all the self-loathing in his heart. The energy that shot from Alon’s fingers was strong enough to steal a mortal’s soul. The power collided with Nagi’s vaporous body.

He writhed and then turned his yellow eyes on Alon.

“You dare attack me?”

In answer, Alon hit him again.

This time Alon saw a small wisp, a trace of Nagi’s essence, leave his body and evaporate into the air. The mark, the tiny nick that was no bigger than the bite of a field mouse, quickly disappeared in the rolling smoke that was his father’s earthly body. The similarity between Nagi’s shape and Alon’s flying form sickened Alon. He hit him again.

“Stop that!” said Nagi.

Had Alon actually caused this Spirit some discomfort? Had he caused harm? Alon felt a surging of hope. He hit him again.

Nagi flinched and then recovered.

“Does it hurt you, Father?”

“No more than a bee sting to a bear. You cannot harm me. Stop or I shall end you.”

He didn’t. Alon struck again. As his energy wave struck Nagi, one more hit landed from a different direction. He turned to see Aldara shocking Nagi from his right. Then more stings hit and more. His army had followed and all of the Ghost Children struck with their soul-harvesting force, the gift inherited from their sire, using his power against him.

“Stop!” Nagi bellowed. But he writhed now, billowing and contracting as the stings hit him, sending tiny traces of smoke hissing from him.

He was right. A single bee cannot stop a bear. But a nest of hornets will send any creature fleeing. Alon struck again. Beside him, Aldara attacked.

“You killed Blake! I hate you!”

“Kill them,” cried Nagi to his dwindling troops.

But they did not move to stop Alon’s army. Instead several rose cloudlike into the air and joined the attack.

“Traitors!” Nagi turned to retreat.

Alon pursued. The others followed.

“Run, Father! Run back to the Realm of Ghosts and know that if you come again your children will be waiting to send you home. This is the harvest you reap.”

Nagi turned to face them once more. “You fools. We could have ruled them all. You are their masters. Instead you act as their slaves.”

Alon hit him again. “This world is for the living.”

Nagi writhed. “Who will harvest the evil ghosts without me?”

Alon spoke. “We will. We need you no longer.”

The others roared their assent.