Page 31 of A Spark in the Ash

It looks like a meth lab to me.

He isn’t worried about being quiet or stealthy. Jaxon rolls right up to the front door, and immediately jumps out. And the second his feet hit the dirt, his entire body bursts into light. I scramble out of the car, the other agents doing the same.

Jaxon grabs the doorknob and yanks it open. He stalks inside and doesn’t have to look around. His instincts tell him exactly where the possessed person is.

There’s a loud commotion and I see the trailer rock back and forth. The light shining through the windows pulses brighter.

I step to the doorway just in time to see Jaxon yank the dusk from the man’s chest cavity.

His eyes gleam as he looks down at it. He pauses, taking just a moment to observe what it is he’s been sensing.

And then he crushes it between his hands.

I smile, proud of him for doing his first exorcism.

But suddenly someone yells.

Another man, this one looking nearly like a skeleton with his skinny frame and sunken eyes, steps out from a bedroom. In his hand, he holds a gun.

Jaxon moves like lightning. His hand lunges out and he yanks the gun out of the man’s hands. He spins, shoving the man back against the wall with his momentum.

And I certainly didn’t expect it, but Jaxon plunges his hand into the man’s chest.

Two possessed.

Two possessed in the same meth lab. Maybe it’s not surprising they gravitated together. But it doesn’t happen often.

No wonder Jaxon was feeling the call so strongly.

Skeleton man looks at Jaxon with wide, paralyzed eyes. His mouth hangs open wide, showing off his rotting teeth.

I can only imagine how this must look to him. A flaming angel of death just broke into his home and it looks like he’s trying to rip his heart out.

Jaxon pulls his hand back just then. In it, there is once again that swirling, gray matter.

Skeleton man immediately collapses to the floor. The act of exorcism is a draining one. Literally.

Jaxon is breathing hard, his shoulders rising and falling at a rapid speed. His brows are furrowed, and there’s this look on his face. Something that looks like disgust and horror.

But he cages his fingers around the dusk energy. And then he crushes it, and it evaporates into nothing.

Slowly, he looks up at me.

His eyes are glowing white. He’s so brilliant it’s hard to look at him. Flames dance across his entire body.

He’s beautiful. He’s my greatest enemy, but he’s so damn beautiful.

“That was the most insane part out of all of this,” he says. His voice rings sonic, but by the moment, he grows dimmer. His flames get smaller.

I smile and shake my head. He’s handled all of this, from the beginning, too well. “More insane than when you exploded into an inferno of light? Or more insane than when you saw me rip apart into a darkling?”

He looks back down at the man lying on the floor. “Yeah. I just…put myhandin his chest. And he’s still breathing. And there was this rotten…thing inside of them. How…” He shakes his head. I understand. The very existence of the dusk is hard to comprehend. It hurts my brain to think about the fact that it exists because of the flaw between the verses. The dusk exists because of the gate. It’s the reason this unstable energy exists.

“It’s okay if it still weirds you out,” I say as I cross my arms over my chest. “You’re pretty much Superman in my book when it comes to dealing with all of this.”

Jaxon looks up at me as he extinguishes the last of his light, and smiles.

“We should get back,” Layla says from behind me. “No reason to stay here any longer than necessary. They might regain consciousness any minute.”

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