"I hope you got your report done in time," I said acidly.
"Oh, it was worth it, trust me."
"Did you manage to remove the projectors?"
"I took them down during my methodical search for any other booby traps you might have laid." She smiled smugly. "Dark's orders. It was the perfect cover."
"Did you bring them back?" ask Em. "Where are they?"
"I left them with Aloysius. I thought it was the least we could do after he didn't shop us to Dark."
Em looked annoyed, but there was nothing she could do. I took a breath, and steeled myself to say the next words.
"Di, thank you."
Her eyebrows shot up. She cupped a hand behind her ear.
"I'm sorry, I think I misheard you. Was that gratitude?" I gritted my teeth.
"Don't be an arse. I mean it. Thank you. We couldn't have done it without you."
"I didn't do it for you." Her tone became brusque. "I did it to undermine that idiot Dark. And to stop a demon apocalypse, of course." She glared at me. "But none of it was to help you. We're not friends. And we’re certainly not family."
She stalked off down the hall.
◆◆◆
Kali stood at the end of the bed, examining the statue of Ganesh, her lip curled derisively.
"You shouldn't put your faith in this one," she sneered. "I've never understood how the fat fool became so popular." She lifted the statue and began to sharpen her blade on it. "Still, he has some uses."
"What do you want?" I said, though my lips didn't move.
"Change is coming. Change can be painful. But it can also make you stronger." She put the statue down and looked at her blade, testing its sharpness.
"Will I find my mother?"
"Knowing what is to come does not make the path easier."
"Why do you keep talking in riddles? Just tell me." She looked at me then, and her eyes were as bottomless as the night sky.
"You will find her. But you will discover more than you bargained for. Are you prepared?"
I didn't even think about it.
"Yes."
"Well then, to find your mother, you must first dance." She leaned towards me, and her eyes grew larger, filling my vision, drowning me in darkness.
"I don't understand!" I cried out in frustration.
"You must dance the dance that marks the end of your childhood." The darkness closed over my head. "And it will end in flames."
Chapter 20
The next few days dragged. Darius and Di played at being double-agents, trying to subtly gauge where each Warrior's loyalties lay, priming them to help us if we needed them.
It was a delicate job, one which Darius lacked patience for but which Di was surprisingly good at. Several Warriors promised to do what they could to find Mum, if she was still alive.
If.
I knew she was, I was sure she was, but convincing the others wasn't so easy. More than once I caught Em looking at me worriedly, certain I was in self-denial.
She had modified the locater spell, making it stronger and with a bigger range, yet it still couldn't find Mum. Em hadn't said a word, but the unspoken thought was there. She must be dead.
Em's talent with magic was growing. She used computer programs and algorithms to enhance spells, something she jokingly called 'techno-magic'. She also made them quicker and more efficient. She asked Henry to write down the banishment spell for her, the one that had taken him nearly ten minutes to conjure when we were under attack from the imps. It ran to eight pages of double-sided A4. Within a day she had reduced it to forty-five seconds and recorded it onto her smart-phone.
"But it was simple," she said when Henry had expressed his astonishment. "I just identified the words that held the power, and cut out the rest. There seems to be a lot of useless filler in these spells." She gave Henry a look. "I'm beginning to think those ancient Hindu mystics were just a bunch of drama queen show-offs."
She left Henry spluttering in her wake as she moved on to her next project.
As the full-moon approached, the tension grew. Henry and Violet were still trying to find the entrance to the caves, but so far they'd had no luck. On the bright side, no other children were reported missing.
But the demons were busy. By the fifth day, hellholes were opening up all over the world, and Warriors were being pushed to the limit killing drones and sealing the rifts. We started to see less of Di and Darius. When they did turn up, they looked exhausted. The demons had the Guild running ragged.
"Almost as if they're causing a diversion," said Darius darkly. And it was true; no-one was paying any attention to Mallow Bottom.
No-one except us.
Darius and I were in the combat room taking a breather during a training session. He'd suggested it as a way to let off some steam, but it wasn't going well. It wasn't that I didn't know the moves; I had picked them up pretty quickly. It's just that he moved too fast for me to land any blows or block his attacks.
It was annoying and frustrating; I was so good at other sports, why couldn't I do this?
"You've only just started," Darius said reasonably. "You know the techniques, it'll just take time for your brain to do them automatically. That's why the Guild trains kids from such a young age, so it becomes instinctive."
"But I can't even see you move half the time," I complained. "By the time I've worked out how to react, you've changed position."
"Don't sweat it. It's like learning to ride a bike. Remember how when you first tried it, it seemed so hard? You'd keep falling over? And now it's so easy, you can't believe there was ever a time you couldn't do it. Combat is just like that."
We were sitting on the floor, leaning back against the wall and sipping water from plastic bottles.
"How are you holding up?" he asked. "You must be really worried about your Mum." I twisted the top of the bottle, not looking at him.
"I try not to think about her. What she might be going through."
"A lot of the Warriors have been talking about you, you know. None of them have families, they'll never be parents. Finding out Mari had a daughter has made some of them question the Guild's methods. I think they're jealous."
I flipped him a glance.
"Do you remember your parents? Did they really die in a car-crash?"
"Yes, they did. When I was two. I don't really remember their faces. But I remember Mum's voice. She used to tell me this bedtime story, about owl babies, and how their mother always came home to them… " He trailed off, giving an awkward shrug, and in that moment he didn't look like a Warrior. He looked like a teenage boy missing his parents.
"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to..."
"No, it's okay. I just wish I had some pictures of them, but the Guild discourages those kind of things. They see it as a weakness."
"They're wrong," I said quietly. "Love isn't a weakness, it's a strength." I changed the subject. "Talking of parents, have you met Em's yet?"
He smiled ruefully.
"No. I want to, but she hasn't worked out how to introduce me. I'm beginning to think I'll never meet them."
"That's tough," I sympathised. "Where is she? Upstairs? Maybe you need to talk to her about it."
"It's her call. I don't want to rush her. Whatever she tells them about me will be a lie, and Em is the most honest person I know. She doesn't want to deceive her parents, especially her Dad. She looks up to him so much. I don't want to put her through that."
I felt a masochistic urge to ask how it was going between them, but the look on his face was enough. With a sigh, I clambered to my feet.
"Come on, let me see if I can hit you this time."
We started slowly, so I could study his attacks. I blocked a punch to my face, twisted my forearm over his wrist, took his arm out and back, and stepped behind him to hurl him to the ground. At the last minute he twisted out of my grip and flipped me over his hip. He peered down at me.
"Again. Faster."
I got up, and he whipped a foot towa
rds my neck. I managed to get both arms up to protect myself and he dropped to the ground, sweeping my feet from under me. I landed flat on my back.
"Again. Faster."
This time I didn't wait, I punched as soon as I got to my feet, but caught only air as he moved gracefully to one side. He continued turning, pushing my travelling arm round to tip me off balance and snapping a foot at the back of my knee. It crumpled beneath me, and I fell on my face.
"Again. Faster."
I was starting to feel a slow burn of anger. He danced out of my reach as I executed a roundhouse kick followed by a back heel kick. I followed it up with a hail of punches, trying to drive him against the wall where he wouldn't have as much manoeuvrability. He ducked under my fists, picked me up around the middle and deposited me on the ground. He looked down at me.
"Again. Faster."
I tried to centre myself, to breathe calmly as I blocked two of his strikes. His third drove the breath from my lungs, and as I doubled over he took hold of my T-shirt, rolled on to his back pulling me with him, and used both feet to flip me over his head like a pancake.
"Again. Faster."
My anger boiled over.
"That's it!" I yelled, scrambling to my feet. "I'm not doing this anymore!"
"You can't quit now, Deva," he grinned, dancing in front of me like a boxer, deliberately trying to antagonise me. "Come on, you just need to speed up a bit. I've seen sloths move faster than this!"
He reached out and flicked my nose.
"Stop it!" I growled, trying to grab his finger. He flicked my nose again.
"I could do this all day."
He reached out a third time, and suddenly the world went very, very still. My other voice spoke up in my head.
Enough.
It was as if everything around me suddenly jerked into focus. Colours became hyper clear. Every sight, every sound stood out in infinitesimal detail. I could see dust motes floating in the air. The spider's web in the corner of the ceiling. The flecks of green in Darius's eyes. His hand reaching towards my face, ready to flick my nose again.
I dodged.
I raised a hand, grasping his wrist and carrying on its forward-momentum, twisting my body to one side. I stuck a foot out, and he stumbled over it. I brought my other hand into the small of his back and pushed. He fell to the ground. I felt a thrill of exhilaration, and couldn't resist. I leaned over him.
"Again. Faster."
He was faster, much faster. But it was as if my brain had suddenly reset to a higher speed. I could see every blow coming, every move and counter-move. I knew every response, could predict every outcome.
Suddenly, he wasn't grinning any more as we moved around the combat room trading punches. He aimed a spinning wheel kick at my head and I blocked it, sweeping his leg out from under him.
He rolled backwards onto his feet and came up fast, his palm extended and fingers stiff as he thrust towards my solar plexus. I managed to absorb some of the blow by bending forward, throwing a forearm into his face. He launched a lightning flurry of punches and I danced backwards, jabbing him viciously in the ribs with the ball of my foot and landing an uppercut to his chin.
We were both panting, soaked in sweat, as he tried the trick of sending me flying over his head again. This time I was ready; as he pulled me down onto the floor, I rolled myself sideways onto my back, pulling him on top of me. Then I continued rolling, till I was above him, holding him down, looking triumphantly into his face.
"Give up?" I asked.
He stared at me in disbelief.
"What the hell was in that water?"
"It's like you said. My brain suddenly started working quicker."
Well, that was true. Whatever my other self was, it had no problem with combat. As if on cue, the disturbing voice spoke up again.
He is no match for us.
Us?
In that moment of distraction, Darius shifted his weight and flipped me sideways, rolling on top of me and pinning me to the floor. His ocean-coloured eyes glinted down at me.
"Give up?"
I stared up at him. A dozen different ways of besting him were racing through my head, but I ignored them. Suddenly, all I could feel were his hips pushing against mine, his hands firmly pinning my wrists. Our bodies were intimately entwined, and I felt colour flooding my face.
"Yes," I whispered. "I give up."
I watched his smile fade, his eyes dilating as he trailed his gaze over my flushed face. Surely he could feel my heart beating beneath his? His hands tightened on mine, and I felt his thumb brush my palm. He was so close, all I had to do was tilt my head slightly, and our lips would...
Do it. He wants to. He wants to kiss you, claim you, lose himself in you.
His lips parted, and he slowly dipped his head towards mine. With heightened senses, I could feel his breath and smell his sweat, like burnt cinnamon. I wanted desperately to reach towards him, to press my mouth against his. Such a small move, but one that would change everything. I trembled with the effort of staying still.
Em. What about Em?
We could make him forget her.
But I wouldn't forget.
I shifted my weight beneath Darius, deliberately turning my face away from his. I cleared my throat.
"You weigh a ton."
He released me immediately, red with embarrassment as he helped me to my feet.
"God, sorry, Kaz, I didn't mean... Jesus, you must think I'm a creep. It's just, you know..."
"I'm irresistible, I know," I offered him a cheeky grin as I reached for a towel, praying he wouldn't notice my hands were shaking.
"No, it's not that... I mean, obviously, yes, irresistible, but it's been a while since I've, um, been that close to a woman. Em and I decided we wouldn't... you know. Until she was sixteen." He trailed off miserably, and I realised what he was trying to say.
"You and she haven't...?"
"No." I ruthlessly quelled the little flare of joy that leapt inside me.
"I see." I gave him an arch look. "So that could have been anyone down there on the floor and you'd have been up for it?" I was teasing him, and he knew it.
"Well, I draw the line at Mrs Peters, but pretty much." He paused. "Actually, Mrs Peters has that whole Helen Mirren thing going on so yeah, anyone."
I yelped and threw the towel at his head. Laughing, he ducked it and caught my hand.
"Seriously, I hope you weren't grossed out. You're a mate." I looked down at his hand holding mine and tried to keep the regret out of my voice.
"Yeah. I know."
"Hi guys. What's going on?"
We both jumped and looked guiltily towards the door.
“Em!”
Darius dropped my hand as if it had turned into a wasp. Em was standing there, looking curiously from one face to another.
"You look like you've had a real workout."
"Yeah, I think I'm finally getting it." I retrieved my towel, and wiped my face, using it as an excuse to hide my expression. "I managed to hit him a couple of times, didn't I Darius?"
"Uh huh." He gave me that lopsided grin. "When I let you, of course."
I shook my head, rolling my eyes, and tried not to mind when he bounded to Em and kissed her hello.
"Ugh, you're all sweaty," she laughed, pushing him away. "If we're still going out, you need to take a shower."
"You're going out? Now? With a demon apocalypse around the corner?" I was surprised, but Em shrugged.
"There's nothing more we can do tonight. We may as well go out and try to relax, have some fun."
"Do you want to come?" Darius cocked an eyebrow at me, but I hastily shook my head.
"No, thanks. Three's a crowd." He went off to get showered, and I picked up the empty water bottles to chuck them in the bin.
"You two seem very friendly." Only someone who knew Em very well would have caught the edge in her voice.
"Well, we're friends." I kept my tone neutral. "Where are you going tonight?"
"Actually, he was holding mine. And it was nothing, we were just having a joke."
"A joke that involved holding hands?"
"Em, if you'd come in two seconds earlier you would have seen him trying to smash my face in." I pushed the memory of Darius lying on top of me to the back of my mind. "We were just messing around."
"Well, as long as you remember whose boyfriend he is." Her tone was light, but I looked at her in surprise.
"That sounds a bit possessive."
"When it comes to Darius, I am very possessive."
She flashed a smile at me, trying to make it sound like a joke. But I felt her eyes on me as I walked out of the combat room, and I couldn't stop a little flicker of resentment. I could have let Darius kiss me, I thought, but I didn't.
And when the other voice spoke up, I knew it was telling the truth.
You could take him from her.
I tried to ignore it.
◆◆◆
The insistent ringing of my mobile dragged me out of sleep. I gazed at the phone, bleary-eyed. Not even three o'clock. I'd waited up till gone eleven, childishly wanting to hear Darius come in after taking Em home. Pathetic, I know. I stabbed at the 'accept call' button, and sank back among the pillows.
"'Lo?"
"Kaz? Kaz, it's Em." Her voice sounded high and panicky, and I sat up, my tiredness gone.
"What is it? Are you hurt? Is it Darius?"
"No, we're fine." I heard her break off and say something to someone. In the background, I could hear a police siren.
"Em? What's happening? Who are you talking to?"
"It's my Dad. The police are here."
"Where? Em, where are you?"
"I'm in your street. You need to get down here, Kaz. It's your house. It's been burned down."
Chapter 21
It was a carcass. A burned out-husk, charred and smoking. A small section of wall remained upright, tattered curtains hanging dankly against the ashen brick. But the rest was a ruin, open to the night sky where the roof had fallen in, and soaked in the water of the fire engines sent to put the flames out.
I stood speechless in front of it. I'd hated that house, but now it was gone. All of it. The Asian wall art, the woven rugs, the Kali painting. My clothes, Mum's Indian jewellery. All up in smoke. Em and Darius stood next to me, and Em took my hand.
Daughter of Kali- Awakening Page 19