Game of Survival

by T R Tells

  “So, what?” Thea snapped at him, anger-filled her voice, and her eyes peaked with tears. She gripped her hands into tight fists. “Are you going to kill me now!”

  Thea’s eyes began to glow a bright Amber hue as she stared at Kalevus, who did not move an inch. She gritted her teeth and trembled slightly, still keeping her fists clenched.

  "No. Unlike my brother or those in the Sons of Samuel, you have managed to retain your humanity—that I can see in your aura. There is still a trace of light within you, I have only seen in one other time, but it is that light that makes it where your demon cannot conquer your soul."

  Thea relaxed her demeanor and her fists, her eyes returning to her usual hue.

  "I owe that to my loved ones. I don't where I would be without them, so yes, I am grateful," Thea told him, but that was not the only thing on her mind. "This Great Battle . . . When will it begin? How can it be stopped?"

  A frown was placed on Kalevus lips and he slowly shook his head.

  “That is just it, Thea, it cannot be stopped. No man or god can stop what is already set in motion. However, with your magic, you are able to save everyone you love.”

  Kalevus walked to Thea.

  "We in The Twilight Vale of Audalis are protected by the barrier. The power of the crystal and the Roma’s power. When you return to Middilgard, you must be vigilant, on the eve of the third day when the snow is the heaviest will you erect the Vectors and seal off the darkness. Only pure magic will eradicate the evil forthcoming."

  “How am I supposed to will these Vectors?” Thea questioned. She didn’t understand why this responsibility fell to her.

  A grin spread across Kalevus face. "Speak to Gaius-Sey, he will teach you to control the magic within you.”

  Thea pressed her lips together, nodding in understanding.

  “You said . . . He and the world in his design. That he who was cast aside and thrown into darkness? To rid the world of sinners who torment the weak, the different, and the disabled - the nightmare and the creator.”

  Thea had a sickening feeling in her gut. She knew who the very being was that would soon lay waste throughout the realm.

  “Fenris.”

  Chapter Fifty

  It’s always a terrible idea to encounter any Sicarri act in the daylight.

  Maggie precariously hung on the edge of the window, only the tips of her toes held on to the side of the building. A skill, along with scaling a building, that had been taught to them many times; sometimes it even resorted in death.

  There were eight beds, four beds on each side, and there were three children, in rags, scrubbing the dirty floors. A painful reminder that made Maggie flinch. She could recall many times where she, Thea, and Freya had to clean up after any of the male patrons made a mess.

  Movement from the corner of her made her look away from the three children on the floor to people standing in the doorway, all younger than ten years old. There was an older woman with her red hair in disarray. She had bags underneath her eyes that made her look older than she appeared and her clothing wasn't appealing, but somehow was better suited than what the children had on. In her hand, she held a curly, red hair girl's arm; she could have been thirteen, and by the wrinkled look on the girl's freckled face, it was pretty hard.

  "Make sure you four clean the hallways too. I've got someone coming over and I don't want them to see what a rat's place you live in." The woman's voice was snotty and irritated, Maggie immediately hated her.

  “Yes, Miss Rhone.”

  The woman, Miss Rhone, stuck her nose in the air as if to show her dominance and shoved the red hair girl in the room.

  “Sabine, make sure you tell the other’s when they finish in the attic to do the basement. You’re the oldest so keep these kids in line.”

  Since the girl's back was to Miss Rhone, Maggie watched as she rolled her eyes, before replying with an exasperated reply, ‘Yes, Miss Rhone.'

  For a split second, Miss Rhone caught something in the window. She furrowed her brows and with her heavy foot stomped over to the window. Miss Rhone grabbed the edges of the window and peered out of it, swearing there was a person. She had heard countless rumors of people being robbed, killed and word of the Sicarri running around. While she didn't believe too much into the tales, she wasn't a fool.

  "Any of you girls notice something odd outside?" Miss Rhone asked the children, she still looked out the window. Had she looked down she would have seen Maggie standing below the window on the small ledge of the house.

  “No,” the children sang together.

  “Mm, well, stay away from the window. You know I don’t want anyone to see your faces.”

  There were several mumbled ‘yeses' and the thumping of Miss Rhone's feet as she walked along the rickety floor. Maggie extended her hearing a bit waiting for the woman to head back downstairs. When the coast was clear, she climbed back to the window to see the red hair girl, Sabine, getting something from underneath one of the beds.

  “Sabine, do you think it worked?”

  One of the girls, a small short blonde hair girl, asked. She climbed on top of the bed and leaned down at what Sabine was doing. When Maggie trained her eyes on the item, she saw that it was some kind of board and there was a black candle on top.

  A ritual?

  “If it doesn’t work and a Sicarri doesn’t come, I have a backup plan. I’ve heard that demons can make deals with Mundanes,” Sabine said, there was a confidence in her voice that sounded like she was an adult. It reminded her so much of Thea . . . And Eddie.

  "Are you sure that's a good idea?" A smaller boy with short frayed hair said. He was lying on his stomach with his head in his hands.

  Maggie thought it was a good time to intervene and knocked on the window. All four of the children turned their heads to see Maggie looking at them.

  “The Sicarri, they’re here!” The short-haired blonde girl exclaimed with glee. Sabine hushed her with her finger to her lips and walked over to the window to open it.

  "You're the Sicarri?" Sabine asked a trace of bitterness in the back of her voice made Maggie feel for what they had gone through.

  “I am, you sent the raven?”

  Sabine backed away from the window and Maggie expertly jumped through the room. The two boys in the room backed up, but it was Sabine and the blonde hair girl who didn’t move.

  “Do I get to know your names?” Maggie asked, even if she didn’t know them, she felt connected to them because they reminded so much of her and her friends when they were little.

  “Why does a killer need to know that?” Sabine curtly said, but the blonde hair girl nudged her in the stomach with her elbow.

  “Sabine, that’s not nice.” she faced Maggie and smiled at her with a broad grin. “I’m Cassie. The one with the short hair is Louie and the one with the black curly hair . . .”

  She pointed to a boy who stood behind Louie with his thumb in his mouth. He couldn’t have been no older than seven.

  “. . . That’s Johnny.”

  Maggie smiled and waved to Johnny, who hesitantly reciprocated the motion back with his other hand. Only when Sabine huffed did Maggie turn back to an annoyed looking Sabine.

  “We don’t have all day; can you kill for us or not?”

  “What has she been doing to you?” Maggie asked, even if the letter told her a bit of detail, she still wanted to know the entire story. It would make for cleaning up easier.

  Sabine snorted. “What hasn’t she done? She brings in a bunch of men, some of them Kingsland soldiers, and they’re disgusting pigs. One of them almost raped Cassie.”

  At the mention of it, Cassie looked down, streaks of her blonde hair falling into her face. Maggie's heart dropped, she could imagine just how terrified the little girl was and angry that she couldn't do anything.

  “The house always stinks too,” Louie jumped in, interrupting Maggie’s thoughts. “There’s barely any food.”

  “And they’re mean!” Johnny called, ta
king out his thumb for a minute, before sticking it back in his mouth.

  “Whatever money Miss Rhone gets she uses it to buy drugs or clothes,” Sabine said, her arms were crossed over her chest. Her thick brows were furrowed together. “And, we barely have clothes for the Bifrost months.”

  “I understand your pain, I really do,” Maggie said. It angered her just hearing it. “But do you know what will happen when I kill her?”

  There was silence. Sabine and Cassie eyed each other; the boys shyly looked down.

  "Yeah, we know," Sabine said. A determined look crossed her face, it was clear that Sabine loved these kids just as much as Thea loved them.

  “They’re going to be looking for her, you know that,” Maggie said. Even though they knew what was going on, she wanted them to know the consequences of certain actions. “If Kingsland soldiers have been coming here, they’re going to be curious where that woman has gone. Since none of you are of age, you can’t receive the money she’s been getting, and stealing—trust me—won’t last forever and you’ll wake up more starved than ever.”

  Sabine's posture suddenly went slack. Her crossed her arms startled to loosen and the disgruntled look on her face softened, but it was Cassie who spoke.

  “No, we still want this. We’ll figure out something, please.”

  Looking at Cassie, Maggie couldn't help but see her in the little girl. She was innocent, but there was a fire in the little girl that was just begging to let out. It was what Maggie always felt growing up, primarily, living in Thea and Eddie's shadow.

  Maggie looked from each child’s face; from Johnny to Louis, Sabine to Cassie and then back to Cassie.

  “Alright, it’ll happen tonight.”

  Maggie waited until the wee hours of the night. She told the children to go to sleep and the problem would be fixed by tomorrow morning.

  As a Sicarri, you had to be a master of disguise and a master of the shadows, but most importantly you had to be agile. Maggie had perched herself on the ceiling of the room, her hands gripped onto the edges, supporting her weight.

  When the woman finally entered her bedroom, she was, to Maggie's relief, alone, but drunk. Quietly, like a cat, Maggie released her grip from the ceiling and dropped to the ground gracefully. She slowly stood up and removed her dagger from the hidden layers of her clothes.

  The woman was laid out on the bed with her arm over her face, unknowing to what would fall before her.

  When the woman did remove her hand from her face, Maggie was above her, but before she could scream the sharp tip of the blade rested on the woman’s jugular.

  Maggie pressed her finger to her lip. “Shh.”

  ***

  The next morning, Dora led Thea down the long-winded halls to the gardens that were outside the castle of mountains. Even before Thea reached the gardens, she heard chanting.

  “Should I disturb them?” Thea asked. Dora looked at her and she slightly nodded in confirmation, stretching her arm out to invite Thea to walk through the arched doorway.

  The courtyard where the Roma practiced their daily mediation was immaculate and beautiful. There was a contrived look that made the garden have a natural appeal. Around the walls it was surrounded by symmetrical witch hazel shrubs. In the center of the garden was a pond that was as big as a small lake, surrounded around the edges were small stones and flowering lily pads floated at the top.

  Thea took her first steps onto the circular, stone walkway, and followed the sound of chanting. She walked by the lakeside and walked underneath a rose flower arch that had vines intricately weaved together. The witch hazel shrubs that had been a part of the earlier structure were now a trail of rose bushes. The chanting grew louder the further as Thea walked.

  She came upon the circular lawn that continued the stone path she was on and led to a section that had meditation stones stacked on top of each other in a circle. On top of the stones were Roma who sat cross-legged and meditating.

  In the center of the lawn, were four large rose bushes that surrounded the area. There were other Roma light sparring with one another, moving their hands and feet in the air in what seemed like slow motion, but it was different, somehow. A strong power radiated off of them Thea couldn’t see, but she felt an innate connection despite the invisible force that was unknown to her. It was amazing, however, that after so many years of thinking Dominya and her were the last of their kind, she met the Roma.

  She passed by the Roma in the center of the garden and continued walking along the stone path searching for Gaius-Sey. After a few moments, the sound of rushing water echoed loudly in the area. She walked around the bend of several apple trees and there she found Gaius sitting on top of a stone in a lake with his eyes closed; behind him was a rush waterfall that seemingly came from nowhere. Thea approached Gaius-Sey where she heard him chanting low mumbled humming not spoken in Romanian. She was about to make her presence known, but the chanting from Gaius-Sey.

  “I hope you had a good sleep, Thea Frey.”

  “I slept alright. How did you hear me? I didn’t make any noise and that waterfall is pretty loud.”

  Gaius-Sey smirked but he never opened his eyes. “Energy is all around us, Thea. From mundanes to living creatures, we all have a life force that we give off.”

  Thea thought about what she said, as she was reminded of the conversation she once had with Jiran about the Roma.

  “Well, speaking of that life force and energy, I request your services. At least, King Kalevus said you would show me the way.”

  “Come and sit with, Gaius-Sey.”

  Thea walked along the stone steps and sat across from Gaius-Sey, mimicking his cross-legged posture. She fidgeted a few times because the cold and damp rock that clung to her clothes made her shiver. Thea looked to Gaius-Sey when she was situated and looked to him, his eyes still closed, and his lips pressed together.

  “So, what do we do now?” Thea asked, almost impatiently. “I mean, I’m supposed to be learning something from you. There could very well be some kind of impending—”

  “You have too much backed up energy,” Gaius-Sey finally said, interrupting Thea from speaking. “It is not good for the order of our life and consciousness.”

  “What?”

  "Backed up energy, negative energy, darkness. It clouds your judgment and causes a mental strain within the body, causing anxiety, fear, and negative emotions in the body. If you go back home now, you will be little use to yourself, let alone anyone else."

  Thea didn't protest she knew she was a dark cloud. She had said and thought it time after time if it weren't for Maggie and Kadda she would have been lost it. If Dominya and Jiran hadn't raised her, she wouldn't have known what kind of person she would have been.

  “So, how can I change that?”

  Gaius-Sey opened his eye, the amber glow in them brighter than before. A shuddered ran down Thea’s spine as the power from Gaius-Sey made her flinch. The heavyweight upon her shoulders made her gasp and she placed her hand over her heart feeling the raging thumping in her chest.

  “First, learn how to control the flow of magic within you. Right now, it only activates when your emotions peak. It happens when you have visions, doesn’t it?”

  Thea looked up at him, still holding her hand on her chest, she nodded to him.

  "We, Roma, are susceptible to negative energy because we have to draw in magic from everything around us—trees, water, sky, happiness—all things positivity. When we sense negativity or are around it, we latch onto it like a sponge, and we feed."

  “Latches onto?” Thea questioned. For a moment, she vaguely remembered instances she was tethered to certain people like Eddie, King Godfrey, and Flint. “Like tethering? Or, like a cord of some kind?”

  Gaius-Sey nodded, confirming Thea’s answer.

  “It is why we are always with our own kind, always traveling, there is too much darkness in the world. People are always killing, raping, cursing, having wars, and it never stops. It just keeps being
passed down generation after generation.”

  Is this why Fenris wanted to destroy the world? To rid of the sin that Gaius-Sey was speaking about? Incidentally, the thought of a better world seemed ideal. If there wasn’t rage or hatred in the world, would there be people willing to kill out of jealousy or fear? Thea couldn’t be sure what it was that she wanted more.

  Damn it, no. What the hell are you thinking? The world might be a shitty place, but that doesn’t mean people deserve to die!

  “But you have good people in your life, Thea,” Gaius-Sey said, distracting her from her thoughts. “They keep you sane, they keep from letting your demon and the voices out.”

  Any thoughts that went through Thea's head vanished. While it was one thing to speak about Hel, it was another to talk about the voices. She had thought for the longest that she was weird or damned. Thea had always felt like a freak that she was constantly battling with the angry voices that always wanted to tear her down every chance that they got. It was finally a relief that she didn't even feel a tickle of them in the back of her mind while she was in Audalis.

  “You? You know about the voices?”

  "I do. It doesn't happen often, but every once and a while, someone we love goes through something traumatic. It could be death, or it could be a near death experience, that darkness festers inside of us. The voices are the darkness, the negativity, manifested into disembodied voices forcing us to do terrible things or wanting to see us fail."

  Thea felt her throat tighten and her eyes suddenly stung. She couldn’t speak or breathe. She couldn’t believe that there was someone who understood her pain and constant struggle battling the voices in her head.

  "They're always mocking me and trying to kick me down," Thea told him. "I think they started coming to me sometime after my sister was taken, then having to survive with a demon in my head for months, and - " She paused for a moment and closed her eyes. Though it was still a blur, she could make out glimpses and pictures, she clenched her hand tightly grabbing a bundle of her shirt.

  “That night of Hel’s possession over my body, when she killed those Kingsland Guards.”