My body stiffened and I felt the blade start to cut into my skin but instantly, like my arm, it started to heal.
“This can’t…you…you can’t do this!” Alex said in confusion behind me and just like that night at the ball, my body went stiff as if I was being injected with raw power of the likes I had never known. I felt it seep not only into my veins but also into my very pores as it was absorbed into my skin making me glow.
My mind felt as though it was on a euphoric cloud, floating away to a better place and it was only when I heard the crashing of stone that I looked down. I was shocked to still see my feet on the ground and the thought sobered me enough to look to where the noise had come from. There I found Lucius pulling his body free of the wall he had been thrown into and the sight made me angry.
Actually not just angry but…furious.
Very quickly all the energy that had once calmed my body and mind was now only focused on one thing. My fingertips started to tingle which I knew was a sign something was coming. But before I could think too much about it a mighty power shot from my hands and all those thin streams of colour I had drawn into me, blasted forth in a line. It blew me backwards with the force but the damage done in front of me was incredible. It had knocked a wide path in the mass of fighting dead bodies like Moses parting a sea of bone and old flesh.
Lucius saw this and speared the last in his way, leaving his sword embedded in bodies and wasting no time in using the opportunity created for him. He flew over to us, now he no longer had bodies reaching for his wings and within seconds Lucius landed just as Alex was backing up. I fell down on one knee as the energy once consumed was now zapped out of me, leaving me feeling weak. I just had enough in me to raise my head and look up in time to see Lucius grab Alex by the neck, wrench it to the side and plunge his fangs viciously into his flesh.
This was the animalistic side to Lucius I had never seen before and for someone who usually played their cool demeanour like a fine tuned instrument, it was a chilling sight to witness. One so disturbing I wanted to look away but in the end I forced myself to watch. My eyes took in the space around us and at the continued danger that was no doubt headed our way. Thankfully though it seemed they were now weary of me and gave us all a wide birth.
Of course it’s always at the point when you think you have finally won when assumption does a round house kick to your gut, knocking you back on your ass! I knew this when something strange started to happen as Alex stopped struggling and his gurgled sounds of blood rushing up his throat started to turn into a sadistic laugh.
Lucius unlatched his embedded fangs and stumbled backwards.
“Lucius?” I said his name trying to get him to focus on me as it now looked like he was intoxicated. He held his neck with one hand and used the other to feel behind him as if he was about to bump into something.
“Impossible…” Lucius croaked out and I cried out in panic as he fell to one knee. Alex straightened up and wiped his neck like he had nothing but a bug bite that he didn’t even need to scratch.
“Is it?” Alex asked cracking his neck to the side and coming over to kick Lucius in the side, knocking him over to his back.
“Stop it!” I shouted but Alex took no notice of me.
“You’re… not…Nephilim.” Lucius managed to get out as it sounded like now his throat was closing up completely.
“Ah but you just needed to have a taste to finally figure it out, well I am glad you know the truth before you die.”
“NO!” I screamed thinking it wasn’t possible! Lucius couldn’t die, he just couldn’t!
“He…he will…kill you!” Lucius said forcing each word through his bloody lips.
“The King can’t kill me, just as you couldn’t and just as no one can…for I am…” He paused and then turned round to face me showing me the real face of Alex Cain before killing all hope with the truth…
“The Venom of God.”
Chapter 43
The Final Trade
As I woke I was starting to get used to the feeling of cold hard stone beneath me. But what I wasn’t used to was the frozen numb feeling like a dear friend had just died. I didn’t want to believe it and my mind was reliving the last ten minutes as if I was stuck in some auditorium in Hell. I would be sat there all alone and screaming at the screen just as I had done in real time at seeing the life leave Lucius’ body.
It just wasn’t possible. Someone like Alex couldn’t kill Lucius, how could he…? He wasn’t powerful enough. No! I wouldn’t believe it and I just couldn’t believe it. No one was strong enough to do that…no one!