Kasadya Hellhound Twisted

by Swart, Karen

  A moment of silence followed so I took the time to stand my ground. The kids were all standing and watching my wings, and then my real hell started. Kids started to storm me, grabbing my wings and everything that could be grabbed. “Good show, Kas,” I heard Vulcan say, but the kids were starting to climb all over me so I couldn’t look at him to ask for help. In seconds they managed to get me flat on the ground, a little girl climbing on my chest and grabbing my face in her hands.

  “That is so cool,” she said, smiling at me.

  It’s remarkable what such a small and innocent child can do to even the fiercest creatures. After all the cruelty, battles and evil, one touch from this child could ease your inner battles. We walk this Earth everyday thinking that we defy the laws of the world by surviving it, but our children are the real warriors. So young and innocent, they face this world not only with bravery, but also with their special touch. “Did you like that?” I asked her, and she started to laugh and giggle. Sitting up, I took her in my arms and held her. “What’s your name, beautiful?” I asked her, watching her eyes dance with delight.

  “My name is Mel, and yours?” she asked in return.

  A few boys were opening and closing my left wing and my other wing became the petting zoo. “My name is Kas; do you know what I am?” I asked, her moving my wings a little to give the others more giggles and shrieks.

  “Oh, yes I do. You’re a hellhound. My mommy was a hellhound, too. She showed me her wings many times.” She smiled and my heart dropped into my stomach. She is an orphan, a hellhound orphan.

  Trying to keep my tears at bay, I continued to talk with her. “Do you know what that makes you?” I asked, snuggling her close to me.

  She looked at me with those big blue eyes and shook her head. “You’re a hellhound, too. One day, when you’re big like me, you will look like me. Your wings will also stretch out like mine, and they may be even bigger,” I explained and I saw her face and eyes catch fire at my words.

  “Really, am I going to look like you and my mommy?” she asked.

  “Oh yes, but you’ll be a lot prettier than me,” I replied, tickling her to make her burst out in laughter.

  “Come on guys, Chax and the rest are already waiting outside,” Vulcan said and at his words all the kids jumped up and stormed the exit, screaming and laughing the whole way.

  “Wow, now that was something new,” Kali said, transforming back to normal. It would appear that not only I had to give them a show.

  “Come on,” Max said, smiling down at me and offering his hand to help me up. I grabbed his hand and he pulled me up. I bumped straight into his chest. Almost falling back, Max closed his arms around me, stabilizing me inside them.

  And there we were; me in his arms, looking at each other. I looked at him, his face still in delight from the children as he smiled down at me. “You’ll get the hang of it,” he said to me, his smile creating dimples on his cheeks. For the first time he was actually good looking to me, as in ‘Wow, how could you not have noticed this before’.

  “I was scared beyond words,” I replied, smiling back. Max burst out laughing, reached for my cheek and rubbed it.

  “I know. I have never seen you so confused, and for the first time I would say lost. Did a few kids get the better of you?” he continued on.

  Oh my freaking soul, he was touching me! Like in rubbing my cheek touching me. Freaking hell I didn’t expect this. “Didn’t you see me adapt?” I asked, smiling back at him.

  Kali cleared her throat and Max looked up at her. “I think we need to join the rest you two. Sounds like the war started outside,” she finished and walked out, leaving me and Max still in our embrace. He wasn’t letting go and returned his eyes to mine.

  “Do you know the most beautiful I have ever seen you was holding that little girl and talking to her. It’s not what you give as a warrior that makes me stop and admire you, Kas, but what you give as yourself,” he said as he slowly brought his lips to mine.

  Holy freaking hell, Max was kissing me and I was kissing him back! Unlike my kisses with Seth, this one had some familiarity with it. I remembered everything we went through together, our first meeting, then the training, the day I gave him my blood. All the events we have lived and survived together came back to me. But the best part is that I felt right at home in his arms. Releasing me, he stepped back and looked at me. I, on the other hand, was left dumbstruck. Did I just enjoy a kiss from Max?

  “Come on, the others might already be dead,” Max said smiling, and steered me out of the grub spot. As we walked down the hallway, following the noise to outside, I was left without words. I was expecting a lot of things from Max, from kicking my butt to telling me how to behave. But a kiss? Never in my life did I expect that. And the worst of all it is the way I felt. Like being in his arms and kissing him was normal. Okay, I’m going insane or something. We reached the others and stopped again to take in the picture. The old arena had now become some sort of playground.

  Everyone was having a blast. Nanini was creating small lights bombs and sending them into the fountain, making it burst on contact and spraying the kids. Chax was pushing what looked like six children on swings, patiently walking back to the first one to begin again. Lada and Lotan were playing football with some. Caim and Abby were on some sort of blow up castle thing, jumping up and down with the kids. Ben, Kali, and Ryan were doing cricket with some boys next to the football players.

  “So this is Exsilium’s Hellhouse? Interesting place,” Max commented next to me.

  “Trust me, the previous version was a lot scarier than this one,” I replied, watching as Vulcan and Maia came walking over to us.

  “So, Kas, what do you think?” Vulcan asked, gesturing to the scene in front of us.

  “It’s different all right. There are so many, how do you guys survive?” I asked, looking around at what must be fifty kids, their ages ranging from ten downwards. This is so sad. Looking at them I could see we lost many fallen, but their loss was much worse.

  “It was difficult at first, many of them had experienced some of the battles and struggled to fit in. Many suffered the loss of their parents. But with some love and attention, we had them settled in and smiling again,” Maia explained, smiling at me. I was thinking of our discussion when Kali was brought to her. Did we get all of them, or were there some still wandering Earth alone and afraid.

  “Vulcan, are you sure that all the kids are here and safe, you didn’t miss any?” I asked, my heart beating hard. I don’t want any child to feel lost like Kali and I felt.

  “We believe so, Kas. For a long while the fallen stopped serving and only searched. We went back to the homes of all the fallen families and started searching from there. What counted for us was the moment we knew what was happening, all fallen joined together and fought back. We lost many, but we also saved many,” Vulcan said, leaving me feeling a little bit better. Good, I don’t want to know that there is a child out there lost and alone. “Come, let’s get you an activity and some kids. Its hard work, but as you can see something different than what we are used to,” he continued and led Max and I to a bunch of kids playing on a slide.

  Max and I ended up entertaining the kids, and Max taught me and them a Russian folk game called Gorodki. Basically you take a bat and from a distance he marked out, aim it at the bunch of Skittles he’d arranged in different patterns. As he explained, the Skittles were called gorodki, which means townlets, then the square they were in was called gorod for city. The first pattern he made was called a fork or vilka. This is pretty hard, you had to throw the damn thing to hit the pattern and throw off the skittles.

  Sounds easy, but hell it wasn’t at all. Unlike bowling, these things were laid out flat or something making you have to double up on the aim thing. After a couple of rounds we were joined by all and everyone started to play it, Chax, Max, and Kali were showing off. Max and Kali have grown up with this game so they were experts, but Chax was just plain showing off. We played in teams
, the one against the other. Each fallen taking about six kids to make a team, then we threw off against each other.

  The more Skittles you get knocked off the more the points, like a strike in bowling. Just weirder. We continued on for the rest of the morning, by noon I was feeling the effect of no sleep. My aim began to take very bad turns and I almost ended up hitting Ben in the face. Luckily the relieving fallen team arrived to take over the afternoon shift.

  “Let’s get home and try and catch some sleep before tonight,” Chax said, shifting us back to his house. I ran up the stairs and went straight for the bed, Kali joining me on the other side.

  “That was pretty nice, hey?” she said, rolling over to her side to look at me.

  Yeah, it was pretty nice. “I kissed Max,” I confessed.

  Her eyes going wide, she smiled at me. “Kas, you two have been looking at each other for months; it is no surprise to me. And?”

  “Well, that is what’s so weird about it. It was normal, like we have been kissing for years. I didn’t experience that with Seth,” I said, waiting for an explaination for it.

  “It felt normal because you already know him inside and out, that’s the best part of starting a relationship. No weird moments, like ‘what does he like?’ and stuff like that. He knows you and you know him, it will be easier for the two of you,” she continued. Hmm that makes sense. “Okay, get some sleep. I could see you had a tough time focusing,” Kali ended and I closed my eyes. Darkness claimed me and I walked into a beautiful dream, of open fields covered in flowers. Wind was whipping through my hair and flowing around me. I was free to enjoy what beauty this dream had to give. No duty, no fear, but most of all no demons.

  Chapter 8

  “Hey girls, you have to wake up and get a move on!” Nanini yelled from the other side of the door, Kali and I jumping up from the shock. Damn, Nanini, you have got to learn how to sleep. Moaning, Kali and I got up and got dressed. Looking outside the window while I brushed my hair, I could see it was almost night time, the purple and orange silhouette across the horizon.

  “Crap, we only had like four hours of sleep,” Kali moaned in the bathroom. “This is not going to work for me.” I laughed, because I knew this was the start of a new schedule for us, which will most likely—if we’re lucky—continue on for thousands of years.

  “I suggest you embrace it and start loving it. I have a feeling this is only the beginning,” I replied to her moaning. Poor girl, not even a day has passed for her and she is already getting dressed to go out and start over again. A fallen’s life is such a treat.

  “So, what do you think we are going to do tonight?” she asked, coming out of the bathroom with her gear on and ready for action.

  “Most likely we will be fighting demons, didn’t see anything else on the job description,” I replied, locking my hair in place.

  Pouting, she went to sit on the bed. Looking at me, she complained again, “One normal day, is that too much to ask?” I just laughed. Being a fallen, you pretty much get that from day one, normalcy has nothing to do with this world.

  We finished off, and made our way down the stairs. Max was waiting at the bottom with my swords in his hands. Oh my babies! I almost ran him out of the way to get my hands on them. Grabbing them I first gave them a hug then placed them in their sleuths. “I thought you might be missing them.” Max laughed and I smiled back at him. He knows me so well, maybe Kali is right. We know each other pretty well, and we are at ease around each other. Then I remembered that funny small print that came with the hellhound DNA. I looked at him and couldn’t help feeling sad; he might not be my charm.

  Max must have seen my sadness because he grabbed my arm and pushed me towards the others. “Not today, Kas,” he said, walking me to the living room. When we walked in, Chax lifted his head to look at us, a frown darkening his face. Sitting on the couch in front of him was my favourite angel boy.

  “Raphael, nice of you to make an appearance,” I goaded him. He smiled and leaned back into the couch, regarding me.

  “Now, hellhound, I found your presence too entertaining to miss. I haven’t had this much fun in years,” he threw back and I rolled my eyes at him.

  “Well, if you two are done we have work to do,” Chax pitched in and for some reason he was more pissed off than usual. “We will be doing some spotting tonight, our mission is to locate and update the news on demon clubs.” I rolled my eyes at him and laughed quietly, which he apparently heard because his head snapped over to me. “Something wrong, Kasadya?” he asked. Oh boy, this bad boy routine he had going wasn’t really working for him anymore.

  “Yes, I think your reconnaissance methods suck big time,” I replied, looking at my nails and smiling.

  I swear I could hear him suck in his breath, with two or three others in the room. “Well then, do tell why you think it, how did you put it, sucks,” Chax said, walking over to me and taking a stand.

  “Oh, that’s easy. Because it does. You go out check for a hot spot, come back and feed it into Corra. Meanhile, Amon has a facility that already has all the data on it. Now I know according to you I have a lack of intelligence, but don’t you think we are wasting precious time?” I said to him smiling all the way. This was comical, I could see in his eyes he was waging my suggestion, and yes of course it made logic sense to do it my way.

  “Indeed, we will go to this facility of Amon’s and you can explain to us how your methods are better than ours,” Chax finally said and Raphael burst out laughing, making me join him. Chax was not freaking happy, he was giving both of us a death glare. Oh this is so freaking funny.

  “Enough, we need to start moving,” he burst out when Raphael wouldn’t stop laughing. I quickly damped my laughter and tried to be serious again. “Kasadya, you will shift us to Amon’s facility,” Chax declared. Shoving it off, I walked to the centre and held out my hands for the rest to lock in. Chax looked down at them, then looked up at me. “Use your necklace,” he growled out and had me looking at him confused.

  “Um, how do I use my necklace?” I asked when he was just looking back at me.

  “You hold it, visualize the landing spot, and that’s it,” he explained, his eyes burning into mine. Okay, it would seem that I have pissed him off for the night. Hey, nothing new there.

  Not wanting to show him that he had caught me off guard, I grabbed my necklace and closed my eyes. I pictured the helicopter pad outside the facility we used to shift out and I felt the air being sucked out of the room. With an awkward sensation I force shifted everyone to the landing pad. Opening up my eyes, I gave Chax a victory smile and started to walk to the door. Oh yeah, Kas one, Chax zero! Max was next to me in a flash. “Home sweet home,” he stated, pushing open the doors and I had to smile at him. He was right, this felt more like home than Exsilium.

  We marched down the hallway and found some of the humans that were left behind in the dining hall. As we passed, we greeted the guys, and they shot out of their chairs to join us. They came bursting out of the dining room in seconds, walking behind us. Leo made his way in front, next to me and Max. “Hey guys, so what are you doing here?” he asked. “Amon said that you guys won’t be coming back.”

  I smiled at him and gestured with my head to the fallen behind me. “Showing them some tricks of the trade,” I stated, smiling at him.

  “Nice,” he replied, smiling at Max who was pretty much enjoying this as much as me.

  We made a turn and reached the doors to the Intel room. Amon was busy looking at the huge globe with dots on it, so when we burst through the door we surprised him. “Hello, mind if we join you?” I asked, smiling at him. He looked at me and then the rest, confused and a little lost, but turned back to me.

  “Sure, be my guest,” he answered with a small smile on his face. I stomped off to the globe and turned to the others.

  “This is our Intel room. On this globe, Amon and his team have been gathering Intel for many years and with the assistance of our contacts around the world, w
e are updated with new Intel almost every hour. Looking at the red dots, this will be the demon clubs or spots that still need to be closed down. The green dots indicate the places that were already cleared out, orange are places staring up again. And the purple ones are fallen activity,” I explained, indicating one as I moved on. The fallen made their way around the globe, looking at all of them. Chax was standing on the other side of the glass globe, staring at them, and I kept my eyes on him. Come on, admit it, our method is better, I thought to myself waiting for him to show it. He looked down and caught me looking at him with a smile of course, and nodded his approval. I almost went ballistic with a victory dance but kept myself under control. Sweet!

  I turned and saw that Max was over at one of the stations already talking to a Russian contact and doing his thing. Kali was at another station, checking up on a few of her own. Ben and Ryan were at their old spots doing the same.

  “Amon, this is good work. I am impressed,” Chax finally said, still looking at the globe.