Staked!

by Candace Wondrak

“Then why do you bother lying?”

  I eyed him up. “Why bother asking?” I sighed and went back to work. The only reason I was even looking through the books was because I was deathly bored of just cleaning the outer binding and tossing it to the side. It was an incredibly monotonous task that I needed a break from every now and then.

  The next book in the pile I was working on was unusually thin.

  I flipped it open and scanned the pages for any pictures. This book was all words. No wonder it was so short compared to all the others, who had pictures on every page. I was seconds away from giving up when, on the very last page, there was something folded in.

  A cautious hand reached for it and, before I knew it, unfolded it.

  An incredulous gasp escaped my lungs as my eyes took in the picture. I’d seen this black symbol before, in one of my visions. The vision about the first Council. This symbol was on the floor and on their golden amulets. It clearly meant something to them. Something that I was a little (okay, a lot) cloudy on. While I’d had plenty of Demonology, I hadn’t learnt much about the history of the Council.

  I said “Raphael, what’s—” before I realized I wasn’t in the church anymore.

  The paper wasn’t in my hands. I stood and glimpsed all around. Large and beautiful painted windows were scattered among the stone wall. Three men were situated behind a marble slab that overlooked the entire round room.

  My eyes fell to my feet, seeing the same black symbol. What did this symbol mean?

  Joseph, the oldest Council Member, stroked his beard, saying, “Bring him in.”

  Two impossibly large men left the room. I was beyond eager to see who they were going to bring in. Was it going to be someone else that I’d heard bedtime stories of? Some old Purifier?

  In minutes the men were back, and I noticed an extra pair of feet behind their own. I made a move to go around to see this man, but fell straight down into a pool of water that, without warning, appeared before me.

  I must have sunk unnaturally fast, because it took me a while to swim to the top. My head flew back as I gasped for air and looked around. I stumbled out of the water and fell to my knees. I was near a river side town, no longer in the Council chamber.

  Everything and everyone looked peaceful and content. The villagers wandered about the town, bartering and trading. Children skipped happily through the dirt roads. A picture-perfect place.

  But something wasn’t right. Someone was out of place. And that someone happened to be cloaked entirely in a black cape and hood. It was a man, I could tell by the length of his shoulders and the brawniness of his leather-clad legs. He walked hastily through the road, knowing exactly where to go and when to turn.

  I bit my lip and decided to follow him.

  He took me to a normal-looking hut. His rough hand pounded on the door and I instantly leered, wondering if he was here to do some slaughtering. The man seemed frantic as he banged on the door again. Under his hood, his head tilted as he kicked down the door with sheer force.

  I followed the concealed man into the hut. I gagged. So much blood. I had my fair share of blood, but this…this was like someone exploded from the inside out.

  That’s when I saw the body of the woman who used to own all the blood. She was horrendously dismembered, and her eyes glazed open. Some of her limbs were missing. Sights like this I never would get used to.

  The door slammed shut behind me, making me jump. I flipped around and came face to face with a Daywalker who looked like Dwayne Johnson on steroids. I stepped out of the way as he snarled, showing his fierce, inch-long front teeth and his almost equally long canines.

  That was the thing about Daywalkers. Their real teeth were something truly scary that always gave me the shivers. Animals in human-shape.

  Using his inhuman speed, the Daywalker flashed on top of the cloaked man, soaking him in the dead woman’s blood. I tried seeing the hooded man’s face, but sadly was unable to. It was beginning to piss me off.

  All I wanted to do was see who the man was. No more mystery for me. I preferred to know straight-up what I was dealing with. If only my visions listened to what I wanted.

  The cloaked man whispered something in another language, sending the Daywalker flying off him and colliding with the opposite wall, shaking the entire hut. The hooded man walked over to the immobilized Demon and whispered more.

  There was something about this man that was familiar. The way he walked, the way he whispered, the way he looked under that black cape and hood. I was too busy watching what happened next to further mull it over.

  A sharp, blue light emanated from the cloaked man as he swiftly sent his fist into the Daywalker. He jerked his hand out, clutching the heart of the beast. The Daywalker’s blackened eyes widened as he watched his heart lift in the air as the man continued to mutter another language and glow blue. The hooded man yelled one, final word as the heart imploded on itself. The Demon reached for its stomach and looked down. In seconds, the Daywalker followed suit of his heart.

  I mouthed the word wow before blinking and being back in the church once more.

  “What’s what?”

  “Huh?” I shook my head, trying to wrap my mind around the vision I had. It was too familiar, and I remembered witnessing something similar in the other reality.

  Raphael shut the ancient book in his lap and leaned up. “You said, Raphael, what’s, and then you must have gotten lost in your own mind. What were you going to ask me?”

  “Oh.” My eyes fell to the black symbol. I didn’t really want to explain the vision. I didn’t want to explain the vision, or what I saw in the other world. A trembling hand passed the book to Raphael. “What is that?” I asked as he eyeballed the detailed emblem.

  “This,” his fingers traced the page, “is the eternal symbol. It was created by the first Council almost seven hundred years ago. I am surprised that you have not heard of it before.”

  “We never learned much about the first Council.”

  He rested his back on the wall and sighed explosively. Raphael took his time to answer. “Koath and Michael never told you any stories?”

  Way to answer a question with another question. I said, “No. Being a Purifier and growing up knowing about Demons, I didn’t need bedtime stories.”

  “Well, seeing as how you are not doing any work anyways, I suppose I will tell you one.” His bright green eyes met my gaze. “If you want me to, that is,” Raphael added quickly.

  “Yes,” I exclaimed, hoping that this story would be very long and take up the remainder of my time here, because I was tired of cleaning old books. And I had to get my mind off the possibility about the identity of the man in my vision.

  “Legend has it that the first Council had trouble dealing with greater Demons, such as Daywalkers, so their people roamed the earth, searching for someone who was perfectly in tune with nature. Demons were not natural, so they knew that finding someone who could channel nature freely would be the key.”

  I slid the rags and books to the side, giving myself some more room to spread my legs out. I had a feeling this story was going to be long.

  “It took a few years, but eventually the agents came across Helio, the first Witch. They were not sure how Helio’s powers came to be, but they knew that they needed him.”

  “The first Witch was a guy?” The question sounded stupid. But I always thought that Witches were girls, not guys.

  Raphael smiled warmly at my confusion. “Yes. Helio was a man. He had a wife and two children, with another on the way. He told the agents he wouldn’t leave his family, so the Council had them moved. Helio and his family went from a poor, dirty hovel to the Council’s own vast building.”

  “What does Helio have to do with the eternal symbol?” I cut in, curiosity once again getting the best of me, like it always did.

  He chuckled, saying, “I will get there sooner if you do not interrupt me. Helio lived there for many years, serving the Council as a type of Purifier. Eventually, he i
nvented the eternal symbol. It was the crux of nature itself, and when he applied it on a Demon, using such methods as paint or blood, nature pulled it back, essentially collapsing the Demon from the inside out.”

  The vision I had, the man in black did the exact same thing to the huge, wrestler-like Daywalker, only…he didn’t use any paint or blood. In fact, he’d purified that Daywalker almost the exact same way as Raphael purified Rain in the other world.

  “However, Helio would not travel to where the Demon was located. The Council had to send its own agents out to capture and bring the Demon to its headquarters; that is where Helio would use the eternal symbol to destroy the Demon for good. This went on for some years before the Council realized that while Helio helped them greatly, they were still losing too many of their own men. Capturing greater Demons was hard for mere humans.”

  “What did they do?” I spoke slowly.

  “Even though Helio was dying, they commissioned him to construct the ultimate weapon. And that he did. He spent months creating something that was beyond life and death, and yet wasn’t a Demon. Using his last bits of life, Helio put his magic into the eternal symbol that decorated the being’s back and chest. Helio died giving life to something that should never have been allowed to exist. An abomination of nature, neither man nor Demon.”

  This didn’t bode well. I had a bad feeling.

  Raphael inhaled a large breath and smiled at me before carrying on, “The Council now had a new weapon. One that could travel across the earth and purify any Demons it came in contact with. A man that never ate, never slept, never aged. He was the perfect weapon, with the ancient magic sown into his body. He followed orders like only a good soldier would. A few members of the Council doubted his humanity, for he wasn’t born like the rest of us.”

  I didn’t like this story. Not one bit. “What did they do to him?”

  “Nothing,” he told me hastily, “the Council did nothing. They knew they needed this man to take back the earth from the Demons that plagued it. Members were against it openly, saying that the man did not feel and that meant he was akin to the Demons he slayed, but the oldest and wisest Councilmember knew the truth. The man felt just like any other. With his help, the majority of greater Demons were purified. Joseph, on his death bed, deemed him the first Purifier.”

  “So…” I scratched my chin and thought of the right words to say. “The first Purifier wasn’t even human.”

  “Correct.”

  “And that’s where we come from?”

  Raphael seemed to think on this. “Times did change, people gained and lost authority, and with the bulk of Demons gone, the Council needed no other like the first. They did, however, begin to train a new order of soldiers. Purifiers. Human ones. That is where you came from. You are,” he paused, “human, but you are an arm of the Council and protect society from things it couldn’t even imagine. Divinely blessed by God.”

  I fidgeted with my fingers. Koath never told me any of this. Neither did Michael. Of course, it wasn’t as if I ever asked.

  “Come.” Raphael stood and came by me, holding down a hand. “You have done good enough for today. Tomorrow, on the other hand, you will get much more done.”

  Begrudgingly I grabbed his hand. As he yanked me up and I got to my feet, I thought of another question. One that I had a nagging feeling I already knew the answer to. “What happened to the first Purifier?”

  Raphael was silent as we walked to the front doors of the church. He appeared to have a thoughtful expression, so I didn’t pester him further, hoping that he’d soon break the silence. And that he did.

  “Last I read of it,” he began, “the man went to France sometime during the fifteenth century. He was…never heard from again after that.”

  “So we don’t know what happened to him?” I watched him shake his head. “Do you know what his name was?” Of course, I had an inkling, but I wasn’t about to tell him that I knew.

  Raphael seemed to take no notice of my questions, for the only thing he did was pull open a door. The blackness of the night was clear…well, it would have been, if Koath wasn’t standing in front of us with a sappy smile on his face.

  “Did you manage to get the truth out of her?” Koath asked him. He dug his hands in his pockets, making me realize that he wore jeans. Koath was wearing jeans. Did the fiery place downstairs freeze over while I wasn’t looking? I wanted to burn my eyes at the sight.

  I immediately turned my head to Raphael, waiting for his answer, and to stop staring at Koath’s weird jeans.

  “No, of course not,” Raphael feigned a laugh. “She is quite stubborn.”

  Koath laughed jovially in response. “That she is.”

  I took an accusatory step towards him. “Koath, what are you doing here?” It was as if he didn’t think I was capable of walking home alone in the dark all by myself. I was a Purifier, not a baby. I could kick and punch my way out of nearly any situation.

  “I’m here to make sure you get home safely with no sidetracking, and I’ll be doing it as long as your punishment lasts,” Koath kindly informed me things I already knew.

  My punishment was going to last as long as I kept lying to Raphael about where I found the Sorcerer’s staff. It was such a shame that I was never going to fess up about it, at least, not until Raphael told me the whole truth. What a hypocrite.

  “Good. With everything that has happened…” Raphael side glanced at me. I took in the sight of his noble portrait. He had very nice cheekbones, and a handsome face to match it. “She definitely should not be walking home alone at this time of night.”

  Crossing my arms, I was beyond irritated as I said, “Then why keep me here so late?”

  “Why lie to me?” Raphael countered without missing a beat.

  Why lie to me? “I’m exhausted,” I decided to change the subject, “so I’ll see you tomorrow, buddy.” I put a sarcastic emphasis on the word buddy. Raphael was not and would never be my buddy.

  His green eyes shone brighter than they should have in the darkness as he leaned on the open door and crossed his own arms. “Looking forward to it, pal.” He said the word pal the exact same way I said buddy.

  Wow. At this rate, maybe, just maybe, we would become buddies and pals after all.

  Not likely though, if he kept lying to me.

  Chapter Nine – Kass

  The darkness of the night sky never got to me, even as we started to make our way to the house through the cemetery. It might have been creepy and eerily silent, but it was a comfortable silence. Crickets chirped so loudly it sounded like they rested on my shoulders and the moon lit up the gravestones, making the names of the deceased stand out like sore thumbs.

  Koath was quiet beside me for the longest time. His hands were glued inside his pockets and he looked like he wanted to say something. Sadly, he wouldn’t budge, so I had to be the one to spark up a conversation unless I wanted this whole walk to be quiet.

  I missed what Koath and I had before he left for England.

  “So,” I began, after taking a huge breath to ready myself, “while I was cleaning Raphael’s books, he told me a story.” I turned my head slightly, wondering if I should continue going where I wanted this to go.

  “Did he?”

  “Yeah. He told me about the first Council and the first Purifier.”

  Koath stopped in his tracks. Noticing he was frozen behind me, I stopped and walked to him. From what I could see, his jaw was set and his eyes looked sad. Beyond that, his expression was unreadable.

  “Koath,” I implored the man I looked up to most, “I did ask about it once or twice. Why didn’t you ever tell me about him?”

  He tore his hands out of his jeans, saying, “Kass, I never told you about him because, legally to the Council, he never existed.”

  I nearly fell back onto a gravestone. “What?”

  “I have checked the archives myself, searching for any details remaining about the first Purifier. There was none. Not one shred of eviden
ce to prove he was real. That means either the Council destroyed anything that mentioned him or he never existed to begin with. I know firsthand that the Council is by the books,” Koath paused as his weary eyes fell to the grass, “they would never touch those documents if they existed.”

  That didn’t make sense.

  “Do you think Raphael made it all up, then?” I knew he didn’t. Not after what I saw in the other world.

  Koath sighed and rubbed his stubble. It was something he always did when he was deep in thought. “I…am not sure. Maybe what he told you was the truth. Maybe he managed to find a book that described the first Purifier. Who knows? Time does tend to lose the truth.”

  As he kept talking, my eyes scanned the neighboring area. It was a habit that I picked up from Koath himself. All was quiet. There was no wind, no tiny breeze. The crickets weren’t chirping. There wasn’t a single sound anywhere in the cemetery.

  In my profession and with my experience, that wasn’t good.

  Something caught the corner of my eye. Something…white.

  Sharply turning my head, I saw something very odd at the boundary of the cemetery and the forest. The beast was far enough away that I couldn’t make out anything beside the fact that it was a huge, white wolf with dead, black eyes.

  Koath still rambled. He had no clue there was a massive wolf less than fifty feet away.

  So that was the wolf this town’s been making a big deal of. I imagined it as more of a reverse-jointed, five-inch claws and teeth, scraggly wolf and not a normal, full-coated, hundred-percent white wolf that looked like it was just brushed for three hours.

  I bet there wasn’t a single knot in its fur. I wondered how soft it is. Maybe, if I walked up to it really, really slowly, it wouldn’t be afraid and run away or get angry and attack me, and I’d be able to pet it.

  Yeah. All my training, and the first thing on my mind is: ooh, look! A puppy!

  I was less than half a second away from opening my mouth and telling Koath about the wolf when it turned its flawless body and swiftly disappeared into the woods.