Page 67 of Jagged Souls

But the little shit tries to pivot anyways, not wanting to disappear long enough for their attention to turn to me.

Seventeen

HIM

My back slams into a wall of the school as I struggle to keep a werewolf from ripping out my throat. Her teeth snap in front of my face, her breath rancid, her spittle flying everywhere. My arms strain from the force of keeping her head away from mine, but by doing so, I’ve left my sides completely open to her claws.

She starts to rake them across my chest, trying to open me up like a fucking pinata. I kick her in the groin with my steel shank boot, catching her off guard with my unnatural speed. Her pelvis snaps, shatters, completely obliterates. She yelps as she crumbles to the ground, then makes no sound at all once my knee connects with her chin.

Thecrackof her jaw is instantly followed by thesquelchof the shards as they pummel into her brain. An angry howl comes from down the hall as a wolf charges at me from my right. Shoving my broken opponent aside, I turn to face them, but Leno is already on her.

Krypto wasn’t in a good way when we left the house. I did something to him that Louise couldn’t fix. When my magic spread out, it touched him. It didn’t physically hurt him; there was nothing for her to actually heal. It was just...replacinghis brain, weaving in amongst the neurons and gray matter like a fungus. The only thing she could do was keep him in stasis until Mother arrived, and even she, the best healer in the world, struggled to remove my magic.

But he has a good chance of survival, which is the only reason Leno left with us.

Otherwise, he would’ve stayed by his best friend’s side.

Wanting to get this mission over with quickly so he can get back to his dog, Leno charges at the wolf. He attacks her like an animal. A beast without restraint. Flowered vines are wrapped around his forearms. Sharpened sticks point out of them at every angle, no doubt dripping with poison. Any time he blocks an arm or a snapping jaw, he’s dealing more damage than them. The wolf yelps as he beats her with his club-like fists. He pounds into her, breaking her bones and severing her arteries with every blow.

Leno rarely ever gets his hands dirty, preferring to kill in ways that don’t shed blood, but at the moment, he’s reveling in the violence. The infliction of pain. The transferring of his agony as he worries about his dog.

Turning from him, I attack the next werewolf standing between me and my wife. The hallway is full of mothers and fathers that have barreled out of their homes to protect the pups hiding inside; we normally leave no survivors, no kids that can grow into soldiers, so they’re fighting as viciously as we are.

But eventually, they will all die because I’m not failing my fucking wife again.

That damn video haunts me as I pull out a new set of knives and dance through the chaos of fur. Over the snarls and shouts of battle, I can hear her desperate screams, the ones her broken vocal cords couldn’t handle.

Over the crimson slashes of blood and the white sprays of spittle, over Mother’s shadow on the floor racing towards my wife, I can see Micha’s broken and bruised body. The unwarranted shame on her face. The pain. The agony. The hopelessness.

It fuels me as I cut down one wolf after the other. My brothers are beside me, as is Dayne in Maddox’s form, but we’re not moving fast enough. Although I planned for Zita to betray us, only really needing her to get Maddox inside, I didn’t expect Antonio to have someone bring her back. That changes everything, accelerates my need to get to her before it’s too late.

I studied necromancy a lot when I was younger. It’s a skill even humans can learn if they make the right deals with the keres and other reapers of death. If they learn how to walk all the different planes of Purgatory so they can escape at will. But there’s only one way to talk to a keres and learn the paths of Purgatory. Only one way to train as a necromancer.

You have to die.

Over and over again because if you stay too long in one visit, your body will get consumed by the souls desperate to return to the world of the living. And without a body, you’re nothing more than a trapped soul. Not dead, so you can never move on into the afterlife. Just lost without an anchor for all eternity.

I wasn’t allowed to practice. But I studied the art deeply.

I uncovered all of the legends and myths, all the secrets within them.

Including the dark side of it, the illegal practice of killing soldiers right before a mission and then reviving them.

Necromancy requires a vast amount of power. You have to open a portal to Purgatory, heal the body, and reattach the soul. That influx of energy lingers in the patient long after they’ve returned, making them practically immortal. For the next few hours, they will auto-revive, healing from every injury unless both their heart and head is removed.

So in a normal fight between Zita and Maddox, I would put my money on my brother.

But right now?

When it’s only been half an hour since Khalid saw her die through his soul doll, the stone turning black as Antonio squeezed the last air from her lungs?

Whatever Maddox does to her, it won’t be enough. Zita will get back up. Perhaps when his back is turned. Then he’ll die and so will my wife.

A set of claws scrape across my back, reprimanding me for being distracted. A fucker has come up behind me while I’ve been engaged with another wolf. I lunge forward just in time to save my spine from being severed. But that’s pushed me into the range of my first opponent.

“Leave me!” I shout, seeing Rudy is about to come to my aid. “Get to Micha!”

I can’t shift into my shadows like he can. I can’t bypass all the wolves in our path, sliding across the floor in a form they can’t touch. Mother is already racing towards the gym. I told her about the necromancy as soon as Khalid told us Zita was still alive, but Antonio already nearly killed her once. She can’t call out her monsters when Micha isn’t our blood. They’ll turn on her as quickly as they turn on any wolf. Besides, Mother doesn’t even know if they’ll come this time. They have recently fed due to the attack at the house, and they are not pets, not dogs willing to defend. They are simply monsters who are happy to eat.