Birthright - Book 2 of the Legacy Series (An Urban Fantasy Novel) by Ryan Attard Page B

without risk, all the better.”
    Sun Tzu nodded. “Very well. I shall open our vault,” he said to Eddie.
    Slowly the Asian man stood up and gracefully walked over to a wall, devoid of decoration. He placed his hand over the wall and murmured something indecipherable in his native tongue. From his palm, a small bead of light spread further and further, like a spider’s web. The light branched out in different directions, bending sharply at intervals to create boxes. Soon, the entire wall was divided into thousands of squares, outlined by a ray of light. The wall went from blank to a lit up chessboard.
    “A safety deposit box vault,” commented Amaymon. “There must be thousands, or tens of thousands, of objects in there.”
    “I’m sure that with this selection, we can find something which suits your needs,” said Sun Tzu. “But first, we must assess your power. The more information we can have, the better we can narrow down the selection.”
    “And how do we do that?” I asked.
    “I have no idea,” replied Sun Tzu simply. Smiling at my confused look, he added, “I, myself, have never done it. I am not competent to assess her power properly. I shall leave that to one of my associates.” Sun Tzu closed his eyes and fell silent.
    We both heard it at the same time: a sound, as if a thousand blackboards were being scratched at the same time and a million radios exploding with static. The world spun, and I lost track of where was up or down, left or right. Pain seared inside my head, overloading my senses like someone driving a knife inside my brain and scraping a hole from end to end. Then, a familiar sensation washed over me. In my head, I saw a red sky, red sand, and a red world. In the middle, looming in view, were large, black mangroves, each trunk twice the size of my chest.
    I was snapped back to reality, and the first thing I saw were thick, black bars in front of my eyes. I quickly realized that I had my own fingers digging into my forehead, deep enough to draw blood. Black mist shrouded my body and slowly began creeping over every inch of me. My mind went into instant panic mode – this was my power. Whatever Sun Tzu had done triggered the mysterious power asleep within me. This was the same power that emerged when Lust had killed me the first time around. Whatever it was, it had deemed Sun Tzu on par with one of the Seven Deadly Sins.
    My ears caught the screaming coming from my side. Abi was on her knees, her hands gripping her hair and shrieking like a mad woman. She turned her maddened eyes on Sun Tzu.
    “You! No. NO. STAY AWAY.” She spun and screamed before throwing herself to the side, away from me. At the entrance of the basement stood one of the four mahjong-playing Asian men I saw when we entered. This one wore a pencil mustache and a thin goatee. His hair was tousled and unkempt. He had a fighter’s physique, thick muscles lining every inch of his body. In his black Chinese suit with thick, white stripes, he looked like a crosswalk — a crosswalk with mean eyes and the readiness to fight. He stood by the doorway, alert and ready, but never moving a muscle.
    Sun Tzu - old and weak-looking Sun Tzu - took one step and, in a flash, crossed the distance from where he stood to where Abi continued to bang her head against the ground and scream her lungs out. He moved so fast it left a small afterimage where he had been standing moments before. If my eyes weren’t enhanced beyond normal thanks to my new powers I would have missed him entirely. He stopped an inch away from Abi and swiped her hands away, wrestling to grab her head.
    My first instinct was to protect my apprentice. I would have probably hesitated in any other circumstance. I mean, the old man had been my confidant in times of need. He was the one I turned to when my life seemed as though it would crumble into nothing. I would have never thought of hurting him. Under normal circumstances, my mind would be torn between protecting my