Burn (Drift Book 3) (23 page)

“I call out for War! You are free to set foot upon the earth! Free to kill the traitor known as Leo Cutler
after the girl retains the hybrid! Make any human or spirit that obstructs your mission suffer the same fate as the defector Drift Demon! Your form has been chosen. In that image you will shape into when you land upon the world. I call upon you! Go forth!” Christian waved his claws above his head as Hell roared again, causing another round of quaking.

Suddenly a fire bubble began to
form in the lake. It started small and grew to a gigantic sphere. Flames shot out and sparks flew from around it. The forsaken spirits trapped within the lake scattered out around the bubble in fear. Once again, Hell began to shake in an uncontrollable fury. When it reached a fever pitch, the bubble exploded and a gigantic, dragon-like demon flew out towards the opening above. The creature roared the entire way up and the sound caused Hell to rumble even more.

After watching War vacate the underworld,
the vision shot back to Christian standing upon his pillar. Very slowly the sight took me to the boastful Christian who was staring around at the rambunctious mob cheering him on, as well as the release of War. Very methodically my sight closed in on his lizard-like face. The fires of Hell reflected in his eyes as he began to laugh.

“Everything is
falling into place…the world will soon be mine,” he mumbled before breaking into another round of laughter.

The vision started to back away from him. I was
shocked. Not only that, I was perplexed about his last statement. The world was nearly
his
?

My sight began to get a little blurry and I could hear the sound of my name being called in the distance. The more the vision faded, the louder I could hear my name being
shouted at me. The next thing I knew everything had faded to black and I began to open my eyes to the real world in front of me. I could see Shade leaning over me, she was calling my name.

“Leo…Leo, are you okay?”

I came to realize it was her calling my name just before the vision concluded. My sight was blurry and I blinked a few times trying to focus on her beautiful face.

“Baby, answer me…are you okay?” She started running her hand along my face.

“Yeah—yeah, I’m fine,” I stammered as I pushed myself up and looked around. “Are you okay?” I asked in return.

“I’m fine. I was more concerned about you.” She smiled.

“What happened?”

“You just passed out in the middle of the earthquake. I was trying to wake you up but you wouldn’t budge.
It was the first time I saw you in a sleep like state. It was weird. It’s kinda hard to tell if you are okay when you don’t breathe anyway.” She chuckled.

I surveyed the landscape and saw broken trees and dislodged rocks that had fallen
off of mountain tops and cliffs from the violence of the earthquake.

“That was a really strong quake. We need to leave and go check on our families to see if they
’re all right. I’m gonna call them as soon as we get in the car.” She stood up and started to gather our stuff together.

I followed suit and got
up with her and helped her with our things.

“When I was out,
I had a vision…I saw Christian…in Hell,” I mentioned as we began hustling back to her car.

“Huh?” She tilted her head.

“He was calling out to the souls in Hell, directing them. I’m sure now that these earthquakes have been due to the underworld awakening under Christian’s command.” I tossed the gear into the backseat of her car and hopped into the passenger seat as Shade got in and started the engine.

“
Do you think what you saw was real, and if so, what do think it all means?” She peeled out down the road.

“
Yes…yes, I do…and I think it means that War is finally free. This…granddaddy earthquake we just felt was War being released into the human world…along with some other things.”

“With some other things?”

“Yeah. All the human chaos that our parents and Sheriff Taylor was talking about, like the crap that happened in Middleton…I think it’s about to get worse than that…way worse.”

Shade appeared disheartened and concerned about my dire forecast
as she sped down the road. We reached my house first because Shade called to check on her parents as we drove and discovered, despite some minimal home damage, her parents were fine. She was about to call Scruffy for me but we got there so fast that she didn’t have to.

When we arrived, I could see there was some damage done to my home as well.
Not only that, the entire neighborhood had downed trees, telephone poles, and busted water mains squirting out into the roads all over the place. Naturally there were other homes on the block that had some sort of structural damage to them, too; pretty much all of them.

“Hang tight, don’t leave, I’ll be right back.”

With urgency, I got out of the car and ran inside to see a very nervous Spears family on the phone talking to neighbors, making sure everyone was okay and accounted for.

“Hey bro, glad to see you’re good. Is Shade okay
, too?” Scruffy greeted as I walked in.

“She’s fine, so is her family. How about you guys and the Tiptons?”

“We’re good too and so are they. We’re all just a little shook up, as you would expect.”

“What
’s the deal with all of these earthquakes?” Benjamin said to no one in particular.

“I’m afraid…it’s because of me
,” I answered as everyone looked at me sharply, including Amanda, who was on the phone with a neighbor.

“You think
you’re
the reason for these weird quakes?” Scruffy asked.

“I don’t think it…I know it.”

“Well, they’re getting stronger. How can you get them to stop?”

“The reason for this last one, the most powerful of them all so far
, is because War has been set free... I fear. I believe the only way to get the quakes to stop is to kill War.”

“Then you know what you must do
,” Benjamin added.

“Kill War, Leo?
” Scruffy concluded.

“That’s right…kill War.”

I turned around and headed for the front door to go back out to Shade.

“Are you going now?” Scruffy sounded worried.

I stopped and turned to address him as I opened the front door. “Not yet, but very, very, soon. Shade’s outside and right now I’m going to accompany her to her parents’ house. I’ll be back shortly.”

I was about to storm out the door when something occurred to me, I have parents
, too.

“If that
’s okay with you, Benjamin…Amanda?”

Scruffy grinned
, along with his mom and dad. “Yeah, do what you need to do, son,” Benjamin answered.

I smiled back at them and sprinte
d out the door to Shade’s car. Even though she knew her family was okay, she still drove like a bat out of Hell to get there, dodging obstacles that had fallen into the road along the way.

When we got there, some of her second story porch had fallen
into the front yard and a tree had fallen on a portion of their white fence that surrounded the house. Neighbors were out in full force surveying the damage.

“What a mess.” She shook her head as we hustled out of her car.

Shade took off in front of me and started to run inside her house, when all of a sudden she halted, turned back around, and returned to me.

“I will.” She smiled.

“You will what?”

She scoffed in disbeli
ef as she raised her hand up, showing me the engagement ring on her wiggling finger.

“I will marry you…lackey.” She continued to smile as we embraced and kissed passionately.

Throughout all the mayhem that just went down, I’d completely gotten sidetracked.

“You know, you’re gonna have to
actually show your parents this particular ring…this time,” I kidded her as we broke our kiss.

“Proudly
.” She pulled away from me and started to jog up the steps. “I think I’ll do it right now.”

If I had
a heart, it would have just fallen into my gut. Regardless of the anxiety of telling her parents about the new milestone in our relationship or the uncertainty of my upcoming dilemmas, one thing was certain, Shade and I were willing to cement our love despite what may happen next. Whether I would be here just one more day, or many, being with Shade exclusively was all the salvation this demon would ever need. We were ready to live for one another…exclusively.

Now that I’ve gotten that bit of
important business taken care of, there was another to tend to now.

War is coming…
fate
is coming.

~Acknowledgements~

Thank you to fans and friends who have supported this first time author in his first story. You are too many to name. You're pushing me to make this story the best
 it can possibly be and I hope you love it. Thank you all again.

~About the Author~

Michael Dean was born in Mountain View California in 1976, raised in Tucson Arizona, and now resides just outside of Dallas Texas.

Michael’s adventurous style has led him to start and run a successful small business for the past ten years, as well as writing YA novels and playing music. His passion for music and the pen collided when he was younger, causing him to pick up a guitar and write his own music. That drive led him to starting his own band, getting it played on regional radio stations, even competing in Ozzy Osbourne’s battle for Ozzfest in New York City.

Still just as driven, now he prefers quieter days to himself, thus giving him time to improve on his main passion, writing. Drift, a YA paranormal fantasy, is a bi-product of that alone time. He hopes that when a reader picks up his works, he or she will love it just as much as he did writing it.

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