Free The Sword of Michael - eARC by Marcus Wynne Page A

results: money, sex, power, secrets. Shamanic light workers are primarily Travelers: we go into the Other Realms and gather information, retrieve that which has been lost or stolen and bring it back. We put in that which has been taken and we take out what doesn’t belong. And for that, we work with our allies, our guides, our power animals—but there’s a fine line that we walk between the use of that energy and what we call sorcery, the exercise of power-over, controlling—and that’s what we were running into here: controlled humans and a thought form, something constructed with intention and filled with hate, that Dark energy over riding the life it was controlling.
    To a shaman, even the grass and dirt has life and Spirit. To override that in the service of the Dark…
    That just pisses me off.
    This thought form looked like the Pillsbury Dough Boy run through a sod farm. It swung a rusty length of pipe in one paw.
    “There goes the sprinkler system,” I said.
    Dillon considered that. “Should I shoot this thing?”
    “Wouldn’t hurt.”
    Dillon opened up. Divots of grass and dirt flew like a bad day on the driving range.
    The thought form lumbered forward and swiped at Dillon’s head with the pipe.
    We both ducked.
    “Maybe it would hurt,” I said.
    “Gee, thanks, Marius,” Dillon muttered. He crouched low and tried to get behind the Lawnmower Man/Dough Boy.
    I summoned power. Felt the shift and saw the shimmering as the veil between the worlds thinned. Then the grass beneath the thought-form shifted, drew and wrapped long strands and tendrils around the legs of the form, bringing it down. My shamanic vision showed me black lines like puppet strings running from the back of the thought-form, disappearing into a murky grey swirling fog—somewhere back there a human figure, square-headed, familiar…
    A massive black crow whipped by my ears and tore at the tendrils.
    …never the easy way with you, Marius…
    “Thanks, Burt!” I shouted.
    The thought-form rose and stretched out its paws, fingers crowing Freddy Kruger-like, swiping at me as I ducked back. Dillon poured shot after shot into it with no effect.
    Time for another pass—
    —and time to call for the heavy weights.
    “Archangel Michael, I call on you, to bring the Sword of Michael here in the service of the Light…” I whispered.
    A brilliant flash of white light, hotter than the heart of the sun, brighter than the sum of all days rolled together, and something slicing down—
    The thought-form came undone. Tendrils and threads fell backwards into a shrinking grey hole, swirling like dirty water down the drain.
    There was only a sadly torn up lawn and a bent piece of rusty pipe.
    And four bodies huddled on the lawn.
    Dillon walked to me, reloading his AK. The barrel smoked. There was a sear on his left sleeve from a grazing gun shot or the hot barrel of his own weapon.
    “You okay?” he said.
    “Yeah. You?”
    He looked at his coat sleeve. “Damn. I like this coat. Nothing a Korean tailor can’t fix.” He surveyed the wreckage of his lawn. “Good thing I don’t have neighbors. Guess it’s time for the Three S’s, yeah?”
    “Shit, shower and shave?”
    “Shoot, shovel, and shut up.”
    I looked at the rolling cornfields around us, miles from any other houses. “Seems very ecologically conscious to me.”
    We walked over to the bodies. Despite the damage the bullets had done, they didn’t leak much.
    “This isn’t right,” I said. “Back up, Dillon.”
    I called my spirits close and opened my shamanic vision to encompass the bodies.
    …the lines of connection and control hung, floated like tendrils in murky water, tracking back…were they alive or dead or thought forms?…flashes, brief glimpses, and then long rows of stainless steel coffers, glass fronted, pale bodies floating within…
    “Ah, no,” I said.
    “What?”
    “This just went from worse to worser.”
    “What?”
    “Cabal.”
    “What?”
    “You’re