Phoenix Contract: Part Five (Fallen Angel Watchers) Read Online Free PDF

under her.
    Crashing to her hands and knees with a cry, she scrabbled desperately to avoid tumbling down the hillside. She found purchase on a rocky outcrop that stopped her downward skid. Whimpering pitifully, she clutched at the protrusion with both hands as the jagged edge cut open her palms. Blood flowed from the wounds, but the rain diluted the red and washed it away.
    Panicking, Mariah searched the thick fog for any sign of Cassio, but he was gone. As she struggled to stand, she blinked away tears that were indistinguishable from the rain on her face. If she were abandoned and alone in this hellish place, then she certainly had no chance to survive.
    Suddenly, a pair of boots filled her field of vision. “Hurry it along, woman!” Cassio bellowed. “We have no time to indulge your laziness!” He seized her upper arm with bruising fingers and hauled her to her feet.
    “I’m sorry, milord, I lost my footing,” Mariah promptly apologized, staring up into his cagey face. She remained tense with the expectation of a punishing blow.
    The Immortal Watcher was tall and lean. With his long honey-colored hair, blue eyes, and classic Grecian bone structure, he should’ve been handsome, but he possessed a certain innate ugliness, a cancer of the soul that contorted his features into a mask of rage and misery.
    Mariah’s subservient posture earned her a mollified frown from Cassio. Though insensitive, selfish, and thoughtless, even the Immortal Watcher realized he’d set a grueling pace that exceeded his wife’s endurance. Without recourse, Cassio turned away and resumed the upward climb.
    The second the man’s back was turned, Mariah spat to the side of the trail, her brown eyes once again full of misery and anger. She choked on a sob, wondering how such a weak and callow man could possibly be the legendary Phoenix.
    Simmering contempt and silent hatred kept her heart hot while her body froze, but she took great care not to backtalk or offer a snide comment that might provoke his terrible temper. The hard and well-learned lesson was ingrained. More than once he’d beaten her within an inch of her life.
    Of course, he always felt sorrowful afterward, so a drunken binge would ensue that left him in a blessed stupor while she nursed her wounds. She preferred him like that—unconscious and unresponsive. Those were the only times she ever knew a measure of peace.
    At long last, they reached the summit of the steep trail through the thick fog. The top of the mountain formed a broad, fat plain. A circle of enormous stone slabs dominated the plateau. Southwest in orientation, each of the erect stone blocks weighed several tons.
    Centuries before, the most powerful Shemyaza sorcerers had erected such monoliths to serve multiple purposes. As a calendar, the monuments allowed astrologers to track the sun, moon, and stars as they moved through the sky. Several key lay lines intersected at the site, forming a nexus. Many esoteric and religious rites were performed there.
    Mariah staggered the final steps to the edge of the circle. She collapsed into an exhausted heap and then leaned against one of the stone slabs for support. The side of the mountain offered marginal protection from the lashing wind and the driving rain which beat at them like dual fists.
    Cassio had told Mariah nothing about the ancient inhabitants who had chosen to make this harsh land their home, but she imagined that their lives had been short and violent. When both land and climate were unforgiving, so too were the people who lived there. She longed for shelter and a warm fire, but the luxury would not be afforded her any time soon.
    Unburdened by human weakness, Cassio immediately headed to the center of the circle and unpacked his gear. They’d crossed all of Europe and England to perform a singular ritual, an opportunity that occurred on one particular night in every five hundred years. Only on that night could the existing Phoenix choose to die and pass on