Kasadya Hellhound Twisted

by Swart, Karen

  “You know of this relic stuff and where it’s located?” I asked, intrigued.

  She nodded. “And you’re going to need some of the guys, too. Trust me, when you open that gate, all hell will break loose.”

  “That won’t be an option. You know Chax would find out about it,” I dismissed her, transforming back to normal and sliding in my swords.

  “Kas, you don’t have a choice. Whatever this guardian is, it’s so scary that my father spoke of it in whispers. You need more power to take it on. And you don’t have much of a choice anymore,” she pressed, calling me out.

  That’s so unfair. Furious, I looked at Kali. “Let’s just get it over with, Kas,” she replied, her eyes showing her sadness.

  “If Chax finds out we are screwed,” I moaned.

  “Then we make sure he doesn’t find out,” Lada pushed.

  “Yeah well if we all go missing in action, don’t you think he would notice!” I yelled at her.

  “Not if you know how to avoid him,” Lada explained.

  “Yeah, and we know just how to do that. What, you think we have been playing house with Chax all this time? Dude, come on! We would be like totally crazy by now. Nope, we learned how to ditch Chax pretty quickly,” Nanini also explained.

  Defeated by my own gang of girls, yeah that would just be my luck. “Okay, but you guys need to be discreet. Don’t let him find out because, girls, we will all be dead,” I finished. And it would seem just in time. The boys shifted in, weapons drawn and ready to kick butt.

  “You knocked us out!” Max fired at me at once.

  “Just returned the favour, Max, you guys started to attack us,” I replied, not a bit troubled by it. My dad always said if you throw a punch you better be ready to receive one back.

  “Did you destroy them?” Chax asked, watching me with interest. Interest I sure as hell did not want.

  “No, they shifted out when we fought,” I lied.

  His eyes narrowed at me. “I see,” he replied. Yeah like he’d just believed a word I said. He knew something had happened. Crap, we are going to be caught.

  “Who knocked me out?” Max asked, looking between Nanini and me.

  “Me of course, dumdum,” Nanini quickly replied, her smile spreading over that sick little face of hers. I looked at Max and I swear he was about to pop a vein, his entire face was red with anger, and then Nanini had to blow him a kiss. I jumped in before he could reach her.

  “Maybe it would be best if we retire for the night,” Caim said while I held Max away from the snickering Nanini. Girl, you just don’t know when to quit.

  “Agreed,” Chax said and force shifted us all on the spot. We landed outside the house, me still holding Max off Nanini. “We will retire for the day,” Chax casually said vanishing in the dark as he made his way into the woods next to his house, or what was left of them.

  The gang split up and went in their own direction, Lada winking at me as she turned into the doorway. I was left with a fuming Max. “I am going to lose it with that girl,” Max complained. I laughed at that, because he was so right, they were going to kill each other before this was over.

  “Come on, let’s go for a walk,” I said, pushing him to the other side of the estate. He pressed forward, storming into the direction I wanted him to go. I stopped and looked at him. Well, here goes nothing. I needed to get more power, right?

  Chapter 18

  We walked a long way, Max trying to release the adrenalin trapped in his body. We reached a small river running along the estate. The moon was beautiful tonight, a full moon. I stopped and admired it, the stars dancing around it to make the picture look even more spectacular.

  “I know that look you have, like you are about to do something stupid,” Max said next to me. I smiled, but my eyes remained on the sky.

  “I need your help, Max,” I started the impossible mission. I knew he was going to go ballistic when he found out, but I would rather have him by my side than any other. He might be a pain in the ass, but he was a great warrior.

  “What did you do this time?” he whined and I heard him walk off. Looking over, I saw he was sitting down beneath an oak tree, resting his back against it.

  Good, he needs to be relaxed for this one, and if he wanted to kick my butt I had the upper hand. “Nothing yet, but if I don’t do this Kali will die.” Let’s start with the worst part in my eyes, and move over to the detail around it.

  “What do you mean?” he asked, confusion on his face.

  “The night Gluttire took her he placed a charm on her. A death charm,” I explained, leaning against another tree.

  “Death charm? What is that?” he asked, his eyes roaming over me.

  “It is a charm that can only be removed by a demon prince. In time, this charm will eat away at her power and strength, until finally within six months it would take her head. She is already sick and weaker. If it stays on, she won’t be able to do anything soon,” I tried to tell him the importance of this.

  He considered me for a while, and I waited patiently for him to work through the detail. “How are you going to remove it then?” he finally asked.

  “The demon wants something that’s locked away in Exsilium. If I retrieve it and bring it to him he will remove the charm. But these objects he wants, they are very well protected. And when we open it apparently we are going to face the baddest of the bad. I need you by my side when this happens, I need my wingman,” I explained, taking a seat next to him. He was calm and collected, which meant there wouldn’t be any surprises.

  “How sure are you that he would keep his word?” Max asked, looking at me. I smiled; that’s my Max.

  “I don’t, but I would still try,” I replied, giving him a small kiss.

  “I won’t let you go alone, you know that. And I would be by your side no matter what.” He gave me a great kiss. We kissed for a long while, our hearts finally mending from the last fight. We broke away and held on to each other, a deep sigh escaping me.

  Laughing a little, he rubbed my back. “Keeping secrets can be exhausting, if you learn to share then at least the weight won’t be that much,” he teased, nudging me.

  “Yeah, but if everyone around you is wired for war, it makes it difficult to know how they will react to a secret. But since we are sharing, mind sharing with me what happened that night between you and Chax?” I flipped the coin on him.

  This time it was his turn to release a deep breath. “We came to an understanding, you might say,” he replied. Oh hell no, I just gave him a juicy secret and that’s all he has to share!

  “Oh no, that so doesn’t count for a secret,” I complained, pushing myself away from him. He laughed harder and reinforced his embrace.

  “I think it more curiosity than disappointment,” he stated.

  “No, I shared a huge secret and all you give me is that crap. Come on, confess,” I pushed again.

  “We agreed to agree when it comes to you. We will both protect you no matter what, even from each other. He feels obligated to protect you, and I feel a need, too. So when we meet in the middle we can both protect you without having to kill each other. And I did remind him that you are not a little girl anymore, which might have helped,” he confessed.

  “I don’t need protection,” I complained, totally pissed with that secret.

  “Oh, Kas, if only you knew how much protection you need. You’re like the ultimate bomb walking around waiting to be detonated, and that scares both of us. But I am glad that you chose wisely this time by getting some backup. That’s another thing Chax and I agree on,” he rambled on.

  “What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Thing they agree on? When did I become their daily topic?

  With a sigh, he looked away. “You’re always going in alone, Kas. You never try the backup thing, and that doesn’t work out very well,” he explained. I sat there silent, like a corpse. I go in alone? I was thinking real hard about that. Okay, so I went in alone and killed Ira, but I can’t remember another
episode like that. “Come on, stop over thinking it. Let’s for once see the sun come up without blood on us,” Max joked with me.

  I sat back against the tree and watched the sun peak over the horizon. It was actually very beautiful. I tried to think when last I watched the sun come up and couldn’t really remember one. Yeah, I saw the sun a lot but sitting still and watching it come up, nope couldn’t remember one occasion. The birds started flying around, bugs started buzzing, and a fish jumped out of the water near us. This is pretty awesome. Relaxing, I slumped down and enjoyed it. Don’t know if this would be the last time I see the sun, so I better have great memories about it.

  “Kas, are you ready to go?” Lada suddenly asked to my left and I jumped from the shock. I looked around and found everyone, except for Chax and Abby, still in their fighting gear. My heart leapt from the sight, Max and Chax were so wrong about that thing they agree about. I always have a gang with me to kick butt. And today I have more than just a gang, I have great friends.

  “Chax?” I asked to make sure he was out of the picture.

  “Went to his room about half an hour ago, we all slipped out unnoticed,” Caim replied with a devilish smile.

  Wow, this sneaking out business might be really good for him. “Okay, let’s get Seth and blow that baby,” I said, getting up.

  “Seth?” Nanini asked, sounding very excited.

  “He was helping me and Kas find the cave and a way to get into it,” Kali explained, rubbing her charm.

  “We’ll have that off before tomorrow morning,” I assured her, and she replied with a small smile. She didn’t think we could do it; I just love to prove her wrong.

  “Come on, we have a date, guys,” Nanini laughed and force shifted us to Seth’s house.

  We landed in his lounge, scaring the crap out of him and Arianna. Oh crap, was my thought when I saw her, this is not good. “Salve,” Seth greeted us and then rested his eyes on me. “Arianna wants to help, I have explained the details and sensitivity of it to her,” Seth explained. I looked at her and saw only a small smile. Why didn’t he just say she caught him and he had to spill everything.

  “Yeah, all right. Let’s get this over with,” I replied, my eyes catching Kali’s furious face.

  Seth grabbed the bag with explosives and shifted us to the cave. We started immediately and walked to the entrance we knew was there but invisible. “Where is this cave you were talking about?” Max asked. “And is that our C4?” He came over to stand next to me.

  “The cave entrance is charmed and invisible, and we borrowed some of Amon’s stuff,” I replied not even looking at him.

  “Borrowed?” he questioned me.

  I just wasn’t in the mood for explanations. “Are you helping or criticizing?” I asked. He bent down and grabbed the block thing out of my hands.

  “You have no idea what you’re doing. Move back, I’ll rig it up,” he bombarded me. Not disagreeing with that, I got up and moved to stand in the back with the others.

  “It’s not Amon’s,” Ben whispered to me. I looked at him questioningly. “It’s Max’s secret stash, he loves blowing up things,” he continued.

  Wow, now that’s something I didn’t know. Talk about secrets, this one was somewhat nice and disturbing at the same time. “That’s it, now get back about a hundred yards,” Max instructed us. We did what he said and turned to look at the show. He stood only about fifty yards from it, a small device in his hands. We watched in silence, not moving a muscle, and then boom it went off and the sound echoed around us. Dust was everywhere, I couldn’t even see Max.

  After a few minutes the dust started to settle and Max also came into view. Looking at the mountain, a huge cave entrance was now visible. This is it, time for action. “Have your weapons ready, whatever comes out of there is going to be mean in a really bad way,” I informed the others. Swords blinked in the sun as everyone drew their weapons and started walking with me to the entrance. Max was already there waiting for us.

  I stopped and looked into the cave, it was pitch black. I could see well, but I was not sure about the others. “Nanini, Ben, can you give us some light inside?” I asked, looking at them. They nodded and transformed to fallen form, small light bombs were floating in their hands. Taking a deep breath, I took the first step, leading everyone into the cave. We walked in silence, almost tip toeing. We still hadn’t found this great creature Lada spoke of. Maybe it was just a fairytale?

  A soft growl came from the front, and we all stopped dead. A loud growl came this time and I heard steps coming towards us. “Back now,” I growled transforming into my hellhound and securing the rear as everyone retreated back the way we came. Just as I was about to step outside into the sun, my eyes caught a pair of red eyes in the dark. Crap, here we go. Outside the others had already taken formation, and transformed to fallen, ready to take on whatever stepped out of that cave. I joined them in the middle, edgy for the fight that was about to start. A few seconds ticked by and then the creature stepped out of the cave.

  At first it covered its eyes, unable to take the sun, but recovered remarkably quickly and looked up at us. “Demon!” the hellhound in front of us growled in a female voice. Holy freaking crap, it’s a hellhound born! We all stepped back in unison, creating a lot of space between us and her; she looked just like the hellhound of the other night, except for her more female body and curves.

  She held her ground and looked at us, those blood red eyes assessing each of us in turn, until her eyes fell on Kali. “Demon!” she yelled, storming forward. Max and I went in first, trying to take her down, and with two swipes we were flying over the others. The others stormed forward with war cries. I landed against a tree, recomposing myself I was up on my feet going back to help the others.

  I moved past Kali, who stood on the same spot I last saw her, her face masked with fear. Ben came flying over my head and I heard when he hit a tree. Nanini was flying just above her, shooting bombs. Arianna and Ryan were coming from her left and right. As I advanced, I saw Lotan and Caim getting up from the ground and advancing with me.

  With a cry I tried to tackle her down, but she caught me mid-air and threw me, my back slamming into another tree. Holy freaking hell, she was strong. I looked up and watched as she jumped up and grabbed Nanini around her foot. Coming down, she turned around and threw Nanini straight into Seth who was jumping through the air to get to her. “Demon!” she yelled again, her eyes fixed on someone. I looked into her direction and saw that she was looking at Kali, who still stood frozen to the spot. Could she tell that Kali had a demon charm on her?

  “Kali, I need you to shift away from here!” I yelled at her as I got up and stormed forward, Max at my side. In the corner of my eye I saw Kali shift out, and prepared for the hellhound in front of me.

  She grasped Lada around her throat, and I grabbed that hand holding Lada. The hellhound looked at me, and head butted me with those horns of hers. Pain exploded around me and I let go, holding my face. A scream sounded next to me, it was Arianna. I looked up with a hazed view and saw her torso torn open.

  “Kas, she is too strong!” Max yelled at me.

  I recovered and stormed at her again, this time dropping my swords and drawing my daggers. When I reached her Max, Ryan, and Lotan were taking her on together, with her attention on them; I went down on my knees and skied through her legs, jamming my daggers into both her thighs. She roared with fury, and before I could clear her, she grabbed my hair and pulled me back.

  With my back to her, I whipped out my wings and felt something pierce them. A scream exploded out of me. “Kas!” Max yelled. She turned me around, ripping my wings apart, and when I finally saw what the hell happened behind me, I registered that we were so dead. Her own bony wings were locked straight into mine. Holy hell, she used her bony wings to damage mine. Pain shot into my wings and travelled down my back and spine.

  Caim knocked her from the side, but she merely swatted him away like he was just a fly. “Oh my God! Max do some
thing!” Lada yelled behind her, and I saw her get up and storm forward. The hellhound was just looking at me, no death blow followed. The others were kicking her, slicing at her legs and everything they had to give. But still she barely moved those eerie eyes locked onto me.

  I struggled, my wings still stuck with hers. Okay, I would need to do something. I closed my eyes and reached for that part of me, that part that always answered when I felt that I needed it. I felt it wash over me; strengthening my muscles, forming me into that killing machine I knew lurked inside me. I opened up my eyes and gave her a head butt of my own.

  She lost her hold on me and staggered backwards. Dropping to the ground, I moved forward. With a heavy kick to her torso I sent her flying backwards, landing on her back. “Together!” I yelled at the rest, and we all attacked her. I punched her face, trying to aim for her temple, but she moved so much I ended up breaking her nose. Blood sprayed over my face, and I reached for my forks intending to pin her down with them.