by Luke Metcalf
“Okay, thanks,” Emily replied, without breaking her stride.
Undeterred, he caught up with her. “So, do you have any plans this weekend?” He had all the confidence of a guy who was never turned down by the girls.
Emily glanced at him suspiciously, trying to figure out what was going on. “Uh – not really.”
“I’m throwing a bit of a party the night before Halloween.”
“Devil’s Night.”
“Yeah.” Tom chuckled. “You wanna come?” He looked out from under a lock of sandy-colored hair.
Emily stared at him. Why was he inviting her to his party? She had never so much as blipped on his radar before, and now he was requesting the honor of her presence at his home? She moistened her lips with her tongue.
Emily felt something slam into her shoulder. Another student had emerged from a classroom, texting and walking, and they had collided. They both dropped their phones and when Emily squatted down to pick hers up she heard a loud tearing sound.
“You okay?” said Tom, reaching down to steady her. Emily instinctively grabbed his bicep as she stood up.
“Whoa, muscles,” she murmured and blushed as her hand felt Tom’s rock-hard bicep bulging under his shirt.
“What’s your problem? Watch where you’re going, idiot.”
Emily looked up at the guy she had collided with and recognized him as Angus Keens, a football player. Before she could respond Tom punched him in the stomach. Angus grunted and doubled over and then Tom grabbed him by the throat, slamming him against the lockers. “Apologize,” growled Tom, holding up his fist menacingly.
“Dude, chill!” said Angus.
“It’s okay, Tom,” said Emily. “I mean, thanks but it’s okay.”
“Apologize,” said Tom, still menacing Angus.
“Okay, I’m sorry, dude.”
“Not me, her.”
Angus looked at Emily. “Sorry.”
“That’s okay,” said Emily. As Tom released Angus, Emily reached around her backside and could feel that she had ripped a huge hole in the seat of her jeans.
Angus walked away muttering and Tom turned his attention back to Emily. “If anyone ever messes with you let me know and I will deal with them. Anyway, can you come to the party?”
“Thanks. Uh, I don’t think I can this weekend,” she lied, blushing and feeling mortified by her wardrobe malfunction as she felt how big the rip in her jeans was.
“Oh. Okay.” He shrugged. “Listen, I’m sorry about your father. I know this must be a bad time for you, so if you want to just take your mind off everything for a few hours, you’re welcome to come by.”
“Okay, thanks,” she muttered, smiling and nodding as she edged away from him, covering her bottom with her hand. She felt like a total fool.
“Are you okay?”
“Uh, yup, fine, all good here,” she said, blushing even harder. He wasted only another moment of his valuable time, and then gave her one more casual smile before sauntering off down the hall.
Emily watched him go. She now understood why so many girls fell like fools at his feet. It wasn’t just because of his bright-blue eyes and dimpled smile and gorgeous looks, or his easy charm, or that cocky, sexy smirk that drove all the girls wild, or the fact he was a star athlete and rich. He had such a mature, respectful manner. He was a man among boys. That was really thoughtful and sweet of him, she thought, reeling from the whole encounter as she turned and rushed off to get changed.
All morning she had been haunted by the boy in her dream. She kept thinking about how gorgeous and mysterious he was. Every time she thought about those eyes she wished she were back in the four-poster bed, staring up at him, even if it meant having to grapple with the demon afterwards. She couldn’t get him out of her mind. Why was she having this recurring dream and why did she feel so helplessly attracted to someone who didn’t even exist? And what was up with the demon? The awful feeling of plunging to her death and then fighting that horrific being disturbed her. She couldn’t get the images out of her mind, aware that they were filling her with an intoxicating, unsettling brew of curiosity, desire and fear.
It took exactly four minutes for word to spread that Tom had asked Emily to come to his party, and that she had turned him down.
“So.” Cindy grinned when Emily sat down with them for lunch. “Tell! What’s up with you and Tom Price?”
Emily laughed nervously and felt herself blushing. “Uh, nothing, he just asked me to his party. It’s not like he asked me on a date or anything.”
“But why did you say no?”
“I don’t know, I’m not really in the mood to be going to parties yet.”
“Don’t pressure the girl,” Bethany scolded Cindy, squeezing Emily’s hand. “You take as much time as you need.”
Emily wondered if Bethany seemed a little too happy she had turned Tom down.
“Anyways, I’m sure he’s not interested in me,” she said. “The whole school thinks he should be with you.” They all laughed.
“So what’s the latest with your dad?” Chester changed the subject. “Haven’t the cops found anything yet?”
“No, and yesterday after school some thugs broke into my house.”
“What?” all three of them exclaimed.
“Yeah, and I came home when they were still there.”
“Oh my god, Emily, are you okay?” Cindy was aghast.
“Yeah, thanks. I managed to get away, that’s how I got these.” She pointed to the scratches on her face that the branches had inflicted and which she had worked hard to cover with makeup. She proceeded to tell them everything that had happened, everything except for the strange little voice that had whispered in her ear and the dreams she had been having.
“It’s driving me crazy,” she concluded. “I just know that this Cady Sunner guy was involved. And now that they’ve broken into my house what’s next? Are they going to come back to kill my mom or me? I need to do everything I can to help the police arrest Cady and his gang before they get us.”
“We should all work together to bust this Devil cult,” Bethany said. “That would be so cool! Could you imagine if we all got on World’s Most Sinister Satanic Cults for helping bust them?”
“I’m all for helping you, Emily,” said Cindy. “But I don’t think we can just assume it was a satanic death cult, Beth.”
“Whatever.” Bethany gave a pretty little shrug. “Why don’t you and I work on the cult stuff, finding out what Vadas Asger means, and that ‘blood of the god’ thing and Emily can work on finding out more about Cady Sunner. I bet he’s a total Satan worshipper.”
“I already spent hours looking for anything about him online but couldn’t find anything,” said Emily.
“Oh, I’ve got it,” Bethany interrupted excitedly. “I was watching that show Australia’s Biggest Con Artists the other night and all I can say is hiring a private investigator is so worth it, it’s amazing the things those guys can uncover and they’re good at finding people.”
“That’s not such a bad idea,” Emily said, suddenly lost in thought.
“If you hire one, make sure you tell him to look into the satanic cult angle,” said Bethany, sipping her strawberry milkshake through a straw and nodding her head solemnly.
“Okay, Beth,” Emily laughed, “I will.”
Emily was rushing to her car after school, hoping to get ahead of the dismissal traffic when Chanel Boxer appeared out of nowhere. She glared at Emily for a moment, her perfect, strawberry-glossed lips curled into a cupid-shaped sneer.
“Uh, hi, Chanel.” Emily paused, taken by surprise. Chanel had never even acknowledged her existence before, much less spoken to her directly.
“Listen, Emily, if you think Tom has any interest in you, you’re an idiot. He doesn’t. He just feels sorry for you. Don’t embarrass yourself.” She turned and walked away without waiting for a reply.
At that moment Emily felt something snap inside of her. Her arms and legs began shaking, her heart pounded, and
she felt a black rage wash over her. Taking several deep breaths she slowly turned, opened her car door and slid behind the steering wheel. Sitting very still, she tried to calm the anger that was threatening to overpower her, staring blankly through the windshield at the parking lot. She had been struggling so hard to hold herself together in the face of everything that was happening but this final, small thing triggered an avalanche of emotion. She started screaming at the top of her lungs, pounding on the steering wheel until her hands began to bruise. Some juniors getting in a car nearby stopped to stare at her with a mixture of surprise and fear, but she didn’t care.
“That’s it!” she shouted to no one. “As of now, the old Emily is dead. I’m not taking any more crap from anybody. The new Emily is going to kick some ass.”
The moment she got home she looked up a private investigator and called the number on the screen.
“Hello, how much would it cost to locate someone?”
“Well, that all depends,” replied the deep male voice at the other end of the line.
Half an hour later she was at the private investigator’s office spending every penny she had saved up from babysitting the neighbors’ kids, hiring a stranger to locate Cady Sunner.
Shortly after arriving home, Emily got a text from the private investigator, providing her with an address. Whoa, he wasted no time! She lay on her back, tossing a pillow into the air and catching it over and over, fearing that she might be going mad with anticipation. She was dying to drive over to Sunner’s house, but she had no idea what she would do when she got there. She knew it would be foolhardy to set out on such a dangerous mission without a plan.
She ate dinner alone since her mother was working late, as usual, staring into space, going over and over things in her mind.
“Mom,” she said casually when her mother finally came in. “I have to drop by Cindy’s to pick up one of my textbooks. Be back soon.”
She didn’t wait for her mother’s reply, just threw on her jacket and walked out the front door. In the car, she took in a deep breath, letting it out slowly, willing herself to remain calm. What was she hoping to accomplish? Still unable to come up with a reasonable answer, she entered the address the investigator had given her on her smartphone map app and hoped for the best.
As she drove her palms grew wet with sweat, and she had to wipe them on her jeans. The house at the address was a surprise. She didn’t know what she had been expecting exactly, but not a completely ordinary house in a middle-class neighborhood. It was not the sort of place you would think a monster might live. A man guilty of such awful crimes shouldn’t be living among regular citizens, leading a regular life, taking out the garbage, and walking his dog. Then again, maybe that was the exact place to find a monster… hiding in plain view.
She parked down the street from the house and sat watching it for some time. The lights were on in the downstairs room at the front of the house and after a few minutes she saw a movement behind the curtains. The silhouette of a large man stood up from where he had been seated. A chill ran down Emily’s spine. Something inside her knew without a doubt that she was looking at the shape of the man who had murdered her father. She just knew. The silhouette disappeared into another room and Emily found herself sweating up a storm, hardly able to breathe. Now that she had found him, she had no idea what to do. For now, though, it was enough. Deciding she needed more time to think things through, she started up her car again and drove home. Her mother was watching television and didn’t even look up as she came back in and went upstairs to her room. She began to undress for bed, even though she didn’t think she would be able to sleep with all the adrenaline that was pumping through her system.
“Hello, Emily.” A voice made her shriek.
Looking around the room to see who had spoken it took her a few seconds to spot the grotesque little creature sitting on her dresser, staring at her. It was about eight inches tall with bluish-green, scaly skin and a pot belly. A rat-like tail with a barbed end curled around its feet. As well as long, pointed ears and small, bat-like wings it had a large, bulbous nose. Two small black horns jutted out from above its beady, sunken eyes.
“Hello, Emily,” the creature whispered again, shooting her a wicked little grin. It waved its long fingers at her, as if mocking her for being so afraid, enjoying its own ability to shock and frighten her.
It was the same voice that had told her to go out the window to escape the men. She tried to scream but nothing came out. It was as though all her senses were overloading. Her eyes lost focus and she felt the room swirling around her. Everything went black, and what felt like a minute, maybe more, later, her eyes snapped back open. For a moment, she had no memory of what had happened and couldn’t figure out why she was lying on the carpet. Rubbing her eyes, she grabbed onto the bedspread to pull herself up. Then she saw it again.
“Holy crap,” she said out loud, “I must be dreaming again.”
The creature clapped happily. “You know that’s not true. Everything you remember about me is real. I tripped the man while he chased you up the stairs. Then I gave him a little push out the window, tee-hee-hee! That was fun, yes, but it would have been much more fun if he had broken his neck, or smashed his skull and spilled his brains. Tee-hee-hee, much more fun indeed!” It rubbed its scaly little hands together.
Emily slowly got to her feet and approached the creature, never taking her eyes off it.
“What a crazy dream. Incredible how realistic everything is,” she muttered as it regarded her with calm, vaguely amused interest. “This is so cool! I wonder if I jump out the window, if I could fly…”
“Er, I wouldn’t advise that, Emily,” the creature said, lifting its index finger in an imitation of a scholarly pose.
“Really?” Emily laughed, no longer afraid of the ridiculous looking thing. “Well, what would you advise then? And what are you supposed to be anyway?”
“I am an imp and my name is Mercurios. I was your mother’s familiar, and now, I’m your guardian. Not only that, but—”
“My mother’s familiar?” Emily interrupted.
“Yes, yes, quite right,” Mercurios said. “A familiar is a powerful wizard’s assistant. I have much to tell you, much to tell you indeed!”
Emily ignored him. “I wonder if I should start by wishing for something simple until I learn how to control the dream,” she muttered, scanning around the room. “Okay, I want my whole bedroom to be purple!” She clapped her hands, but nothing happened. “Purple!” she said again, clapping her hands. Nothing happened. She put her fists on her hips and frowned.
The creature sat back and folded his arms, tiring of the game. “Emily, you must stay away from Cady Sunner. Once you are powerful, we’ll kill him. We will crush him unmerciful.”
“Unmerciful?”
“Yes, indeed, tee-hee-hee! But not yet, no, not yet. First you must become powerful.”
She stared hard at him. “You must be some type of messenger from my subconscious. I need to take a psychology class or something.” She checked her hair in the mirror and waved her reflection away.
“Emily, I know this is difficult to comprehend,” Mercurios continued. “Yes, indeed. But this is not a dream. I am real. I am your guardian. I was not to reveal myself to you yet, but you have given me no choice. You are placing yourself in great danger. Great danger indeed.”
“Oh, I get it,” said Emily. “My subconscious is expressing its fears. Like that demon I’ve been dreaming about.”
“Demon?” the imp asked sharply.
“Yes, well that’s what I think it was, but you’re not a demon, or are you?”
“Very interesting indeed. Er no, as I said, I am an imp; I am your mother’s familiar. You must allow me to train you in magic, and then we will use it to find the Well of Many Worlds and return to your home planet of Magella, where you will continue your studies under the finest professors at Fengusberry Academy. We will secretly enroll you under a false identity until you are
a powerful wizard indeed, and all the while we will secretly make alliances and study the weaknesses of your enemies and then when you are ready you will strike and take the throne. This is what I have been commanded. It is a great task that we must complete. Eighteen years have passed since you came through the Well to this world. Your kingdom is likely in the grip of civil war with potentially numerous factions vying for power.”
“Uh, yeah, that sounds really fun.” Emily could not have sounded less interested in the imp’s plan as she approached him. She stared at him fascinated. “Why would my subconscious create such a freaky creature?” she muttered then poked him in the belly. “Such a cute little pot belly.” She giggled.
“AACHT!” cried the imp and swatted her finger away.
“Sorry, Mr. Imp,” said Emily turning away. “I made a promise to myself today, the old Emily is dead.” She walked over to her bed. “And now, maybe if I go to sleep inside my dream, my subconscious will get the message that I’m not interested in going back to the way I was, so goodnight, fears. This is the new Emily, and she is going to see her father’s killers rotting in jail.” With that, she got into bed and turned out the light so that she could no longer see the imp.
As she drifted off to sleep, she dreamed that the voice was whispering to her that the universe was vast with many secrets – things about other worlds, something about a well, facts about darkness and evil, but she was too exhausted to remember any of it.
Six
Paris, France,1789
“Princess Katharina is as ancient as Baelaar, Lord Ruthen and I,” continued Fionn, speaking to Mitchell in his grand apartment. “She was born in Austria and made her two favorite handmaidens vampires as well. As a mortal, she was deeply religious, fiercely loyal to her family and country, and valued honor and integrity above all things. When she became a vampire, she retained these beliefs and sees it as her sacred duty to use her powers to battle evil.” Fionn chuckled. “You can imagine her reaction when Baelaar tried to convince her that the planet Earth was a vampire god and that he was its high priest and that she should therefore serve him.”