Page 25 of Ignited Spirits
His words make my stomach sink. Lua being the most powerfulcuraever is so not what we need right now. It was already almost impossible to defeat her last time, so her extra power is the cherry on top of this shit sundae.
I don’t say anything as we start running toward one of the brick walls. As we move closer without stopping, I brace for getting turned into a rat pancake against the unforgiving brick.
To my surprise, we don’t meet our untimely end and instead sail through a small crack I didn’t notice. Being so small has its perks.
After scampering through the crack for a few minutes, I can hear muffled shouting and see a faint light up ahead. As we creep closer and closer to the light, I begin to make out the words.
“This is not what I asked for, you incompetent fool!” Lua shouts at someone. Similar to the last time I encountered her, Lua’s voice is edged with insanity, like she isn’t all there.
“I’m s-s-sorry, my lady,” a shrill-sounding man stutters in the face of Lua’s wrath. “This is all they had available.”
When we reach the crack in the wall, we peer out into a dimly lit store with low ceilings, a rundown counter, and shelves full of herbs and what looks like other ingredients for potions.
It dawns on me that we must be in a mage shop, one that’s less than legal if all the human parts—eyeballs, fingers, and tongues—I see on the wall are any indication.
Lua’s back is to us, so I can mostly see the man she’s yelling at. He’s lanky with greasy brown hair that falls to his shoulders. His beady black eyes dart around his shop, like he’s looking for an escape route. His stained white shirt and ripped jeans match the general unkempt appearance of the guy and his shop.
“All they had available?” Lua screams incredulously at the dude. I would feel bad for him if he didn’t have human pieces scattered around. I’m guessing he’s not exactly a standup guy, owning people bits shoved in jars and all. “What the fuck do I pay you for? It’s certainly not to give me pathetic excuses!”
“I sincerely apologize, goddess mother. I talked to every one of my contacts, and the soonest anyone can get it to me is in six weeks. I promise you will get what you want, it will just take a little while,” the man tells Lua, trying to placate her.
“Six weeks?” she screeches. “Unacceptable! I don’t have six weeks to wait. I need to cast the spell before my idiot sons can get their resources together.”
My hackles rise from Lua talking about Levi like that. He’s incredibly smart, and it hurts my heart hearing someone who’s supposed to love him unconditionally speak about him that way.
Hades, on the other hand, she can feel free to call him a dumbass. He certainly needs to be brought down a peg or two.
If I were in control of our rat body, I would definitely run over to Lua and bite her on the ankle. If I were lucky, I could even give her some disease, like the plague, with my bite. Alas, Cerberus is firmly in control and prevents us from doing anything rash.
The man holds his hands out in surrender, attempting to defuse the situation. “I will keep trying to get it to you sooner. I’ll follow up with all my contacts and figure something out.”
Lua lets out a bloodcurdling laugh, the noise sounding more like nails on a chalkboard than a true chuckle. “Oh, you think you’re getting another chance, do you? No. When people disappoint me, I have no use for them. And you have gravely disappointed me, Kevin.”
As Lua advances on him, Kevin scrambles backward until he bumps into the door to the shop. He fumbles around for the door handle but can’t find it before Lua is on him.
“No! Please!” he whimpers as Lua places her hands on either side of his head. She pulls up on his head until she rips it clean off his body. Blood sprays everywhere as Kevin’s decapitated corpse slumps to the floor.
Lua carelessly tosses his severed head to the side, all the blood and gore on full display.
Well, that wasn’t something I needed to see, but I can’t tear my gaze away from the macabre scene.
If she’s going to kill people in front of me, it’d be great if Lua would do something not horrifying, like snapping their necks or offing them with a spell. I don’t understand her need to murder people in the most gruesome way possible.
Nudging the body with her foot, Luatsksat the prone form on the ground. “You should’ve just gotten me the iron I needed, Kevin. It’s not that hard to get rock from the planet’s core. I am this close to having everything I need, and you just had to go and disappoint me,” she screams at him before composing herself. She bends down to wipe her bloody hands on the man’s white T-shirt.
As she stands up, she spins around the room, looking for something. Her gaze lands directly on us, and I freeze. There’s no way she can know we’re anything other than a common rat, though.
Apparently, there is a way.
“You,” Lua growls as she approaches our form. “You think you can spy on me? I’ll teach you to stick your mutt nose where it doesn’t belong.”
Before I even have time to thinkthat’s not good, the room in front of me blurs. When I can focus again, I see that we’re right back with my mates.
Cain’s cradling my limp body in his arms, not seeming to mind the weight of me.
“Tell your mates that it is time to go,sagana.It’s only a matter of time before Lua follows our trail and finds you and your mates,”Cer tells me, his voice filled with worry. It’s weird to hear him expressing emotion when he’s usually so stoic.
I take his warning seriously and try to figure out how to tell my mates anything when I’m trapped as a rat. Then I remember that I can project my thoughts to my mates. That’ll never cease being cool.
