Marked

by Jasmine Derriman

  Eve barely looked at the state of her favourite place in the council and just walked down the steps and past the table and to the right of it. Rhys and I followed close by her as we were all forced to step over a fallen book shelf, that I was really not sure how it could’ve got into the middle of the room. Eve just kept walking though until we stopped in front of the book shelves on the wall. There were no books on the shelves and as she grabbed onto the side of the shelf and pushed it into the wall, I realised it was not a book she was after.

  The shelf made a clicking noise and it sprang back off the wall. Eve grabbed back onto it and then pulled the shelf open like it was a door. I moved forward to peak over Eve’s shoulder to see what was hidden behind it. It was like a weapons gallery in a way. There were at least three large telums hanging from the wall next to each other, and then four smaller telums next to it. Underneath that,, there were little knives and bottles also attached to the wall.

  “They would’ve raided the weapons room,” Eve muttered and she took a telum off the wall. “But they wouldn’t have known about my little stash I had hidden away. I bet they didn’t count on the geek to be carrying some heat.”

  I smiled a little. She definitely wasn’t stupid.

  As Eve pulled out her holder for the telum and strapped it onto her, I turned around to look back at Rhys. I realised he was just looking around the room, probably admiring the size. We both liked books, but we mainly obsessed over comics together, but I knew even he would love a place like this, under any other circumstances maybe. I realised that the window didn’t shed the same white light that it used to, in fact it was dark outside but it only left a little bit of light into the room.

  “Are you okay?”

  Rhys’ voice made me jump and as I turned my head to face him, I realised I should be the one asking him that. He just saw me fight a demon, and to do that things that weren’t normal, and then produced to kill that demon.

  “I should be the one asking you that,” I whispered stepping towards him. “I mean that thing back there…”

  “Was a demon, right?” Rhys said slowly with a nod. “Eve was telling me that’s why…Insignes exist, right?”

  “Right,” I nodded, “but, just because you know that doesn’t mean you have to be okay with what you just saw.”

  “That’s not the first demon I’ve seen,” Rhys reminded me, “and that’s also not the first demon I’ve seen you kill.”

  I opened my mouth to speak but I found myself just shutting it again. I realised that he was right, and the first demon I ever killed was in his house, moments after I got my fire mark.

  “I always knew there was something…different about you, Lily,” Rhys said with a small smile. “I always knew you were strong and I always knew you were…important. I just never imagined it would be something like this.”

  I actually laughed a little. “I’ve always thought I was…nothing, Rhys.”

  He shook his head at me. “You’ve never just been nothing, Lily, not to me.”

  I smiled at him. My trust and my love for this boy would never change and I knew that. Not even in the face of danger, not even in the face of a demon, did he give up on me. I would always need Rhys, I realised that now.

  “I should get Rhys out of here,” I said, turning back to Eve, “send him back through the portal. Isaac’s car isn’t far from it-.”

  Eve was shaking her head the whole time I spoke. “I heard them say that they locked the portal.”

  “Locked it? But we got in,” I frowned.

  “Anyone with a telum can open the portal from the outside,” Eve told me, “but on the inside it has to be unlocked to go through it. I know you probably didn’t realise that’s how I opened it last time, but that means no one can get out-.”

  “We can only get in, right,” I nodded, looking back at Rhys. “Well, it’s still not safe to keep him here, and it’s definitely not safe to leave him by himself.”

  “Well, it looks like I’m coming with you to kill some demons,” Rhys shrugged.

  “No,” I said looking at him, and then looking at Rhys. “No. You both are already hurt and he’s human, he can’t kill a demon.”

  “That’s not entirely true,” Eve said slowly. “I mean, he could kill a demon.”

  “But he won’t,” I said quickly.

  “Well, like you said, we can’t leave him here, he has to come with us,” Eve muttered, looking down a little.

  I looked back at Rhys who again just shrugged a little.

  “Fine,” I sighed, looking at Eve and then back towards Rhys. “But you stay back. You see a demon you let us deal with it, and you back into a corner, okay?”

  “Okay,” Rhys said holding his hands back a little.

  “Promise?” I said to him.

  “Promise,” he nodded.

  “Well, in the meantime, I think Rhys should hold onto one of these,” Eve said as I turned to see her take one of the smaller telums off the wall and held it out to Rhys.

  “You’re giving him a weapon?” I asked in surprise.

  “Well, I thought it might be a good just in case thing,” Eve said.

  I realised she was probably right and I nodded at her and Rhys took the mini telum out of Eve’s hand. He held it up a bit to look at it. I didn’t doubt that he would like the look of the telum, but that didn’t mean I really wanted him to use it.

  “Where do you think they would be?” I asked as I turned back to Eve.

  “If you’re right about an elder being behind all this, my best guess would be the council chambers,” she answered.

  I nodded in agreement. “And when we get there…they’re going to want this thing.”

  Eve hadn’t seen it until now; I didn’t think she even knew until now that I had it on me. I had the dagger around my waist and in a holder that Felix had found stashed under his bed with the rest of the weapons and everything else he own. I wore a long shirt though to keep it hidden from anyone else, so Eve definitely hadn’t noticed it until now.

  I had pulled it out of the holder and held it out in front of me and Eve immediately stared at it awe. I guessed it never occurred to me that to most of Insignes, the dagger was an artifice of beauty and history to them. I knew that Eve wouldn’t see it as some form of power; she was too smart to see it like that. Eve was fascinated by it. She wanted to understand how it worked, not how to use it.

  “Is that-?” she breathed out.

  I nodded at her.

  “Oh…wow,” she whispered. “Oh…wow, like…oh gosh, why did you bring it here, Lily?”

  “Well, it’s not like I could just leave it alone,” I told her. “I can feel it, like it’s a presence, no matter where I am or it is. Plus, I knew we wouldn’t be getting out if whoever is doing all this doesn’t get this."

  “Yes, okay, but you can’t just give it to them, Lily,” Eve stressed. “They get their hands on this…”

  “They can’t do anything with it without me,” I reminded her. “They’ll kill everyone though, Eve, you know that.”

  “Gosh, Lily,” Eve said suddenly throwing her hands around a little. “Don’t you realise that we would die to protect you? We have to. Whoever the elder is, he’s already powerful, he can work with demons for crying out loud, he gets his hands on you or that dagger and words could not even describe the power he would have. Lily, we don’t just exist to kill demons like most of us seem to think. We exists to keep everyone safe, to keep the world in order, and if that means dying to stop the wrong person from gaining power, it’s a sacrifice any of us will make, a sacrifice Henry already did. You can’t give this up to save everyone; it doesn’t work that, Lily.”

  I was frozen by the time she finally stopped talking. Her words hit me a lot harder than I expected them to, and it was only because I knew she was right. I thought I understood what my responsibility meant, but maybe I was wrong about that too, maybe I had a lot more to figure out than I even realised.

  “Sorry,” Eve said suddenly. �
��You just needed to realise-.”

  “I know,” I cut in quickly and nodded, “and you’re right, but that doesn’t change the facts. They want this dagger, so we have to do something.”

  “I know, and you’re right there,” she told me with a nod as I saw her looking at it again.

  Neither of us spoke as we both started to think. Giving them the dagger definitely wasn’t an option, so we both needed to think of something that didn’t involve that option.

  “You had never seen the dagger until now, right?” I asked Eve. “I mean, you had no idea what it looked like until you saw it.”

  She frowned a little but then she nodded. “I had no idea. No one does to be honest. It’s only really been a legend up until now, it was never drawn or anything, just spoken of.”

  “So…you think that if I showed any old dagger in front of their face they wouldn’t notice the difference?” I asked her slowly.

  “Are…are you suggesting a decoy?” Eve said catching onto my train of thought.

  “Yes, a decoy,” I nodded eagerly. “I mean…you have daggers there, if I held onto one of them and said it was the right dagger, how would they know that’s not true?”

  “Well… I guess they wouldn’t know,” Eve shrugged. “An elder will know that it’s an ordinary fighting dagger.”

  “So… I make up a lie, right?” I said quickly. “Like...the dagger was here along. I mean, what better way to protect it then make it seem like some ordinary dagger that would always stay protected in the council, until…well I figured out it wasn’t.”

  “That….that might work,” Eve said thoughtfully. “Until they ask you to use it.”

  “Well we avoid that part, or try,” I said as I walked past Eve and over to her weapon wall and pulled off the first dagger I saw. “And as for the real one, Rhys is going to protect it.”

  “Me?” Rhys asked surprised as I walked back over to him. “First you want to get rid of me and now you want my help?”

  “Well, if you have to stay, you may as well help,” I told him. “I don’t think they’ll think you’ll have the dagger anyway. Especially since they think you’ve been locked up all this time.”

  I stood in front of Rhys and with the mini telum in one hand he took the dagger in the other. I wanted to keep him out of this and instead right now he was right in the middle of it. I wasn’t even sure what I had to do anymore or what was going to happen right now. Either way there were now people I had to keep safe and dagger I had to protect, because whilst maybe it felt like a burden, it wasn’t. My job was to protect the dagger and keep it from those who didn’t deserve it, and whoever was doing this, definitely didn’t deserve it.

  Chapter Twenty Seven

  We all walked down the hallway, and we all stuck close together. I wanted to stick close to Rhys, always keep an eye on him, and the dagger made that easier. Eve gave him a belt and holder for the real dagger, and like I had, he hide it under his shirt. As long as the dagger stayed in its holder, I would know that was where Rhys was at all times because I could feel where the dagger was. It was the only bit of comfort I got from actually handing the dagger to him, and other than that, I really hoped giving Rhys the dagger wouldn’t get him hurt.

  Eve walked ahead of me and she held her telum in her hand and scouted ahead to make sure there weren’t any demons lurking around. We weren’t running and we weren’t walking that fast either, but it didn’t seem to matter how fast we walked because there didn’t seem to be any demons anywhere. The halls remained dark and eerie, but they also remained completely deserted.

  “This is the hallway we came in,” I said, as I then pointed to the portal, “obviously. Council chambers are directly that way, right?”

  “Yes,” Eve nodded. “You don’t think they are all in there do you?”

  “I really fear that they probably are,” I nodded at her.

  “Let’s go.”

  I followed Eve but still kept Rhys at close quarters. I wasn’t even sure what I should do when we walked in that room, or what was going to be in that room, or why we weren’t being attacked by a number of demons, so they could capture us and drag us into that room themselves, but it all seemed to be part of some plan. Some plan that would probably mess with my head, otherwise I probably would’ve been pulled in there kicking and screaming already.

  Even with the lack of light I saw the giant gold doors that guarded the council chambers. I stopped in front of them and I realised that unlike last time I saw them, I didn’t see marks swirling around in my head at an uncomfortable rate that it made me want to pass out. Now though, I could hear...noises from the other side of the door and I thought about panicking, but somehow I didn’t.

  Eve opened the door immediately, without hesitation actually, she pushed through them and ran in and I rushed in after her. I barely got to blink before I almost got hit by something. My instinct helped me duck in time to avoid what I now realise was a flying chair that ended up smashing as it hits the wall. I turned back to check that Rhys had managed to avoid it too and I was glad to see him standing in awe of what else faced us in this room.

  What was once a nice and tidy council chamber now was a war site. The table was in two, paintings were shredded from the walls and the walls were shredded too, but the state of the room didn’t concern me as much as the demons did.

  I spotted Isaac across the way in the room and he hadn’t even noticed that I had entered the room, not that I expected him too, especially considering he was fighting a demon at that very moment. Most the demons in the room seemed to be of the same type, and what type I didn’t really have time to work it out. I saw it in the corner of my eye. A demon running towards me ready to attack. This demon, like the rest in the room was very skeleton-like figure. The skeleton was grey in most places, which I could almost see through. The rest of it was mainly covered in some sort of darkness, almost like smoke, but thicker.

  I jumped immediately to avoid the demon but I wasn’t not quick enough. I felt its hand grab my arm and I swung around, unable to stop myself due to its strength. When it lets go I immediately fell to the floor and the demon was right in front of me. I realised that I had managed to hold onto my telum the whole time, from the moment I walked in the room, and as the demon lunged at me and I swiped the demon across its legs. With a scream it fell to the floor beside me and I scrambled to my feet quickly. The cuts across the demon’s legs hadn’t done much damage and by at the same time I got to my feet, it was also back up.

  It turned to more primal tactics and it threw a punch, which I blocked immediately. I managed to clasp my hands over the demon’s arm and I pushed it back into its own body. It stumbled back in surprise from my force and I felt a complete surge through me. I punched it, pushing my fist towards its jaw. I connected and its head was forced to turn and I heard it grunt. I didn’t give it a chance to regain itself, as I punched it again, towards the ribs this time, which pushed it back closer to the wall that we were advancing on. I had to turn slightly on the spot to allow myself enough room to allow myself to get a high kick in. A kick that connected again with the demon’s jaw, but as I did this, I completely disconnected the jaw from the skull of the demon. The demon was now up against the wall and I didn’t even take a moment, I immediately plunged the telum into the demon’s heart.

  I didn’t get the chance to see the demon disappear into a haze of light, in fact my whole view changed so dramatically and so quickly, that I wasn’t even sure what had attacked me. I fell to the ground quite quickly and I landed on my stomach, but used my hands to save my head from making contact with the cold hard floor. The force of whatever grabbed me however had made me a little disoriented and before I could even turn myself back around I felt a hand grab around my arm and turned me around so I now lied on my back.

  My eyes reached my attacker’s eyes and I expected to see the dark empty eyes of a demon, but instead I was faced with eyes that were kind of chocolate brown. They were human eyes. It was not a demon that
had attacked me, and for a second I didn’t even believe it. My eyes though quickly helped me believe it. I saw his mark, it was etched into his right forearm, the mark of illusion. I was being attacked by an Insigne.

  The mark of illusion did what it implied. He had the ability to get inside my head and create any illusion known to man. It made it hard for that person, or even demon to establish what was real and what wasn’t, but he wasn’t doing that to me now right, him attacking me wasn’t an illusion, he was just literally attacking me.

  I struggled against his grip, which was killer. I could tell by his muscles that ripped from his shirt that he was strong, and I definitely was not as strong as him, but I continued to struggle anyway. The telum had been knocked out of my hand this time, not that it would be any use to me with him, but it might’ve at least distracted him long enough for me to get out of this grip, because as long as I was stuck I couldn’t fit him, although my legs weren’t pinned down.

  I kicked once, making connection with his own leg. Although it didn’t hurt him, it did the other thing I wanted it to, and it distracted him long enough to look down towards my legs and it allowed me to break my left arm out as he barely had enough time to grip back on it. I punched him immediately, and whilst my left hand wasn’t as great a punch as I would like it to be, but it did the trick.