Excerpt of Rapture by Jacquelyn Frank

Magnus understood the nature of evil sometimes a bit too
well. There were times like these when he felt as though he
had become a mirror for it, his own soul a distant
reflection now as other things crowded it out. It was a
thick and unwelcome feeling, a little too much like losing
faith. At the very least it was a jaded perspective, and
because of who and what he was, it simply would not serve.

The priest took a breath and instead focused on the grim
task at hand.

Magnus drew the sojourn blade he held in his scarred and
callused hand over the carefully laid granite pentagons
decorating the plaza. Sparks were shorn from its angular tip
as he drew an arc of challenge before himself. Blade makers
far and wide would have cringed at the rude misuse of the
painstakingly crafted metal, but sometimes evil needed a
special invitation. Magnus engraved this one in the granite
before him.

“Anthran,” he called, his deep-throated voice echoing in the
empty air around him, the wells and hollows of the stone
surfaces of the buildings toying with the sound. The stark,
abandoned feel of the place was, to his mind, strangely
apropos. “Where do you think you can go that I cannot and
will not follow, except into Light itself?”

And even there I would follow you. I would consign myself to
burn in that hell if that is what it will take to ensure you
are forever destroyed and can never harm another living soul.

Magnus’s voice built in power, the boom of it sending
powerful echoes of intimidation out all around him. “What do
you think you can gain from hiding when you can see the
chase is clearly over?”

“Time, perhaps,” a disembodied but familiar voice replied.
“Follow all you like, priest, but at least I dictate the
path. Nothing can command me now.”

“Except me,” Magnus replied with a feral glare in his golden
eyes as he scanned the vast emptiness for a shadow, a sign .
. .

“Yes, always you. A dogged little soldier in Darkness’s
doggedly righteous little army.” There was a dramatic, put-
upon sigh from behind him, but Magnus knew better than to
turn around. Instead, he glanced down into the blade of the
sojourn, looking in its reflective surface and finding it
empty as expected. He could hear the tinge of frustration in
Anthran’s tone once his enemy realized his pathetic tricks
wouldn’t work. “You run yourself ragged chasing me down,
priest, and you never stop to question it. What does it feel
like, being a mindless little lapdog for a god you have
never met?”

“I do not have to meet my gods to know They are with me,” he
reminded his Sinner.

“Darkness is just shadows, you fool! Light is just light!
They are not heaven or hell, and not gods who are rule
makers any more than I am a rule breaker. I am just like
you, Magnus, a Shadowdweller, a being with special powers
given to me by my genetics; powers I am meant to use to
their fullest glory!”

“You, my unfortunate soul, are nothing like me,” Magnus
countered. “This discussion is pointless. Come out and face
me. Force me to hunt you and I promise to make you regret
it. I will relish the penance I will earn when I make you
suffer, just as your victims have suffered.”

“This discussion is for your benefit, Magnus, not mine.
There are no victims, priest. I am just a dream. Whatever I
do in this realm is made of fantasy just as easily forgotten
as it is remembered. I am ether and mist.”

“If that were true, then you would have no cause to fear me.
My blade would never touch you. But you know it is a lie,
Anthran. You have illegally crossed into Dreamscape. You
have stolen into the dreams of innocents and become their
worst nightmares. You have used your Shadowdweller gifts
against your own kin and become the worst kind of Sinner.
For that, I will make you repent.”

“Blind faith is still blind, Magnus, and I don’t believe in
your faith or your laws. You think you have the right to
regulate Shadowscape, Dreamscape, and all the others? You
appoint yourself and the rest of your religious house as
militant protectors. Why? Because of Scripture? Ancient
scribblings of our forefathers who might have been diseased
or madmen? Or do you do this for those twin dolls you prop
up prettily as our king and queen?

“Ha! You fool!” Anthran spat in contempt. “Is this what you
sacrifice the pleasures of the mind and body for? It is
unnatural, the way you and your eunuchs and those frigid
bitches live. Maybe if you had a few real, lusty women to
ride your cock, you wouldn’t be so quick to judge the
desires of a real man. I have no wish to fight you, M’jan,
only to guide you from the errors of your fanatical thinking.”

“Ah, but I wish to fight you,” the priest observed darkly,
taunting his foe. “Come, come, Sinner. I will listen to your
lecture so long as you give it to me with your sword in hand
and sweat on your brow.”

“Deal!”

Anthran came from nowhere, barely giving Magnus the chance
to parry the ringing blow of his much heavier two- handed
blade. The priest gritted his teeth as the feel of it
reverberated into his bones, and then with a slide of metal
on metal he shoved his opponent’s weight off himself. Once
they were separated, the circling dance began.

“Not bad,” Magnus mused, “but not good enough.”

“I am learning this environment,” Anthran warned, curling a
lip in arrogant mocking. “I am better than you think I am.”

“Thank you for the warning. However, you are but a babe in
these woods. I have known the ways of Dreamscape for
centuries. You cannot think to defeat my experience.” Mag-
nus flung his blade around in a series of sharp sweeps,
forcing his opponent into parrying at lightning speed. Once
he’d tricked the other man into leaving himself open to it,
Magnus booted him hard in the ribs. Anthran stumbled back,
barely catching his balance and keeping himself from
sprawling onto the granite and leaving himself completely
vulnerable.

He coughed, tossing back his black hair and grinning at the
priest come to hunt him.

“Steel-toed boots,” he noted, taking a moment to stretch out
his injured side. “You think small, clever tricks like that
will turn the tide of a battle in your favor? Those are
linear tactics. Realscape thinking. This world is about
power and magic and the vast reaches of the imagination!”

Magnus pressed his advantage, refusing to let Anthran buy
recovery time with his chitchat. His lighter blade moved
fast, like a treacherous razor, but it wasn’t meant to parry
a blade so much heavier. He was forced to use a great deal
of strength to fend off his enemy.

“You might be fighting someone who is a perfect equal to
you, M’jan Magnus!”

“Faith, Anthran! You ask me what makes me defend and fight
so righteously, without proof of divinity? It is called
faith! I believe with all of my heart...” He leapt in and
crashed blades, dancing out of reach again with speed
belying his impressive build. “. . . with all of my blessed
soul that no universe would allow a vicious, low-born piece
of filth like you to gain this kind of power and be allowed
the freedom to glut himself on sin and wickedness at the
cost of others. Not without providing the opportunity for
balance. I am that balance. I am that covenant.”

“Covenant!” Anthran spat viciously as he swung his weapon in
a crushing overhead blow. “Magnus, you are a brainwashed
fool! Your faith enslaves you and you praise it! It
oppresses you and you celebrate it! Death is the only way
you will take this power back from me!”

“So be it,” Magnus stated roughly. He swung his weapon high,
using the overhead swing of the blade to command all of his
opponent’s attention as he quickly reached for the bolos in
the hard leather pouch attached to his belt behind his left
hip. He held on to one end. The silver ball fitted into his
palm even as the second ball flew from his fingers and spun
out a length of connecting razor wire between the two. The
ball and wire nailed Anthran, wrapping around his biceps
like a boa constrictor hugging its prey, and Magnus yanked
hard and mercilessly to commit the weapon to its place.

Anthran bellowed in agony as barbs cut and tore, the ripping
sound of flesh echoing without mercy. Anthran’s heavy weapon
went flying, useless now that he had been caught with one
arm crippled. The priest flung away the ball still in his
hand and the freed end swung around Anthran’s waist, digging
in and essentially tying his arm to his side.