Page 116 of I Accidentally Hired a Shadow Walker
And bippity, boppity, boop, the shit worked!
The shadows fell from around him, and Raymond returned to himself. He kissed me back, and I felt my entire heart flip. Damn it if I was going to be trapped in hell without him.
“Thank you,” he said, voice heavy with something that made my stomach flutter.
“Don’t mention it.” I let him go. “Now, let’s finish this.”
“Shit.” Raymond looked around me.
Talkeen had made it to the orbs. His hand was outstretched, and those shadows were feeding him the energy our attacks haddepleted.
“We can't let him do this.” Raymond moved to my side. “If he absorbs all that energy, it's over.”
“What do we do?” I glanced at him.
“Act fast.” Raymond vanished, stepping into a shadow and appearing right behind him.
He wrapped his arms around his neck, pulling back. Talkeen disconnected from the shadows, and the strings flung around, searching for a new target. Raymond rolled away with him, holding him down. Something in me saidhelp, so I stepped forward, calling out to the roots in the ground.
They responded, breaking through the surface to help him. But as I was focused on directing the roots, I missed the dark thread flying toward my head. It slapped me in the face and, for a moment, snaked around my body.
Already hurt, I quickly weakened, but this time, Kaa wasn’t trapped in the hold with me. She darted over and wrapped her body around me, fusing back into my skin. Then, instead of losing energy, I began to pull it from the shadows. Kaa took over, feeding off the power I wanted to avoid. Despite how eager she was, I knew I couldn't let it continue. It would kill me.
Control them!
That voice of intuition yelled at me.
Do not fear them. You are stronger!
“Right, I’m stronger,” I said aloud. Then, with all my will, I told the shadows to do my bidding. I wanted them to save Raymond. They rejected me at first, but I gritted and issued the directive again, this time giving voice to the command. “Save Raymond! Kill Talkeen!”
The foreboding power moved through my body and out to Talkeen. It reached to him with thick arms, wrapping around him and starting to chew. It pushed Raymond away, answering my command, but Talkeen still had somehold. He fought, trying to regain control of the power as we entered a game of tug of war.
Raymond had tried to help, but there was nothing he could do. It was me and the enemy. I knew I had to end this, and so I opened my chest once again, calling to the soulmate who lived beneath my flesh.
I screamed as Kaa shot out from within me, blending with the shadowed arm and heading right for Talkeen. Before he could react, she snapped her jaw around his neck, releasing a venom that paralyzed him.
Talkeen fell to the ground, and so did I as the shadow core abandoned us both.
Raymond ran over to me when the connection ended. “We have to get out of here. That thing’s going to blow.”
“But Talkeen—” I said as we both looked over to where Kaa lay, happy and fatter than before, her mouth closing around Talkeen’s head.
“I think we got him.”
A furious shaking of the shadow cores caused their thin threads to morph into thick, trunk-sized ropes. They lashed out wildly, the spider-like tendrils ripping at the walls and ceiling. The sounds of cracking stone and the smell of pulverized earth filled the air as everything around us crumbled.
“What's gonna happen? That power, it can’t just go out into the world, can it? Shouldn’t we try to contain it?”
“I don't really know what's going to happen with that thing, but it's not our problem right now.” Raymond scooped me up into his arms, and Kaa returned to me, blending back into my flesh. “We did what we had to do, and now we need toget out of here.”
I nodded. “Yeah, okay. You’re right.” Raymond carried me into the shadows, leaving it behind. When we emerged, we were miles away with the others and turned just in time to see the building implode.
We all ducked for cover as the implosion sucked in debris from miles around, and then the entire building vanished with a loud boom.
30
Twerking on a Tree Demon
