Chasing Lightning

  Chasing Lightning

  Magic of Nasci, Book #1

  DM Fike

  Avalon Labs LLC

  Copyright © 2020 DM Fike

  All rights reserved

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  ISBN-13: 9781234567890

  ISBN-10: 1477123456

  Cover design by: Avalon Labs LLC

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2018675309

  Printed in the United States of America

  For Jacob. Love is a choice we make everyday.

  CHAPTER 1

  I DO NOT RECOMMEND striking a whale corpse with lightning. You will regret it.

  I hadn’t started my day hoping to spread chunky marine carcass all over the Oregon coast. My augur, Guntram, and I spent an incredibly boring morning reinforcing the defensive sigils inside a wooded stretch of Cape Perpetua. You should have heard him describing the virtues of such endless work.

  “Ina, defensive sigils are the backbone of being a shepherd of Nasci. It’s a sacred honor of the highest order, completed by the lowest eyas to the highest oracle, since their ubiquity prevent most vaettur breaches from ever forming.”

  Blah. Blah. Duty calls. Blah.

  Drawing defensive sigils isn’t actually hard, just tedious as hell. First, you absorb any type of pith, goddess Nasci’s life essence that flows through nature. Shepherds do this by touching the ground, exposing their skin to a breeze, stepping in a puddle, whatever. Then you let the energy swirl inside your pithways like a cocktail. Once churned and ready, you use your finger to draw the proper sigil on large trees, sturdy rocks, and even along cliff faces. The overlapping circles create an intangible shield that protects the area from both physical and magical damage.

  Unfortunately, like most monotonous chores, it only does so much good.

  We’d just finished bolstering a three-mile section of forest when Guntram called for a lunch break. Dark clouds overhead leaked fat drops of rain on us. The storm rolled in so fast that tendrils of my almost-black hair clumped in my face before I could do anything to prevent it. I absorbed water pith out of my clothes and hair, then drew the sigil for dryness: a triangle with waves lapping above. An invisible water barrier floated about an inch around me, which the rain hit and dripped off.

  Once dry and protected from the rain, Guntram threw me some homemade fruit leather and hard biscuits. Oh goody. Then he stood in stoic silence at a cliff’s edge, bushy black eyebrows facing the vast Pacific Ocean. A Paul Bunyan of a man, he scowled at the storm the way he often glared at me during lectures. Like most followers of Nasci, he wore a handsewn hooded cloak with shredded edges and a matching set of tunic and pants. He never wore shoes, preferring to keep his bare feet in direct contact with the ground to absorb earth pith. It makes a lot of sense, really. A shepherd can wield earth-based magic much easier with more pith flowing through them, like a cell phone plugged directly into a power outlet rather than relying on its own charge.

  I personally detest walking barefoot. Guntram has grumbled time and again that I’ll eventually grow calluses, but I’m not willing to endure the torture to get there. Thus, I opt for hiking boots. To compensate for my lack of foot-to-ground contact, I touch boulders and rock outcroppings to absorb earth pith as I walk. I also don’t go for the organic-cloth outfits that the other shepherds prefer. Too scratchy. Instead, I wear cut-off shorts and hoodies that I can roll up the sleeves of. I may look like a cheap hoodlum knock-off, but I’m much more comfortable than my rustic peers.

  As Guntram and I ate what passes for lunch as a shepherd, a symphony of drops beat out a pleasing rhythm along my water barrier. I breathed in the peace of the dense Pacific Northwest forest. Maybe it was just a reaction to the various elemental energies dancing in my pithways, but I experienced a quiet divinity. The ferns created spiraling patterns at the base of Douglas firs that in turn formed gigantic parallel stairways straight to the sky. I felt connected to everything—the lichen, the flock of Guntram’s ravens resting in the trees, and the ocean beyond. In that moment, I could sense Nasci herself, inhabiting the center of our planet and keeping us all alive. Her gentle pith flowed through me as we spun round and round in the vastness of space on her back.

  Of course, peace rarely lasts. The universe has a way of keeping you on your toes.

  A sharp cry pierced the air. I whipped my head in its direction, out toward the ocean. “What’s that?”

  “Sh.” Guntram’s harsh rebuke indicated he meant business. The rainstorm brought in mists that made it hard to see more than a few miles out to sea. Using his dominant left hand, Guntram drew a series of Vs stacked on top of each other in the air, a sigil to part the fog.

  That’s when we first spotted the comically large harbor seal bobbing in the waves. Easily ten feet long, his gray coat sported bright blue streaks woven up and down his spine like an exaggerated hemline. Knobby six-inch antlers stuck out on either side of his head, barnacles clinging in patches. The seal bared his sharp teeth at something in the mist behind him, giving out another one of those human-like cries.

  Ronan. He’s a dryant, a spirit of Nasci that keeps nature in balance. It’s a shepherd’s numero uno job to protect dryants. Ronan is a familiar figure along this stretch of the Oregon coast, roaming the waterways with his fellow pinnipeds, the seals and sea lions. He’s mostly blubbery and harmless.

  Guntram stated the obvious. “Something has upset Ronan.”

  I tensed as a second figure emerged behind Ronan in the mists. At first shapeless, the shadow ducked and weaved beneath the waves, causing the seal to scurry away. Then the creature rose above the water’s surface in pursuit, a huge mass of gray flesh. Easily five times Ronan’s size, the beast directed a gaping jaw full of teeth at the frantic seal, bearing down on him.

  “What’s that sperm whale doing?” I asked. “I thought they ate squid and fish.”

  “She should not be so near to shore.” Guntram narrowed his eyes. “A vaettur has possessed her.”

  Adrenaline pumped in my veins. Vaetturs are disgusting otherworldly spirits that sneak into our world, bent on devouring dryants, animals, and generally sucking up Nasci’s pith for themselves. The defensive sigils keep the small ones out, but the bigger ones always manage to portal through. Worse than parasites, when vaetturs drain dryants of all their pith, they not only kill those poor creatures, they weaken the animals the dryants protect with their magical connection to Nasci.

  Guntram crouched, sticking one palm flat in the muddy grass. The other hand clenched a thin, thumb-sized piece of metal hanging from the silver chain around his neck. The air charm stored extra pith, meaning Guntram was about to do something drastic using wind.

  “What do we do?” I grabbed my own necklace of charms.

  “I’m going after it.” Guntram paused to give me a warning glare. “You keep lookout here.”

  “Lookout?” But I might as well have been talking to my half-eaten biscuit. Guntram drew a long string of spiraling Ss, sending a burst of air under his feet that launched him in a perfect parabola, clearing the beach and heading out for deep water. Several of his ravens took to the air after him, creating a halo of black feathers in his wake. He drew more air sigils mid-flight to create a steady upward force of wind at his feet. This slowed him down enough that he landed in the water with very little impact, like an expert diver, hardly any splash at all.

  Show-off.

  Gu
ntram reappeared not far from Ronan, who quickly spotted him and swam in his direction. A decent swimmer, Guntram grabbed onto Ronan’s stubby antlers and then guided them both through the waves like an Olympic gold medalist. Guntram must have executed some water sigil so they could move faster, away from their pursuer.

  But swimming would only get them so far. The whale dived toward them.

  “Watch out!” I yelled.

  They couldn’t hear me, but they weren’t stupid either. Guntram and Ronan vaulted out of the way as the whale breached the water in an attempt to swallow them. After evading the enemy’s bite, the two raced along the coastline going north, the sperm whale hot on their tails. I would lose sight of them at this rate. I ran parallel along the cliff’s edge, drawing a stack of Vs now and again to get a clearer view of the fight. At least the ravens circling above Guntram made him easier to spot against the monochrome water.

  Guntram and Ronan managed to create a widening gap between themselves and the whale. The whale decelerated, bobbing uncertainly a few times before sinking beneath the waves. I made it to the border of the cliffs, peering down upon a U-shaped sandy beach far below. The occasional roar of a car engine warned we were getting dangerously close to the coastal highway, and thus the more populated area of wilderness. Guntram and the dryant seal charged toward the alcove, a land sanctuary where the whale could not follow. I found a rocky pathway leading toward the shore and skidded down the steep incline by angling the rubber of my hiking boots. Good luck doing that in bare feet.

  I’d made it halfway down the cliffs toward the beach when disaster struck. About a quarter mile from the shore, the sperm whale re-emerged right on top of Ronan. The seal screeched and would have been eaten alive right there had Guntram not manipulated the waves to roll him aside. Unfortunately, Guntram’s extended arm drawing the sigil went straight in the whale’s mouth. The beast clamped her teeth firmly around his elbow.

  Then the whale pulled Guntram completely under the water.

  “Guntram!” I yelled. I faltered in mid-skid, stumbling the rest of the way to the sand. I landed hard on my hands and knees. Wincing, I picked myself up and dashed toward the shoreline. I’d worry about cuts and bruises later.

  A blue and gray striped mass launched out of the foam toward me. Ronan. He looked up at me, puppy-like eyes wide with terror, as I herded him farther ashore. I scanned the water where Guntram had disappeared.

  “You better not be dead!” I yelled out into the rolling waves, hoping irrationally that it would cause him to appear.

  It didn’t work.

  My mind raced with possible scenarios as the ocean refused to relinquish my augur. What would I do if Guntram was gone? How would I protect Ronan? I clutched the five charms at my neck, not knowing how to fight off a possessed sperm whale. I thrust my hands into the sandy beach, feeling the elements around me. None of them—earth, air, water, or even their combined strength of fire—seemed sufficient for the task.

  Up above, the rain intensified. I thought I heard a distant rumbling. Standing slowly, I removed my hands from the sand and instead opened them up to the sky. A flutter of sparks shot through my pith. I felt the storm approach.

  But should I use it?

  “Hey, you! Kid! What are you doing?”

  I froze at this sudden new voice behind me. Feeling silly with my hands outstretched to the rain, I lowered them to find an athletic man in his mid-twenties slamming the door to a black SUV in the small parking lot a hundred yards away. He wore the beige uniform of a park ranger, complete with crowned hat held by a strap under his chin. Only bits of his ebony hair poked out at the sides. He waded through tall grass to get to the beach, getting drenched in the process.

  “Kid!” he called again. “You shouldn’t be out here. There’s a storm advisory for this area.”

  Great. Generic humans on the scene. “Stop calling me ‘kid!’” I yelled back. “I’m probably older than you are!”

  The ranger’s brow furrowed in confusion. He strolled right past a shivering Ronan without noticing him. Not surprising. Only those with ken, the magical sight of Nasci, could perceive dryants and vaetturs.

  “Miss!” the ranger called again, adding a few years onto my youthfully cursed half-Asian face. He was now only feet away. “The beach is not safe. Do you understand?”

  Ronan answered with a wail, voice laced with panic. I winced at the sound, but surprisingly, the ranger picked up on it too. He floundered around, looking through Ronan and around the beach after being given the jump scare of his life.

  I didn’t have time to contemplate how he sensed Ronan’s distress when the whale popped out of the ocean and came barreling toward me on a gigantic sneaker wave. A more powerful shepherd would have done something truly badass. Push the waves back into the ocean. Thrust the whale up a rock wall to stop her momentum.

  I did none of that. Instead, I scrambled up the beach, half on all fours as I stumbled toward Ronan and the park ranger.

  The ground shook with the force of the whale’s massive body thudding onto shore. She gave out hisses of air like a deflated balloon, sinking into wet sand. As I huddled next to the shocked park ranger, I realized the poor whale couldn’t be alive. Her sunken eyes had that hollow disfiguration that only death brings, and her extremities only moved in rhythm with the waves. I nervously glanced over at the side of her mouth where she had held Guntram’s arm but found no trace of him.

  What had happened to my augur?

  To his credit, the park ranger recovered quickly. He grabbed a commercial grade walkie-talkie from his belt and spoke into it. “There’s a beached whale south of Neptune viewpoint.” A staticky voice on the other end said they’d send backup.

  My muscles stiffened as I tried to determine the best course of action. Guntram was missing. A vaettur had possessed and killed one of the largest animals on the planet. I had a frightened dryant on my hands. And soon a bunch of dippy park rangers would arrive to handle a situation they couldn’t even see, let alone comprehend.

  Not aware of his ineptitude, the park ranger put his hand on my shoulder. A name tag pinned above a badge read “Vincent Garcia” in bold black letters. “Miss, let’s get you somewhere dry.”

  The words slipped out of my mouth before I could stop them. “I’m already dry, you moron.”

  Vincent’s stiffened as he realized the truth of my words. Where his hand touched my shoulder, my hoodie remained dry despite pouring rain. Thanks, drying sigil! Vincent removed his hand as if he had touched a hot oven, dark eyes widening in horror as he watched the water slough off my clothes in rivulets. He took several steps back away from me, the freak show.

  At the same time, the whale’s mouth squirmed open. No, it hadn’t come alive. Something wanted out. An elongated beak the length of a kayak protruded from the whale’s dead lips. A disheveled rooster head followed, made much more ridiculous by a gigantic set of curled ram horns on either side. A serpentine neck made of saucer-sized scales connected its cranium to a lizard torso, complete with hooked claws and attached wings. A grotesque Adam’s apple quivered in its throat, creating an insect-like clicking noise.

  Ronan went bananas, flopping about in terror as his squeals reached pig slaughterhouse-level proportions. A shiver went through me. The vaettur was truly enormous, almost as large as the whale itself.

  “We are so screwed.” I gulped.

  My voice caused the vaettur to swing its horns at me. As its gaze raked over me, the earth in my pithways suddenly weighed me down like an anchor. The world had gone languid. As my body stiffened as if made of stone, I finally classified this jerk.

  A cockatrice.

  Guntram had explained cockatrices to me a while back. They could immobilize your earth pith if their gaze locked with yours. I became rooted to the spot, as petrified as any Medusa victim.

  Vincent traced my gaze wildly, not able to see the vaettur, but noting the whale’s mouth gape open like some messed-up animatronic. “What are you staring at?”
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  The cockatrice whipped its gaze over to Vincent, and for a split second I could move again of my own volition. When the vaettur grabbed onto Vincent’s earth pith and he froze, I realized this was my one and only chance to thrash this thing. And with something that size, I needed a metric ton of pith to banish this vaettur.

  That left me only one option.

  I thrust my hands into the air, letting the storm’s electrical pith flow through me. I absorbed every bit of it I could, trying desperately to keep it under control. Nevertheless, it overwhelmed my pithways, numbing all of my senses until I could barely perceive the outside world. When I could absorb no more, I drew a ragged five-pointed star and flung the painful lightning pith out toward the cockatrice. It pivoted to face me, the bigger threat, at the last minute.

  Too late, sucker!

  The vaettur didn’t stand a chance against a banishment sigil backed by lightning. It burst into waves of smoke underneath a bright flash, never to return to Nasci’s world again.

  The rest of that magical momentum had to go somewhere, though, and it did, right into the sperm whale corpse. I had no time to contemplate my poor life choices as the whale exploded like a landmine of red chunks.

  I snatched my defensive charm in one fist as gobs of marine animal rained down the entire beach. I brought up an invisible shield just in time, and Ronan ducked toward me to avoid the meat hailstorm.

  The park ranger, however, wasn’t close enough to benefit from my defensive charm. A fist-sized hunk of Moby Dick clocked him on the head. He crumpled like a rag doll to the pink sand. I cursed and crawled toward him, nudging Ronan along to protect all three of us from more fleshy projectiles.

  I forced myself to take deep breaths as the most horrible shower of innards hailed around us. I cannot describe how nauseating it was to hear thudding bits of whale gunk form a circle around you in a red ooze. My mind shut down from sensory overload, which is why I didn’t recognize when the shower ended, not even after several ravens dove around my head. A figure appeared in front of me, trying to talk to me through my shield.