I am going to die here, she thought, her mind flashing with images of what had come to pass throughout her life, and of that which she was to miss out on in the future.
She had grown remorseful as this went on, fighting over the guilt and rationalising this as punishment for those she’d wronged in some way during her life. She dwelt on her own sense of weakness and insecurity. For she was helpless, unable to fight back as her father had often urged might one day be required.
But any struggle would only prove pointless, she surmised, how can I expect to fight such creatures? I am only human.
She soon felt herself start to drift, numb to the pain, and thereafter dead to the world.
“Do you want to live,” abruptly questioned a warm, and yet familiar voice.
“Yes,” she cried. “I don’t want to die.”
The horned woman looked to the masked figure, “Who is she talking to?”
This voice, Katherine thought to herself, I’ve heard it before. It nearly brought me to the brink of insanity, but this time I feel warm and comforted by it.
She could feel a strong breeze brush up against her face, pushing back the fringe of black hair from her eyes. The swarm of insects too had ceased their assault, blown off and away by the vigorous winds. She sensed her strength return; her muscles no longer ached and her wounds had healed. But there was something more, as if someone else had joined with her and she was now capable of the impossible. She opened her eyes, the body of a winged lion stood between her and the plague. This creature extended its wings and thrashed with them throughout the air; with each movement this creature made, it felt to Katherine as though it were an extension of her own body.
But just when it seemed her senses had been restored, she felt her sight grow momentarily hazy, and soon awoke to find herself in what appeared to be a classroom. She saw a copy of herself, at least a girl who looked like her, standing up before the whiteboard and panicking. To her right, there were all her English classmates seated at their desks, gawking up at the girl who’d frozen before delivering a single line.
She glanced downward, to the coat of golden fur about her chest and to the coarse concrete pavement a couple of flights below. She had become the Gryphon, or at least she was reviewing past events from the creature’s own perspective. As she peered into the classroom, her eyes zoomed about with incredible precision, capturing every aspect of her surroundings down to the most minute of detail.
She soon felt herself peel away from the window. From below, the horned woman stood still and glared up at her, engulfed in a cloud of insects. The demon waved her arms about as though she were conducting the swarm’s very movements, and the insects promptly rushed toward Katherine in a frenzy. She could feel herself fly off in the distance, attempting to lose them in their relentless pursuit.
“Please, clear your mind of all troubling thoughts,” this voice asked of her, a voice that filled her with confidence and belief. “I need you to focus on the here and now if I am to save you.”
Once more, awoken by these words, Katherine found herself standing in her own skin and gazing out through her own blue eyes.
“So wind spirit, you yet live,” said the horned woman, before conjuring up another swarm of insects. “To think, I believed my children had successfully disposed of you.”
“You were sloppy sister,” the masked figure grumbled. “Your children only weakened him.”
Katherine looked down at the gryphon; his breathing had grown heavy, and he was painted with gashes and cuts all about his rough and bulky exterior.
The horned woman reached out, now entirely coated within insects. “He has little energy left. He may as well have saved us the trouble, and just keeled over and died.”
“If he is as weak as you claim, it is only appropriate that you bring his misery to an end post-haste,” said the masked figure.
The insects fluttered and crawled forth from the female demon’s flesh, and converged upon her open palms. With the fierce stroking of her arms, she released of this new swarm upon Katherine and the fatigued Gryphon.
Unsure of how she should respond, or what she could do, the sound of a bomb going off had oddly brought her comfort. With her eyes widened, she glanced up in dismay, for a cloud of fire and flame had engulfed the swarm whole.
The horned woman angrily glared back at her masked brother. “Unbelievable. I thought you claimed you’d rid us of the father.”
Katherine looked toward the porch; badly wounded and with blood pooling about the chest of his green jacket, Duncan crawled forth while he clutched at a pin.
“Impressive,” said the masked figure. “I was certain he’d been lost to the shadows.”
She saw Duncan crawl forward, reaching for his revolver. “Your kind should be well aware by now. You should never take humankind so lightly.”
But despite his best efforts, firing each round with rapid succession, the bullets merely crashed directly through the masked figure’s cloak.
The horned woman cackled and proceeded to form a new and much more expansive swarm of her insects. “Well isn’t this rich? How many times over the centuries have we heard these words so easily roll from the tongues of babes? And yet the result is always the same.”
With her eyes now fixed on Duncan, Katherine became rooted once more in fear. For her father, having failed to fend the fiends off, and with blood dripping down the side of his mouth, clutched at his chest and crashed forward against the front porch with a sickening thud. She gazed back at him, her bottom lip atremble. Her head was also spinning, her heartbeat rigorous, and she felt clammy all over. But this time, her fear felt somehow different. This time she wasn’t necessarily fearful for her own life, but for whom she might lose, and this fear quickly turned to anger. With teeth firmly clenched and her eyes wide open with a brazen fury about them, she glared back at the two demons and could feel her very being ignite. Within an instant there is a flicker of light, and then a burst of flame.
“My skin, my beautiful skin,” the horned woman shrieked, as the flames rose up and about her body.
“Most impressive…she has bonded with the guardian,” murmured the hoarse voice of the masked figure.
As for the gryphon, and somehow sharing in Katherine’s anguish, it sprang forth while shrouded in a ball of fire. Katherine looked on as the gryphon dashed forward, slashing with its talons about the cloak of this porcelain masked spectre.
“Sister, I won’t be able to contain them for much longer.”
The horned woman was snarling, convulsing before the sight of her burnt arms and hands. “Then get us out of here brother.”
She could feel her senses grow impaired as the masked figure raised his gloved hands high up into the air, his actions blurring and distorting both vision and clarity of mind. She took a step forward; her surroundings were now nothing more than a pitch black and empty void. Eleven Delphi Crescent: her sight of the apple tree that had stood firm within the front yard, the smell of recently trimmed grass, the sound of crickets and other insects in the foliage, she found all were gone.
Devoid of even the light afforded by the stars in the night sky, Katherine felt the cold swell up inside. But she soon caught sight of a lone ember, and this lone ember eventually expanded, taking both the gryphon’s size and shape. Standing next to her, the gryphon beamed brightly, immersed within a fiery tempest, and before long the void had cleared. With her senses returned, she scoured the yard for the demonic pair. But they were gone; they had vanished without a trace.
A few moments had passed as Katherine sought to collect herself. She looked for Duncan. Her father lay there in the dirt and was coughing up blood.
Sobbing, she knelt at his side and sought to seal his wounds “Dad, please… you can’t. I’ll get you help, wait for me to,”-
-“You needn’t worry,” he said, reaching out and grasping her arm. “There isn’t much time to tell you.”
“No, you mustn’t,” she mumbled, tears running down her
cheeks. “I need to find you help. You can tell me what you need to once we get you to a hospital.”
“It’s no use Kat, I’m already too far gone,” said Duncan, tightly gripping her arm with his blood soaked fingers. “They will be here soon enough, and you must know...”
She saw her father shed a tear, something which she had believed impossible, and what he said next tore at the very fabric of her being. “I’m so proud of you Kat; you are the best thing to ever happen in my life. I took you in when you were but an infant, to care for you, to keep you safe.”
The tears continued to roll down her cheeks, and came to rest on her father’s blood smeared jacket. With her head hung low, and clutching firmly at his sleeve, she struggled to comprehend what he was trying to say. She couldn’t avert her gaze from his injuries, from the sight of his blood, and in a strange way she found it easier to focus on that than his words. Such words made little sense to her anyway, but those she could understand hurt her deeply.
“I wanted for the longest time to tell you, but I couldn’t find the words,” he said. “An organisation shall soon arrive, and you needn’t be afraid. They will be the ones to help you from here on out. You must go with them. I love you Kat.”
These were the last words she heard him utter before he quietly died. Her father, like her mother before him, had died in the defence of one whom he loved most dear. But this organisation, she had thought, has a lot to answer for. As of right now, she could only think about how to move forward, and whether it was even worth it. Soon after, numerous armed operatives arrived on the scene and a fair number hustled over to her father’s aid.
Sadly, he was already gone, and once more she felt entirely useless. It was only seconds before that she’d experienced such indescribable energy bubble from within. But she knew deep down that all the power in the world could not bring her father back.
Chapter 8
Officer’s armed to the hilt and dressed in blue special force attire, scoured the property of eleven Delphi Crescent, searching for anything the corrupted pairing may or may not have left behind in their wake. Amongst them, Blake and Kulullu found themselves trudging across the yard, disoriented and blind to the circumstances as they’d evolved. Before they reached the front door of the property, a black van pulled up past them, and a couple of other operatives ran over to open its back hatch. A ramp then swiftly descended, and out rolled Walter in his wheelchair.
Kulullu looked to Blake. “Have you any idea how we are to approach this?”
“We’ve little choice but to report only what we know,” he responded, speculating on the likely reaction they’d receive from Walter. “Unfortunately, we know very little, so make sure you brace yourself for his routine scolding.”
He glanced over at Walter; the organisation’s leader was amidst evaluating the surrounding environment. While adjusting the pair of spectacles that loosely hung on the end of his nose, he slowly steered his mobile wheelchair toward the property’s porch, and engaged a lone soldier who stood attentive before its front door. Once Walter arrived, Lance removed his black combat mask, and addressed him with a formal salute.
“Sir, we’ve successfully secured the perimeter,” he said. “But we were unable to track-”
“-Soldier, why were we not here sooner,” Walter had been quick to interrupt.
Blake watched as Lance stuttered his response, but he too felt entirely baffled from trying to comprehend this night’s events. For less than a few hours ago when on duty within the Anabasis city’s centre, he’d received a call about the presence of a celestial disturbance running along Delphi Crescent, from his direct superior. Suspecting it would in some way involve Katherine, he’d thought the gryphon had finally acted. But when they reached the home, he sensed an unusual pair of energies without physical shape.
Once Walter spun round in his chair, his narrow grey eyes locked upon both he and Kulullu, Blake sought to explain what they’d experienced as best he could.
“We were under the control of another once we entered within the property’s perimeter, that much I’m sure of,” he said. “But all we witnessed was clearly contrary to the events as they truly occurred.”
Walter rubbed his temple. “What exactly did you see?”
“An empty yard, there was nothing that looked out of the ordinary,” Blake responded.
“And this was once you stepped into the shadows?” Walter asked.
“Yes,” he replied, indignant.
“It would seem we still have much work to do,” said Walter, before he turned his back to Blake, and focused his attentions upon Lance, “We must be more vigilant in gathering intelligence about our enemies. It looks like we will also need to conduct further training with respect to all operatives’ current sensory abilities, if we’re to be ready in the event of his returning soon.”
The prospect of more training, on top of that to which he was already committed, fatigued Blake just to think about it. But the mere mention that he might return sent a cold chill to running down his spine.
Few things in this world can make me even flinch, he thought, but the stories of what he was capable…well you’d have to be ignorant not to think with some sense of trepidation about facing such power.
This fiend, he remembered, had somehow defeated both his direct superior and her guardian. Even Walter and his own guardian had fallen before its strength. But suffice it to say, and despite this sudden anxiety to which he’d rarely been exposed, Blake also relished the prospect of such a challenge.
I believe I was born for this very purpose, he thought, specifically selected to confront this ancient creature and vanquish him at his own game.
His attention soon returned to Walter. “I had expected better… from both of you,” his superior was quick to say.
With Walter’s words falling like lead, Blake looked to Lance and saw him as a mirror of his dejection. He knew that Lance in particular took any and all forms of criticism to heart.
We both work so hard in service to this organisation, he thought to himself, but Walter was one who always seemed to expect just that much more.
“What are we to do with Sergeant Munroe’s daughter?” Lance questioned, upright in anticipation of his next order.
“She will leave with us,” Walter said, as he headed up a ramp-way before the porch and through the home’s front door.
Blake glanced over at Lance, as the operative had reclaimed his stoic post beside the entranceway, before he too drifted inside. Once inside, he focused upon the stairway that spiralled upward from the kitchen. Knowing that Katherine was most likely lingering up above in an irate frame of mind, he decided to creep up the stairs and provide her comfort.
Well I can’t think of any person more suited than me, who can provide some kind of grounded insight into her ailing situation, he thought, but last time I offered her my support, she didn’t want it. It really is a curse to be so intelligent a young man, and possessed of such invaluable intuition beyond my years. But I’ve little choice; I must take it in my stride if I’m to help those in need, even if she isn’t really the sort who can handle what must be said. I can’t afford to stray from my duty, even if I think of her as too immature and naïve to make any sense of what’s said.
Upon reaching the top, he found that Katherine’s wooden bedroom door was firmly closed. Without knocking, he pressed the door open and waltzed inside before gazing up and about the walls of artwork. Katherine was slumped over at her bedside with the gryphon, now visible to Blake, lying there before her feet. He noticed that she’d not batted an eyelid upon his abrupt entry; she only continued to sit there, staring up at an unusual sketching. He looked closer, and soon recognised that it depicted an unfamiliar interpretation of Atlantis; one in which he too found himself quickly immersed, paying close attention to its architectural monuments, and its vast technologies on display. But before long, his focus returned to Katherine, and on how she’d yet to acknowledge his presence. She appeared pale to him, had
not once blinked. Dark rings had formed around her eyes.
“You know, Sergeant Munroe knew of the risks involved,” he said. “And he served the organisation well.”
Immediately the young woman, who only moments before had been hunched over and unresponsive, sprung up and pounced on Blake with her hands gripping the collar of his neck.
“His job, my father is dead because of those monsters,” she cried, her eyes puffy and red. “Where were you? I thought you were the one who was supposed to protect me.”
She then, and much to his surprise, flung him backward and hard up against the bedroom wall. Despite the noticeable dent he’d left in the wall’s plaster, Blake was undeterred by her sudden outburst and attempted to retaliate in kind. But before he was able to obtain a grasp of her arm, the gryphon impeded his advance, adopting an aggressive pose by propping itself up on its hind legs, and reaching out with its sickle-like talons. Fortunately, Kulullu promptly positioned herself between Blake and the gryphon, shielding him from any potential attack.
“You really should not have done that,” Blake muttered, seeking to refrain from losing his composure. “You didn’t even want my help in the first place. I struggle to see why you’re so upset.”
“You’re impossible,” said Katherine.
“Everything is impossible with you; guardians are impossible, elemental control is impossible, and now I’m impossible. “So tell me, you silly little girl, do you wish to continue feigning ignorance, and pretending that all you see and experience must be false?”
She shrieked at him, her hands clenched into fists. “My father is dead. He was killed by those monsters, and there was nothing I could do about it. How can I possibly refuse to acknowledge their existence, and how could I possibly forget?”
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