by L.L Hunter
Darkness
Blackness swirled with grey in front of Scarlett’s eyes, and she didn’t know whether she was alive, dead, or dreaming. She felt softness underneath her and realised It couldn’t be all that bad. Her captors could’ve stashed her somewhere dark, musty, and uncomfortable. She flexed her fingers one by one to see if she had the freedom to move. She could. She tried to lift her arms, but felt resistance at her wrists. Something was binding them, and her ankles, too. She was stuck. Then she heard voices. They were coming closer. She squirmed in her bindings until a hand touched her arm. It was deathly cold.
“Easy, don’t struggle,” the voice that belonged to the hand said. “Nothing you can do will free you of the bindings. They are made of Hell-Metal and are designed to withstand Heavenly Fire.”
“Who are you?” she asked. Her voice came out as a hoarse whisper. Her blindfold was removed, and suddenly, she could see. She had been laid in a bare white room and a hooded figure stood above her.
“I am Abel. I’m here to help you,” he said as he dropped his hood.
Emer swallowed hard.
“Professor Lakyn. Do you know where your brother is? We need to speak with him urgently,” she asked.
“No, I don’t. What is this about? Maybe I can pass on a message.”
“It’s about Scarlett, but we should tell him ourselves. I think we’ll wait, thanks,” Emer replied. She grabbed Joshua’s arm and began to pull him away.
“Wait. Is this about ‘The Legend’? Because, if it is, that is crucial information, and it should be shared with my Father.”
“Um… did we say ‘The Legend,’ Emer?” Joshua asked, trying to cover himself.
“No. We didn’t. I believe we said ‘Legacy.’ Right, Josh?”
“Right.”
“Don’t lie to me!” Lakyn growled, pinning Joshua to the wall. “Listen, I know all about ‘The Legend.’ I know who it is, so don’t play stupid with me.”
“Let him go!” Emer screamed and ran into the nearest classroom.
“Where is she?” he hissed in Joshua’s face.
“We’re not telling you,” Joshua told him. Lakyn clenched his jaw and lifted Joshua up higher on the wall by his throat.
“Put him down,” Emer told him calmly. Lakyn turned and saw her standing there in the entry to the Combat Room, holding an Archangel’s bow with the Tear Tip trained on him.
Lakyn snickered. “You aren’t really going to shoot me, are you? You’ll be punished severely.”
“I’ll take my risks,” she told him, pulling back on the bow-string. The next sound they all heard was a whistling through the air and Lakyn’s moan as he crumpled to the ground, unconscious. Joshua fell to his knees and Emer dropped the bow. It clattered to the ground as she ran to join Joshua. Then two sets of boots appeared beside them. Emer and Joshua glanced up and saw Kat and Jacob. It was Jacob who had fired the tranquilliser dart into Lakyn’s neck.
“It’s only a sedative, and not a very strong one, in relation to angel blood, that is. He’ll burn it off soon,” Jacob told them as he lowered the dart gun. “We have to hurry.” He lifted Lakyn over his shoulder as if he weighed nothing at all, and Kat ran to join her friends.
“Are you okay, Josh?” she asked.
“Yeah, I’m okay now. Thanks.” He managed a smile while rubbing his sore neck. She helped him to his feet, and they followed Jacob.
“You’re helping me? How are you helping me by keeping me tied up? And who are you people?” Scarlett demanded
“We are a special sect dedicated to helping Angels with a true calling, like you,” replied Abel. Was he serious?
“Look, I don’t believe you. And if you don’t let me go, you’ll have to deal with Dyston. He’s coming.” She struggled again, but this time she felt hot. She was burning up, and they would have to deal with it, she thought. She sent a silent prayer to Dyston.
Dyston flew over the city tirelessly searching for Scarlett, but there was no sign—until he received a message.
“Dyston, please help. I’m being held captive by a sect who says they help special angels.”
He immediately knew who it was from.
“Be strong,” he told her. “If they touch you, fight back. I believe in you.”
“They have me shackled, and I’m burning up…”
“Keep calm, breathe. Do you notice anything about your surroundings? Can you see a window?”
There were a few moments of silence, in which Dyston grew increasingly impatient. He wanted to murder the people who held her. He was thankful when he heard her again.
“There’s one window. I’m surrounded by buildings.”
“Describe them,” he asked her.
“Three buildings, almost joining, made of bluish glass. The smallest one has a tree on the top.”
Dyston flapped his mighty wings once and sped up, flying towards the main part of the Central Business District.
Jacob carried Lakyn down several flights of musty, dark, concrete stairs.
“Where does this lead?” Kat asked. She stayed close by him.
“To the cells. Long ago, they were built to hold angels who rebelled against the Realm of Fire, and who then decided to follow Lucifer,” Jacob told her. “Listen, you don’t need to come with me. You don’t need to see this.”
“I want to. I’m not leaving you,” she told him, touching his arm. He managed a smile over Lakyn’s limp leg.
“How long have you known what Lakyn was up to?”
“I had a hunch from the beginning. As Dyston and I grew close, I began to notice things just by hanging out with the Blackbell brothers.”
“Is Dyston evil, too?”
“No, he’s the opposite. Although he has rebelled, and the Michaelites disagree, it’s for the greater good.”
“Why did he rebel?” she asked, curious. Before Jacob could answer, Lakyn groaned.
“We need to hurry,” Jacob told her, sprouting his wings. Kat gasped. She had never seen them before. They were as white as the clouds were when the sun hit them, and the most beautiful thing she had ever seen. He lifted off the ground and flew down over the stairs and right into a cell, dumping Lakyn’s body. He quickly jumped out again and locked the Iron Gate behind him.
“Why are you doing this?” Lakyn asked groggily.
“To protect the good of all angel-kind,” Jacob told him, slipping his fingers through Kat’s.
“There is no good anymore, only corruption and rebellion!” he spat, sitting up.
“Dyston only rebelled against his Task because he fell in love with her,” Jacob said. Lakyn laughed, and Jacob immediately regretted telling him.
“I always knew he was weak. That’s why his wings turned black,” he snickered. His laugh was sadistic.
“Come on,” Jacob told Kat. “Let’s go find the others.” And they left the cells hand in hand, leaving Lakyn behind.
Dyston had the city skyline in his sights. He zeroed his gaze in on a cluster of three buildings, one of which had a tree on top. That must be the one, he thought. He flapped his wing tips, which pushed him higher into the sky, and landed on one of the rooftops. But what he hadn’t noticed was that someone was already there waiting for him. He felt pain in his left wing and his world began to blur. He dropped to his knees and prayed.
“Scarlett, send help,” was all he managed before everything went dark.
It might have been pure luck, or the hand of God watching over Scarlett. While she was communicating to Dyston, Abel, her captor had been called out of the room. She struggled against her bindings again until she felt the heat of her Trait as it resurfaced. She felt the flames lick her legs first, and then her abdomen. They rose to her arms, then her shoulders, and finally, to her head. She didn’t scream in pain. It didn’t hurt, but the power was amazing. She felt strong. And then she heard it—Dyston’s voice. It was as natural to her as her own.
“Scarlett, send help,” he told her, and that was it, nothing else came after.
“Dysto
n?” she tried to reply, but still heard nothing, nothing but radio silence. Silence killed her. She knew it meant only one thing. He never ignored her. It meant he was in trouble. She concentrated one last time on the power of the fire inside her, felt it surge, and then she pushed against her bindings, and they snapped. She wanted to cry and laugh aloud with joy, but she knew this wasn’t the end of her battle. She still had to find a way out of the room before her captors returned.
She tried the only door in the room, but it was locked. She tried heating up the metal, but it wouldn’t budge. The only way out was through the window. She walked over to it and looked down. She was really high up. If she jumped, she would die. She leaned back against the wall beside the window and thought. She hadn’t even been taught how to summon her wings yet, so she couldn’t fly. She looked back at the bed where she had been strapped down. Her captors must have lied about the bindings being made of Hell-Metal because they were completely melted and warped. Some of the molten metal had even dripped onto the floor. She made a mental note to research the Realms of Fire and Ice and their metals when she returned to Blackbell.
Dyston blinked. He couldn’t see anything in front of his face, only pitch-black darkness. And then there appeared a single flame. It flickered and danced in its own halo. Dyston watched it. It came closer and closer to him, until it was so close that he could feel its warmth. And then a hand appeared, followed by a face. Dyston tried to drag himself backwards, but he couldn’t go anywhere. A solid rock wall prevented him.
“Who are you?” he asked the person with the flame. His voice echoed, and he realised that he must be in a cave.
“Don’t worry about us,” the gravelly voice told him. The voice belonged to a male and sounded a lot older than Dyston. “What you should be worried about now is the fact that you are going to lose this war.”
“I wasn’t aware that we were currently in a war,” Dyston said as he pulled himself into a sitting position, “and why is it so dark in here?”
“Because it’s just turned twilight. Just wait, you will see, this place is magical at night,” said the flame guy. And at the same moment he finished speaking, there was the most amazing bluish-white light, so bright that Dyston had to shield his eyes with his hand. When the light had dimmed enough, so that his eyes weren’t hurting, Dyston glanced around the cave. The cave itself was maybe twenty square metres, and there were three other angels there with him—two sitting at the mouth of the cave and the one with a candle. Dyston looked closer at the candle he originally thought was a lighter or a match, but was actually a small flame inside a sphere of glass. It hung on a chain around the gravel-voiced angel’s neck.
“Why do you have me here?” Dyston asked them.
“To stop you from interfering with our mission,” replied one the angels by the mouth of the cave.
“Your mission? Which is what, exactly?”
“Why, finding the Legend and destroying the Michaelites, of course,” replied Gravel voice. Dyston sucked in a breath. They were after Scarlett. Maybe these were the people who held her as well, he thought.
“What do you want with the Legend? And how do you know that the rumour’s true?”
“We want The Legend on our side of the war, fighting with us.”
“And remind me again, what war?”
“The War of the Realms, you foolish, Heavenly reject.”
Dyston chuckled. “You’re mistaken. There is no war.”
“Oh, but there is. We started it,” he told Dyston. He pulled him up by the bindings on his wrists that he didn’t realise were there. They lit up like the flame in the sphere, and Dyston realised what it was—Hell Fire bound him, and he was beginning to burn.
Lakyn’s phone began to ring. Jacob fished it out of his pocket.
“Is that Lakyn’s phone? Who’s calling?” asked Kat as she walked beside him on their way to dinner.
“Someone by the name of Abraham,” he told her, staring at the caller ID.
“Answer it,” she whispered, glancing around to see if anyone was around. They weren’t alone. A few other students were still in the corridors making their way to the dining hall. Jacob pulled Kat through a door to their left and shut it behind them. Kat realised they were in the Janitor’s closet. Jacob answered the call.
“Abraham?” he asked, trying to sound as much like Lakyn as possible.
“It’s done.” The voice on the other end told him. Jacob held the phone up between them so that Kat could hear, too.
“What is? I’m sorry, I’ve been so busy that I forgot what I asked you to do,” said Jacob.
“We have your brother. He can’t interfere anymore. And Abel has the girl,” said Abraham. Jacob tried not to sound alarmed. He continued to play along.
“Excellent. Where are you holding them?”
“Abel has the flame-haired girl in your apartment downtown, and your brother is with us in the Realm of Light,” said Abraham. Jacob swallowed and tried not to lose it. He took a deep breath. He practically ruled Abraham. By acting as Lakyn, he could make Abraham do anything. He had to think. What would Lakyn do?
“Okay, keep my brother there,” he told Abraham, “but bring the girl back to the Academy.”
“Are you sure, boss? You asked us to hold her.”
“I know, but she hasn’t been properly trained. She’s of no use to us if she doesn’t know of her full potential.”
“Very well. I’ll contact Abel,” said Abraham, before cutting the connection. Jacob put the phone back in his pocket and looked at Kat.
“What do you think they’re planning with Scarlett and Dyston?” she asked.
“A war that we’re not yet prepared for,” he told her, and they burst out of the closet. Kat followed him.
“What are we going to do?”
“We have to train as many of the students as possible, and fast.”
“How much time do we have?”
“Not sure, but I would guess not long.”
“Where are you going?” Kat called as she ran after him. His pace was too quick for her, so he slowed and let her catch up.
“We’re going to dinner, so that we can tell Beth what her eldest son has been planning, and to ask her how to free Dyston,” he told her, taking her hand as they entered the dining hall. Kat wanted to ask him how Dyston’s mother could help free her son, but she didn’t have time. They were now standing in front of Beth.
“Jacob, Katherine, where are my sons? I know Dyston is sometimes late, but never Lakyn,” asked Beth.
“Can we speak with you alone, Professor Beth?” asked Jacob. Beth looked at her husband who sat next to her at the Professor’s table that was at the front of the dining hall. Zachariah nodded.
“Fill me in later,” he said to his wife. Beth stood and followed Jacob and Kat outside into the corridors.
“What is this about?” she asked when outside.
“We have a problem,” began Jacob. “We suspect Lakyn has joined the Lucifites.”
“What?” gasped Beth in shock. “How do you know of this?”
“One of his employees, a man named Abraham, called Lakyn’s phone, which I have. He told us that they’re holding Scarlett and Dyston captive. And Beth, Dyston’s trapped in the Realm of Light,” said Jacob.
Beth inhaled sharply. “Are you sure? And why do you have Lakyn’s phone?”
“Uh…” Jacob looked to Kat for reassurance. She just squeezed his hand. “I needed to incarcerate him for a while. He’s fine.”
Beth nodded.
“You know how to free Dyston, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
Scarlett had almost given up on escaping, sure that the only way out was death. That was until she heard feet approaching. She stood and called her Trait to her. She felt the surge of heat and her body warmed. She was getting pretty good at this now, she thought. Her hands and her brown irises glowed orange. When the door opened, she would be ready for them.
“What the hell?” said Abel as h
e opened the door and stuck his head in. “She’s escaped? How on earth…” he was stunned.
“Hell-Metal, huh?” said Scarlett, stepping out from behind the door. “You had better think harder next time you want to trap ‘The Legend’,” she said, throwing a fireball from her hands towards Abel’s face. His skin melted off his face right before her eyes, and his screams made Scarlett want to throw up. But she held herself together. She had to get out. She ran towards the open door, but one of the other angels grabbed her.
“Stop fighting,” he hissed. “Our master told us to return you to the Academy.” His breath stunk of Black Wing, a unique brand of cigarette. It was then Scarlett remembered something Dyston had told her on their date.
Watching the football beside Dyston, she noticed numerous Nephilim smoking.
“Did you ever work for your father’s company?” she asked. He turned to her and smirked.
“Why do you ask?”
“I was curious. I saw Lakyn on the news talking about his cigarettes and their controversial new formula. Makes me wonder what’s so controversial about it.”
Dyston turned his gaze back to the game for a moment then turned back to her. A look of concern crossed his features.
“Look, you didn’t hear this from me. Okay?” he lowered his voice and leaned closer, quickly looking around to see if anyone was watching them. “I didn’t want to work for my Father’s company because of what they’re doing.”
“What are they doing?”
“Lakyn developed a unique formula. It caused controversy because the cigarettes were found to contain a hallucinogen that made you think Lucifer was your master, so that you would join the Lucifites.”
This was the sign Scarlett needed to confirm her suspicions—that these angels were under the same influence, or thought they were. She knew they worked for Lakyn.
“I don’t believe you,” she said, spitting in his face. But he didn’t let her go.
“It’s the truth. He told Abraham himself.”
“Abraham?” asked Scarlett.
“Yeah, the angel that’s holding your fallen boyfriend,” he told her. Scarlett froze. They had Dyston. No wonder she couldn’t hear him anymore.
“What did you do to him?” she demanded as she began to kick, striking one of Lakyn’s assistants in the shin.
“Argh! You little Archangel bitch! The sooner we get rid of you, the better,” he screamed.
Scarlett managed to get loose again and ran through the open door. She only made it halfway down the hall when she heard the elevator open around the corner. She froze and pinned herself against the wall, waiting. But the person who came around the corner was not who she expected, for there before her stood Dyston’s mother, Beth Blackbell, and right behind her, Jacob.
“Scarlett, go with Jacob back to the Academy,” Beth told her. “I’ll deal with Abel and his… attack dogs.” Scarlett immediately ran to Jacob’s side but not before giving the older woman a warm smile. Beth smiled back and continued walking towards the apartment.
As Scarlett rode the elevator down to the ground floor with Jacob, a million questions zipped through her mind.
“Where’s Dyston?” was the first one she asked. Jacob met her eyes sadly.
“He’s being held in the Realm of Light, and there’s only one person who can get him out,” he told her.
“Who?”
“Lakyn.”
“Well, I’ll go and ask him when we get back.”
“Okay, but Scarlett, there’s one little problem with that.”
“What’s that?”
“Lakyn’s the one who put him in there.”
Chapter Nine