Amber by Dan-Dwayne Spencer (e book reader .TXT) 📕

landed face down in the dirt. His silky hair flowed across his face, concealing his shame.

Jimmy wasted no time. He pounced on the angel. Stretching himself across the angel’s shoulders, he gripped one arm with his legs and the other arm he locked tight with his own hands. Then Jimmy twisted, forcing the angel’s arms behind him. Phoenix grunted and grimaced in pain. Jimmy pulled hard enough to break any normal opponent’s arms. Another twist and the big guy got a knee into Phoenix’s back and pulled harder. To free himself, the angel lunged forward, adding pressure on his already stressed arms.

A loud crack and Phoenix screamed in agony. The popping of ligaments separating from angelic bone snapped loudly. The angel’s arms folded behind him, and Jimmy forced Phoenix’s face into the sanctified soil. It sizzled and smoke billowed from under the long blond locks. When he raised his head, burned scars streaked across the angel’s once majestic face.

At the utterance of Phoenix’s anguished cry, the graves around us burst into flame. In every direction for two hundred feet, rectangular spaces flared and blazed. Phoenix took a deep breath. His wings jerked and flexed outward, projecting a shock wave violent enough to hurl Jimmy off his back.

Jimmy tumbled before he regained his footing and slid backward. His feet slipped over the grassy lawn like a skater on ice. He braced himself by extending a leg behind him. Coming to a stop, Jimmy flexed his muscles and his astral armor glowed a brilliant blue.

Phoenix pulled his shoulders up and stretched his arms outward. He made a swishing sound like a paddle stirring water. His shapeless muscles began again to take on the form of strong limbs. Ligaments slowly reattached to the bone until he moved his arms back and forth—finally, he could bend them once more.

“What trickery is this?” The angelic voice was no longer an alluring chorus but a unison of raging screeches, “No mortal can do these things you do.” He wiped the dirt off his disfigured face with his arm and blinked. Surely, he saw what I was seeing. Jimmy in glowing, translucent blue armor, shielded with supernatural steel, and lumbering toward him.

In an unnatural act, Phoenix opened his mouth and dropped his jaw—distending it like a serpent preparing to swallow a fresh kill. He bared his glistening razor-like teeth and flicked his slender forked tongue. A thunderous roar bellowed from his lips.

His entire body vibrated, and again his wings flared and shimmered. This time he extended them to their full spread. The concussive bolt generated by the angel’s rage shook the ground. The gravestones caught in the blast shattered like glass. The attack lifted Jimmy off his feet and tossed him like a rag doll. He hit the ground with enough force to break every bone in his body. The astral steel flickered before going dark—it vanished. He lay still on a mound of drifted dirt and shattered stone.

Roger stepped forward, extending The Book of Uriel out to Calypso. I grabbed his arm and shook him, but he pulled away from me and moved closer to the gorgeous Nymph.

I reached out my hand, preparing to enter his mind when the eight-pointed star embossed on the book’s leather blindingly radiated an intense orange aura. In the shadow of the dark buzzing cloud, it glowed like hot metal fresh from the fire.

A florescent mist exuded from its pages and Roger stepped into the vibrant fog as he walked. Like a magnet drawn to steel, it enveloped him, coated him, and crystalized into a thin barrier—he blinked. Awareness flickered in his eyes and he stepped back. The orange coating still adhered to him as he moved. Opening the book, he tumbled through several pages, searching for another verse he could use to attack the Nymph.

Calypso went into a fit of rage. With an evil smile, she formed a kiss, unnatural and vile. Opening her mouth, she spit white-hot ash from between her blood-red lips. It dusted over the orange crystalline coating, turning it a mottled-gray granite. Roger stood there—a boy turned to stone.

Chapter Twenty-five

The Sword of Gabriel

With his stomach gashed open, Stoney fell at Flower’s feet. The demonized sheriff licked his claws and laughed before he drew back for another blow. This one he aimed at Flower.

She threw herself at the Sheriff clutching his ankles. Instantly, the demon started convulsing. Still, her grip hardened, her healing prowess surging up through the dead body of Sheriff Briggs. Flower’s face grimaced with intense pain.

The demon cried out, “Stop. Do not bring another consciousness into this host. I can’t remain in this form if he returns. Healer, I beg of you, do not force me out into the air.”

The trauma of merely attempting to resurrect the dead sent Flower into some kind of seizure, forcing her to let go. I doubted she could have continued to revive Briggs, but her initial flow of healing power put the sheriff into extreme distress.

Sheriff Briggs convulsed in fits of nausea. Vomiting green gore, he doubled over. Great gobs of foul-smelling, puss-like corruption spewed out onto the cemetery lawn. Moments later, the hellion regained control and fled from her.

Allowing the demon to escape, she took a deep breath before flinging herself onto Stoney’s corpse. Upon contact with his skin, she writhed and cried out in pain. Both corpse and healer shuttered and writhed. Flower, unwilling to release her grip, screamed with every spasm and uncontrollable contortion. Finally, she had successfully revived him. Pale and still as death itself, she lay across Stoney.

He scrambled from underneath her, his wounds still mending. Pressing onward into battle, he snatched up his daggers. Stoney began slicing, swinging his blades, and hacking at the monster’s extended arm.

The hellish thing screamed in pain. Clutching with its left hand at its dangling and listless right arm.