Songs of the Powered

by Leigh Vernon

Genres: Fantasy action & adventure; Urban Fantasy; Vigilante Thrillers; YA Action & Adventure; YA Mysteries & Thrillers

Synopsis

* Dive into the epic conclusion of the struggle between science and magic. *

The world-ender has returned…

And this time, he takes the face of a friend.

As an ancient darkness rears its ugly head, Justin comes face-to-face with his biggest challenge yet. Sucked into a desperate race to find a lost artifact, Justin will need to summon all of his allies and powers to prevent this new evil from completing its horrifying mission and bringing unrivalled destruction to everything that stands in its way.

But the closer Justin gets to his goal, the more secrets are brought to the light. What he finds will lead him to question everything he thought about the realms… and himself.

The tale of destiny begins to unravel. The fate of humanity hangs in the balance. Are Justin’s powers strong enough to turn the tide?

And hiding in the shadows, an assassin bent on destruction tracks him, waiting for the perfect moment to strike…

The ultimate conclusion in the war for the realms is unfolding. If you love page-turning supernatural thrillers with exhilarating action and world-ending stakes, you won’t want to miss the final book in the Justin Lakes Supernatural Thriller series. Grab your copy now!

Sample

Chapter 1

… And the beast of the day will face a great battle with that which he is and that which he is not. And an evil like never before seen shall be unleashed by the hands of the son, and the undead shall again walk the face of the Earth in the body of the second seed…

The bar right on the edge of the city was notorious for being a convention of people who were looking to waste away evenings — and days — as slowly as they could. And this evening was not going to be any different as the celebration of broken oaths and annulled vows from the night of the eclipse still raged on, days after. You could see the establishment from miles out if one were heading towards it from the west, past the thick entrails of hills and bushes. The neon lights translated from a thin line into an enormous suspended sign on the roof of the building by a hologram. The sign read: Drumagon's Pit.

He was working the five-ton delivery truck on the road without his hands on the wheel or his legs on either of the pedals; he did not even need to be in the machine for it to work. His powers were machines and being able to make them do as he wished.

The storm that had been raging through ominous clouds and thunderclaps for days had suddenly turned into mere drizzles as he approached the scene. An earlier life might have described it as being cold, but there was nothing new for him to see. The city was not a place where people answered to death with attentiveness and shock the way they used to, not since the civil war, and not unless they had been under some kind of altered state of mind.

It was further down the road that he came upon a hitchhiker.

The vehicle pulled into the parking lot of the establishment that also had the name alternating between the common language and Traäf, the ancient tongue of the Powered. The driver killed the engine and then turned to the person on his right. His passenger had a wide smile on her face. He studied her eyes for a minute and he made another attempt at a conversation:

“So… are you going to pay me or what?”

She cocked her head to the side in a quizzical, interested manner. “I’m sorry, but I don’t have any money on me. I will, however, be sure to remember that you’ve shown me some kindness,” she said.

He stared at her in disbelief before he burst into a fit of laughter. “Now, that’s one thing you don’t see every day; a misfit trying to look kind in a city like this. Where are you from?”

The wry smile on her face did not leave, “Oh, far, far from here,” she answered.

“Oh well, lady from far from here, where do you intend to go from here?”

***

The front door to the bar opened from the outside and heads turned as she walked in. She looked past the lot and walked straight to the counter where she pulled out a stool for herself and sat amid the observing bodies. She tapped on the bar and the bartender approached her. “Rum. Your best kind,” she ordered.

The bartender nodded and took a moment before he came back with a jug of beer and placed it in front of her. Half of the out-of-sort folks around the bar engaged in loud conversations, and the other half were taking to manifesting their thrilled state on the dance floor. Only a handful sat at the bar and looked greedily at the drinks in front of them.

By her second order, she held the bartender’s gaze. “Something I can help you with?”

She pushed her body closer towards the bar. “Yeah. I am fascinated by the name of this place. What do you know about it?”

The man shrugged and rested his hands on the counter while he looked beyond her at the scene a few inebriated Powereds were causing, “Same thing everyone else knows. You’re in the presence of greatness; this place is a tribute to Drumagon, the original Powered.  It is built on the land where he vanquished all of his enemies. Their blood still makes the soil red,” the man answered.

“Is that so?” she asked, with the look of surprise pasted over her face.

“Yup. It’s a tale as old as time itself.” The man walked to take the keg that was being passed over the counter to make up for the one already dwindling.

“And what exactly made Drumagon worthy to be remembered?” The question froze the man in his tracks, as he realized her question had the potential to render the bar into chaos.

“Do not tell me you are one of them. If you are, I suggest you get the hell out of here before things get very unpleasant,” he whispered in hopes to dissuade others from joining in.

“Oh. I’m all for a host of unpleasantness. You don’t know just how much. Besides, I only asked a question. What’s the harm in that?”

The bartender stared at her for a moment before he decided the conversation had not reached a point of being insulting. “We might not have religion, but Drumagon is who the Powered look up to here, the first being from humans to be gifted with the powers he passed onto his children, and every Powered there is.”

She tensed her jaw and nodded. “Okay, so Drumagon is big around here, noted. You sound like you might know a lot about this Drumagon.”

The man walked over to the refrigerator and pulled out two beers for the person three seats from her. “I like to think I’ve made myself a scholar. You know, religion being outdated and all.”

“Well, isn’t that just peachy? So, say I were to be looking for a particular someone that would have some level of knowledge how realms were made in the times of Drumagon himself, where do you think I can find them?”

Money exchanged hands from a man looking like he had seen enough of the night to the bartender while she downed the rest of her drink, and then he returned to his conversation. “It depends on what you're looking to know.”

“Exactly what I’ve told you.”

“And why would anyone be interested in realms in the times of Drumagon? Especially one that doesn’t seem to exalt him?”

“Call it a developing interest.”

He walked away and answered a few more orders and then came back to her gulping down her second jug, “I know some things but not that much. You’ll need a Singling for that, and I haven’t heard of them in decades. They’re more or less extinct now, thanks to the civil war. Other than the Elders who are a kind of myth, they’re the only ones that whisper tales of the past.”

“They used Singlings for wars?”

“Yeah. You’re not from around there, are you?”

“What gave me away?”

“Besides your very poor knowledge of a basic history of the Powered? They used Singlings for wars, they forced Mind Hunters to wear tattoos, and a Mayor in New Michigan claimed he would give powers from the alleged Seventh. Lots of things have happened in the last decade alone — ” he turned to pass a bottle of vodka to the other bartender “ — and the way you’re looking at me tells me you’re definitely not from around here.”

She gave up that smile again in attentiveness, “You might be right, haven’t been around for a long time.”

“Really? Where did you go?”

“Oh, somewhere far away; it wasn’t exactly a voluntary trip. It was more like a forced hibernation by a very intimidating bunch.”

“Family?”

“You have no idea…” she said, slamming her hand on the table in agreement. The gesture was drowned in the mass of continuous chatter battling the bustling music.

“Yeah, they can be the worst.”

“Yeah. So how can I get my information about the realms from the Singlings?”

“Like I said, ain’t seen or heard about one in a while, but they’re just about the only ones that could have survived in Oregon after the war. You might have to get close to find out. But since you’re more or less a stranger here, I’d say you think it through if what you’re after is worth it. And if you still think it is, watch your steps on that doomed land,” the man warned as he took a tray of washed glasses and passed it to the woman working alongside him.

“Oh,  have you forgotten already? I love doom and gloom.”

She winked before she reached into her pocket and brought out a wallet that looked too masculine to be hers. The bartender couldn’t have cared less, since she paid for her drink and the conversation.

The man took the money just as someone walked up to him from outside and told him there was something he needed to see outside.

The bartender and manager headed outside with the man who had brought the information to him. Joining them was another man, whose muscles made him look like his job at the bar would be to keep the bunch of wasted and overly enthusiastic Powereds from wrecking the place. They got to the parking lot where another man was standing by a delivery truck, and as they got closer to him it became clear what the commotion was.

On the floor was a dead body.

“Damnit,” the manager cussed before they could see the victim’s face. “Who the hell did it this time?”

“How the hell should I know?”

The manager crouched to inspect it further for clues. It looked like someone had dragged it from beneath the truck.

“Had to pull him out to see,” the second man said.

The manager stared at the body that was shaping up to look like a month-long headache and grit his teeth. “You know who he is?”

“Checked. No wallet, No I.D., nothing.”

“Anything from the truck?”

“Nothing for him, but someone else’s been in here,” the buffed man said from the side of the truck where he stood. The door was open and there was a pair of used towels. He sniffed them and pulled out strands of hair. “Someone who’s been drenched, someone with long, black hair…” he held up the hair “… someone with a lotta pheromones.”

“A brunette that looks like she’s being in the rain?” The manager turned around swiftly and ran back to the bar where there was an empty seat. The very peculiar woman he’d just been chatting with was long gone.

***

She walked to the bathroom and through the wall to the other side of the building. Out back, there was another man who was getting ready to leave his vehicle for the bar.

“Hi, you know the way to Oregon, yeah?”

“’Of course. Been there a couple o' times,” he answered, oozing confidence.

“Good,” she took a step closer to the man. “I will need you to drive me there.”

On the journey to the other city, her driver could not stop himself from smiling at her. As he opened his mouth to say something, she interrupted.

“Actually, I wouldn’t mind getting somewhere to change out of these clothes…”

“Change of clothes. On it! Two-four-seven stores, next stop.”

She watched as the human desperately tried to show his worth. A Powered might have put up some fight like the Machine Gruger had when he tried to fight back, after he realized she was trying to kill him.

This human was weak. This would be a walk in the park unlike her previous encounter.

The journey of being in a body of a descendant was far different for the Seventh than another Powered body. The latter could only contain its entity for so long before it gave way.  A descendant was a being made directly of its own blood and flesh, from when it still had one. Hence, being in it felt like being in its own self.

She looked out of the window as she was being taken to the place where she would find more answers. One step closer to her goal. She scoffed again at how pathetic the human race had become.

Hey, I didn’t catch your name.”

She turned around to see the human smiling sheepishly. “Celia,” she said, remembering the only one that had not been a weakling when she was alive. “My name’s Celia.”

Drumagon didn’t even come close to what Celia would be.