Scars (Her Dark Trinity, Book 1) by Terra Whiteman

Author:Terra Whiteman [Whiteman, Terra]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Shatter Star Press
Published: 2021-09-29T22:00:00+00:00

In a hurried misstep, Lain fell down half a flight of uneven steps. He landed hard on his stomach, sprawling over a cold stone floor in complete darkness. The impact with the ground had knocked the air from his lungs, and he grimaced as he rose to his knees, clutching at his bruised ribs. Wet, gurgling sounds filtered through the cellar, coming from somewhere ahead.

Lain grit his teeth in anticipation as Nassur’s Darksight formed objects from the surrounding shadows, his vision intermittently splotched with stars; the pain of his upper right quadrant tearing open nearly brought him back on his knees. Another tribulation would most certainly kill him.

But what Lain saw now made him forget about the pain entirely.

Twelve feet away, nestled in the corner of the brick-laid cellar, a giant mass of rotting flesh squirmed. It was bulbous in shape and smelled like an open mass-grave on a hot summer day. Tendrils were wrapped around the closest wooden beams, anchoring it in place. The wall around the malignant, cross-dimensional tumor rippled like water as more appendages reached through it, summoning portals to other areas of the house.

Lain was not a novice researcher by any stretch of the word. While Kama’ath dimensional rifts weren’t a novelty in Keshor, they were considered rare. He had only ever seen two, and never something like this. The kind of power a rift like this would need in order to summon—;

And then he noticed the pustules. There were nodes on the mass, each containing milky fluid encapsulated by a translucent film. As the entity writhed, so did the nodes; the fluid sloshed around, revealing objects inside of them.

People. Townsfolk. They were alive.

Well, alive was a relative term. They were moving.

Lain dug into his cloak and grabbed the satchel of resin still left on his person. He hurled it at the mass, and a cloud of yellow powder soiled the air. The resin seemed to burn it, forming blisters on its skin wherever the powder landed.

Pop. Crackle.

It lashed its tendrils at Lain, and although he maneuvered around the first few, it was impossible to avoid them all. One wrapped around his demolished right boot and he was swept off his feet, slamming to the ground on his back.

Lain opened fire, reaching into his belt for the other gun. He now had one in each hand, shooting blindly as it reeled him in. His throat ached, and only then did Lain realize he was screaming. Beneath his scream Nassur was laughing; his freedom was close enough to taste.

Twenty-four rounds, and the tendril’s grip loosened enough for Lain to pull away. The mass was beginning to sag as black liquid pooled beneath it. It was wounded, but not dead.

He backed up and reloaded his weapons, which took a comical amount of time, given the situation. Antiquated weapons were antiquity for a reason. He emptied both chambers into it again. It never lashed out, and now it no longer moved. Nassur roiled inside of him, accentuating the sting of Lain’s bleeding sigils.

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