Excerpt from book 3 of Oracle’s Legacy
warning: the following contains strong language.
Creed appeared, wheezing in the open doorway of the roof. “I don’t appreciate cleaning up all the Moon you left behind.”
Ollie didn’t say a word as she went back inside. She got to the eighth floor and huffed. She’d used too much energy. Her focus was leaving her and fatigue was lagging her joints. She continued her breathing exercises as she saw all the Moon occupying the eighth floor. They stood ready for her, weapons drawn, minds sharp, and fear fueled.
Ollie’s hands began to shake. Terror was kicking in again.
“Fear’s useless unless you can use it to do your bidding,” Creed said. He bent down and made a quick grabbing motion. Though she couldn’t see in detail what he just did, she had a feeling he went for the knife in his left ankle holster. “Stop shaking, you’re making me ill.” Creed ordered, disgusted as he opened the door to the main floor. “Anyone you want me to leave alive?”
Ollie just shook her head, angry at his words and herself. As she tried to regain her composure, Creed slipped out into the hall unnoticed. She leaned up against the wall, slamming her hand into the concrete wall, frustrated, trembling, holding back tears that begged to be released. But there were no more tears to cry. She held back her scream and the mounting energy collecting around her. Control, I need control, she told herself, wanting control of her emotions and her mind. Controlling energy was beyond her reach, but she at least wanted control over her emotions so nothing could control her. She hated failing, especially when the Demon was right there. He was there in her grasp and she let him get away.
Creed fought her battle, while she stood weak and pathetic. She had done well to keep the fear and loathing in check the past two days. She had focus. She had fight. Now she had terror and bitterness. All because she was tired, too tired to fight it off. And that cheap shot of dark emotional energy Demon’s Wrath dosed her with didn’t help.
Her senses followed Creed’s movements about the floor. He was slicing and cutting down Moon before they even knew he was present. He was a pro, there was no doubt about it. In the thirteen years she had known him, she had never seen him fight. Nor had she ever heard he could.
Yet, there he was slipping in and out of shadows like a true assassin, killing with speed and one fatal blow.
When he was done, going from room to room, slicing and sprinting, he stood at the end of the main hallways in front of the master control room, waiting. His knife drawn, his stance primal, but he didn’t proceed. He just stood waiting.
Waiting for her.
This fight is yours, remember? So either bring yourself here or retreat. Creed’s thoughts entered her head.
Ollie groaned. He was a headache.
Creed rarely spoke to anyone using his mind. It was one of his abilities he didn’t like to use. The one he used the most were his visions. Being a Level Four Moon, he could do just about anything a Moon was capable of, though no one knew it. She didn’t even know it until she sensed it for herself with her new power. Reading his energy, she could tell what he was capable of and knew he was the most powerful Moon alive. Bastard had been playing weak all his life. What else was he hiding?
Ollie could have been considered the most powerful Moon, if she were still Moon. But after seeing the tornado-like twisting of her seal on her skin, she was something else. She wasn’t any of the current Houses, she was, for lack of a better name, “other”. No there was a better word, a much better word that she refused to admit.
Chaos, Creed thoughts echoed into her head.
Ollie cringed, hating that word. Get out of my head.
You want control. Let me teach you.
Ollie’s energy lashed out at the invasion. Stay out of my head!
Finding power in her anger, Ollie pushed off the wall. How dare he want to teach her? He had no right. Not after allowing her to go through hell. Ollie stormed through the door, into the hallway, and toward the arrogant asshole whose back was turned away from her.
“You better?” He asked.
No. But he was right about one thing: this was her quest so she had to fulfill it.
She picked up guns from some of the fallen guards.
“I told you before, you don’t need those. They’re just a crutch.”
She pointed the nozzle to his forehead and his breathing stopped. “Right now, I need a crutch,” and to blow someone’s head off, She thought.
She had an arsenal of weapons back in the car waiting for her, but Creed insisted she didn’t need them. And for the last two days, she didn’t — not guns or his bullshit comments.
“Don’t let fear make you weak,” Creed said.
“You know something asshole,” Ollie kicked opened the control room door and began shooting holes in every Moon’s head. “I conquered my fear until you bitches betrayed me to that sadistic dick. I was strong, before ya’ll meddled,” she said putting the last bullet of her gun into his shoe barely missing his big toe. Creed jumped back.
Ollie turned to the bastard as she dropped the empty gun on the floor. “I was strong! But now look at me. A scared piece of shit, wanting it all dead!” The windows in the building blew outward as her fury mounted like a storm inside of her, but she didn’t care nor, did she try to stop it, “Would you like to know what I want more than anything?”
Energy collected in her eyes, as she looked at the poorly groomed man who seemed to want to shit his red sweatpants. “I want total and complete anarchy. A chaos that no one could ever recover from. I don’t want Moon to destroy it all, but I’ll be damned if I let Granger save anything.” She stepped to the brown eyed, olive skinned, poor excuse of for a human being and glared at him like he were her next meal. “And I dare anyone to stop me.”
“That’s the confusion in you talking, not you. What do you want?” Creed whispered.
“To die,” She said feeling the truth calming her as the building stopped shaking. “But I’d be a coward to stop living so easily. Instead I’ll settle for making others’ lives a living hell.” Stepping over dead bodies, Ollie went to the first computer terminal and logged on. She began shutting down firewalls and letting the information flow freely onto the internet without any security, exposing it to the world.
She pulled the cell phone out of her pocket and dialed her brother O-no.
When he answered she said, “Upload everything.” She thought for a moment, “And let me know when you’re ready,” she said before hanging up.
“Don’t you think it’s risky, involving your eighteen-year-old brother?”
“Do you think that’s any of your business?” She retorted. But he was right, involving her family was risky, but they were well aware of the risk. And she could no longer protect them. It was time they decided their fates, and O-no had decided that if she ever needed him, all she had to do was say so.
Ollie walked around him and back to the stairs when she heard something coming from the computer. Energy screamed at her like a heavy metal band.
“What does the screen say?” Ollie asked running for the door.
“Your guess is as good as mine,” Creed said dashing ahead of her.
Neither one was about to stay to find out. Following Creed, she ran out into a hallway and into a side room. She saw him swing his arm as he released his knife in front of him. It sailed through the window, shattering it. He jumped out, soaring on air, practically floating. She jumped too, but there was no soaring or floating, just sinking all eight floors of the building.
“Shit!” she yelled as the concrete came into view. The building exploded. Her body never hit the ground, but it wasn’t hitting anything. She blew through the air like a flimsy piece of paper.
Angel vs. Demon 