Forged by Greed (45 page)

“I can take care of the humans and Shifters myself. Go back to your
beloved Realm before all your precious snow melts down.”

“You self-centered monster. Why won’t you just disappear for good so
I don’t have to deal with you?” Crystal hissed. Her face contorted with rage,
her arms pressed forward, holding the invisible wall of protection.

“Bitch. You can’t destroy me.” Amber spat. Her eyes started to gleam
bright-green, the vertical slits so thin they were barely visible. She too
strained against the wave, pushing onto the barrier with all her might.

The new waves piled on top of the first one. The water kept rising
and spilling over the wall of protection. Both Goddesses immediately reverted
to chanting their incantations. Amber closed her eyes, her brows knotted close
together. Crystal shouted in a harsh voice, uttering each word clearly. The
protective wall grew upward to further contain the ocean’s rage. The sides of
the barrier stretched along the shore for miles in both directions. They started
to pulse and angle forward.

 
The Winter Goddess turned
her head to shoot Amber a hateful look. Her body strained against the pressing
ocean. “Where were you when the other disasters struck? How did you protect the
humans and Shifters in hurricanes and tornadoes? How about the earthquakes and the
other tsunamis? Do you even care how many of them have died all over the planet?
You just happened to be here right now, before the tsunami. You didn’t come to
protect anyone!”
 

Crystal’s body lengthened and grew. Her silver aura pulsed and
blazed in short bright snaps of light. She stood more than ten feet tall,
matching Amber’s height. She laughed a maddening laugh, her now-completely
black eyes wide opened. She became the
Celtic goddess Morrigan, strong and commanding.

“Don’t try to sound so noble, Crystal!” Amber
shouted over the rage of the storm. “We can’t protect them all. The Universal
powers of the ten-thousand-year mark are unleashed. The disasters will keep coming.
It happens every ten thousand years, so don’t act like you can save this world
from what needs to happen. It will come and go. That’s the way it has always
been.”

“You
think you love humans
and their world. But the only thing you care about is yourself.
I would destroy you in a blink of an eye,
if it wasn’t for the balance between the Winter and Summer Races. What a shame
there must be the two of us. I just wish I had a better company!” the Winter Goddess
shouted, her voice mixing with the roar of the tsunami.

“Keep wishing, you fool; it’s your pathetic
existence that will soon come to an end.”

“
I know what you are
planning. But
you’re as
stupid as you have always been. Over two and a half million human-years of your
existence and still no wisdom has come to you.” Crystal’s face twisted with
anger.

“Enough!” Amber screamed, her eyes bulging. With a supernatural
speed she took one hand off the protective barrier. A blazing ball of fire shot
out from between her fingers toward Crystal. But the Winter Goddess easily
tossed it aside with a flick of her wrist, her other palm still pressed against
the invisible wall.

The ground under their feet started to shake violently when an
earthquake added its powers to the massive tsunami. The barrier slanted
forward, and the water spilled over as from a gigantic barrel. The Goddesses
returned to chanting, their hands back on the wall. They seemed not to pay much
attention to the earthquake, despite its strength. Regardless of their efforts,
the wall kept tilting. Both ends, many miles in each direction, slowly folded
toward the shore, releasing the violence of water to ravish the land.

The Goddesses bellowed like enraged animals. Their incantations became
frantic and faster than before. The barrier shattered. The madness of the tsunami
smashed onto the beach-front homes and beyond. It covered everything in sight
and claimed all that stood in its path. The wave tore through the land. It
carried pieces of buildings, fences, cars, trees and shrubs, all piled together
as if in an insane parade away from the ocean.

A few people who disregarded the warning sirens until now, rushed
out of their beach-front homes. They were swept off by the infuriated water,
their bodies disappearing under the surface, their screams silenced.

But where the Goddesses stood, the wall of the ocean separated. It created
two narrow corridors for them. Crystal and Amber remained unmoved and untouched
by the rushing water. They watched the destruction happening in front of their
eyes, a look of defeat on their faces. More gigantic waves were on the way to
the shore to finish the devastation that the first one started.
 

Crystal turned her head to watch Amber. She could clearly see
through the water. The Summer Goddess, still in the form of Egyptian Bastet,
looked ancient and spent. Her youthful appearance, always worn among the
humans, was forgotten.

“The ten-thousand-year powers of the Universe are stronger than us. As
always. Go back to your Realm, Amber,” Crystal’s angry voice reverberated in
the Summer Goddess’s mind. When Amber looked at where the Winter Goddess had stood
a moment earlier, the latter was gone, her water path vanished.

 
CHAPTER 52

Human World, November 18, late
night.

Jatred stepped outside the Tornwoods’ house. He stood at the bottom
of long staircase that led to the front door. The wind intensified, and heavy
rain was falling in angled sheets. Jatred’s clothes and hair were soaked
through immediately, but he barely paid that any attention. He watched the dark
sky torn time and time again by long bolts of lightning. The storm was passing,
and the temperature was rapidly dropping. Jatred’s breath puffed in front of
his face in thick cloud before disappearing into the cold air.

Something was nagging him inside, but he didn’t know what it was. It
made his heart pound and his hands shake. He felt almost scared, but still
unsure of what. And then the anger returned. Jatred clenched his teeth and
balled his hands into tight fists, his nails digging into the skin of his
palms. With a deep, animal-like growl he twisted to the side and punched the
thick trunk of a nearby pine tree. The tree shuddered and a shower of needles
fell over Jatred, followed by a few thick branches. One of them hit his
shoulder, and he snarled in pain. He anger was gone as fast as it began.

“Ivona really likes this tree. She spends hours every year
decorating it for Christmas. She won’t be pleased if you knock it down.” Jatred
heard Tyrrell’s low voice in his mind.

He turned and saw his uncle unhurriedly walking down the stairs.

“I wasn’t knocking it down,” Jatred said, trying to brush the tree
needles off from his wet t-shirt.

“Maybe not, but don’t forget your Shifter’s strength.”

The front door to the house opened, and Lusia came out, followed by
Bogdan. They walked down the stairs and joined Tyrrell and Jatred.

“Are you okay?” Lusia’s face was pinched in concern. She wore a nose
ring and several earrings in each ear. Rain didn’t have any effect on her
short, spiked hair, since it was protected with layers of super-hold hairspray.

“A new tattoo?” Jatred grinned, pointing to the back of Lusia’s
neck, where a small Celtic symbol embellished her skin, right below her
hairline.

“Yeah.” She laughed, touching the spot with her fingers.

Bogdan took his glasses off and wiped his face with the hem of his
shirt.

“Bogdan got one too. The same, actually.” She glanced at her
boyfriend, smiling.

“Now it’s your turn, bro,” Bogdan chuckled.

“You never know. I might. What do you think, Uncle? You’ve got one
yourself. Now I’m feeling left out.”

“It’s your skin, and you are almost an adult. So don’t ask me.”
Tyrrell shrugged with a lopsided smile.

“I wasn’t asking.”

“I know.” Tyrrell clapped Jatred on the back. “Just don’t ink your
face, hands, or the front of your neck.”

“Did the storm do that?” Bogdan pointed at the broken branches by
their feet.

“Uhm… no. I had to release some negative energy. Sorry.” Jatred
winced, embarrassed.

Everybody looked at the tree. Their eyes slid along the trunk toward
the top branches. One by one, the Shifters lifted their heads to see the upper
parts of the tree. They had to shield their eyes with their hands from the
rain.

Lusia nudged Jatred and grinned. “That was some serious negative
energy. Huffing, and puffing, and blowing the tree down. Hmm.”

“That’s the wolf in me.” Jatred smiled, pressing his lips together, uncomfortable
with the damage he had caused.

“Yeah, and where are the three piggies? Hopefully this whole mess
will be over soon, so you can go shift in the woods and run off this negative
energy,” Tyrrell commented.

“That would be awesome.” Jatred stuck his hands in his pockets and
started to rock back and forth on the balls of his feet.

The other two teens fell silent. Tyrrell looked from Bogdan to Lusia
to Jatred and back, and then said, “I don’t know about you, but I don’t like to
be soaking wet. I’m going inside.”

“We’ll be there in a minute,” Bogdan said. Lusia nodded in
agreement.

They watched him climb the stairs and disappear inside. Lusia was
the first to break the silence. “Jatred, what the heck is going on with you?
Since you fought that nasty beast in the Realm, something has changed. You’re
not the same.” She was frowning, her small face serious.

Jatred opened his mouth to say something but decided otherwise. He
scratched his head and looked away. Finally, he regarded Lusia, and then Bogdan,
and said, “Jasmira called me.”

“When?” Lusia asked, relaxing her eyebrows.

Jatred told them about Jasmira trying to coax the memories out of
him and succeed a little, but not enough to make a difference. His friends
offered suggestions for the events from the past that involved him and Jasmira,
but nothing rang a bell. They decided to go back inside.

In the distance, a large clock on one of the neighborhood’s banks
chimed eleven. The wind and rain came to a sudden halt, and the air seemed to
thicken. Jatred turned to Lusia and Bogdan. He noticed a dazed expression on
their faces. All three of them looked around in alarm. Lusia pressed her back
to the wall of the house, standing two steps from the stairs. Bogdan instinctively
moved in front of her, shielding her with his body.

“It’s so creepy,” Jatred said quietly. “So quiet and… still.”

“I know,” Bogdan whispered. His voice, although soft, seemed so much
louder than it was.

Lusia clutched his arm with both hands. “We should go inside. I have
a bad feeling about this. Whatever it is we are feeling here.”

“Yeah. Let’s go.” Jatred ran up the stairs with the Shifter’s speed.
His friends followed, closing the door behind them.

“Mom, Dad,” still whispering, Bogdan rushed to his parents. “There
is something freaky going on outside.” He explained what they had just
experienced.

Andy Tornwood stood up and walked to the window. “It looks fine to
me. You guys need some sleep. Bogdan, why won’t you take your friends upstairs,
so they can rest?”

“Dad, I know what I saw. And what I felt. They did too.” He pointed
at Lusia and Jatred.

Abruptly, Jatred dropped to his knees and disappeared. Everyone in
unison shouted his name. They descended onto the spot on the floor where Jatred
fell a moment earlier, patting it with their hands, as if trying to find a
small piece of him.

“No!” Tyrrell shouted. “No! She summoned him again.”

“But why?” Ivona gasped. Tears rolled down her face.

“This is horrible. She will make him fight another Garhanan.” Lusia clasped
her hands to her mouth.

“No, this can’t be. He didn’t do anything this time. Did he?” Bogdan
looked frantically from face to face.

Andy sat on his heels, chewing on his bottom lip, deep in thought.
Ivona touched his arm. “Andy? It’s time, isn’t it?”

“For what?” Bogdan’s voice was unusually high. “Time for what?”

“Tyrrell, where is the Amulet?” Andy tried to sound composed. His
hands were shaking, so he took Ivona’s hand in both of his and gently squeezed.

“In the vault. In our basement, as always. Why?” Tyrrell’s black
eyes were on Andy.

“I have a feeling Crystal wants Jatred to get the Amulet so he’s
ready,” Andy said.

“For what?” both, Tyrrell and Bogdan shouted.

“For whatever she and Amber are about to do. You know Amber’s plans.
Crystal will never allow the scale of the Universal powers to tilt to Amber’s
side,” Ivona explained.

Tyrrell shot up from the floor with swiftness only possible in a
double-natured being. “I’m going home. I think you’re right, Andy.” He was
already at the door when he turned and said, “Be safe. All of you.”