Beast Caller

by Brea Alepoú

  She definitely had a glow about her, and Melony could see it. Without thinking, she reached out to touch the woman. She had an urge to touch her. The woman saw her hand moving but didn’t stop her. She watched with a perplexed look on her face.

  Just as she was about to touch the woman's face, Denelle let out an ear-shattering scream. Melony turned to look at her, and there were four of the vampire creatures headed toward them, and they had legs.

  “Damn it,” Melony muttered. She got her sword ready, holding it like a bat and prepared to swing.

  The woman looked at her and the way Melony held the sword, shaking her head. “You should put that down before you hurt yourself.”

  “I’m not putting it down until we’re out of this mess.”

  “You’re strange for a human. Most act like your friend here. Scream and freak out. Yet you picked up a sword and have been fighting,” she pointed out.

  “Yeah, well, not all humans want to die by letting that thing over there eat them,” Melony said.

  “Hmm. If you say so.” She vanished again. She appeared next to the group of vampire creatures and started to slice at them. The way she sliced into them was like a dance. It was mesmerizing, as well as a little scary. It looked effortless. Three of them went down and the other ran away. She looked back at Melony, their eyes locking for a second, and then she vanished again. Melony expected her to appear back in front of her, but she didn’t.

  Melony heard Denelle crying, and she moved to comfort her friend. Something was wrong. Melony looked around, noticing the bodies were turning into dust and vanishing. Even the black blood that had seeped out of the bodies eventually disappeared.

  “What the fuck?”

  In the blink of an eye, Denelle and Melony were once again in front of the coffee shop, except now it had people in it. People stared at them as they sat in the middle of the street, and a car honked at them. Denelle screamed, and they hurriedly moved to the sidewalk. People looked at them oddly, and Melony quickly looked down at her clothes, remembering that they had flesh and black blood on them. But there was nothing there; her shirt was perfectly clean. She moved her hand and there was still a sword in it, so it hadn’t been a dream.

  “You still have the sword. Fuck, so not an acid trip,” Denelle said. She stood on visibly shaking legs but stared at Melony as if she would have some answers.

  “I guess not,” was all Melony said.

  “Let’s get home before we become local news.”

  That was a good idea. They hurried to Denelle’s car which was parked a few stores down. They got in and Melony put the sword in the backseat, unsure of what to do with it.

  “Home, shower, and then we can talk about what happened,” Denelle offered.

  Melony nodded.

  Chapter Two

  Melony

  Back at the apartment, Melony got into the shower. It would have to be wash day for her hair, since there was no telling what was in it. The tub already looked as if she had poured out black paint by the buckets. She had already washed her body twice, and she still kept seeing more of the gross black blood wash from her skin. It freaked her out for a second having the blood reapear. She continued to wash her body of it. Zola had said it made it invisible not compltelty disapear.

  “Ugh, this is so annoying,” she shouted.

  She grabbed her Curly and Me shampoo and washed her hair. When she looked at her hands, the suds were black. She quickly rinsed and washed again. She washed until the bubbles were the regular white color. She did one more wash all over, making sure there was no more black blood. She got out the shower, and the bathroom was full of steam. She went to get her conditioner and curling cream. She loved the stuff. It was organic, but it also made her curls bouncy whenever she wore her hair curly.

  With her hair done and a fresh pair of clothes on, she went out to the living room. Denelle wasn't out of her room yet, so Melony went to the kitchen to make something to eat. She was starving. She pulled out a pack of noodles, green onions, cooked chicken breast, and soy sauce. She put the water on the boil and turned to Denelle’s door on the other side of the living room. Denelle still hadn’t come out, but she was probably hungry too. Melony pulled out a second bag of noodles. She had started to chop the onions when she heard a small yelp.

  Melony stopped moving, straining to hear it again but there was nothing. Something didn’t feel right. Melony gripped the knife, and she moved quickly to Denelle’s room. If it was nothing, she would apologize, but she wouldn't forgive herself if something happened to Denelle, and she had been there the whole time. She turned the knob and crashed into the room. She had a split second to take in everything.

  Denelle was on the floor and two of those vampire-like creatures were on her. Melony went into action before she could think of getting the sword that was in her room. She took the small kitchen knife and stabbed the first monster. It let Denelle go and turned its yellow eyes on Melony. It hissed, and the kitchen knife she’d brought in now protruded out of the vampire’s head. Great, forgot these things don't even die when you chop their heads off.

  It wasted no time jumping on Melony, and she put her hands up to fight it off. It knocked her to the ground, knocking the breath out of her. She didn’t have time to try and catch her breath before the vampire’s long fangs were snapping at her. The putrid breath made her queasy.

  It wasn’t all that strong, but it had the advantage of being on top of her. She kicked it, but it was as if the thing didn’t feel pain. It brought its head back and again tried to strike. Melony moved her head to the side quickly, avoiding the bite that would have probably shredded her throat.

  “Would you shut your mouth? Your breath smells worse than ass,” she said as she kicked it with all her strength.

  It budged a little but not enough for her to escape. She saw out of the corner of her eye that Denelle was lying on the floor, her unblinking eyes staring back at Melony. Melony focused back on the monster she was fighting. She wouldn’t think of her best friend as dead. There had to be time. The other vampire-looking thing moved away from Denelle and started toward Melony. She was barely holding her own with one of them. If another one joined, she would die. She felt hopeless but refused to give up. There had to be something she could do, but she couldn’t think of anything.

  She stared into the piss colored yellow eyes. Would they be the last thing—

  She stopped her thoughts. She refused for the ugly face to be the last thing she saw. She pushed with new strength, getting the thing off of her. It was too late though. As soon as she pushed one away, the other one was upon her. She screamed as it bit into her arm. She shook her arm, hoping to dislodge the creature.

  The pain of the bite hurt to the point Melony thought she would pass out. The vampire groaned and dug his fangs deeper into her arm. She felt when the fangs scraped against bone. The scream that left her was loud and painful. The other vampire attacked her before she even saw him get up, and he bit her shoulder. She screamed again, but she was losing strength. She felt weak and unable to move properly. She would not go out like this. Her vison began to cloud.

  She tried to move her hand, to push them away, but nothing was responding how she wanted it to. She couldn’t feel her fingers anymore. Everything was going numb as her blood left her body. She would die here, being eaten by disgusting looking vampires. She was furious. These things deserved to die. She wanted them to burn until they were ashes. She wanted to hear their dying screams.

  The blackness was taking over, and her body felt hot and unbearable. There was so much pain, and she couldn’t see what was happening anymore. She heard an ear-shattering scream. Was that her own scream? It didn’t sound like her, and it didn’t feel like she was screaming. Melony opened her eyes, and flames were everywhere. Smoke rose as everything started to burn. She looked to the side where the vampire had been only a few seconds ago. It now knelt next to her as it tried to peel its own skin off, as if it could claw the flames off its body.
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br />   It screamed another blood-curdling scream. Melony backed away from it, afraid the flames would touch her. She bumped into the other creature. It wasn’t screaming; it laid there on the floor as the flames burned its body. It smelled like garbage. She’d thought they’d smelled bad before, but their burnt flesh smelled even worse.

  Melony was still in shock. It took her a moment to realize that when she’d bumped into the dead vampire the flames hadn’t burned her. She tentatively moved her hand to touch the fire, but before she could test her theory, the door to Denelle’s room burst open. Wood went flying. Melony looked to the new threat only to catch her breath.

  It was the beautiful girl from earlier in the day. Her white hair was braided to the side and her sword held ready to kill. Green eyes turned to her, and there was a look of surprise on the girl’s face. Melony shivered form the intense gaze, but she wasn’t scared. She couldn’t place what she felt, but she knew for sure that the girl wasn’t there to harm her or Denelle.

  At the thought of Denelle, Melony quickly turned, looking for her friend. The flames had yet to touch her. She moved over to her and shook her shoulder to wake her, but Denelle didn’t move. Melony felt for a pulse. She can’t be gone. Her shaking fingers pressed gently against Denelle’s throat. There was a faint pulse—she was still alive! Melony cried tears of joy, but soon crying was the only thing she could do as the smoke began to rise as the room really started to burn.

  “You need to bring the fire back,” the white-haired woman said.

  Melony turned to her. “How?” She coughed, the smoke getting thick. She needed to get Denelle out and to a hospital.

  “Where is your casting gem?”

  “My wh-what?” It was getting harder for her to speak, the smoke closing her airway. She could only imagine the damage it was doing to Denelle.

  “We don’t have time. The fire is building too fast.” She walked into the room, moving around the pile of ash on the floor from the vampire.

  “Let her go. She won’t make it.”

  Melony turned to look at the beautiful woman. “I will not leave her,” Melony said through tight lips.

  The woman stared her in the eyes all of four seconds before all of sudden Melony felt as if she was on a roller coaster that was going in loops. It was all moving so fast: colors, sounds, and smells. They were all overwhelming. She wanted to puke. The roller coaster abruptly stopped. Melony turned to throw up, tossing up her latte and anything else that was in her stomach. She closed her eyes and took deep breaths in through her nose and out her mouth. She was still dizzy, but she didn’t want to puke again.

  “I would’ve warned you about your first time teleporting, but in a room that was seconds away from being engulfed in flames didn’t seem like the right time.”

  Melony brought up her shaky hands to rub against her temples. There wasn’t a headache, but she felt like if she applied enough pressure maybe some of the dizziness would subside. After a few more calming breaths, everything started to come back to Melony. She could hear sirens in the distance. She opened her eyes, and the sun’s brightness almost forced her to close them again. She pushed through to take in her surroundings. She was in the park across the street from her apartment. She looked in the direction of her building, and there was smoke coming from it. More specifically, from her and Denelle’s apartment.

  Denelle—still in Melony’s lap—groaned, and Melony looked down at her friend. She didn’t move, and when Melony put her hand to Denelle’s skin, it burned.

  “Shit.” Melony was in panic mode. She didn’t have her phone or anything on her. That's when she remembered how she got outside. She looked to the other side of her, and there the silver-haired beauty still stood. Her sword now put away.

  “I need you to take me to a hospital. Denelle is burning up.”

  She shook her head. “No can do.”

  Melony was seconds away from screaming in frustration. “Why the fuck can’t you? You teleported us out of the building. I’m sure you can get us to a hospital.”

  “Yes, I could,” was all she said.

  Melony was ready to pull her hair out at that point, but she calmed herself. The irritating woman had saved their lives from the fire. Melony still had no idea how the fire started, but that was on her list of shit to figure out. Right then, her biggest concern was getting Denelle to a hospital.

  “Can you please take us? Or at least help me get her to the road, so I can hail a cab?”

  Melony tried to get up. Denelle may have been small, but she was heavier than Melony thought possible. She struggled with Denelle until all of a sudden Denelle was as light as a feather. She looked up to see the silver-haired woman holding Denelle as if she weighed nothing.

  “Your friend is gone. I’m trying to stress to you that she won’t be able to go to a human hospital.”

  “Why? She still has a heartbeat.” Melony stared at Denelle. She would get her help. Fuck what the woman had to say.

  “You’re stubborn. But, first, since you’re out of the fire, you should put it out. Those fire trucks won't be able to do it.”

  Melony turned to look at the burning apartment building. The flames had grown considerably and taken over the top two floors. Fire trucks were there and spraying water into the building. But it didn’t look like the flames were dying down.

  “How?” Melony asked. She wanted to ask: she did that?

  There was a sigh. “The same way you summoned the fire is the same way you put it out. You use the casting gem that you have and then bring the flames back to you.”

  She made it sound so simple, but Melony had no idea how to do that, she had no idea what a casting gem was, and she hadn’t even known she’d created the flames. She decided to be honest, because she was completely out of her element and had no idea what to do.

  “I don’t have any gem, and I had no idea I was the cause of those flames until you just told me.”

  The woman stared at her, mouth wide open. It was almost comical how she was staring at Melony. “Impossible,” she said.

  Melony sighed. “Yeah, I would like to say that about half the shit that's happened to me today. First, I saw some weird flash. Went to check it out only to be sucked into a different world but not a different world. Had to fight off vampire-looking things that smell worse than the dumpster, dodge flying fireballs, and then a teleporting beauty. I'm just saying, there is a lot of shit happening that should be impossible.”

  The woman eyed her up and down. “Name is Zola.”

  That was good; Melony was tired of thinking of her as silver hair. “Melony, and Denelle is in your arms. So can we go to the hospital, since I can’t put the fire out?”

  Zola pointed to the building. “Sure, if you don’t mind having hundreds of deaths on your conscious. The fire won’t go out, not until a witch or wizard gets to it, and they’re too busy with war right now to worry about a few humans.”

  Melony looked to the building. She didn’t want to kill innocent people, but she didn’t want Denelle to die either. How was she supposed to make the fire go away?

  “Just try and re-enact the moment when the flames happened and then reverse it,” Zola said.

  “Yeah, I don’t know how the fuck it happened.” She thought for a second, trying to remember exactly when she noticed the flames or when something had felt different. “I just remember hoping those two vampires would burn and die. And then all of sudden I opened my eyes and they were literally on fire, and then you came in, and then we were here.” Melony shrugged.

  Zola gawked at her. “First, I wouldn’t call those things vampires—it's offensive to vampires—and two, since you just thought about burning them, why not try thinking about the fire going away?”

  “Wait, are you a witch?”

  Zola rolled her big green eyes at Melony. So… not a witch.

  Melony looked at the building. It was worth a try. The fire had taken over two more floors since Melony had started talking. She groaned; there was no
way she was getting their security deposit back after this. She closed her eyes, thinking that would help her. She thought about the fire and how hot it felt. She thought about her apartment free of fire, and she felt the heat. She wasn’t sure what to do with it. She was about to ask what to do, when all of sudden, she felt the flames seep into her. She welcomed the warmth, not afraid the fire would burn her.

  When she opened her eyes, the apartment was no longer on fire. There was only smoke left.

  “Impressive,” Zola said.

  Melony looked over to her. “I just did what you said.”

  Zola gave a light laugh. “Yeah, but the fact that you have no casting gem, or even a book of concentrated spells… Anyway, we can’t take her to the hospital. You have two options, and let me say, really only one would make sense, but you seem to be the unreasonable type, so I’ll give you both.”

  Melony nodded, she wanted to hear both options.

  “Option one, the option I favor, you cut her head off and pull out her heart, or I can do it if you hold too much sentiment.”

  Melony wanted to be sick all over again. She couldn’t even imagine hurting Denelle or letting Zola do it.

  “Fuck that option! What's the other one? And it better be a whole lot better than option one.”

  Zola shrugged. “I personally believe it to be the stupid option. You take her to a vampire lord and ask for her to be sired. If you don’t, she will turn into a golem, the very things you were fighting. That’s why I say the first option.”

  “Your first option isn’t something I'm willing to consider. So how do I ask a vampire lord?”

  Melony couldn’t believe what her life had turned into. She was asking a mysterious woman what she should say to a vampire. She wanted to say she was losing her damn mind, but she didn’t have time to really think about it.

  “I know of a lord that might be willing to take your friend, but there is no guarantee,” Zola said.

  “Good enough for me. So are we going to teleport again?”