Tarous, стр. 52
It didn’t matter what Bob said, I knew deep down I had failed her.
“How is she Bob?”
“Ever since you left she has been blaming herself.”
I felt like I had been stabbed in the heart. She needed me and I hadn’t been there for her.
“It isn’t really her fault though.”
“No it isn’t, but she is still torn up about it. She is helping with the efforts to avoid the war but otherwise she stays locked in her room.”
“It’s my fault. I should have known. I should have trusted her. I let her down.”
“Tarous, it isn’t your fault. The only one who is at fault is that Incubus.”
I thought about the Incubus whose soul I had trapped in an unending loop of eternal suffering. I wish I could think of something worse to do to him.
I made a promise to never let her down again. I knew it was an impossible promise, but somehow I would accomplish it.
“Edward has even brought over Mary, a Succubus from the monster world I believe you’ve already met. They have been profusely apologizing to the council of witches. So far we are just barely avoiding war.”
I thought about it. With my new powers we could wipe out the entire world of monsters. From the sound of things, it wouldn’t be too hard to push everyone over the tipping point. I thought about Edward and decided I didn’t want to kill all the monsters. Some were ok, I guess.
I wanted to go and see Nyxra so badly I couldn’t stay still. I was ashamed. I didn’t know, but she needed me and I had abandoned her. I needed to see her. I needed to apologize. Even if she decided to hate me, I would accept it.
I turned and headed towards Nyxra’s room. There had been some changes and repairs to the school while I was gone, but I still found my way there with ease. Bob paused, unsure about whether to follow or not. In the end he decided to give us the space we needed.
I stopped outside her door and knocked.
“Go away!”
“It’s me, Tarous.”
There was silence.
I sighed. “I’m sorry, Nyxra. I didn’t know.”
Still I was met with silence. I continued to stand there for a few minutes, waiting to see if anyone would answer.
I started to turn when the door opened and a feminine hand reached out and grabbed me by the collar of my shirt. I was roughly pulled into the dark room, but honestly I did not mind.
Chapter 30
Nyxra and I spent several days together alone talking and we made up. Four times. I couldn’t keep the smile from my face. We still had a long way to go to get back to normal, and for me to make amends, but we were off to a great start.
Despite that, I was still keeping that Incubus soul looping in pain for all eternity.
Eventually the council could not wait any longer for Nyxra and she had to get back to work. She was the most technically gifted witch on the council, after all, now that her father had passed. I decided to go find Bob again. I hadn’t had a chance to have a real conversation with him. I set out from Nyxra’s room towards the cafeteria to look there first.
A knife slashed from the nearest shadow. I was completely caught off guard. Luckily, I was standing in front of a mirror and I had just randomly, for no reason, sucked in my stomach. The knife sliced by my sucked in stomach and the blade missed me by millimeters. A thousand warnings blared in my head.
I was lucky it had missed me. As the god of death nothing should be able to hurt me, but something told me that blade could. The blade of the knife was black, the hilt was also solid black, and even the sleeve attached to the arm holding the knife was black.
The hand disappeared back into the shadow it had appeared from and more warnings went off in my head. The same black sleeved arm shot out of the shadow at my feet and tried to cut my leg. I reacted on instinct and jumped, easily dodging now that I was more alert. I was a little surprised. I didn’t think anything could hurt me now that I was a god, but the vibes that blade gave off were dark. That knife was a god killing weapon.
My instincts were screaming at me again so I dropped to the ground and I rolled. That instinct to roll saved my life. Where I had been moments ago now had a black blade embedded into the ground. The arm retreated back into the shadow and then shot out of another shadow, but I was ready for it this time. I grabbed onto the arm and kept it from disappearing back into the shadow.
The arm I was holding became insubstantial and slipped through my grasp, so I grabbed its soul instead. The arm disappeared back into the shadow, but I held firmly onto its soul and pulled it out through its arm like I had done to the Incubus. Except this time it was a thousand times more difficult. I closed my hands together, causing a grey crystal to appear. Sealed within that crystal was the soul I had just taken.
I thought it was over, but then a flood of new power gushed into my body. The scythe on my forehead appeared once again. The hourglass appeared once again on my left hand, except now the hourglass had a shadow behind it.
I placed the crystal in my pocket, feeling light headed.
“What have you done?” asked the God of Love as he appeared out of nowhere.
“Cupid, what are you doing here?”
“You just killed a god! Of course I would show up!”
I was confused by what he had just said. “What?”
“You just killed the God of Shadow. When you kill a god, you absorb their