Foreboding Skies (The Skybreaker Saga Book 1) (2 page)

The spirit of justice seemed pleased by my decision and gently settled over me. Rage was quickly put into line and I could feel my ire at those in front of me focus, not diminish, in on a few select individuals.  My entire interaction with this fragment of justice took less than the blink of an eye and the nail studied two-by-four was only beginning the downward arc that would bring it to a violent and squishy union with my head. I didn’t bother to dodge. I watched it come down and shatter to pieces over my now near impenetrable aura. I was now channeling anger, fear, and justice, which meant I was closing in on super-hero level strength, speed, and durability.

Before anyone could register the fact that the slab of wood lost a fight with my head I blurred into motion. I could have weaved my way through the vastly outmatched gang-bangers and knocked them to the ground unconscious with precise blows to the head. I could have. Instead I smashed joints and shattered bones. I delivered gut busting punches and kicks. It took me a little more than a minute to finish putting all of them down, leaving a mass of broken groaning men in my wake. Admittedly, I had gotten a little cocky and finished the last one by doing a flip to land behind him followed by a quick spin kick that connected solidly with the back of his head.

Even supped up as I was on a veritable keg of spirit juice I was too slow to register the three men who had hung back were now rushing toward me with speed far greater than any human could manage. I turned just enough to see a short and stout Asian man barreling toward me with immense speed. There wasn’t enough time to react as he lowered his shoulder a split second before slamming into me with enough force to crack my sternum and send me sailing across the street and through the wall of some poor bastard’s house.

All of which brought me to the current situation. I mentally lashed myself for letting hubris dull my senses. I should have noticed that there were other supernatural predators stalking the place. Despite the added protection of Justice’s armor my shoulders and ribs were fractured. Fate imbued some creatures with enough primal force to pound me into a paste, armor and all. Like the freight train that had tried to splatter me. There were two more possible freight trains ready to pummel me. I was officially concerned.

I stood and brushed the debris from myself and took note of the home I was visiting. I noticed the Professor huddling in the corner with several filthy looking children. There was a good chance some of the parents of those children were lying unconscious in the street or were in Downs’ headquarters, poor little bastards. I’m not going to lie. I hate kids, because they are loud and obnoxious and often sticky.

However, Justice loved kids. Kids were innocent and often lacked the severe cynicism and all around scumbaggery that pervades most adults. Adults like me, who hate kids. The sight of children in the line of fire sent Justice into overdrive. A surge of power fixed up whatever damage I had taken.

I glanced down at the good professor, who stared back with a mixture of fear and resolve, one tough bastard here. “Do you have a basement here?” I asked casually. The man just shook his head. Damn, the three non-humans were already leisurely strolling up to the house. There wouldn’t be any time for the innocents to get clear. I would have to finish the three off quickly and efficiently. Whether or not that was a plausible scenario depended on what was out there trying to kill me.

Still, now that I knew I was up against several supernatural assholes I decided it would be best to use my bonded spirits to end this at speed. My bonded spirits differed from the spirits of rage and justice that I was channeling because they were irrevocable melded to my soul. Every Shaman needed at least one bonded spirit to be considered a Shaman. It was the base requirement to be a full-fledged Shaman. Binding a spirit to a human to create a shaman was a long and possibly fatal process that merged a spirit with the Shaman’s soul. If successful the spirit would become a part of the Shaman and a hybrid creature would be born. If not successful, death and other terrible consequences occurred.

The two I possessed made me unusual for my age. My first was a wind spirit. My master has said they were difficult to catch and control, but made up for it through a plethora of benefits. Such as the ability to spawn tornadoes or the passive benefit of my air resistance being effectively zero. I didn’t choose what kind of spirit I got the first time, or the second time for that matter. The only thing I’ll say about the second time was that I gained a ratel spirit under extenuating circumstances.

It only took me a short time to see the benefits. I gained a set of razor claws, ultra-keen senses, and the instincts of a savage beast. It was always a struggle to keep those instincts in check in civil society. Fortunately for me I was not in civil society at the moment and I allowed the instincts hammering at my higher brain function to gain some ground. Only some ground. I always had to be careful about going full feral. Truth be told, my control tended to slip whenever I was in stressful situations using large amounts of power. Situations such as the one that was unfolding before me.

I took the power the free range spirits and fed it to my spirits. I could feel them both snap into place as their power began to fill the newly vacated space inside me. With my senses fully extended and spirits ready to go I dropped out of the hole in the wall and began walking toward them.

I stopped about twenty feet away and they followed suit. For a few seconds we all stood there assessing one another, the calm before the storm as it were. From the way I moved fighting the mob and the fact I was alive and mostly uninjured after being hit by a werewolf and thrown through a wall told them I was a foe who needed to be taken somewhat seriously. I knew the guy who hit me slammed into me was a werewolf, mostly owing to my sense of smell and the bloodthirsty yellow wolf’s eyes looking at me with unconcealed hunger.

The other two seemed to be Fae. They smelled of nature, specifically of dampness and earth, some kind of troll perhaps. They were not giving me enough for positive IDs. There were even more kinds of Fae than spirits, and few of them were pleasant. The werewolf was a stout Japanese man who stood several inches lower than my height and sported a completely shaved head and plenty of scars. I guessed he was a Yakuza before being turned. The two trolls stood a bit further back and looked like twins, creepy blond hair blue eyed twins. Twins that didn’t seem to blink or breathe, at all. Fae can use glamour to disguise themselves however they wanted. I was a bit disappointed by their lack of creativity. These two were probably too lazy to create different looks. It’s not like it’s hard for them anyway.

The wolf decided he could take me on himself and made a stand down gesture to the trolls then moved forward till he was about ten feet away. I could smell the filth on him. I could see all the blood he had shed pouring off of him. He looked supremely confident, with good reason. Werewolves were one of the top predators in the supernatural world and few beings could match up with them in close quarters combat. But, this one I wagered was quite young, well within the normal lifespan of a human.

He may have been trying to intimidate me, what with the yellow eyes and what he must have thought was a murderous grin. I had a different take on it, “If you need to take a shit I can wait a little bit.” Just like with the first thug he didn’t seem sure how to react, he was a big scary alpha predator and I was making poop jokes at his expense.

One of the probable trolls actually snickered under his breath, which of course the wolf heard, which caused the wolf to lose his mind. I was expecting a head on charge. Young wolves couldn’t handle their killer instincts well enough to do anything else without guidance. Infancy is always the most dangerous time for an animal, the same goes for baby supernaturals. Upon being elevated into a class above humanity many get a big head on their shoulders and make the fatal mistake of forgetting that there are those who have been in that class for far longer than they have. Normally, a pack would correct such misconceptions in a nonfatal manner. I would not. I would be handing out lessons on not underestimating your foes since he retaught me that same lesson.

The wolf barred his teeth, let out a savage roar, and surged forward to meet my fist halfway between us. Which is always the best way to handle any dispute, you have to meet the other guy halfway. The combined force of the blow would have shattered the hand and arm of a normal human, for a Shaman hopped up on a plethora of spirits the impact was negligible. Not so for the poor bastard’s head. It exploded as if Gallagher himself had struck. Werecreatures of any kind can take large amounts of damage before dying. However, having your head pulverized to a liquid pulp exceeds the damage threshold of even a werewolf.  

Before the wolf’s corpse could hit the ground I enacted my plan of attack. I gave the trolls no time to react as I rushed toward the one on my left while I flung a focused air blast at the other. The one on the right tried to leap forward only to take my blow in what appeared to be the gut of his glamour and went down. It looked like my surprise attack had left him breathless. When I am channeling Galveston I have the power of a raging F-5 tornado at my fingertips. I could do a lot of terrible things with that much sheer force.

The one I was rushing toward reacted far better than both his comrades. Most likely he was older and stronger, and also not a troll. He dropped his glamour and instead of a creepy Swedish twin there was a towering monstrosity taking up way too much of the street. Nine feet of solid muscle covered with pale marble white skin that was comparable to titanium for toughness. Arms as long as I was tall that ended in flesh rending claws that were nearly as dexterous as fingers. And the eyes, the black soulless eyes of a malicious predator that promised a brutal death. “Shaman.” He, She, It? Said with a twisted smile that just happened to show off three rows of shark like teeth. I really did not need to fight an ogre today. Ogres were a scary lot.

I was just within reach of those arms when the bastard dropped his glamour. I immediately leapt into the air, clearing the ogre’s head by about five feet and twisting to dodge the claw it threw up after me. I landed behind him and slashed my claws across its legs and as it turned I jumped back out of his reach while hurling another blast of hardened air at the behemoth’s eyes. It wouldn’t do any real damage, but my blast would distract it while I thought up a way to avoid dying horribly.

The shield the spirit of justice granted me wouldn’t save me from a direct hit from an ogre. Their physical strength was herculean and those savage claws were capable of shredding most anything. I could not win a head on confrontation, despite my instincts hammering at me to ignore caution and put my fist through the ogre’s head.

Most of my attacks would be of minimal effectiveness against its hardened skin. I needed a sharp object I could use for a precise kill shot. The ogre was now thoroughly pissed, and running at me half blind. To further its frustration I whipped up a whirlwind to form a nice thick screen of debris between us. As the ogre worked its way through my distraction I dove for a jagged metal pipe one of the mob members dropped as I dropped him. It wasn’t iron, but it would have to do. The pipe reminded me that there were dozens of unconscious people in the street. Luckily for them the fight had moved closer to Down’s headquarters and away from them.

If I crafted a gentle and precise wind I could safely move all of them … I forced the spirit of justice to the periphery of my consciousness. I was in a fight for my life and while a spirit of justice was always happy to die defending the innocent, I was considerably less inclined to do so. Savagery is what I needed. I would continue to draw the ogre away and watch out for them, but I didn’t have the strength to spare to move dozens of people while fighting.

Now I needed to find a way to jam my pipe through the big bastard’s skull. The only weak spot an ogre has is the back of its head where the head and neck meet. I snatched up the pipe and moved in a wide circle around the ogre who stumbled out of the whirlwind. It was furious and about eleven feet tall.

The ability to get bigger and stronger the angrier they got was a hallmark of ogre kind. Apparently I now warranted his full strength. By the fire of Olympus, the bastard was creating mini-tremors as he walked. I don’t know off the top of my head how much a pissed ogre weighs, but it’s probably in the neighborhood of a metric shit-ton.

The ogre’s increased size may actually work in my favor. As it grew it would be slower and dumber. Much like the green rage monster himself, intelligence was forsaken for raw power. But it was still smart enough to realize there were human shields it could use, or maybe it wanted the satisfaction of an easy kill. I could see the old man poking his head out of his ruined wall and the kid I knocked out was still on the sidewalk and starting to show signs of consciousness. Not a fortunate turn for the kid as the ogre noticed first him then the Professor and barreled toward them doing a passable imitation of a runaway freight train. As I started to move to intercept the ogre the thunderous clap of automatic gunfire and the chilling sound of bullets striking nearby seized my attention and made me to duck and weave spastically.

The troll had stood back up and grabbed one of the discarded automatic rifles while the ogre distracted me. I thanked whatever force in the universe that caused trolls to have such horrible vision. If not for their subpar eyesight then the line of bullets that tore up the pavement parallel to me would have slammed into me. My shield, like a ballistic vest, would fail under an onslaught of automatic gunfire.

The bastard swung the barrel of the gun toward the semi-conscious kid stirring on the sidewalk as he ejected the spent magazine. Time to field test a new trick. I focused and compressed the air in my lungs. I still had time. The troll’s gangly fingers fumbled with the gun as he slammed in a new clip. A face not even a mother could love was lit with glee at the prospect of cutting a kid apart with literal hot lead. My lungs were about to burst. The troll and I both took our aim. I struck first. I expelled the compressed air from my lungs in three highly focused bullets.

Two things happened in an instant. Two of my air bullets, cool name pending, ripped baseball sized chunks out of the trolls head and one of my lungs partially burst or collapsed or something. I knew from the searing agony and the blood trying to force its way up my throat. As the firmly dead troll fell to the ground I continued my dash after the ogre, no time now for stopping to cough up blood. With every breath more shards of jagged metal filled my lungs.

The kid was now fully conscious and scrambling away from the hulking monstrosity who wanted to show him what was like to be a tube of toothpaste that got squeezed too hard. The Professor stepped out of his front door, completely ignoring the convenient hole in the wall that I created. It took a moment to register the rifle in his hands as he took aim at the ogre and started firing in short controlled bursts. It would take armor piercing rounds to bother an ogre, but I appreciated the gesture. The old man continued to impress me. I was nearly on the ogre when it coiled its massive body and somehow launched himself from the street to the front porch. It wasn’t fair that something gargantuan could jump such a distance with ease.

I immediately threw a strong gust of wind at the old man. It took him off his feet as the ogre’s swing passed inches from his head before tearing a chunk out of the house. At that point there was more hole in the front of the house than actual house. The ogre roared its annoyance and tried to bring an elephant like foot down on the old man.