The Beasts and Brave - Chapter 17
#3 of Eben Black Series - The Beasts and Brave
© All characters and storylines surrounding these characters belong to me; Eben Black..
Sawyer's gentle laughter echoed around inside my head as I pushed away from him and staggered across the beach. He looked almost the same as before, his head fur was longer, but that was about it. He watched me with those startling yellow eyes, heavy-lidded and almost intoxicated. Donovan was suddenly in front of me, I felt weak and dropped. Donovan caught me one-handed, he crouched down and let me kneel in the sand. Over his shoulder he'd carried Aleksander who at some point had passed out from the sheer nightmares that had infected his mind. Donovan placed Aleksander's unconscious form beside my trembling one and then turned, he tried to keep his eyes on both Balthazaar and Sawyer now. His pale brown eyes lost on whom to concern himself with first. Sawyer turned and faced Balthazaar, his eyes narrowed but that pleasant smirk remained as he faced his previous master and alpha. Balthazaar considered me, Aleksander and Donovan for a moment and then focused upon Sawyer.
"What the fuck are you doing here?" I demanded.
"Relax, I'm not here for you, pup. I'm here for him." Sawyer frowned at the jaguar across from him.
"Me?" Balthazaar grinned as he raised his arms ceremoniously.
"Yeah you. I landed back in LA and could feel you here, and then I felt Eben and Donovan here."
"And you thought you'd drop in and say hello?" Donovan growled back.
Sawyer laughed and replied, "Something like that. But trust me I won't be causing any trouble on your end. Besides," he glared back across at Balthazaar with wide eyes, "he seems to have caused you enough trouble as it is." Sawyer started walking forward, he padded in the sand, his slender tail caressed the wind behind him. He stopped about halfway between us and Balthazaar and grinned, "You have no idea what I have in store for you, master!"
"Such a familiar tongue, one I hope to keep after I've scorched the rest of your body to ashes!" Balthazaar snarled.
"Think you can do that?" Sawyer sneered.
"Think you can handle me?"
"Piece of cake." Sawyer grinned and a moment later the scent of roses filled the air again. Balthazaar looked cautious but still confident as he took a step forward. Sawyer smiled wider and a second later a wood contraption fastened around Balthazaar's waist. It looked like something out of the medievil times, some form of torturing device. Sawyer raised a hand and snapped his fingers. The device constricted and sliced Balthazaar in two. I gasped as blood spilled and spattered the ground. Balthazaar fell backwards and slammed against the floor as his internal organs and blood pooled between his two halves. Balthazaar screamed out in pain and shock as he scrambled his hands across his waist.
A second later the wounds disappeared and the blood vanished. Balthazaar was whole again and lying on the ground, touching hands to a healed abdomen. Sawyer laughed, a joyous sound as Balthazaar scrambled to his feet and glared across at the slender feline. Balthazaar grunted with frustration and was suddenly a blur as he rushed across the beach toward the tiger. Balthazaar launched a palm for Sawyer's head and wrapped those long fingers around the smaller feline's head and slammed him back against the sand. Balthazaar stradled him and pushed Sawyer's head back against the sand. The world went silent and then a gentle laughter spilled from the air. Sawyer's body fell and collapsed inward. Had Balthazaar crushed him? No. The broken corpse turned into sand. Balthazaar snarled and smashed a fist into the sand mound under him as he scanned the beach for Sawyer.
He was standing in front of us, he rested his hands on his hips and grinned, a look of satisfaction across his maw. He crouched low and rushed toward Balthazaar, a playful glimmer in those bright yellow eyes as he dashed across the sand with such immense speed. Balthazaar scrambled to his feet and rushed forward too. The two neared one another, when Sawyer dropped and slid underneath the jaguar. He brushed his fingertips over the hulking jaguar's ankles and a second later wooden-metallic devices fastened there and sliced again. Blood spattered the sand, as Sawyer turned full circle and stood up in a liquid grace that his beast owned. Balthazaar staggered forward, as he let out a cry of pain and shock again. I knew from experience, the attacks Sawyer used were never real and never left wounds when not intended, but the sensation of pain was real enough. Sawyer raised a slender hand and clenched it into a fist. A chain manifested from his clenched hand to the shackles now around Balthazaar's ankles.
"Look at that, I seem to have tamed the untameable!" Sawyer grinned as he stalked toward the jaguar.
"You fool! I'll tear you in half!"
"Like I said before, think you can do it?"
"Your nothing more than smoke and mirrors, Sawyer!" Balthazaar snarled back as he turned and rushed the feline. Sawyer vanished and reappeared behind the jaguar. He threw a hand out and a second later a dozen silver blades pierced Balthazaar's back. He froze for a moment as blood blossomed from the wounds and then the illusions faded. Balthazaar collapsed forward, his breathing ragged and exhausted. These illusions were fucking up his mind, big time.
Was this the kind of power that Sawyer had developed in three months? This was phenomenal, and somewhat frightening too.
Sawyer turned and glared at the bloodied, mangled back of the jaguar and smirked. "Are you done throwing a tantrum?"
Balthazaar never spoke, he moved in a blur and Sawyer never budged an inch. Balthazaar's hand wrapped around Sawyer's shoulder and the two froze. Balthazaar grinned as he heaved loud breaths.
"What are you doing?" Sawyer asked with a raised eyebrow.
"Sawyer! He can inflict nightmares with one touch!" Donovan shouted.
"Oh, is that was this means?" Sawyer gestured at the hand on his shoulder.
Balthazaar's grin dropped and then he frowned.
Sawyer considered the confused feline before him and replied, "Something wrong?"
"You should be screaming with fear now!" he growled, he almost demanded that Sawyer start screaming.
"Do you recall what I said to Eben earlier?" Sawyer asked, "Fear is nothing more than an illusion of the mind...and I am a better illusionist than you!" Sawyer raised his hand and a second later Balthazaar split in two. He collapsed on either side as blood spilled in thick pools, the blood spattered Sawyer and a moment later the illusion died and Balthazaar was cowering in the sand, his hands clasped over his eyes as he shuddered. "How is it that I have managed to frighten a beast that is composed of solid fear?" he purred.
"Your nothing more than an exaggerated magician!" Balthazaar clambered to his hands and knees and staggered back from Sawyer.
"You failed, Balthazaar. You failed and there's no ignoring that fact."
"I have not failed!" Balthazaar roared back.
Sawyer grinned. I had a feeling the phrase meant more to them than me.
Balthazaar hopped up and launched himself backward, skidding in the sand. Sawyer never moved, but grinned as the head of the wereanimal council ran from him.
"Frightened?" Sawyer asked.
"No!"
"Admit your fear, Balthazaar!"
"Never!"
"Then you'll be lost in a nightmare of fear for the rest of your days!" Sawyer yelled back. He snapped his fingers and the ground under Balthazaar erupted. A coffin sprang up in two halves and surrounded that hulking Balthazaar. The coffin slammed shut, several silver spikes manifested in the air around the coffin and a second later they speared the box and the contents inside. Balthazaar let out a horrendous scream of agony, while his blood spilled and spattered the ground around the coffin. Sawyer grinned and turned to face the others. He lowered his hand and the coffin disappeared. Balthazaar collapsed in a heap in the sand, motionless.
"W-What did you do to him?" I stammered.
"I shocked him unconscious. The pain feels real, but leaves no wounds. Can you imagine what being pierced by silver blades would do to your mind, pain-wise?" Sawyer asked.
"It knocked him unconscious. But now what do we do with him? He's the head of the wereanimal council and wants us dead, Sawyer," Donovan stammered.
"You won't have to worry about Balthazaar for much longer."
"What do you mean?" I asked.
Sawyer grinned and walked to crouch in front of me. He looked me over as he said, "Watch what happens."
I glanced over at Balthazaar's motionless heap and saw nothing at first. Then slowly the sand shifted underneath him and a moment later a skeletal hand stretched from underground and raised to the skies.
"S-Sawyer?"
"Watch. The Gates of Hell are about to take back what is rightfully theirs." Sawyer sounded grim as he spoke. More skeletal hands burst from the sand and began touching along Balthazaar's form. As the hands all groped and touched the motionless Balthazaar, a black cloak spilled up from underneath the sand and then from beneath that black cloak, a skeletal dog-like skull peered out. Pale red eyes shimmered with unseen horrors. "Ladies and gentlemen. Meet the Jackal guardian of the Gates of Hell." Sawyer stood up and offered me a hand as he added, "The Jackal desires Balthazaar and no one else. Lets leave him be to devour what is his own."
The Jackal pulled at Balthazaar's broken form, and the two spilled back beneath the sand without a word. I stood up with Sawyer's help and saw the madness and joy that had filled Sawyer had disappeared. He looked saddened now. Sawyer? Sad? What kind of nightmare was I in now?