Marked

by Jasmine Derriman

  “I don’t know about you guys, but I’m hungry,” Isaac stated, glancing in the rear-view mirror. “We have a few hours before we get there so we’ll stop for food.”

  If it was possible, the second half of the trip was somehow dead silent, more than before. I found a way to curl up on the chair and rest my head on the car window for the majority of the car ride. By stopping for food, it meant we went through a drive-thru and order greasy fatty food, and I realised that I wasn’t exactly hungry.

  “Don’t be scared,” Felix said suddenly.

  “I’m not scared,” I said, looking over at him.

  To be honest, I wasn’t sure if I was scared or not. I didn’t know what to expect. They were all so vague on exactly what the council was, or what even happened in this place, it was hard to be scared of the unknown in this case.

  “What…will happen?” I asked Felix.

  He shrugged. “Well, I’ve notified the council that you’re coming…and my guess is they’ll ask you some questions, test your knowledge, and teach you what they can.”

  “I don’t have any knowledge of this stuff,” I said dully.

  “Okay, even I disagree with that,” Hadley said, rolling her head so she was looking at us now. “You see a mark and you just…name it.”

  “I don’t know why I can do that,” I said with a groan.

  “Well, that’s what they’ll find out,” Felix answered.

  “How can they even figure that out?”

  “They know more than we do,” he said simply.

  “Like the prophecy?” I suggested.

  “If there is one,” Felix shrugged. “I’ve never of heard of it, but it doesn’t surprise me. The elders know more than us.”

  “What are elders?” I frowned.

  “The people who make up the chairs of the council,” Felix said slowly. “There’s five of them that make up the elders and contradicting to the name, don’t have to be elder, and they keep us hidden, keep us safe, and make the rules, everything leaders do really. They are royals in a way, it’s a bloodline thing. They get passed on knowledge they we don’t have. They teach us the basics when we’re at the council and they overlook everything, where there is a demon problem and they send us off to deal with it.”

  “And they’ll be able to figure out what’s happening with me then?” I guessed.

  “We hope so,” Isaac muttered, now glancing on slightly on the rear view mirror to look at me.

  I didn’t think I would really ever be able to understand Isaac, how he was. He had different sides and I was seeing them all so quickly, basically in flashes, so much so that I didn’t understand who he was, or how he functioned. It was easier to understand Felix, for many different reasons. Felix was a lot like his mark, a healer. He was caring and understanding and he did what he only felt was right, and anything that would help others. Hadley… I think she liked to be in control, have everything around her make sense rather than be a mess. She was a very closed person, didn’t like to show any of venerable emotions, and she never didn’t, she was strong.

  We were far out of the city by now, almost in the middle of nowhere when Isaac made a turn off. I didn’t see any signs, I had no idea where I was, and the sky was darkening and I realised we had driven for ages. We started to go off road a little and I could barely see out the window anymore, and I had no idea where we were and when the car stopped I almost didn’t want to get out of the car.

  Isaac and Felix where first to pile out of the car and I reluctantly found myself getting out also and following them to the back of the car. Isaac opened the trunk of the car pulling out my bag and handed me mine.

  “We have to walk from here,” he told me, glancing at me as he continued to empty out the car of our stuff.

  “In the dark?” I said uncertainly.

  I saw Isaac smile in the corner of his mouth and he pulled his bag and threw it over his shoulder.

  “I brought torches.”

  Isaac shut the trunk and walked around to the passenger side of the car and I saw Felix standing near the front of the car.He smiled at me slightly as I readjusted my bag over my shoulder.

  “You’ll be fine,” Felix told me.

  “And what makes you think that?” I asked him, twisting the torch Isaac had put in my hand to turn it on.

  “You’re curious,” Felix stated with a smile. “You scared but you’re curious, you want to know how to either control this, or make this go away.”

  “Are you sure you aren’t a mind-reader as well?” I muttered, looking at him.

  “They are good people in there,” Felix promised. “Everything you’ve been asking, they can answer. Lily, you need to do this.”

  “I know,” I said looking at him.

  Felix and Hadley sat in the chair for a little so we could use the headlights from the car as some light, rather than the torches, but it didn’t last long.

  “How long do we have to walk for?” I asked Isaac as I followed him, as the lights from the car started to disappear and I started to rely on my torch.

  “Not long, maybe five minutes,” Isaac said as I saw his torch turn on. “It’s probably too late to talk to anyone exactly. You can meet the council in the morning…or some of it.”

  “Some of it?” I asked him.

  “They don’t all have residence there,” Isaac explained. “They only meet up if there’s something huge going on.”

  “I thought this was close to qualifying at least,” I muttered, dragging my feet a little.

  I heard Isaac laugh a little. “Not quite.”

  “So what are these guys going to do me? Poke me and prod me and dissect me?” I joked slightly.

  “You’re not an alien,” Isaac said dimly.

  “I’m aware, I just have thing for sci-fi movies,” I told him.

  “I learn more and more about you every day,” he noted, “not that I ask-.”

  Isaac stopped mid-sentence and twisted on the spot, pointing his flash light into the dark and moving on of his hands to his sword on the holder on his back. I was surprised by his reflexes as it all happened in a matter of seconds.

  “What? What? What is it?” I asked him, stepping closer.

  “I heard something,” Isaac said slowly, looking at me. “You didn’t?”

  “You were talking,” I said cautiously. “That’s all I could hear. Do you think…?”

  “I think they would do anything to stop you from getting from the one the place that can help you,” Isaac stated. “Stay right near me, don’t talk and walk slowly, okay?”

  I only nodded at Isaac now as I felt his urgency to the matter. He never removed his hand from the handle of his sword and with every step I felt myself tense up. Isaac walked so cautiously, trying not to make a sound as our feet crunched the dead leaves on the earth. I hadn’t heard anything, but the way Isaac walked and the way he kept checking behind us, there was some there, I had no doubt about that, because I trusted Isaac.

  This time though, I heard it, and when I heard it, my body stopped along with Isaac’s. He had now drawn his blade, and he had pulled it out from the holder so fast that barely saw him do so. It was merely a crack of branch that we heard, but we knew we should be alone, and right now, and we weren’t.

  “I could go back to the car, get Felix and Hadley,” I whispered.

  Isaac shook his head. “They’ll be gone. There shouldn’t have been any problems here.”

  “Why?” I frowned.

  “Because demons don’t know where the entrance to the council is.”

  “Maybe they still don’t know…and we were followed?”

  Isaac just nodded now as he shone his torch into the trees, trying to find something other than more darkness. I jumped when I heard the noise of a branch breaking again and I jumped backwards into Isaac. He was still standing strong holding his position, but I felt his hand creep around and grip my wrist.

  We were walking again, slower than before. Isaac still gripped to my wrist, and with
his blade held to his leg, I felt safe, even though there was definitely something hiding in the tree that could possibly try kill us at many moment, but I had Isaac with me. I felt Isaac’s fingers curl a little and loosen on my wrist, but he never let go, and I think that no matter what was here right now, Isaac could take it on, and I believed that.

  I heard something again, something behind us, and Isaac started to walk faster. He was glancing behind us, constantly, he was waiting for an attack, and he was preparing for it too. He had handed me his bag in silence, and I knew why, so I put it over my shoulder without question. Isaac’s grip changed on his blade and I knew he was ready for and attack, and almost on queue it happened. Isaac saw it before me, and it was easy for him to push me around behind, and it was only now that Isaac let go of my wrist.

  I didn’t see the demon until I saw Isaac take his first swipe with his blade and he had dropped his torch, lighting up the ground in front of us. From what I could tell it was wolf, but not exactly an average wolf. It was like the panther creature in Rhys’ house, it was too big to be a real wolf, and the light from the torch shown exposing the wolf’s piercing black eyes. It didn’t exactly have fur like a wolf either, it wasn’t thick and its teeth were much larger than any normal wolf.

  Isaac had managed to cut it on his first try and it wasn’t exactly oozing blood as it whined, bit it was bleeding a little and it managed to recover and turn back to Isaac quite quickly.

  “Lily, run and follow the path. You’ll find a gateway and you’ll know what to do when you’re there,” Isaac told me, not even looking at me.

  “What about you?” I whispered.

  “I’ll be there,” he promised. “I can take this.”

  “But-.”

  “Lily, go, right now!”

  My legs started to work before I realised what I was doing. My whole body turned and I was running before I could stop myself. Why was I running though? Did I really think Isaac could handle it? I didn’t feel scared right now. In fact, I didn’t know what I was feeling right now. I had stopped running, stopping moving in fact. I was just standing there now. I turned myself back where I had run from and just stood there.

  I could help him. I mean, I knew that I didn’t exactly understand my abilities right now, but I had them to kill demons, and that’s exactly what I should do. I dropped both the bags I had been carrying and I started to run again, this time on my own accord right back to where I had ran from in the first place. I would hear Isaac again as I could closer. I heard a grunting and I heard a wincing and my legs carried me even faster than before.

  I don’t know what came over me, but the moment I laid my eyes on the demon, I did the only thing that I knew would hurt the beast. I had dropped the torch I had been carrying now to hold up both my hands. I still had no clue how I did it, but like before, all I did was hold my hand and there it was… fire.

  Isaac was pressed up against a tree, and he shielded himself from the flames as it hit the demon. It was a bit of a chain reaction after that. The wolf was pretty much dead, but not quite, but the fire hadn’t just reached the demon, but I had managed to hit some grass, and a tree.

  It turned into a line of fire and I didn’t know how to react. Isaac however jumped into action and he first grabbed my torch back off the ground and then ran towards me and he grabbed my arm, forcing me to start running. We were just running now and I thought maybe the fire would go out, but as I turned around I could see the glow of the fire, but that wasn’t all I saw. My blast of fire had been strong, but as it turned out, it wasn’t strong enough to kill the wolf demon.

  The demon possibly looked more frightening than before. I had really hit it hard, but it didn’t exactly do much to it, expect burn half of its skin off. It’s fur and skin was pretty much gone, and I could see what was possibly its rib cage. I think the thing that freaked me out the most was the fact that there wasn’t anything inside. No guts, blood, only a heart, a motionless heart that was pushed near the front of its chest, and was largely exposed.

  Isaac slowed down and like before pushed me aside, as the wolf now pounced upon us. Isaac had been too busy pushing me away and by the time he managed to get his blade in a defensive position, it wasn’t the right one and I saw the wolf’s claw sink into Isaac’s arm, forcing Isaac and his blade and torch to the ground.

  “NO!”

  Something inside me kicked into action and I just jumped forward. I put both my hands directly onto the side of the demon as I managed to push the demon off Isaac, but as I pushed, I started to do something I didn’t expect. I didn’t exactly feel it, I saw more than I could feel it. My hands started to glow. It was a violent red colour that outlined my hands and stretched between my fingers. The wolf immediately let out a whine…a whine of pain as I realised what it was. My hands were burning, but I was shooting fire, I was spreading heat through my hands, blazing heat that was boiling the inside of the demon.

  I pushed the demon away from me, and Isaac tried to scramble away also. I was just looking at my hands, surprised at what I had done. My hands still had this faint glow about them, but it was fading. I couldn’t feel it though, it didn’t even slightly burn me, and I didn’t even feel warm.

  “Lily!”

  The demon was surprisingly resilient and although my new little trick had definitely significantly weaken the beast, its mission was still to stop us getting the council and it didn’t seem like it was about to give up. As it tried to get back to its feet I reached for Isaac’s blade, which sat closely beside Isaac. I stood up immediately and the wolf managed to follow suit, but as it lunged itself at me, it was far too weak to even throw half its weight toward me. I merely had to move myself out of the way and I was behind the beast. I was quick to throw my own body weight into my arms and push the blade straight into the demon’s heart as I had done once before.

  The yellow light that I had seen pour out from the last demon at death, shone again in this demon, but not nearly as bright as the other demons I had seen die before. The light was weak and although it didn’t completely cover the wolf, before I knew it, the beast had disappeared before my eyes.

  I let the blade drop out of my hand as it became apparent that my breathing was not exactly stable. I was gathering myself best I could before I realised that Isaac was pulling himself up right.

  “Oh, god, your arm,” I said quickly, crouching back down to him.

  I put my hands on his shoulder and held my other close to his claw mark wound that was bleeding at an alarming rate.

  “I’ve had worse,” Isaac shook his head. “I told you to run.”

  “I know,” I said softly. “I decided to help instead.”

  Isaac nodded looking into my eyes. “Well, thank you…even if it was reckless…and I could’ve handled it.”

  “Probably,” I agreed, “but maybe I can too.”

  “Maybe not so much yet,” Isaac shook his head.

  “What do you mean?”

  “You’ve gone very pale.”

  I wanted to shake my head but the moment I moved I felt a little dizzy. No, actually I started to feel really dizzy.

  “Whoa.” Isaac jumped to grab hold of me before I could fall to the ground.

  “What’s happening?” I said my words a little sloppy.

  “Nothing bad,” Isaac promised. “You just overused your mark a little too much for someone who’s only had it for two days. You’re just a little worn out. We’ll get you to the council and you’ll be fine.”

  If Isaac was more injured than me, he didn’t show it. He managed to get both of us off the ground and pull my arm around him, so my body weight was on him, as well as hold a torch and carry both our bags, which we somehow managed to find in the dark again. It wasn’t a long walk at least before I finally saw something that wasn’t a tree, even though it was covered in vegetation.

  It was circular, like a dome in a way, and it had a kind of border around the emptiness of the flat blank surface inside it.

  “What
is this?” I whispered, looking at Isaac.

  He just smiled at me as he held up his blade that he had carried the whole time. He placed the blade slowly onto the border of the gateway and slowly he moved the blade over the border.

  My eyes widened in surprise as both the blade and the border started to glow. Isaac took the blade back from the gateway and placed his blade back into the holder. The border of the gateway glowed more intensely as the whole thing lit up. It was with a quick flash of light that made me jump and blink, and when I was able to focus I realised that dark surface existed no more.

  It was a swirl of blues and light, and it just kept blinking in surprised.

  “The portal to the council,” Isaac said, extending his arm towards it.

  “It’s like a magic,” I admitted.

  “Yeah, it kind of is,” he agreed. “Come on.”

  I gave him a little look and again he found the strength to smile. “It wouldn’t hurt, promise.”

  I nodded at Isaac as together we stepped into the portal. My eyes were consumed by light and for a moment I couldn’t see anything, and when I could again, I wasn’t in the forest anymore. I had to blink a few times before I was fully aware of where I was standing.

  The room itself was quite well lit, but only lit by a few candles. The candle light reflected off the shiny hard wood surface that ran down the hallway, and I realised the walls were made of stone. Isaac and I also stood on an old style rug. The room had this kind of ancient feel to it to be honest. It was kind of hard to notice everything in the room, considering each second I felt dizzier and weaker.

  “Oh, god.”