Crazy Files

by Yvi Valentin

“I am dealing Andy! I’m choosing to be productive. Would you like me to break down again?” I was yelling. I was no longer upset about knowing who my father really was. I was mad and wanted to put an end to his ways.

  “You don’t need to break down, but I want you to be honest about how you’re feeling. Don’t burry it into your work.” I could tell he was coming from a place of love, but I didn’t think I was hiding my true feelings.

  “I’m angry at the whole situation. The man responsible for my existence is literally the devil, he’s trying to ruin my life and on top of that he’s started a war against us and all of humanity. I just want this to be over, the sooner the better. It’s my fault all of this is happening so now I have to stop him.”

  “It’s not your fault, it’s his. He’s a bad person and you’re fighting for what’s right.”

  “He’s not a person, he’s the devil!” I snapped. I couldn’t even wrap my head around him, Lucifer, ever being considered a person in any sense of the word. “Now you know how I feel, can we please just go back to training? I want this to be over as soon as possible.”

  “Alright,” Andy said while giving me a hug. “Let’s go home.” In seconds we were back in our living room. “What do you want to start with?”

  “I want to try controlling other elements. We could light the fireplace to start.”

  I laughed when Andy gathered everything he needed to start the fire by hand. He put a few logs in place and I couldn’t control my laughter.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “Let’s try starting the fire a different way.” I already had a fireball in my hand.

  “Oh.” A flash of understanding reached Andy’s face. “Go right ahead.” He stepped to the side, allowing me to throw the ball of fire into the fireplace. He poured some gasoline on the fire in order to make it bigger. “What are you going to try next?”

  I concentrated on the flames as a small portion jumped into my hand. It kept its flame shape as I started to make it bigger, completely swallowing my hand. I tried to think of what I wanted to do next with the flames, but I didn’t want to do any damage to the house so I threw the flame back into the fireplace.

  “What else can I do?”

  Andy was in awe of what I did with the flames. “Anything you want. You should probably get more practice with controlling living things.” I could tell he struggled with the concept as much as I did. It wasn’t right, but we both knew it was the skill Lucifer wanted from me most. “You can practice on me if you want, but you can’t make me do anything embarrassing.”

  I laughed. “Aw, but that’s supposed to be the fun of it.”

  “You should take the deal Aims, it’s the best you’re going to get.”

  “Oh alright, nothing embarrassing.” I tried to think of what I could make Andy do that wouldn’t hurt or embarrass him. So I made him go in the kitchen and bring me a bottle of water.

  “What just happened?” Andy asked. He looked dazed, like he had no idea what was going on. I didn’t know that was going to happen.

  “I just made you bring me a bottle of water. What happened to you?” I was worried. I didn’t want anything bad to happen to him and if it happened to Andy, it was definitely going to happen to anyone else I tried to control. I couldn’t live with the guilt.

  “The last thing I remember was that you were saying you wouldn’t make me do anything embarrassing and the next thing I know, everything went dark. I don’t remember getting you the water bottle. I came to feeling dizzy and confused.” He walked over to the couch and lied down. I gave him the water bottle he brought for me.

  I wondered if I could heal him, but I wasn’t sure how to do it. Knowing Andy, he would tell me to do it the same way I did everything else. I did exactly what I knew he would tell me to do, I relaxed and focused on making Andy feel better. I put energy in my hands and placed them on him as I allowed the energy from my hands to flow into his body. It wasn’t long before he sat up and said, “I feel so much better. Did you do that?”

  “Yeah, I felt bad for making you feel that way so I figured it couldn’t hurt to try healing you.”

  “I can’t believe you can do that.”

  I shrugged. “It really was more of a shot in the dark than anything.”

  “Well thank you sweetheart,” Andy said, giving me a kiss. “I just never thought it was possible for anyone to have healing abilities. No one else has them.”

  “I didn’t know that, maybe it’s just another one of my special abilities.” I looked up and thought I saw a figure run across the doorway in the kitchen.

  Andy noticed me staring into the kitchen. “What is it?”

  I got up and slowly walked towards the kitchen. “I don’t know…I thought I saw something in there.”

  Andy rushed in front of me to check what I might have seen. I was right behind him, grabbing his arm as we went into the kitchen. “I don’t see anything. Do you?”

  “No…not anymore.” I was perplexed. “Maybe my eyes were playing tricks on me.”

  “I don’t think so. You’ve never seen something that wasn’t there. I don’t think it would start now.”

  “Then what could it have been? It’s not here now.” I had a feeling about what was coming next and I didn’t like it.

  “I don’t know, but I think we have to leave again.” Andy was really anxious. He confirmed my fear. I was pretty sure Evan and Lucifer were getting closer and I couldn’t let that happen, but at the same time, part of me wanted to confront whatever it was.

  “Do you think there’s any way I can make whatever I saw come back?” I was curious and wanted to send a message to Evan and the devil.

  “Not without knowing what it is. Why would you want it to come back?”

  “I don’t want to run if we don’t have to. What if what I saw was just a ghost?” I could tell Andy wasn’t convinced. He gave me a look and I caved. “Alright, I was hoping to send a message to Evan and get this war over with already.”

  “War is not something you can just get over with Aimee!” he shouted. “This is serious stuff. It’s the world at steak and we can’t just take it lightly because you want it to be over.”

  “What’s being done right now to stop him? That’s right! Nothing! So why not speed it up a little bit?”

  “Because we don’t know what we’re getting into. We know they have other creatures on their side but we don’t know which ones or how many so there’s no way for us to know how to fight.”

  “Okay, you’re right,” I sighed. “So how do we find out what we’re dealing with?”

  “If you’re absolutely serious about this…” Andy was hesitant. “We can go on a reconnaissance mission.”

  Chapter 12

  Andy and I were hiking through the forest in Colorado. We came to the clearing where Andy and Brian took me to do my first bit of training. We heard rumors that Evan was lurking around this spot after he discovered I trained there. I was hoping to run into someone, whether it was Evan or one of his followers, any information about what he was up to was good enough for me. I knew Andy hoped nothing would come of the trip because it meant danger for us, but we both knew what we were getting ourselves into.

  “Michael said Evan was using this as his training ground a few days ago, so he should be coming back sometime soon,” I said. Andy shot me a look of dread. “I know you’re not a fan of this plan, but what other choice do we have?”

  “You could try not putting yourself in danger!” he shouted.

  “I’ll be fine Andy! I can protect myself and I have you here to back me up.” I became tense as I heard twigs snap in the distance followed by voices.

  “Let’s get up in the trees so they don’t see us,” Andy whispered. “We’ll only communicate telepathically from now on.”

  I nodded and jumped up to grab a branch and climbed further up the tree. Andy climbed up a tree on the opposite end of the clearing. It wasn’t long before Evan entered the clearing with a group of people following
closely behind him. He stopped in the center and the others formed a circle around him. The group seemed eager to learn whatever Evan had planned.

  “Alright vamps,” he started, “today I’m going to teach you how to track down a particular star child.”

  “He has to be talking about me.” I sent the thought to Andy’s mind. “How do we fight off vampires?”

  “Cutting off their heads is always the best bet.”

  “Good thing we brought weapons with us.” I was scared of what might happen. I’d never seen a vampire before or even known about their existence for that matter. I knew I was going to have to fight them soon enough, possibly within minutes.

  “I’m going to give you a piece of her clothes so you can get her scent. I also have something of her husband’s so you can get his scent too, they’re always together.” Evan took one of my shirts out of his backpack and handed it to the vampire in front of him. They each got a good whiff and passed it on to the next vampire in the circle. “That’s the girl’s shirt and the one I’ll be passing around now is her husband’s.”

  I knew we were in trouble. It wasn’t going to take long for them to discover we were close. There was no doubt in my mind there was going to be a fight soon. Andy had the same thought because he telepathically said, “take the machete out of your bag and prepare yourself.”

  “Alright.” I was so nervous about my first real fight that I didn’t realize I was holding my breath. I let go of the breath I held in, took the machete out of my bag and gripped it tight, ready for whatever would come my way.

  “Do you smell that?” one of the vampires asked.

  “Yeah, I smell it too,” another responded.

  “Crap,” I whispered. I had no idea vampires had great hearing because the second I said it, they all looked in my direction. I froze where I was and tried to be as quiet as possible.

  “Aimee, get out of that tree!” Andy was panicked. “Hurry, before they get to you.”

  I jumped out of the tree I was in and into the next one. “I’m pretty sure they heard that. We’re going to have to fight soon Andy.”

  It wasn’t long before Andy jumped out of his tree and cut off the head of the vampire closest to him. Following his lead, I jumped down and did the same. Two down, ten to go. I saw Evan rush out of the clearing as the rest of the vampires got ready to fight. I hoped he didn’t plan on coming back with more vampires or other creatures. Andy charged towards the group in front of him and cut off two more heads. Eight.

  A group ran towards me and I searched for a place where I could get the advantage against them. I saw a branch I thought would be the perfect spot but as I was about to jump to it, one of the vampires grabbed my leg causing me to fall hard to the ground. I kicked her and sprang up only to realize I was surrounded. They were about to close in on me when I flew up to the branch I spotted before. I put my machete in front of me, ready to cut off the head of the next vampire to get close enough. Three vampires were in front of me and I waved my machete back and forward, cutting off the head of each of them. Five more left.

  A vampire snuck up from behind and grabbed my neck. I grabbed its arm, trying to break free. I elbowed it in the ribs hoping to distract the vampire enough for me to get away. “Stop resisting,” said the vampire. “We have orders to bring you in unharmed. Your husband on the other hand…”

  “Don’t you dare hurt him!” I demanded. It dawned on me that I could control the vampire to get free and kill it so I tried to relax and focused on the vampire’s energy. It didn’t take long to get him to release me. I got ready to slash its head off as I let go of my control on the creature. While still in his daze, I waved my machete and slashed his head right off. Four to go.

  I leaped from the tree back to the ground where I stood moments before and saw Andy had taken out the remaining vampires. Relieved that the battle was over, I threw my machete to the ground and walked over to where Andy stood over the vampires he killed. He dropped his machete and put an arm around my waist. We stood there for a moment catching our breath.

  “At least we don’t have to worry about them tracking you down anymore.”

  “Yeah, but don’t you think Evan is going to try recruiting more vampires to track us down? He has our stuff to give them our scents and I don’t think he’s ever going to come back here again,” I pointed out.

  “That’s a possibility, but we’ll deal with it when we get there.” He was just as worried as I was. We both knew it was only the beginning and things were going to get worse. The battles were going to get harder to win and we were going to need more people fighting on our side. A smile reached Andy’s face. “You did good out there. Just like old times.”

  “Well that’s a good thing.” It was good to know my fighting skills were back to normal. I was going to need every skill at its best if I was going to do well at fighting in this war. I wondered what our next step was going to be. “Where do you think Evan went?”

  “He might have run off to tell Lucifer what happened.”

  “I was afraid of that.” I took a deep breath and walked over to my machete. I wiped the blood off, put it in my backpack and headed back over to Andy. We started on our journey home. Both of us knew we had to see Michael to discuss what we were going to do next. It all seemed so unreal; I slaughtered a bunch of vampires with little trouble. No one did that…ever. I was still expecting to wake up at any minute, or to be thrown into a mental hospital. I was going crazy and someone was bound to notice eventually.

  It wasn’t long before I found myself back in the Department of Critical Issues sitting at the same table as before next to Andy and across from Michael. We told Michael everything that happened in Colorado. He didn’t seem surprised by any of it, but we could tell he was worried by the direction we were heading in.

  “We know Evan has enlisted vampires to try to track you down and we know why, but we need to find out if he has any other creatures on his side,” Michael said.

  “How will we do that?” Andy asked.

  “We will have to figure out a way to get closer to him. Spy on him, anything we can do to find out what they are up to,” Michael answered.

  “I have an idea,” I started, “but I don’t think you’re going to like it.”

  “If it helps us find out what they’re planning next, I am open to the idea,” Michael said.

  Andy looked a bit apprehensive as if he read my mind. I ignored his expression and asked, “What if I get close to Evan and try to find out what he’s got planned?”

  “No! It’s too dangerous,” Andy protested.

  “He’s right Aimee. Evan could try to erase your memory again and this time he could be successful in replacing them with ones that meant you would be fighting on his side,” Michael pointed out.

  “I don’t think Evan would risk me not being able to use my abilities and having to teach me how to use them all over again. Now that he knows we’re onto him, he knows it’s just a matter of time before we come stop him and I think he would like to be ready for it. He would want me to be ready for anything.” I hoped they would eventually see it my way. It was the best chance we had to get new information.

  “We can’t take that chance. We need you and we can’t risk losing you just because you have a hunch about what Evan might or might not do.” My suggestion made Michael nervous, understandably so. It even made me nervous, but it was a risk I was willing to take.

  I became irritated. “What other options do we have? I haven’t heard any other ideas.”

  “Aimee, you’re too valuable to us and what you’re suggesting is too dangerous. Please, let’s just come up with something else,” Andy pleaded.

  “Alright,” I sighed. I knew I wasn’t going to win the argument.

  “We can try luring him out,” Andy suggested. “We’ll stay in a certain place for an extended amount of time and once Evan tracks us down, we’ll covertly follow him and see what he’s up to.”

  “That’s a better plan, but we’ll
need more people to make it work,” Michael said. I shouldn’t have been surprised he liked Andy’s idea better. “Find a group of at least four to help you two with this. I want regular updates before we determine how to proceed.”

  “Okay,” Andy and I said together. We walked out of critical issues and set out to find at least four people to help us with our new mission.

  “I don’t really remember anyone besides Brian and Jen, so you’re going to have to pick everyone else.”

  “I figured that would be the case.” Andy laughed. “Let’s go home. We’ll talk to Brian and Jen about this and then figure out who else we can get to help.”

  “Sounds like a plan.”

  As soon as we got back from our meeting with Michael, we called Brian and Jen. We told them what was going on and arranged a meeting. By the next day, we were all back in my old apartment in Chicago, where everything started for me. We caught up on what was going on in our lives before we went on to the real reason we were crammed in my small apartment.

  “Aimee and I figured if we stayed here for a while, Evan will eventually catch on and come to check everything out. Once we confirm he’s spying on us, we’re going to have a few groups follow him to find out what he’s planning to do next.” I had never seen Andy so serious, but I knew there was no fun to be had while we were dealing with these things.

  “Where are the other groups?” Jen asked as she looked around.

  “We’re trying to decide who else to include, so if you have any ideas, be sure to tell us,” I answered. I wasn’t sure I had ever been more serious in my life. “What about that man who kidnapped me when all of this started? He could be good for this mission right?”

  “Frank? He might be willing to help us out, but we still need at least one more person,” Andy said.

  “Who else?” I asked.

  “We could ask Liz if she wants to help, we used to go on missions all the time. That reminds me, Andy, you’re supposed to teach me how to give people memories,” Jen replied.

  “Right, I forgot,” Andy said. I knew what was coming next, so I made myself comfortable on the couch. “What you want to do is put your hand on her head and think about the memories you want her to have and picture them being placed into her mind.”