Stronger Together chapter 132 (Patreon)

When the lights went out I froze. Not because I didn't know what to  do, but because I knew TOO MANY things to do. The shock sent my easily  distracted super fast consciousness reeling into reaction mode and I had  to force myself not to move and let my muscles relax. Doing something  stupid now would be worse than doing nothing. After a second to calm  down I activated my magic eye. The drawing room was pitch black but  there's magic in everyone. By triggering my mystical sight spell I could  see even in the dark.

The  main issue with this was that I couldn't fucking tell who was who.  Human magic systems looked pretty similar to each other. A few people  like Han and Sera had abundant magical power and were distinguishable by  it but all the maids were pretty much identical. Dalton looked normal,  and Brynn was overflowing with power, I could see Barb and Raven glowing  like small stars off to the side as well. It was deeply disturbing to  see bright lights against a black background and see no dissipation of  the darkness, like I was watching a badly CGI'd movie or something.  Regardless Han and Sera were both visible and that was enough.

I  launched myself at Han to recapture him but before I could one of the  human magical outlines....changed. It got thin and stretched and the  energy became a poisonous muck in a way that defied description. The  altered signature bull rushed me and I felt a terrifying hunger from it,  drawing my soul energy from me as it approached. Luckily my godsteel  weave was unaffected and that was what held my energy mostly. I  activated my force aspect and slammed my feet down, steadying myself  against the smash of whatever the fuck was trying to kill me.

Fun  fact, trying to intercept attacks by watching the magical outline  inside of a body is pretty fucking hard. Magic doesn't completely fill  every cell of a being, it's more like a constantly swirling ebb and flow  through a series of channels, sort of like internal leylines. I could  see whatever it was as close to me but trying to judge its actual shape  and movemens from the shift of its magic was a bit like trying to tell  the shape of a lava lamp by what the substance inside was doing, except  the light under it was recently turned off and the stuff is barely  luminescent enough for you to see in the dark.

Razor  sharp claws lashed out at me and vicious teeth split apart as the  roaring best dove at my face like a pissed off cat in a chicken farm. As  I batted away an abnormally powerful blow I felt my skin split spilling  my blood as it rained down powerful slashes at me interspersed with  chomping bites. This was the creature, it had to be, and it was fucking  furious. More than that though the thing was strong. Han had turned to  run along with his sister but as he fled I saw him hurl a spell at the  middle of the room. The blazing light didn't disperse the dark at all so  it was clearly not a visible glow but when it landed spikes of earth  lanced up splitting the room into about a dozen spokes in a wheel of  stone teeth.

I  threw the creature off me with every ounce of power I had in me but it  just clung onto me slashing and biting until the burning violet  silhouette of Raven threw a cacophony of rioting purple light at the  thing that I assumed was some kind of psychic attack. It howled in  agony, releasing a blood curdling screech that chilled even my bones and  took of down one of the hallways. I stopped to take stock, there were a  bit over six people left in this room, everyone else had run away,  which meant that the fucking creature was once again loose in a house  full of scattered victims. The slashes weren't as deep as I had feared  luckily, the tendrils of divine metal under my skin had blunted the  worst of it. Still the the raking blows had torn the flesh around the  reinforcement.

Raven  made her way over to me reaching out in the dark to heal my injuries  with her empathic healing. As my flesh mended the lights flickered back  on. The room was a mess. Stone spikes all over the damn place, blood  splattered across the walls and a few corpses skewered on the spikes.  Dalton was glaring around at the bodies with naked rage on his normally  amiable face fists clenched so hard they were turning white. "Fucking  Song family! So many of my girls hurt and killed. Claudia?" He called  out for his niece, who poked her head out from behind a spike. His tense  shoulders relaxed a fraction but he was still obviously seething. "This  shit will not stand. They're going to regret this if I have to bankrupt  myself doing it."

He  glanced around at the remaining people. Ranier, Raven, Barb, me,  Brynn,Vikram and Hana were the only ones left nearby. Everyone else  including more than ten maids had scattered, making sure that every  single one of them was a potential suspect for whoever the creature was  now. Barb saw the same thing as I did at the same time. "Damn. We had  everyone together, after we got the traitors I was going to ferret out  the creature, but no way it isn't already gone with an opportunity like  this. Cam, you noticed that weird magic shift thing too right? Any  chance those super eyes of yours picked up any clues on telling it apart  from a normal person when it hides?"

Sadly  my news there wasn't good, but before I could even speak up Raven  interrupted. "I might be able to help with that." We all turned to  glance inquisitively at my girlfriend, who gave a small smile "When I  unleashed that psychic attack something about the creature changed. I  think I snapped it out of whatever weird hunger fugue it's been in. Even  after it ran I was getting disturbing emotional waves off of it. If we  run into it again, even if it's in a new form I should be able to sense  it's hostile intent. Granted it could still be hiding anywhere, but we  aren't running blind anymore." I grinned at her in triumph whooping and  grabbing her up to swing her around.

She  laughed as she spun and I put her back down shooting Dalton an  apologetic look. "Sorry man, too soon. I was just excited to maybe catch  this bastard." Not that I was at all sure we could subdue it. But we  were at the edge of the lake. I assumed it had stuck close to where it  came ashore out of confusion but the lake was Demonreach's territory. It  managed to nab Ethniu off the coast and this thing was no titan. Even  without props if we could get it over the cliff no way could it resist  Alfred. Still, Dalton had just lost a bunch of people, even if I was  excited it was insensitive to just cheer about it in front of the  grieving smuggler.

A  casual wave of the hand was his only response to my worry. We had  bigger problems right now and he understood where I was coming from.  Barb spoke up again "We aren't exactly in the clear here folks, Raven  can sense it now but it also knows what it is. It's dangerous all the  time now not just at specific moments, not to mention there's only one  of her so we all have to travel together. It'll be easy for it to hear  us coming and avoid us. Plus if it's still hungry we can't waste any  time. So many of the maids are sitting ducks out there. Valentina, Kaya,  and Die Su can take care of themselves but Nadia will be easy for it to  lure in considering her hatred."

That  was a decent point, and one I hadn't considered. Raven  just calmly  held up a hand, the ivory smoothness of her fingers dancing with  darklight power. "We do need to move fast, but I can cloak us. It might  still have some way to sense us but at the very least it won't manage  from rooms away like it would if we were searching loudly under normal  circumstances. I can also lay down some protections here for anyone who  wishes to stay behind." That was pretty damn useful here, we didn't need  a ten person group running around with us and Claudia would have had to  come with us too to stay safe.

Dalton  must have been thinking the same thing because he nodded decisively  "Ok, new plan. Raven, Barb, Cameron, and I will head out to look for the  creature. Brynn you and the others stay with Claudia under Raven's  defensive magic. Besides which a smaller group will make it easier to  keep eyes on everyone at all times so it doesn't snatch one of us and  replace us then kill us all before Raven can notice." I wanted to tell  him that was unlikely but I think he was just clutching at straws so he  could get some protection for his niece and I wasn't enough of a bastard  to take that away from him. Pretty much everyone nodded at that, fine  with sticking by the civilian to protect her, all except one.

Hana  stepped forward eyes hard. "No. I'm not staying behind. I don't know if  foxfire will help here but I'm a fair hand in a fight as you well know.  I'm not the sit and wait type, I know and trust you guys enough to have  my back so I don't mind you coming with me, but either way I am going.  This thing stalked me, hunted me like an animal and made me afraid. No  one gets to do that. I've spent years becoming strong enough to take  care of myself and in a few hours this bastard took away all that  confidence and left me panicking over what would happen. This thing  needs to die. Tonight."

I  could respect that honestly. Something about the uncertainty and fear  of the unknown had made this nerve wracking even with my powers. I used  to be a normal person so while it sucked it didn't harken back to when I  was a little kid, just to like six months ago when I was nobody. For  the big bad supernaturals though this helplessness would be untenable,  especially Hana who spent her life avoiding being hunter down and  brutally murdered by Black Court vamps and other things already. This  would have hit a nerve for sure. I didn't bother responding, just nodded  to let her know she was welcome, and her grateful smile was more  telling than any verbal thanks.

With  that, it was time. Raven stepped forward, gesturing everyone staying  behind to take shelter in a specific spot. She picked a nice wide empty  spot boxed off partly by stone spikes that would act as a natural wall  and began to mutter words I could only barely hear. Raven only needed  complex verbal casting for serious magic, she had mostly even moved past  the need for her signature chant during day to day. An unseen wind  began to blow, skittering rocks and dort across the shattered floor and  Raven's eyes blazed up with that eerie light that was somehow a darkness  all its own.

A  bubble of that same dark illumination rose soundlessly around the  others shielding them from harm from outside until we got back. Dalton  looked relieved, but Raven wasn't done. Her second spell was much less  widely dispersed by necessity. She finished speaking the words and a  tidal wave of her energy flowed over us and coated us like crude oil  covering a struggling bird. If that mental image is unpleasant that's  because it WAS unpleasant. being cut off from the surroundings in such a  fundamental way felt eerie and lonely. Raven had gone hard on the  isolation effect since this was a heavyweight bad guy and it showed.