Page 599 of Flirting with Darkness

While he might have told himself over the years that his own heart was dark, lightless with anger and bitterness, he realized it was not gone entirely yet.

He still had her.

He still hadhimselfthe way she had seen him.

Without thought, he ran.

Maybe the lack of prior thought is what gave him the opening.

Maybe his complete lack of planning, of consideration as to the repercussions, is what allowed him to succeed.

Whatever the truth of it, he somehow managed to surprise his dark magician father.

His father had no inkling of the difference in Ghost’s mind, not at first. He did not hear his feet pound over the polished black stone. The Count realized something had changed only when Ghost broke violently through his magical circle. He understood when he saw Ghost sprint past the lectern, gripping a broadsword in one hand, eyes set on the mage clock perched on a pedestal at the center of the room.

Immediately upon that instant, Count Aslanov knew.

He knew exactly what his son intended.

“NO!” Not just anger,rageburst from his father’s lips. “STOP! LAZARUS! STOP!”

A deadly cold hatred lived in the blast of emotion Ghost felt from his father.

It manifested physically soon after.

Ghost practically felt the current ripple through his mind and body.

He heard his father call on his dark arts. He heard the guttural words as a rippling, smoke-like coil of sparking shadow left the Count’s pale hands.

Ghost could see it, even though he didn’t look back.

Shot through with green and red lightning, it appeared to be made of the very living flame his father just absorbed.

He aimed that bolt of fire and smoke straight for Ghost’s back.

Not even a second passed between thought and reality.

The dark energy slammed into him, sucking the breath from Ghost’s lungs.

The pain was so bad, so excruciating, his mind completely emptied.

He might have screamed, but his air was gone.

He might have fainted, but his sheer stubbornness would not allow it.

Anyway, his father was too late.

Ghost broke through a second, inner circle, one he had not seen until now. That circle surrounded the mage clock alone.

The instant he crossed that line, the stone archway behind the clock began to glow.

Really, it burst out with violent, blinding light.

It was as if the sun had emerged from behind thick clouds, and now streamed through the open archway in a relentless flood.

Ghost only noticed this in his mind later.

Even in the pain of his father’s shadow attack, he remained focused on the mage clock alone.

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