Page 191 of Jagged Souls

I barrel into the circle.

The power grabs hold of me.

I scream as thousands of fine golden threads, sharp like barbed wire, latch onto my body. It isn’t supposed to work like this. I am supposed to be studied by the witch as the circle is made or included during the incantation ritual so the magic knows to take me and how to take me and how to deposit me as I was.

So it’s tearing me apart, trying to figure out what to do with me. Ripping off pieces of my body and trying to fling it into the ether, but I push out all my grief, all my hope and pain. All my love for the woman at the other end of this journey, and I feed the magic inside of me.

Let it out. Let itpulsewithout Stormie here to contain it.

Smoke-like shadows pour from me. They shoot out like a thousand arrows, a thousand lassos, a thousand tar-lined vines – all weaving onto the golden threads.

Black consuming color.

My power consuming his.

Holding me together when the circle would rip me apart.

A stupid risk, one I wasn’t sure would work, if you asked Khalid.

But what is love if not risking everything you are just to see them one more time? What is hope without a leap of faith? My wife is that hope, and I will leap into the fucking ether for her.

I scream as the pain rips me apart. Tearing at every atom of my body. But my power ties it all back together, battling it fiercely, refusing to let it take me. The black threads keep wrapping around the gold. Crawling across the strands until no color remains.

And then I am gone from that world, that plane between the circles, that nothingness where hope fought to survive, and I’m back on my feet. Then down on my knees, my legs giving out as I crash to the floor inside another circle.

A teleportation destination circle.

I lift my head to look at my surroundings, praying I’m on a boat. Eduardo screams as he looks at me. He starts to form a ball of red energy as Antonio shifts fully into his werewolf form.

“I’m a hybrid,” I rasp past all the agony that’s pulling at my brain to knock me out. “And I’m fertile.”

My vision narrows. My body collapses as it convulses. I hoped I would have the strength to at least slip into my shadows upon arrival, but there is nothing left inside of me.

Just pain.

And more pain.

I think I might be bleeding internally.

I don’t even know if I have all the parts I left with.

But I have my eyes. I see Antonio signal for Eduardo to stand down, and that is enough.

That means he’s going to keep me alive.

And that hope I jumped into the circle with.

That leap of faith to see my wife.

It ignites brighter inside of me even as the world dims.

Dims.

Gone.

Perhaps I am stupid for her.

But hope is such a beautiful thing.