Read 2. Darkness in the Blood Master copy MS 5 for Free Online

the Asheroth card, but I hated feeling the Shadows slither across my skin. The sensation was never exactly the same twice, but it was always some kind of mixture of the mental and the physical. In the session before I’d taken a break to stare at the river, handling them had given me that creepy feeling I got when I felt like I was being watched but no one was really there. Combined with the physical sensation of cold wet snakes crawling over my arms, no wonder I didn’t want to continue with our practice session.
    Ethan bristled, as he always did when I brought up the name of the Nephilim who’d abducted me and attacked him. “It’s more dangerous to leave you unable to defend yourself, with only Asheroth to call on if you get in trouble. We have enemies, remember? Not just you, but your brother, as well.”
    “But we’ve been doing it for hours,” I whined. “It’s already late afternoon!”
    “Only a little more,” he coaxed, and I sighed.
    My head hurt and my eyes were beginning to burn, but in his way, Ethan was as stubborn as I was. It was easier to get it over with. My fingers twitched, exactly as they did when I wanted to draw something. I flexed my hands and tried to concentrate. I didn’t have to look to see what was happening. Faint Shadows, like the lightest charcoal shading, would be wreathing my fingers. That’s how it started.
    “Good,” I heard Ethan say. His voice was strong and steady. He hadn’t panicked or gotten angry with me once, even when I partially destroyed the one hundred year old oak tree with a particularly strong and uncontrolled line of Shadow. Ethan just held me and let me sob in terror. After he’d gotten me far away from the unstable tree.
    Then he made me start again. He wouldn’t let me quit, he said, until I’d realized it was just an accident. One hell of an accident, I thought grimly. I bet the tree didn’t think so. I’d blasted pieces of that poor oak tree all over the park. Sure, the swollen Navau had taken care of some of it. But only a small bomb could cause the kind of damage I’d done to that tree. How was I going to cover that up, let alone deal with something that destructive living inside me?
    “Caspia,” he said sharply. “Pay attention.”
    When I snapped my eyes open, thick dark lines of dark Shadows obscured my hands and snaked their way up my outstretched arms. “Um. Ok. That was fast,” I stammered as the Shadows collected, growing thicker and darker. I fought the urge to brush them away.
    “Focus.” Ethan’s instructions were sharp and fast, like bullets. “Send them outward. Picture what you want to do with them, and they’ll do it. You’re drawing with Shadows instead of charcoal or pencils, but you’re still drawing.” As I stared at the Shadows climbing up my arms like coal-black snakes with vague, dumbfounded terror, he wielded words like an electrified whip. “Do it now,” he yelled.
    Now. Right.
    I just wanted them off me. Nothing elegant. I flipped my arms outward, imagining strong straight lines instead of the tangled mess climbing up my arms. Dark lines spiraled obediently down my arms and moved quickly outward, thick and straight. I tried not to look too closely at them. Pulled from the Dark Realms, they were the essence of absence and emptiness. It still frightened me to know I carried access to the Dark Realms inside me, no matter how formidable a weapon it was or how many times Ethan reassured me I carried Light, too.
    If I carried Light, why wouldn’t it come when I called? I hadn’t been able to summon it since the day of Logan’s accident, and Ethan had been right there to help me. Part of me grew more and more convinced every day that I’d used my one and only burst of Light bringing my brother back. Since then, only the Shadows came to me. I tried to remind myself of what I’d learned about the nature of good and evil in the last few months, and that it didn’t match up to light and dark in some neat,