Seawitch Takeover (Sample)

Sea Sea

I had anticipated my death for so many aeons. I thought of either one of the cities of Oceania finding me, of what they'd do to me after. I'd never thought that anyone else would come for me, not even when I befriended the others.

"Farid, don't do this." Junior appealed to the man as he came out from behind his bar with his hands out in the open to show he wasn't armed. Not that he couldn't do some damage with his own mana.

"Do you know who these women are?" Farid demanded of Junior in a pugnacious manner.

"Of course."

My heart squeezed into a hard painful lump at that. Did that mean Junior had been the one to call the Magi? Had he betrayed us?

"And you chose to shelter them?" Farid questioned with disgust lacing his voice.

Junior straightened even more, his chin lifting with pride. "I deal with Karma, Farid." He stated. "Unlike your kind, I don't judge others through blinders. If you do this, the karma of your entire race will come due."

"Unlike you and these...," he glanced at us with even more contempt. "...filth we have always been above reproach."

Junior laughed without humour. "There's no greater fool than a self-deluded fool."

"Enough!" Another of the Magi commanded. "We have a job to do."

"And you think we're just going to stand here and do nothing?" I asked the Magi whilst still reaching for my power.

For the first time in all my aeons, I didn't have my power. My heart raced as sweat trickled down my back and from under my armpits. This was going to be bad. There were too many Magi and they all had their power intact. They were not known for getting their hands bloody but there were enough of them to overpower even our martial skills. Still, we weren't going to go down without taking a lot of them with us.

The smile he gave us was cold, smug and sent a shiver down my spine. A sense of foreboding swamped over me, making every single hair on my body stand up. He looked so sure, so confident. Even with their numbers, they shouldn't have been able to suppress our collective magic.

Without much preamble, the four men uttered a single word in unison and their power invaded my body. It was a sense of violation that swept over me with all the subtlety of a tsunami. A rush of an unwanted touch forced onto the innermost part of me, my soul. A cry of denial erupted from me but sound never passed through my suddenly numb lips.

Strength left every cell that I possessed and I became aware of the rough texture of the wooden floor as my cheek suddenly lay against it. My breath seemed harsh as it fluttered pieces of lint away from my nose only to draw them back as I inhaled.

Was I really going to die? Fall so easily to such second-rate immortals? After all the battles I'd fought and won was I going to succumb to this laughable race? What had they done to me, to us?

I was sure I'd heard my friends hitting the floor moments before I realised that's where I was. "Don't do this," Junior called out. "I beg you please." Was the concern and pleading genuine or all fake? After all, his bar was supposed to be shielded so that his customers never came to harm. Even if attacked by the most powerful immortals.

"Hold him back!" The unnamed second Magi commanded and I heard a scuffle.

"I'm trying to save you from making a big mistake damn it. This is Karma's temple!" Junior was a servant of Karma and she wasn't known for being merciful to those who broke her rules. And one of those rules was never to start a fight in her temples. This rundown bar was one of them and he was her priest.