Trial by Light Episode Four: Trial by Light, #4

By Odette C. Bell

There will be no escape. There will be no mercy. The time for one final fight is here.
Annie and Mark must take the war to the Specters. They travel back to Egypt, back to their tangled pasts. They must dig deep to find the power – and light – to wipe away the threat of the Specters forever. But all fights come with a cost, be it your blood, your flesh, or your future.

….

Trial by Light follows a mysterious woman and a soldier destined to meet her fighting an ancient curse. If you love your dark fantasies with action, drive, and a splash of romance, grab Trial by Light Episode Four today and soar free with an Odette C. Bell series.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Odette C. Bell
• Release date: Jan 1, 2020
• ISBN: 9781393561712

Book preview

1

Mark

I couldn’t pull myself out of the vision, even though I knew what it was. It was so complete, I thought the rest of reality had folded like a badly stacked pack of cards.

I was back in that same room with the same plinth and the Specters all around. I was standing right in front of that black pool. It completely consumed my consciousness. It was ripping it apart. It promised me that if that black pool was allowed to spread, the rest of reality would fall. One person at a time, one moment at a time. Nothing would be left but the Specters and their cruel power.

I was only vaguely aware of the world around me. It came in fitful blasts. I felt the cracked concrete beneath me. I heard the sound of someone moving and grunting. Then abruptly, it stopped.

Annie.

God, Annie.

I tried to focus on her, but as I did, the vision became all the realer. A Specter jumped up right in front of me. I went to ignore it, to try to pull myself back into reality, but that was a mistake. It slashed me across the arm. The injury felt real enough. Blinding pain shot up into my shoulder, ricocheted into my jaw, and smashed into my gut.

I was forced back. I saw my own unique green-blue blood splatter out.

Another Specter jumped up beside me.

I….

I thought I heard something being wrapped around someone’s neck. This wasn’t in the vision. Maybe it was a set of hands, maybe it was another of those light whips. The point was, Annie suddenly became completely silent. Up until now, despite the fact I hadn’t been aware of it, I’d been tracking her blood flow. Now it was as if someone had hit pause on her body.

Annie. Annie! I screamed.

It was to no avail. Nothing would break me out of this vision. It felt like this was my life from now on.

More Specters jumped up around me, erupting from that black pool of water like bullets. No matter what I did, they came at me without pausing once.

My instincts took over, and I started to fight them. That’s when I heard Annie being dragged back.

The Specters had her. And now they had her, this – what was happening in this vision – would come to pass once more. When that happened, the world would perish.

I fought with renewed effort. But this time I didn’t just smash my fist into the Specters’ faces. I actively tried to fight the vision. How you could fight a dream, I didn’t know. As I’d already said, I had been under the impression that, until two years ago, I hadn’t dreamed at all.

As I fought those Specters, my memories aligned. It reminded me of all of the terrifying nightmares I’d had as a child. My father had tried to help me process them. He’d tried to help me believe that they were nothing more than the insignificant musings of the unconscious mind.

But now I knew better.

I remembered some of the most horrifying nightmares of my youth. One or two of them had been about my parents. I’d been in some kind of dark room. I’d watched them falling into an equally dark pit, never to move or speak again.

Back then, when that nightmare had consumed me, I’d developed the ability to shock myself out of it.

I tried to do that now. It didn’t work. But it did at least partially realign me with the real world. It was enough to know that I couldn’t even hear Annie anymore. She’d been taken out of the room. I’d managed the impossible and saved her once today. I would not have that kind of luck again.

So I dug deep. All the way in. It felt like I was gonna rip my own soul out.

I thought of Annie and only of her. I reminded myself of what I’d been able to do. What’s more, I thought of what would happen if I failed. And that provided just the shock I needed. It was when I concentrated on what the Specters had in store for this world that my mind finally snapped back to reality.

It was just in time. I could hear Specters entering the room. As one of my eyes rolled open, I could see daggers glinting from their hands.

One reached me. He grabbed my shoulder and rolled me onto my back. He went to stab the knife through my throat. I snatched the hilt of the dagger, twisted it around, and sliced it down the Specter’s stomach. The look of surprise he shot me was priceless.

As he fell into dust over me, I rolled, shot to my feet, grabbed up the dagger, and dispatched two more Specters. Then I turned in the direction I knew Annie had been taken in.

I threw myself out the door.

Just to my side was the set of stairs that led up to the street.

Annie hadn’t been taken up there. Instead there was a nondescript service door to my right.

I threw myself at it. The door was closed. That meant nothing to me and my battering-ram shoulders. I blasted through it, wood splinters powering around like a deadly halo.

As soon as I rocketed inward, I saw a Specter hovering over Annie. It wasn’t that strange humanlike jackal one from earlier. It was just a standard grunt.

It jerked up, its cheeks slackening.

Yeah, I’m back, I snarled. I reached it and slashed it across the top of its head.

It fell.

There was a door leading away from this room.

It suddenly opened, and that massive jackal Specter barreled through. There was no more waiting. It wasn’t sniffing the air and smiling anymore. It came at me, teeth flashing.

I now knew full well that if I touched it, I’d be yanked back into a vision. But I didn’t have any other option. Now I was clutching this dagger, I instinctively knew that Annie was right. If I fought it with this weapon, I would be giving it an advantage, and I really couldn’t do that.

I holstered the dagger, rounded my shoulder, and prepared my mind.

I had only just started to experience these waking visions. I would now have to fight while enduring one.

I reached the jackal and shoved it, my move connecting and pushing it back. At the same time I was dragged back into ancient Egypt. Now I was on some kind of rooftop. I was running for my life, Annie by my side.

In the real world, the jackal moved.

As painful and hard as it was, I yanked myself out of the vision. Just before it could wrap its hands around my throat, I shoved into it and kicked it with one almighty attack. It sent it barreling into the wall opposite. There were old shelves there. Presumably this had been some kind of maintenance room. The thin metal crashed down around us. Meanwhile, I was pulled into a vision.

Now I was leaning down on that roof and reaching a hand out to Annie. She was right there on the opposite roof. She went to leap toward me, but one of those light whips came out from nowhere and locked around her middle. I saw her eyes widening in total fear – then she was yanked away from me.

I staggered forward, slipping on the roof, but I couldn’t catch her.

Annie, I screamed again.

The Specter pulled itself up from the shelves. I swore I could hear its teeth gnashing as loudly as a jet engine roaring by my ear.

It reached me.

Wincing, yanking myself back from that vision once more, I rolled onto my back, pushed my knee up, and sunk it hard into the creature’s sternum. I didn’t hold back, even though the more effort I used, the more I was stolen away by my nightmare.

The Specter started to punch my face. I began to punch it, too. With every single strike, I was back in ancient Egypt.

Now I was jumping down from the rooftops. I was trying to get to Annie, but she’d already been taken away. I was screaming her name. But I was still punching.

I was well aware of the fact my blood splattered out over the cracked concrete as I was punched relentlessly. But I wasn’t the only one bleeding. The jackal was starting to lose this strange black liquid. It dripped down onto my face. Wherever it touched my skin, it felt like coiled snakes about to strike.

I kept punching.

Back in ancient Egypt, I kept running, too. I plunged back into the temple, but Annie was gone and the Specters were too numerous.

The jackal screamed. It brought its head down and head-butted me.

Blinding pain shot through my head. It was almost enough to knock me unconscious, but I held on, and strangely enough, it was the vision that allowed me to do that.

As it continued around me, I was pulled into the horror of the moment.

Annie – no Sekhmet – had been taken, and the world’s end was nigh.

My mind realigned, and I had the full memories of the man whose eyes I was seeing through. I knew exactly what would happen. That high priest would make something within Annie wake up – the blinding light that had always been within her. Then the priest would use her to burn everything. He would lay waste to this world. The Specters would then swallow it whole. For they lived in a