The Heart of Alchemy by James Wisher (e book reading free TXT) 📕

“I’ll happily kill all of you as well.”

“Enough!” Marius said. “Fighting amongst ourselves is doing us no good.”

The thugs relaxed and Otto moved to stand beside Jet. He didn’t sheathe his sword just yet though.

“I did receive a reply from Lady White. She ordered me to lie low and rebuild in secret.” Jet brightened, but only until Marius resumed speaking. “Unfortunately, what I set in motion can’t be stopped. Orders or not, the attack will proceed.”

“What have you done?” Jet asked.

“I activated the temple defenses. When the sun sets, the black shroud will rise and spread through the city, drawing power as it kills and raises the slain as zombies. While the lords are busy trying to stop it, we will free our brothers and sisters and strike them from behind, slaughtering the most powerful force in the empire. Then we need only march on the palace. With the army of undead I raise, we will seize the city and from here spread across the empire and world until all serve Lord Astaroth.”

With that speech, Otto fully understood just how insane Marius was. Once the threat became clear, all the empire’s power would fall on the cultists and crush their revolution flat. Of course, Otto planned to be long gone before that happened.

“It seems you have everything worked out,” Otto said. “After dark, I’ll make my way to the palace and infiltrate the garden. We can meet in the courtyard.”

“I wouldn’t want to send an ally into such a dangerous place alone,” Marius said. “Take Jet with you. She might be of some use.”

“And she’d be out of your way,” Otto said. “That’s fine. Now, I’m going to rest. Barring a peacekeeper raid, I would prefer not to be disturbed.”

Otto stalked over to the safe house’s only bedroom and after a moment Jet followed him. He slammed the door shut. Things had certainly gotten complicated. Otto knew when he decided to seek out the pieces of the Immortality Engine that it would be difficult, but so far it had been difficult in ways he never expected.

“Thank you for agreeing to let me come along,” Jet said. “Had you refused, Marius would have killed me at the first opportunity.”

Otto grunted and dropped onto the saggy bed. “Instead he thinks we’ll both die in the garden. That’s fine. We’ll just have to prove him wrong.”

Chapter 40

An eerie feeling woke Otto from a deep sleep. He sat up and looked out the bedroom’s lone window. The sunset dyed the sky in purple and orange. When his vision shifted to the ether, a blot of corruption appeared in the direction of the warehouse, or more specifically the temple of Astaroth beneath it. It seemed Marius’s ritual had begun.

Otto rolled out of the creaking bed and turned his attention to the safe house’s main room. Marius had left, the absence of corruption told him that clearly. Whether the thugs had joined him didn’t concern Otto. They posed no threat, present or absent.

Back on the bed, Jet slept on the very edge, totally oblivious to what was happening. Otto shook his head. He’d been so tired he hadn’t even noticed her lying down beside him. Maybe his subconscious had decided to trust her. She hadn’t killed him in his sleep, so he’d take that as a sign of her loyalty.

Or desperation.

Either way, they needed to go. He didn’t know how quickly Marius’s black shroud would spread, but he didn’t want to end up in the middle of the corruption. He reached out to the ether and found his power fully restored. Considerably relieved, he went over and shook Jet awake.

She groaned and opened her eyes. “Time to go?”

He nodded. “Marius has begun. What, exactly, I’m less certain of. But whatever it is, I want to be far away before it gets bad.”

She climbed out of bed, hair going every which way, and stretched, her back popping. “I’m ready.”

Out in the main room, they found their so-called allies long gone. That suited Otto fine as he had no desire to waste his strength killing fools. He adjusted his sword and led the way outside.

The dark streets were quiet enough for the moment. Following the thread he’d left, Otto turned north toward the palace. As they walked, he asked, “Just how bad will things get?”

“I know little about the cult’s magical rituals,” Jet said. “Unopposed, the shroud will slowly spread until it covers the entire city. The only things that will stop it are killing Marius and sealing the hell gate he’s opened or running out of lives to power it.”

“Are we going to have to worry about demons as well as undead?”

“No. The gate is tiny, only big enough to summon corrupt energy. Summoning a proper demon requires far more power than Marius commands. I can’t imagine how much time he’s spent just to gather the magic needed for this ritual. He’s probably been working on it for decades.”

Otto immediately ratcheted up his estimation of the danger. In his experience, the longer you spent on a project, the greater the potential for remarkable results. Investing decades on a single ritual was something he couldn’t even imagine. Of course, Marius was immortal now, so he had all the time in the world.

They’d covered about ten blocks when the first screams reached him. They were faint but distinct. He couldn’t tell if they signaled horror, pain, fear, or something else. He didn’t especially want to find out either.

He picked up the pace until they were nearly jogging through the dark. The screams only grew louder despite the increased speed. It almost sounded like the person making that noise was running right toward them.

Otto stopped and turned to face the noise. Light blazed to life around him as he agitated the ether. They were still in the rundown part of the city and none of the locals seemed inclined to stick their heads out to see what was going