by Swart, Karen
Slowly I walked back to the stairs but turning left my eyes caught the lounge with those big puffy chairs. One was a double seater. Oh yeah I needed that. I changed direction and walked into the lounge, turned my butt to the couch and dropped. Slowly picking up my legs I placed them on the arm, and then my head on the other. Aah, yeah this was heaven.
“Do you have a hangover?” Max suddenly asked standing over me. If I weren’t so tired I might have actually jumped, but a growl replaced that action.
“Please go away and leave me alone,” I begged him.
“Answer him, did you drink?” Chax bulldozed. Why did He give me these two? I mean, did I do something really horrible to get them?
“I didn’t drink, now go away,” I growled, turning around to face the back of the couch.
“Kasadya,” Chax sneered at my back.
“I am freaking tired, okay? Now go away!” I yelled at him, grabbing my head. That was so not a good idea. A splitting headache just slammed into me with that commotion.
“Didn’t you get some sleep in when we were gone? You would have had at least four hours,” Max continued on.
“I didn’t go to bed then,” I replied, covering my head. Please, please go away.
“Should we go get Maia, she really doesn’t look good,” Kali said from somewhere in the room.
“That will not be necessary,” another male voice answered her, and by the sound of it Michael just joined us.
“Michael, is there something you need to tell me?” Chax asked. I should have gone upstairs, locked my freaking door, and just winged it.
“I will explain,” Michael replied. Oh yeah here comes the part where my head gets a huge hammer because I slipped out and picked a fight. I am so not sticking around for that, so I shifted to my bed, landing softly on it. Oh my soul, this is heaven. I crawled into the covers and covered myself with them. Sleep, I need a lot of sleep.
Slowly but surely, darkness came and I drifted off to sleep.
“They're coming,” the voice whispered.
“Who’s coming?” I asked back. I turned in the white haze, looking around. I was in a cloud of sorts, but a freaky cloud. No sound, and no movement. And there was nothing except the cloud, not one person, tree of bird. Freaky.
“They will come,” the voice whispered again. Okay that’s also freaky, no one around and someone is whispering to me.
“Hello?” I asked into the cloud. Who the hell was here with me?
“Deaths, so many deaths,” the voice continued. I listened closely this time and it almost sounded like a child.
“Why don’t you come out and talk to me?” I suggested to the child. I mean really this is too much.
“They will bring death and destroy all that is good,” the voice went on. Okay, so someone is coming, and there will be death and destruction, got that part.
“Are you talking about the demons?” I asked to no one but myself.
“You must stop it from happening, you must save them,” the reply came. Frustrated, I turned around looking for the child.
“How?” I asked to keep the conversation going. There was silence for a long while, no answer came. My heart started to pump hectic in my chest, and it felt like someone was suffocating me. I grabbed at my neck, but there were no hands.
I struggled to breathe, my breath slamming out of me to create a mist in the cloud. It’s cold now. So cold. I held myself to try and keep warm, but someone just kept taking it away. I was pushed back into the cloud and something grabbed my hands, pinning me down. I fought and I struggled, but could not free myself.
“You must not fail,” the voice whispered again. “You must not fail them.”
I flew awake, gasping for air. “Hey there,” Kali said, coming to sit next to me. I looked at her and wiped my face. I was covered in sweat.
“What happened?” I asked her. She got up and walked into the bathroom, coming back with a wet cloth and handed it to me.
“You slept for two days,” she answered, smiling at me. What?
“Are you serious?” I asked, jumping out of the bed and stressing like mad. I missed two days, two days I could have been out there killing demons and helping Kali.
“Yip, Michael explained that you would need the rest. Although no one explained why you ended up so tired in the first place,” she continued. I looked around and moved for my gear. She stopped me. “Won’t help, they are all out. I stayed behind to keep an eye on you.”
“Did Michael explain nothing?” I asked, bewildered. She shook her head and her eyes roamed over me. Why is she looking at me like that?
“What’s wrong?” I asked, trying to look at myself.
“You look different. I can’t place it, but you definitely look different,” she said, coming over to me and placing her hand on my shoulder. “But a lot better. What happened, Kas?”
I looked around, trying to think about that. “I killed one of the demon princes, and then something happened to me. Michael and the other angels said some strange things, but didn’t really tell me what had happened to me,” I explained, sitting down on the edge of the bed.
“What! When?” Kali asked, walking to stand in front of me.
“The night of the fight. I needed to blow off some steam, so I went looking for a fight. I killed one demon, and then Ira showed up and we started fighting. Long story short, I took his head in my cave and wham lights and freaky stuff happened to me. Then the archangels came and argued about what had happened and said I should come home,” I explained super-fast.
“Oh-kay,” she said, looking at me weird. Why is she looking at me like that? “Well, Chax was pretty pissed off when he returned from his “pow wow” with Michael, said we should leave you alone to sleep it off. But I have to warn you, he was super pissed and Max was even worse,” Kali explained, rubbing the necklace around her neck. I narrowed my eyes on it.
“How do you feel?” I asked, concerned that I had been MIA for two freaking days.
“It started to burn yesterday, not bad like fire, but I am now constantly aware of it,” she replied, taking her hand away, a sad look on her face.
“Kas?!” a male called from the hall. I walked over to the door and opened it, finding Seth two doors down.
“Yeah,” I replied, wondering what he was doing here. He turned around and smiled at me, and then his eyes narrowed at me.
“I … have some news for you,” he explained, coming closer. News? He must have seen the confused look on my face because he smiled and shook his head. “The relics.” He stopped in front of me.
Excitement claimed me and I almost jumped him. “What did you find?” I asked breathless, one step closer.
“I have found the fae who was charged with their safe keeping. He explained that he was instructed by Michael to hide them in a cave in Exsilium.”
And I jumped him, totally happy. “Oh thank you, Seth.” I hugged him, he hugged me back and I felt the smile spreading on my shoulder.
“I told you I would help, but there is something else,” he said in a dread-filled voice. My happiness dropped to my stomach and I stepped back to look at him. Kali was standing behind us, and I heard her breath hitch. “He said that is was safeguarded pretty well, and that no fallen or demon could get their hands on it,” he continued looking between the both of us.
“What do you mean safeguarded?” I asked, my heart slamming into my ribs, I am not failing her. He looked between Kali and me.
“Something is protecting it, and it would most likely kill anything that tries to get them,” he stated, that damn sad look on his face again. I looked at Kali and saw that she already accepted that it would be left at this and nothing could be done. Her eyes started to sparkle with tears that had begun to build up.
“I will deal with that when the time comes. Where is the cave?” I asked, turning my eyes on him.
He looked shocked and taken aback. “You can’t be serious, it will kill you,” he replied. Yeah, another thing to add to my “Kill K
as” list. Hell, if something wasn’t trying to kill me anymore I would start thinking something was wrong with me.
“I will kill it,” I declared, pushing power into it. Nothing is going to stand in my way.
He looked at Kali, maybe for assistance, and I could feel her eyes on my back. “Don’t try it,” I said before she could say a word.
“Like you listen to me anyway,” she snapped at me.
My eyes still on Seth, I waited for the reply to my answer. He shook his head finally and sighed. A smile spread over my face, I am getting good at this. “Okay, seeing that the two of you are alone I will show you, but we need to be quick. I don’t want Chax finding out about this,” he almost growled out.
“Good, give me a sec to get dressed.” He nodded and turned around. Walking back into my room, I went straight for my gear, my swords calling out for me to touch them.
“Kas, this is dangerous,” Kali said behind me. I nodded and pulled off my PJs.
“Yip, just like everything else in our lives,” I confirmed. Getting into my leathers, I turned to look at her. She was standing at the window looking outside.
“I don’t want others, especially you, to get hurt or die over this. I won’t be able to live with that on my conscience,” she said, her eyes sparkling from the unshed tears.
Sliding my swords in, I walked over to her. “Kali, I am doing what I know you would have done for me. We share something that few others can. Let’s go do this and get our lives back,” I finished, placing my hand on her shoulder. She turned and looked at me.
“And what if our lives end doing this?” she asked, a tear slipping down her cheek.
I smiled at her. “Then we die an awesome death, together. What more can super fighting fallen creature’s desire?” I mocked her.
A laughed escaped her and we hugged each other. “I wouldn’t be here in the first place if it wasn’t for you, Kas. Let’s get this over with. If we die then so be it, if we don’t we have another great story to tell one day,” she finished. We concluded our chat and found Seth waiting at the top of the stairs. Offering his hands, Kali and I took a last look at each other and shifted with him.
We landed at the edge of a huge freaking mountain, the top so high I could see snow. A chilling wind was blowing down from it, freezing my face. “Well, where is the cave?” I asked Seth, who stood looking at the mountain.
He turned and looked at me. “According to his instructions this is it, but I see no cave,” Seth confirmed and shrugged.
I looked at the mountain before us, there was no such thing as a cave. “You must have the location wrong then,” I answered.
“No this is it, perhaps a caved in or something happened a long time ago,” Seth said looking around. Kali walked to the wall and placed her hand on it, and the wall rippled from her touch. If I weren’t looking at her hand I would have totally missed it.
I moved forward and placed my hand just next to hers, again it happened.“It’s charmed,” I whispered, spreading my hands on the surface to see the rippling. A small magic buzz was coming from it.
“Of course,” Seth said, joining us. We all started to search the wall and found that the rippling spread out to shape a huge entrance. But how to get passed it?
“Any ideas, Seth?” I asked, stepping back to take a look at it.
Both Seth and Kali also stepped back and looked with me. “None,” Seth replied after a few seconds. Oh just great! Almost there and we have no idea how to get in.
“It’s a block charm, you need another charm to open it,” Kali explained. I leaned forward and peered at her around Seth.
“Hello, where did that come from?” I asked her.
She shrugged and took a step to the left. “I did listen to Vulcan’s classes, Kas. I may only have had a few, but I did listen,” she explained.
I left it at that. I only had a week of classes so I didn’t really get a chance to catch anything, except those damn cuffs. I rubbed my wrist just thinking about them, never again will I allow anyone to put them back on me. A walking trap, that’s what I started calling them. I could walk and do all the normal stuff, but I could never leave or fight for my freedom. Never again.
“How would we find the other charm?” I asked, the chilling wind giving me goosebumps. Seth was awfully quiet the whole time, just standing there looking at the wall. Kali lifted her shoulders unable to give a solution. Crap, now what?
“We blow it up,” Seth finally said. Both Kali and I looked at him in shock.
“What?” we asked simultaneously. He ignored us and walked forward, placing his hands at the bottom of the cave.
“Here, we will place it here and blow it up. The interference will hopefully break the charm and we could go in,” he continued on as if explosives were lying around for us to use.
“And where would we get the explosives?” I asked him, crossing my arms over my chest to try and keep the freezing wind out of my jacket.
“And won’t we alarm everyone in Exsilium if we start blowing up things?” Kali asked next.
He stepped back from the entrance and looked at me. “We steal it, of course, and yes everyone will know,” he finished, his eyes resting on Kali.
I have got to hand it to him; he was even crazier than me. Hell yeah finally someone more on the edge. I looked back at the wall, okay so I have to do something really stupid and crazy, sounds kind of just like my life. “We don’t need to steal it, we can borrow it from Amon,” I said after a few minutes. Yeah I am going to go to the compound, snatch some of the explosives I saw in a room, and borrow them, not steal. I will tell Amon about it after we’d finished this. I know he would understand that with the circumstances I had no choice.
“Great, let’s go get them and start blowing up stuff,” Kali said sarcastically.
“Totally agree,” I replied, smiling at her.
Her eyes went huge. “By all that is holy! You were serious, weren’t you?” I nodded and offered my hand to them.
“I even know where they are,” I concluded. Seth laughed and took my hand but Kali hesitated. “Come on, Kali, like trouble isn’t part of our DNA code. And you’ll get that stupid thing off you,” I encouraged. Furious, she took my hand and I shifted us into the room where I remembered seeing the explosives.
It was daylight outside, sun beams shining below the door. I turned and found the mountain of explosives I remembered was here. I once followed Max when he dodged training, and lucky for me, I saw him come into this room. Of course I followed him in and beat the crap out of him for missing training, but I did remember its contents. Huge old army boxes were stacked high to the ceiling. I approached one and opened it, inside were small blocks of explosives neatly packed away.
I removed one and showed it to them, Seth’s eyes going big. “That’s C4,” he remarked. I turned the block around and looked at it, looked like freaking putty stuff to me.
“Will this do, or do you need something else?” I asked indicating the room.
He looked around and walked over to the left, picking up a roll with wire on it. “To detonate it,” he explained. Cool, I am getting training on how to blow things up. Totally awesome.
Kali grabbed an old army bag and held it open, so Seth and I placed our stuff inside. “Okay, let—” I started to say but stopped. I felt something wrong, something really wrong. I closed my eyes and concentrated.
“Kas, what ar—” Kali began, but I cut her off holding up my hand. Yes, something was wrong here, inside the compound. I grabbed the bag and pushed it into Seth’s hands. “Take it with you and keep it safe. When we get some time again we will come to you to finish it,” I explained, opening the door.
“Until then,” Seth replied, obviously confused, and shifted out. Kali just stared at me.
“What’s up, Kas?” she whispered. I closed my eyes again, my head turning to the feeling I was picking up.
“Something’s wrong,” I explained and started walking. I picked up the pace and started running. The fe
eling was intensifying, and a dreadful feeling was starting to take its place. We turned into the hall and found the gang weapons drawn at the old training court. They were all fully transformed and edging for action. We reached them and Max turned to look at us, his eyes flew wide with surprise.
“Kasadya, get the hell out of here!” he yelled.
Confused, I stopped and frowned at him. “Excuse me?” I replied, pissed off.
Before he could answer that weird feeling slammed into me, my head turning to the closed doors of the court. A roar sounded on the other side of it, chilling me to the bone. It was very demonic, and freaking scary. I placed my hand on the doors to open them, when Max grabbed it and pulled me away. “Let go of me!” I yelled at him, yanking out my hand.