Summoned to Destroy Read online

  Summoned to Destroy

  by

  C.L. Walker

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Epilogue

  Authors Note

  Excerpt: Summoned to Rule

  Chapter 1

  “Agmundr, vochex.”

  Her voice in the darkness was almost more than I could bear. It was music I hadn’t heard in thousands of years.

  “Agmundr, vochex.”

  The world formed around me, a blurry mess of angles and light. Erindis was the last to form and the only shape I wanted to see.

  “Agmundr, vochex.”

  With the final words my wife summoned me back into the world and finally I could see her.

  She looked as she had when she’d attacked my former master and stolen my prison. She wore the torn clothes of a peasant and had bruises and scrapes on her skin. She looked tired and worn down, nothing like the god-queen she’d been when I was last in her presence.

  She shuffled out of the carefully drawn circle around her feet and made her way around me. She had none of the hesitation or wonder that most of my masters had when they saw me; she kept her eyes down, refusing to see who she had summoned.

  I wanted to shout with joy, to grab her and never let go. My arms ached to hold her but there was a ritual to perform. She was my new master and she had to complete her side of the summoning before we would be free to speak.

  She returned to her circle and mumbled the final words under her breath, completing the summoning.

  “My love,” I said as soon as she was done.

  She didn’t raise her head, didn’t acknowledge my words at all.

  “Erindis, my wife.” I was shaking, too excited to bear and yet afraid of her reluctance to speak to me. “I am here.”

  She finally raised her eyes to see me and my hands curled into fists at the red in her eyes. Something was wrong; someone had hurt her enough to make her weep. I was ready to kill whoever that was.

  I checked the room: we were in a cavernous space, an old warehouse by the look of it. Steel supports rose from the cracked concrete and up into the darkness above. A dozen soldiers stood around us with automatic weapons ready to fire.

  “Where are we?” I said as I glared at our captors.

  Still she wouldn’t talk to me. She was angry and scared, and I didn’t know what to do. What did she want from me? She was my master now and I was hers to command, yet she held her tongue and allowed me to fill the emptiness with images of my own creation. I imagined her forced to steal the locket that held me prisoner, and being made to summon me. I imagined her a slave as well, subject to the whims of the men surrounding us.

  “Should I kill them?” I said. It seemed like the right thing to do.

  She shook her head and it staid my hand. One of the soldiers approached as though her movement had been his signal. He grabbed her arm and she shook him off.

  “Don’t fight me, woman,” the soldier said. He was a head taller than her and built like a warrior. She was small and thin, built like the royalty she was.

  I was the same barbarian I had been when I was cursed, seven feet tall and built to conquer armies by myself. And I didn’t have to let him speak to my wife that way.

  I dashed forward as fast as I could. The blood-tattoos adorning my skin didn’t react, couldn’t react now that their power source was gone. But I didn’t need magic to defend my woman, not from a mere human.

  “Stop,” Erindis said, raising her hand and freezing me in place. Her words were the greatest power in the world and her simple command froze my muscles.

  “Good girl,” the soldier said, treating her like an animal and making my heart beat faster. I was going to kill him when she allowed it.

  He dragged her out of her circle and into the darkness. I couldn’t follow as long as she didn’t want me to. The blood-tattoos obeyed her word over mine and until she released me I was stuck.

  “Erindis,” I called.

  I didn’t understand. One moment I was in the bar my former master owned, ACDCs, preparing to find my love and rescue her, and the next she was there, stabbing and beating my master before stealing my prison and running away. Now I was somewhere else, and it could have been hours or years later. It could have been centuries, and I had no idea what was going on.

  “On your knees, big guy.” One of the soldiers was behind me, aiming his rifle at me. I was still naked and would seem defenseless to him.

  “She told me to stay here,” I said. It wasn’t strictly true, but he wouldn’t notice.

  “On your knees or we’ll put a bullet in her head.”

  I didn’t know where she was. She could be in danger right now and I was stuck dealing with these humans. I couldn’t attack them yet because they hadn’t actually harmed her, and I couldn’t obey them because she’d told me to stop. Normally I would have interpreted her words and done what I wanted – the word stop could mean anything I wanted it to, it was so vague – but it was an order from Erindis. I couldn’t disobey.

  “Get down, freak,” the soldier yelled.

  “Unless she tells me to do it, I can’t,” I replied. “She has ordered me to stay here.”

  Did they know who I was, what I was? Did they understand my slavery to my master or was I a surprise to them?

  The soldier retreated and spoke to another. I searched the darkness for her while I waited, desperate to be with her and make sure she was safe.

  “Bring her back,” the soldier said into a radio. “The djinn won’t do as he’s told.”

  I wasn’t a djinn, but by calling me that he’d let me know how much they understood. They might not know who I was specifically, but they understood the basic rules.

  We stood in silence for minutes, waiting on her return. I spent my time glaring at them and they spent it aiming down their sights at me. I was confident I could kill them if I had to, and I would probably only suffer minor injuries in the process. I had learned that firearms were amazing but limited weapons.

  She appeared from the darkness again. The soldier behind her pushed her and she stumbled forward. I almost ran to her aid and gave away the extent of my actual boundaries. She could tell me what to do but if she was in danger I could do whatever I needed to in order to protect her.

  “I can’t,” she said over her shoulder. She received another shove in response and fell to the floor. Her face bounced from the concrete and she moaned.

  I wasn’t waiting anymore. I had to act while their guns were trained on me. If she made it back to the light then she could be their target and I wouldn’t know.

  The soldier helped her up, roughly tugging on her arm to get her on her feet. Her hands were now tied in front of her an
d she wobbled as he righted her.

  “I can’t,” she said again.

  Her escort pushed his rifle to the side and pulled her close, hissing into her face. “You’ll do it or you’ll face him.”

  That was the final straw. I turned to the soldier behind me and snatched his gun from his hand before he realized what I was doing. He went for a pistol on his belt and I clubbed him with the rifle in response. His face caved in under the assault.

  The soldier pulled Erindis back as his squad mates moved in to deal with me.

  Chapter 2

  I expected bullets to fly. They’d held the rifles since my arrival and at first I couldn’t imagine why they weren’t using them.

  A soldier moved in with his rifle lowered, as though the act of approaching me would make me stop fighting. I used the blood-covered rifle in my hands to club him too. He raised his own weapon to block me and they both ended up smashing into his head. He fell to the ground.

  Erindis was getting further away. The soldier was dragging her, his arm wrapped around her chest. She wasn’t fighting him and the first thing I thought was: she has become so used to this abuse that she doesn’t even struggle.

  It fueled my rage, blinding me to anything but the fight.

  Another attack and I barely avoided the knife aimed at my arm. The soldier wielding it grunted and tried again. I grabbed his arm out of the air and snapped it, bending his elbow the wrong way with a sickening crunch, then kicked him in the chest and took him out of the fight.

  They weren’t shooting me and I knew why: I was their prize. They’d forced Erindis to summon me and if they had to kill me then they would have failed. They had to face me with their bare hands, or perhaps knives, but they couldn’t kill me.

  I laughed in the face of the three soldiers closing in on me. I could see that I’d rattled them and put a pause in their step. I capitalized on it, rushing them. I knocked one over with an outstretched arm and let the second run into my chest. He bounced off me and crashed to the ground while I dealt with the third.

  This one raised his pistol and fired, but his shot went wide and I still had the rifle I’d been using as a makeshift club. It hit him in the side of the head and broke his neck.

  It also bent the rifle. I threw it to the floor and stomped on the leg of the man who’d rebounded off me. He screamed at the same time as Erindis.

  I spun to see what they were doing with my wife. The soldier escorting her had a pistol to her head and he was forcing her to come back into the light. He used her for cover, afraid that I would fire on him.

  “Stand down, Agmundr,” he called, mangling my name as though he hadn’t just heard Erindis say it.

  I stalked across the open area, ignoring the rifles pointed at me. The soldier stopped moving forward and went into reverse, dragging her with him.

  “I said stop.”

  “If you hurt her I will kill you slowly,” I said. I was almost close enough to attack. “And I’ll kill your family and friends. I’ll kill everyone who has ever known you.”

  “Stop,” he tried again, desperation in his movement and his voice.

  I yelled as I ran at him. “I will destroy you.”

  He pushed my love aside and tried to shoot, but I was too close. His pistol was in my hand before he’d brought it to bear and aimed at him before he knew to start screaming. I fired and watched the back of his head explode.

  Erindis was on the ground beside me, terrified, her eyes wide as she tried to take in the entire situation at once. The remaining soldiers were coming up from behind and I couldn’t take care of her.

  I screamed an incoherent battle cry as I rounded on the approaching enemy. They stopped in their tracks and raised their rifles to fire.

  “Everybody calm down.” The voice came from behind me, from in the darkness my human eyes couldn’t penetrate. I couldn’t see who was coming but I could feel him.

  A god, the divine energy creating a bubble of prickly power around him that the blood-tattoos covering my skin reacted to. They squirmed, desperate as a drug addict for a fix.

  “You are the leader?” I said. I had my back turned to the rifles, but they weren’t going to fire.

  “I am,” the man said. He was Asian, with dark skin and a warrior’s physique. He’d been a soldier at some point, but now he wore an ill-fitting suit.

  “Then stand down,” I said. I looked down on him and he didn’t show any fear. That was a mistake. “Let us leave and I will let you live.”

  He smiled. And then he attacked.

  He moved faster than the soldiers, faster than any human. His divine spirit powered him the way the tattoos had once powered me, making his mortal body do things that no other could. His fist connected with my stomach and the force of his punch rocked me.

  But I was fighting for Erindis and I had fought gods before, with or without the full power of the tattoos. All I had to do was hurt him, make him bleed, and the tattoos could feed on his power. Once that happened the fight was over and he was dead.

  I telegraphed an attack, a punch to his face, while aiming my foot at his shin. He blocked the first and missed the second, but I merely scraped down his leg and otherwise had no effect.

  “Are you feeling alright, Agmundr?” he said, too amused with himself for my liking.

  I moved in to grapple him and he grabbed both my arms and held me in place. He was smiling at me, supremely confident. But I was closer than he realized.

  I slammed my forehead into his face and felt the satisfying crunch as cartilage and bone fragmented under the force. His blood bathed my skin and the tattoos drank in his power.

  I could see the entire space, the shadows gone in the light of the red glowing symbols that covered me. The god looked up at me, blood streaming from the mess I’d made of his nose, fear in his eyes for the first time.

  “I warned you,” I said.

  I punched him in the face and worsened the damage I’d already done, driving him to his knees. Soldiers were running at my back but I had the blood of a god for the tattoos to feed on and I could do anything. I raised my arm and fire erupted from it as I spared a moment to face the humans.

  They screamed, diving aside, splitting up to blunt the intensity of the magical blast. I turned back to find the god on his feet, his hands up, ready to fight.

  “Let’s see what you can do,” he said. His face was already healing but I knew it wouldn’t matter.

  “I killed a god yesterday,” I said. “I enjoyed it.”

  He attacked, moving precisely, his skill evident in every movement. I let him come, let him land his first blows. They were absorbed by the shield the tattoos erected around me but even so they pushed me back. I laughed at the waste of power.

  I hit him in the face once more and he flew away from me, landing on his back ten feet from his starting point. I was already running to finish the job.

  Gunfire erupted from the warehouse behind me and I felt bullets bounce harmlessly from my back. I was powered, protected; I had killed entire pantheons of gods when the blood-tattoos were glowing and I wasn’t afraid of these pathetic mortals.

  The god rolled aside and I stomped after him, cracking the concrete with each foot fall. He moved faster than a mortal but I moved faster still, channeling all my stolen power into catching the man who had hurt my wife.

  “Stop.”

  Her cry froze me in place for a moment, her order locking my muscles and giving the god a chance to escape. But I was fighting for her, fighting to save her, and the tattoos wouldn’t hinder me in that pursuit, no matter what she said.

  “Agmundr,” she called as I dashed toward the god again. Bullets continued to hit me and the god was on his feet, battered and bruised but ready for more.

  “Your wife is calling,” he said, sneering the words as though they were insult.

  “She’ll forgive me,” I said.

  I threw a punch that wouldn’t land and watched the god play into my hands. He blocked it, grabbing my arm to p
ull me into a hip throw that would have had me on the floor and at his mercy.

  I let the tattoos off the leash. They exploded with the last of the stolen power, a wave of magic that tore through the god’s flesh and blasted him away from me. He collided with the far wall, bouncing off and lying still.

  I turned to Erindis in triumph, still ignoring the sporadic gunfire of the remaining soldiers. Enough of the damaged god had landed on me to refuel the tattoos. I was practically invincible.

  Erindis was on her knees, her hands clasped before her as though praying. She showed none of the jubilation she should have shown, none of the awe at what her man had done. She looked scared and lost and I didn’t understand it.

  I turned my attention to the soldiers and red lightning crackled along my naked body.

  “Agmundr,” Erindis tried again. “Stop fighting.”

  The tattoos died, their power unresponsive and out of reach. The god was rising from the ground, his smile obvious despite his broken face.

  “I can end this,” I said to her. My voice echoed in the enormous space.

  “Do as they say,” she said.

  “I can protect you.”

  “If you do as they say I won’t be harmed.”

  The words were the final nail, an order that justified me allowing them to live. I could have twisted it to continue fighting, I could have interpreted her words to mean something she didn’t intend. It was my way, how I had defeated every master over the millennia.

  But it was Erindis speaking the words. My love, my reason for being cursed. She was everything and she wanted me to stop and I had to. Tattoos or not, I had to do as she ordered.

  The god healed before he reached me. He nodded to his men and the soldiers moved in.

  “Do whatever they say, Agmundr,” Erindis said.

  I let the soldiers take my arms and kick my legs out from under me. I allowed them to drag me away from her, into the dark and to some stairs. I watched the fear on her face as she looked up at the god standing over her.

  The soldiers kicked me down the stairs, and I let myself fall.

  Chapter 3

  “What is he?” the soldier before me, Bannon, said. He was an older man, close to retirement but still built for battle. He tilted his head like it would give him a better vantage on me.