Page 8 of Legion
Naomi could only stare at him, dumbfounded.“I’m sorry, what?”
“God will permit no interference from him or anyone else,” he added, ignoring her question.“Tonight can only go one way.”
“The dark one’s plans must be thwarted,” another cleric threw in.
The dark one?Naomi sighed.“You guys escaped from the funny farm, didn’t you?”Really, it made perfect sense.“Drop your weapons,” she ordered, injecting compulsive power into her voice.But, uh, they didn’t.
Green Eyes flicked up a brow.“We are aware that you are a siren.Did you think we would not magickly shield our minds from compulsion before coming here?”
Well, she’d hoped that they hadn’t.“You appear to know plenty about me.It seems only fair for that to be a two-way thing.You’re not going to introduce yourselves?”
He tightened his hand around the hilt of his sword.“You do not need to know who we are.All that matters is what brought us here.”
“The need to thwart the dark one’s plans, right?”Eye-roll.“And who is he, exactly?”
“Oh, he has been given many monikers.The Great Pretender.The Bringer of Light.The Morning Star.The Father of Lies.”
Naomi blinked slowly.“Wait, you’re talking about the devil?”Unreal.Lucifer wasn’t actually some pure evil, all-powerful beast of a being.More of a mercurial, childlike, asocial stoner.
“If it were possible, we would kill him to prevent what is to come.But he is out of our reach, and so it is you we must end.We cannot allow the prophecy to come to fruition.”The cleric spoke in a very old language before adding, “That translates to: ‘For she who bears the mark will birth the child of the devil.’”
Oh, dear Lord, these guys were ridiculous.
“The air is becoming hot,” a younger cleric noted, his cheeks flushing.“What are you doing?”
“Inwardly laughing at how pathetic you all are, if I’m honest,” replied Naomi.“You can’t truly believe that I’m going to squeeze out the devil’s kid.”
“Weknowthat you will.”The cleric to her left lifted his sword.“We cannot allow the Antichrist to walk this earth, and so you must die.”
“Or”—the burning force within her bubbled, hissed, and snapped—“we have a little fun instead.”And then her power burst out of her in red-violet flames that engulfed her from head to toe.
The clerics squinted, flinching back at the sheer brightness of the flames, shock rippling over their faces—all of which she saw clearly, the fire no obstruction to her vision.
They recovered fast, their lips rattling as they chanted low, the words coming quickly as glowing streams of pure-white magick arrowed at her.
Some hits landed, but the flames surrounding her dulled their impact, so they were more like stinging pokes than blazing-hot stabs.Still, they carried enough of a burn that she hissed.
“Not nice.”She slashed out her arm, tossing a rope of red-violet fire that quickly morphed into the shape of a snake.It looped around Green Eyes’ neck and bit into his face.He screamed as the roasting-hot lethal venom entered his system.
Another cleric came at her from the left, swinging his sword.Hot pain blazed along her side as the steel sliced into her flesh.She bared her teeth at him, not placated by how the flames engulfing her body had melted the tip of his weapon—especially when she felt something foreign trying to push its way into her: a pulsing barb of insidious magick.
The fire that lived inside her rushed upward, incinerating the barb, cauterizing her wound, and neatly knitting her skin back together.
He blinked, his lips parting.
“Well, that was stupid.”Naomi pyroported behind him, grabbed his head, and gave it a vicious twist.Crack.He and his weapon dropped to the floor with a thud.
Yelling out their rage, two others charged at her.She slammed up her hands and released flickering blasts of red-violet fire, lighting up both clerics like they were Roman candles.They screamed and staggered, their blades hitting the floor with a clang, their skin sizzling and blackening as her acidic power scorched them.
Magick crackled as ropes of it traveled through the air toward her again.
She flung out her arm once more, emitting a glimmering wave of red-violet fire that sliced through the streams, making the magickwinkout of existence.Glaring at her attacker, she tossed out another red-violet fiery serpent, watching as it wrapped around his head before burying its fangs into the top of his scalp.Yeah, that had to hurt.
A fifth cleric charged her with a battle cry.Naomi snatched a fallen weapon and hurled it at the bastard.The sword speared him, stabbing right through his heart.He stumbled to a stop and dropped to his knees, the life beginning to bleed from his gaze.
Twirling rivulets of magick hit her from the side, stabbing at her so hard so she almost jerked.Naomi locked onto her assailant and retaliated with a shimmering wave of fire that curled around him like a giant serpent; engulfing in flames that began to eat him alive.
She turned her focus back to the last cleric alive—Green Eyes.He was on his knees, his skin pale, his gaze cloudy, his face creased with pain from the snake venom.
