Scarlet tottered back on her heels and shielded her eyes as she looked up at the morning sky. The newly-arrived sun cast a shadow across the looping comet headed towards her. Her arms went up automatically to protect herself, but the object landed beside her. She was astonished to see that it was Sorrow. His bruises and cuts had all gone. Bright red eyes glowed inside his bumpy skull, and on his back was a magnificent pair of black wings. “S-Sorrow? What happened to you?”
“I do not know, but I am stronger.”
The Saint was back up on his feet immediately, and charging like a dazed rhino. Sorrow flapped his massive wings—blowing back Scarlet’s hair—then swooped up and collided with his adversary, taking him back up into the air once more, but this time flipping him into the lake. The splash rose ten feet above the surface.
Chester ran over to her on shaky legs. “The ritual is done. The Saint can be banished.”
“What’s to stop him coming back again?” she said.
“His mission is done. The Father won’t send him back just so he can get revenge. In fact, I imagine he’ll be punished for his behaviour.”
“Good,” she said. “What do we do then? How do we banish him?”
Chester shook his head. “If he were a demon inhabiting a human body then he would have already been expelled, but The Saint is inhabiting his own body. We need to kill him.”
“I thought he couldn’t be killed.”
“That was before I performed the cleansing. His tether to the other world has been broken. Killing him won’t be easy, but it’s now possible.”
Scarlet watched Sorrow soar above the lake and smiled. “Especially now that my blood supercharged my bodyguard.”
“It won’t last for long,” Chester said.
“What? What do you mean?”
“Your blood awakened Sorrow’s dormant powers, the powers that were taken from him when the Father cast his spell so long ago. You have displayed what The Spark was designed to do—give demons and monsters, like Sorrow, back their powers—but as soon as his body uses up your blood in his system, his powers will disappear.”
“How long does he have?”
“I have no idea, but I can only imagine his powers are extremely temporary.”
Scarlet watched as The Saint dragged himself through the water, back to the bank, and started to climb onto his feet. He was startled and disorientated, but looked as willing to fight as ever. He glared up at Sorrow, still swooping through the sky, and bellowed in rage.
“We need to kill him fast,” said Scarlet. “While we have a chance.”
Sorrow swooped down for another attack.
~ Chapter Seventeen ~
The Saint clambered up the bank. A sucking wound tore his chest in two and his blackened eye glistened. He was hurt, badly. But he was still dangerous.
“It’s morning,” said Chester. “There’s going to be people around soon.”
“Nobody else is getting hurt because of me,” said Scarlet. Her palm was throbbing and still bleeding slightly.
Sorrow was still airborne, swooping like a majestic eagle—except this bird of prey was wearing her dad’s ripped work trousers. He dove down to attack The Saint again, but this time the giant caught him. Sorrow’s wings flapped angrily as he was dragged back down to earth, where he was at a disadvantage. The Saint kicked him in the stomach and sent him flying backwards like he was being pulled by hidden wires. He landed in the wet mud, face down, and before he had time to get up and launch back into the air, The Saint kicked him in the ribs. His wings closed in around him, forming a protective cocoon.
“You cower,” said The Saint. “Even in your true form.”
But Sorrow wasn’t cowering. He unfurled his wings at once, swatting The Saint into the air, then leaping up and snatching him before he came back down to earth. Like a rocket, he shot upwards, powerful wings stroking the air like the oars of a boat. He kept going, The Saint in his arms, gliding ever higher until he was a dark shape against the half-lit sky. The moon still hung around faintly, attempting to defy the sun that had now risen over the lake.
“He’s going to drop him,” said her dad, clutching his ribs and panting. “No way he’ll survive.”
“It should kill him,” said Scarlet. “Sorrow just has to let go of him.”
They all waited for the large black shape to separate—for Sorrow to release his enemy to shatter against the ground—but it didn’t happen.
“What’s he doing?” Chester asked.
Scarlet shook her head. “I don’t know.”
“Shit,” her dad said. “They’re both falling.”
Scarlet saw that he was right. The black shape in the sky was growing bigger, getting closer. Sorrow and The Saint were plummeting to earth together. “Why didn’t he let go?”
“Get down,” Chester shouted, pulling Scarlet and her dad down the bank. Scarlet stumbled and fell onto her hands and knees, narrowly missing a broken beer bottle someone had tossed into the grass.
There was an almighty crash as the two warriors hit the ground so hard that the cement pathway split apart. The fissure kept growing, like the earth opening up in a disaster movie. Birds on the water took flight, honking and quacking in disapproval.
Then silence.
Everybody stayed completely still, waiting for the aftershocks to settle.
One of the two warriors began to rise. From behind—and with so much dust in the air—it was hard to tell who, but when the figure stretched up to a massive height, Scarlet knew that it was The Saint. His blond hair hung in his face, and he didn’t seem sure where he was. Sorrow lay on the ground behind him, half-buried in the pavement—not moving. His wings were gone. Whatever effect her blood had was over.
Chester and her dad sprinted up the bank and grabbed The Saint, but he smashed their skulls together and tossed them aside like children. He might have been injured, but he was still unbelievably strong.
And his route to Scarlet was now clear.
She lifted her hand and looked at the jagged wound on her palm. It was sticky, but already healing. There was no more blood she could use.
Unless…
The Saint came at her fast. Scarlet glanced down at the broken bottle in the grass. She snatched it up and looked at the jagged shard in horror.
This was going to hurt.
She dragged the sharp piece of glass over her wounded palm and squealed. The blood came immediately.
And so did The Saint.
He snatched Scarlet up off the ground. This time he wasted no time talking. He twisted her wrist and snapped her forearm in two. The scream that escaped her throat was so thick that it felt like she was regurgitating her stomach.
The Saint grinned at the sight of her pain. “Your birth was an abomination.”
Scarlet clenched her fist and forced herself to stop screaming. “So’s your breath.”
She pulled up her other arm and shoved her blood-soaked palm into the Saint’s face, digging in her nails and clamping down over his mouth. She squeezed as hard as she could, trying to push out more blood from her wound. The Saint fought to escape her grip, but found himself suddenly weak—and she was suddenly strong. Spinning around, she manhandled him as though he weighed nothing, eventually positioning him at the top of the embankment.
He glared at her with his one good eye. “You will bring darkness to this world, child.”
“No,” she said. “Only to you.” She brought her leg up and kicked The Saint in the guts, sending him rolling and cartwheeling down the bank. He fell so hard that he ended up in the lake. “Enjoy your swim.”
He dragged himself over to the bank and slumped forwards in the mud, legs still in the water. “Evil flows through your blood.”
Scarlet felt what he was saying was true. Something did indeed course through her body, and it made her feel strong, powerful—it was unnatural. “What’s happening to me?” she demanded.
Still clutching at the mud, The Saint sneered. “Your powers are awakeni
ng early. That meddling shaman shortened your life, but magic still lives in you. Your blood is tainted.”
“She said I wasn’t The Spark anymore.”
“But you are still an abomination. Magic corrupts and kills.”
“In that case,” Scarlet held out her palm, blood dripping down and forming a pool at her feet, “it’s time I put it to good use.”
She gritted her teeth and thought about what she wanted. She wanted The Saint gone, buried forever someplace where no one would ever find him. She almost went to pray, but then remembered whose side he was on. So instead of asking for The Father’s help, she demanded what she wanted from no one but herself. She demanded that the world do as she commanded.
And it did.
First, the ground began to shake. Then the water began to boil.
The Saint looked afraid, his threat diminishing by the second. He was no longer an unstoppable giant, an unstoppable assassin; he was a frightened child far from home. He was in her house now.
The water began shifting, and waves formed. The lake rose up at its edges, but grew shallower in its centre, as though an invisible hand were pushing down on it.
Then the lake began to part—waters shifting left and right, and revealing the sloppy mud that made up its bed.
Scarlet squeezed her hand into a fist, causing more blood to drip down her arm and onto the ground. “Be gone!” she bellowed in a voice that seemed to have the force of nature behind it.
The lake rose up around The Saint, while the ground began to swirl at his feet.
“What are you doing?” he demanded, as terrified as he was defiant.
“Showing you the same amount of mercy that you showed my friend.”
The muddy lake-bed split open and The Saint fell backwards. First his legs disappeared up to the knees, but he continued sinking rapidly. Eventually, the mud started to swirl around him and pulled him down to his neck. The terror in The Saint’s eyes was the only part of him that was human. His pleas for mercy went unheard; Scarlet was deaf to his cries.
The waters came crashing down on his head, and he was gone. The lake went still, and the geese returned to its surface.
Scarlet lowered her trembling hand, unable to believe what had just happened. The lake had returned to normal and there was no evidence that it had ever been different. Good thing, too, for a jogger had appeared on the far side of the lake. The fitness fanatic would soon be joined by dozens more, as well as mums with strollers and pensioners feeding the ducks.
Scarlet began to wobble. Her broken arm flared with renewed agony, and she suddenly felt like a sixteen year old girl again. Her dad caught her just in time to stop her collapsing to the floor. “It’s okay, sweetie,” he said. “It’s over. You did it.”
Flopped in his arms, she closed her eyes. “No, it’s not over. It won’t be over until I’m dead.”
“That’s not happening, Scarlet. You hear me?”
“Not for another few months at least,” she muttered.
Chester arrived, staggering down the bank towards them. “You did it, Scarlet. The Saint has been banished.”
“I don’t know what happened,” she said. “I… I just wanted it to happen, and it did. I feel sick.”
Chester’s relief turned to concern. “Your powers have started to awaken. Your desperation—seeing the people you care about being hurt and fearing your own death—brought everything forth in a sudden gush. Think of your powers like adrenaline. We all get stronger when we’re fighting for our lives—it’s a natural response, and it’s no different with you, Scarlet; your adrenaline just happens to be a little more supernatural.”
“I want it out,” she said. “I want the magic out of my blood.”
“There’s no way, Scarlet. I’m sorry, but it’s part of you—as much as the colour of your hair and the length of your fingers.”
Her dad gripped her tightly in his arms and pulled her closer. “Is my daughter still going to die?”
Chester nodded solemnly. “Yes, unless you and I can do something about it.”
“I intend to.”
Scarlet stopped listening to their conversation. She couldn’t think about her impending death right now. Death would not find her today, and that was enough for now. What concerned her now was that everyone was okay. There had been one more person trying to protect her.
Sorrow still lay face-down on the path, embedded in the concrete. The Saint had been unkillable before Chester had performed his spell, but was Sorrow immortal too? Margaret had said so, but the jagged scars across his back where wings once sprouted suggested he was not invulnerable.
Scarlet slipped free of her dad’s arms and went over to where her demon bodyguard lay. Kneeling down, she placed her hand on his back. He was cold, but he had always been that way. He was demon, not human, but he was also her friend—just like Indy had been. Nothing had been too frightening to stop him from protecting her. He had been willing to die, if necessary, to keep her safe. Perhaps that made it okay that he was lying in front of her now. She was alive, thanks to him, and without him placing his body on the line, The Saint would have killed her days ago.
“Please don’t be dead, Sorrow,” she said. “You’re the only part of all this that isn’t dreadful. Plus, dad thinks you’re my boyfriend, which is really funny. Kissing you was pretty amazing though, huh? Maybe I wouldn’t mind if you were my boyfriend, but right now, I’d settle for a friend. I need you to be alive, Sorrow.”
She sensed her dad and Chester standing behind her, but she did not turn around. She held back her tears, because once they came, they would not stop, and she didn’t want anybody’s pity.
Sorrow needed to be alive for her.
God, let me have just one thing for myself, one thing that I actually want; instead of life thrusting things upon me whether I like it or not.
“Wake up, damn it! Sorrow, you wake up right now.” She wiped the blood from her palm over his shoulder wounds again, but this time nothing happened. Sorrow remained still.
“People are coming,” Chester said. “There’s a jogger coming our way. We need to get his body out of here before someone sees it.”
“How?” asked her dad. “He probably weighs a ton.”
“Most likely. It’s strange, but all the lore that the White Order possesses suggests that when a demon dies on earth, its body disappears back to its original realm.”
“So why is his body still here?”
“Scarlet?” the voice was weak. “Are you hurt?”
Scarlet leapt forwards, hugging Sorrow’s body against her own. “Sorrow, you’re alive.”
“I do not know. Am I?”
“Yes, yes, you are. Can you get up?”
“I would rather remain here.”
Scarlet laughed. “Well, you can’t. We have to leave.”
“The Saint?”
“He’s gone. We dealt with him. I’m safe.”
Sorrow put his palms against the ground and began to push up. He trembled with the exertion, but gradually began to rise up. Misery cloaked his face, and his eyes were swollen.
“You’re hurt,” she said.
“I will heal. You are bleeding.”
Scarlet looked at her arm, coated in blood from her palm. “Yeah, I think I should go see a doctor and get stitches.”
“There shouldn’t be need,” said Chester. “Now that your powers have awoken, you should heal fast.”
“Doesn’t feel like it,” she said. “I feel like I could sleep for a week and still feel tired.”
“Scarlet, if you were a normal girl, you wouldn’t be able to stand up after what you’ve been through. You’ll be okay within a few days, I assure you.”
“There’s that word again,” she said. “Normal. I would give anything to be normal.”
Her dad pulled her in for a hug. “You’re anything but, Scarlet, and that’s no bad thing. You’re my baby girl, and I’m proud of you. Right now, we need to go somewhere where we can lick our wounds in pe
ace.”
“Yes,” said Sorrow, who was eyeing up a nearby group of geese suspiciously. “We are not safe here.”
Scarlet hadn’t noticed until then, but both her dad and Chester were covered in blood and bruises. They both sported matching lumps on their foreheads where The Saint cracked their skulls together, and each clutched at his ribs and winced with every breath.
“I need to go see what state my shop is in,” said Chester, “and see if that miserable old vulture, Margaret, has managed to live through all this.”
Scarlet glanced at Sorrow, who was almost on his feet now, although topless and bloody. Together, they resembled some kind of homeless street gang. Strangers in the distance grew closer, strolling along the path in both directions. “How on earth do we get back without anyone calling the police on us?”
“I suggest,” said Chester. “That we use haste. Sooner we get back and put the kettle on, the better.”
“Amen to that,” said her dad.
Scarlet shook her head. “Not what a demon-blooded girl wants to hear, dad.”
“Yeah, okay. Then let’s just thank the stars.”
“Thank you, stars,” said Sorrow, before picking up a stone and tossing it at a goose. “Can we go now, please?”
Scarlet chuckled. “I always wanted a bigger family, never thought it would be this one.”
“Be careful what you wish for,” said Chester. “Especially now.”
~ Chapter Eighteen ~
They hadn’t been able to avoid all attention on their stumbling journey back into town, but they kept their heads down and carried on as quickly as their limping gaits would allow. When they saw police coming out of Little Treasures Emporium, they hid inside an alleyway next to the bank, but once the cops left, Chester ushered them all inside.
“Who dealt with the police?” her dad mused, looking around at the ransacked interior of the shop that looked even worse than when they left it.
“I dealt with them,” said Margaret, staggering out from the backroom. “To be more precise, a well-placed telephone call to The Council dealt with them. They are going to list the disturbance as a burglary. Won’t be the first time the police in this town have turned a blind eye.”
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