A Salem Awakening

Chapter 28

The two men slowly backed into opposite corners of the room as if they staged it, though it was completely by coincidence. Each put their arms down to their sides and pointed their hands flat out so their palms were parallel to the floor. They faced up, not straight up, but as if they were looking at someone who was about one foot taller than they were. They closed their eyes and their bodies shimmered and ultimately glowed.

It was at this moment Tobias recoiled from his stance. This was his chance to use the method his grandmother had taught him many years earlier. He practiced this dozens, perhaps hundreds, of times and was confident he could pull it off. He was more skilled than his grandmother gave him credit for.

Samuel felt something unusual. His eyes were closed, but something seemed off to him. He peered through small slits in his eyelids to see what Tobias was doing. It shocked him to discover Tobias took himself out of the normal disembodiment stance and was doing something odd. Rather than using the energy between his flat hands and the ground, which is how all witches normally disembodied their hosts, Tobias crossed his arms across his chest. In record time, Tobias' facade seemed to melt away. Samuel was only halfway through his disembodiment, but Junius already completed his.

Tobias, who was now Junius inside and out, looked as different from his former self as you could imagine. He was a tall, slender man, significantly hunched over from years of being trapped inside Tobias' skeleton. His hair was brown, thick, and long – falling halfway down his back. Junius had distinctive features, which included a nearly triangular nose resulting in an almost perfect forty-five-degree angle, dark – almost black – eyes, and a wide, but thin mouth. His most distinctive feature was a large pothole scar on his left cheek, similar to a burn mark, which was a gift to Junius with regards from Rennik during their duel two hundred years prior.

Junius stood tall, relieving his slouched posture, and flashed a licentious smile at Samuel. It was the same smile Samuel remembered from that awful night many years prior. And just like that previous time, Samuel was helpless to do anything. Completely immobilized, Samuel was still peeling away his outer persona, not yet ready to be Rennik fully. He immediately knew he was in trouble and dread overtook him.

Junius planned for this exact moment for years. It felt good to have it play out precisely as his grandmother expected it would. Knowing he had time and the clear advantage, Junius slowly brought his hands together in front of him, staring at Samuel with a curled smile the entire time. He clasped his palms together and held his arms in front of him. His smile changed. It turned from a taunting glee to a haunting fury, his eyes angry from years of hatred and malignancy. With no hesitation, Junius' passionate rage welled inside him and from his clenched fists shot a fierce bolt of energy, headed directly for Samuel's gut. Samuel's eyes grew wide as he realized his impending doom.

At the precise moment Samuel realized he lost, Junius' beam of energy froze, just mere inches from Samuel's stomach, as if time itself stopped. Junius, too, looked frozen in his posture of attack and disdain. Samuel tilted his head in bewilderment, and as he looked closer, he could tell the beam was still moving toward him, but at an incalculably slow pace. As the beam moved each fraction of an inch, Samuel heard a faint popping sound, as if the beam were cracking through something solid in the air. Samuel was able to move at his normal speed, but each movement he made also produced the popping sound. He was in an unfamiliar state, now frightened both by Junius' gamesmanship and the time distortion going on around him. "I have to get out of the energy beam's path," he realized, as he forced his body down and to the right, breaking through the popping sounds seeming to fight against his movements. As his right arm extended down to the floor with his left arm flailing back behind him, Samuel leaned back just enough to avoid a direct hit from the bolt. But he didn't have enough time to retract completely, and he watched in shock as the left edge of the beam brushed across the left side of his stomach. It was moving slowly enough that he witnessed the beam gorge across his skin, with painful heat cauterizing the wound as it was being created. As soon as the beam passed by his body, normal time resumed and Samuel fell to the floor – injured, but still alive and able to fight. He did not know what just happened and there was no time to think about it.