“To what?”
“This...” Kaliel took a strange wooden figure from a shelf and threw it at Ali. It seemed like an unsuccessful attempt to carve a doll in wood, except that instead of legs it had a needle the size of a pen. “This is a Crane Vase and it’s useful to capture demons. If you manage to get close enough to one of them or, more likely in your case, one of them gets too close to you, you should bury it. That and the right words will cause the demon to be captured inside... as a kind of genius lamp. Then you break the tip and then the demon can’t go out again”.
“That easy?” Ali looked again at the object in her hand; it was ridiculous. She was sure she could do more than that. “Just stab him with this...”
“Believe me: it's not easy. The demons can be very fast, so much that your eyes could not follow them”.
“Well...” Ali raised an eyebrow and challenged him: “And what are those right words?”
Kaliel took a breath but stopped before speaking and came over to Ali as if someone was listening to them. She came closer, thinking it was something secret. Then he looked her straight in the eyes demanding all her attention and his lips parted in a small still silent grimace.
“Well!?” Ali said impatiently.
Kaliel seemed to regret again but this time his expression was more theatrical and Ali noticed that he was doing it to annoy her.
“Better first practice your aim” he said. “I'm a little afraid of what you can do...”
Again that malevolent smile appeared on Kaliel's face to turn into a broad and true smile as the irritation grew visibly on Ali. At that moment, Kaliel didn’t seem so heartless. He looked like any boy. His eyes narrowed to small wrinkles at the edges and Ali thought that gave him a very sweet face. She had completely forgotten her anger but she couldn’t allow him to notice it.
“I'll practice with you then!” She snapped, feigning irritation and lifting the device like a dagger.
She didn’t plan on actually hurting him, however, by the time her hand struck, Kaliel was gone. Then a laugh erupted behind her and made her turn around.
“You see it? You are very slow!” He laughed.
Ali didn’t answer. She was so surprised: it was the first time she saw Kaliel laughing like that. And she didn’t want to be the one to stop him. She wondered how long he would take without laughing. Always cold and scathing, Kaliel seemed to be suffering forever but now, the unhappiness that shadowed his face had disappeared.
“Come on, try to hunt me! I promise to give you an advantage...”
Ali tried it several times. She didn’t even touch him. Kaliel was so self-confident he didn’t try to get Ali to practice with a less pointy instrument. Evidently he wasn’t afraid that she would hurt herself. He was skillful enough to ensure the safety of both. However, he didn’t have enough skill to prevent Ali from falling on a long table crammed with valuable objects.
Both were petrified to feel the metallic roar crashing into the ground.
“Damn it!” Kaliel exclaimed as he hurried to collect the objects. “The Mirror of Morpheus!”
Ali ran to him gripped by guilt.
“It was important?” She asked almost without voice to see its cracked surface.
“Everything here is important...” Kaliel murmured.
“I´m so sorry! I'm a stupid!”
“No, it's my fault...” he said dejected. “I got carried away. I should have been more careful...”
Perfect. All the previous developments had gone to waste in less than a second. Kaliel was again the self-absorbed, dark and tortured boy of always.
“Well, but lamenting we´re not gonna solve anything”, Ali tried to put a brake on discouragement. “There must be a solution! There is, right?”
“Actually, yes” he answered. “But nobody has to see us leave... We'll wait until midnight”.
14
Prisoners of night
“Where are we heading exactly?” Ali asked once they were so far away from the cathedral that even the extraordinary hearing of the vampires couldn’t hear them.
“You'll see” Kaliel replied.
No matter how much Ali tried, she couldn’t prolong his smiles or his good humor. Now it seemed as if everything had been a hallucination. Kaliel walked several steps ahead of her in a hasty and annoyed way as if she was holding him back.
It was amazing how he could take such a sinuous path and keep sliding with the elegance of a cat while she staggered all the time and struggled to see the road in the darkness of the night. Moreover, he carried the broken mirror wrapped in a scarf tied to his back while she only wore that stupid wooden charm that almost dropped twice. There was no doubt that she was a mission: what use could Kaliel be of such a clumsy henchman? She was a complete hindrance.
“I'd charge you up there if we could get there faster, but I really can’t...” Kaliel said ironically pointing to the mirror on his back.
Then Ali realized that she had been dragging her feet until she was stopped. Suddenly she felt too sorry to continue.
“Maybe I should go back” muttered Ali. Her eyes were burning and tears were gathering from some hidden and miserable place in her soul.
“What!?” Kaliel turned to her impatiently.
“Yes, I think I've already caused you too many problems...”
“Don’t start with that nonsense and walk!” He answered. Then he grabbed her by the arm to move her forward. - It's too late to go back and take you back would only delay me even more.
“I can go back alone!” Ali exclaimed. She went from melancholy to fury and she pulled his arm away roughly. “Who the hell has designated you as my bodyguard? I relieve you! Are you happy?”
“That's not your decision to make” Kaliel separated each word in a meaningful way.
“Neither yours as far as I can see!”
After a silence, Kaliel simply responded:
“Walk, okay?”
But Ali wasn’t willing to give up. She hurried to him only to force Kaliel to turn so she could face him.
“Tell me once what you want!”
“I want to take to repair this mirror, leave it in place again without anyone noticing and forget what happened” he said coldly.
“I'm talking about me!”
“I know! You are always talking about you!” Now she had ruined it. Kaliel looked really angry.
“Maybe it's because you refuse to talk about yourself! And you know what? I don’t care what kind of dirty secrets you hide or what kind of thing you are but if you're not going to help me find my father tell me what the hell I can help you to let me follow my path in peace...” Ali said more harshly than she wanted.
Kaliel's expression was as if he had been about to say something horrible. Then he regained his malevolent smile and answered with arrogance:
“It's you who needs me and not the other way around. You should be more grateful: you've been left alone and Mikah wants to have you locked up until he finds out what kind of thing you are” he remarked. “And as for me: I'm a demon hunter! Do you think it's funny for me to walk around babysitting your whims?”
“And then why do you do it?” Ali snapped.
Kaliel held back for a moment while he pressed his lips but finally said:
“There is a demon that I wish to destroy more than any other” the words of Kaliel sounded impregnated with hatred. “Years ago I lost the trail but now it reappeared ... It's hunting you”.
For a moment, Ali froze. A chill ran down her back and she couldn’t help but remember her father; he knew it, he always told her and she refused to listen. Maybe all his pathetic precautions did work, only now they were gone, just like him.
“That's what it was all about?” Ali said scornfully. “You only use me as bait? Well, I hope you're ready to face him... Tell me his name; I will call him!”
“Are you insane? Come on, keep walking” Kaliel started to walk holding her by the arm again but she pulled away more violently this time and she didn’
t stop screaming.
“Come on, demon! I'm here! I'm Alanis Elliot! Come and face me!”
“Shut up! Stop doing stupid things!” Kaliel turned to her furious and tried to cover her mouth. Both struggled: he tried to calm her down and silence her and she moved from one place to the other, getting rid of his hands.
“I'll go with you if you take me with my father! Take off! Leave me alone!” She shouted then at Kaliel. “I'll give you what you want if you help me find him!” She shouted again addressing that imaginary demon and broke into sobs. “Don’t you want my soul? Well, come for it!”
“Enough! You are a stupid girl!” Kaliel imprisoned her in his arms tightly and managed to cover her mouth while she writhed to free herself.
Not even Ali knew why she was doing all this. Maybe it was the outbreak of something that had been contained a lot of time. She could only feel confusion and melancholy. Her father had disappeared and everything indicated that a sect of sadistic murderers had taken him away. Her friends believed that she was dead. Chase was really dead. Now, she was a prisoner of a group of mad people who were hiding in a cathedral while out there the vampires and the demons waited for her to come out to chase her. And as if that were not enough, her days were at the mercy of the will of a bipolar and rude boy who didn’t stop making her feel humiliated.
Suddenly, the arms around her loosened and he released her believing her to be calmer. But she wasn’t. Ali turned impulsively and slapped him hard on the cheek. Although she couldn’t move a single hair from its place, Kaliel's eyes flashed with anger for a brief moment. Then he just seemed confused.
“Don’t you ever call me stupid again! Stop treating me like that! I'm not a little girl!”
A terrible sense of shame invaded her and Ali ran away. However, she couldn’t get very far. Rapid shadows like thunder broke through her path. By the time she could shout her feet were no longer touching the ground. Something had taken her by the waist and was taking her jumping, first through the trees and then over the roofs of homes and stores. It wasn’t like when they had rescued her from the vampires' lair. She didn’t have that feeling of floating. It was more like if something were sucking her with incredible strength from the other side of town. She could hardly breathe and the feeling of vertigo made her dizzy. The world slid around her in scandalously fast sequences, so much so that she could only see color streaks and hair that swirled over her face.
After several endless seconds of flight, their captors stopped over the roof of a building and entered through a broken skylight. Ali dropped down pretending to be faint. Inside, it was completely dark and smelled of stale dampness. When her eyes adjusted to the faint reflection of the moon that seeped through the ruined windows, she could see better that filthy place. No doubt it was an old and uninhabited house, one of those that appear in horror movies. Most of the doors were half-hanging and exiting their hinges. Mold spread here and there over the roof and walls. Ali fumbled in all directions looking for a way to escape as soon as her captor let go. Then she noticed him. It was a pale, shaved boy with a head full of tattoos. She had seen him before: he was no demon; he was one of the vampires that escorted Annabeth. Of course! That damned was one of those who had taken Chase.
She couldn’t run away just like that. Now she wanted revenge. How do you kill a vampire? Maybe, if she concentrated enough, she could finish him off just as she had done with Mireya and Heather, if that was how Mikah had called her.
“You will take care of her and I will inform Mr. Darry” said her captor as he threw her into the other vampire's arms as if she weighed no more than a feather cushion.
Damn it, don’t go! Ali thought.
“Oh, no!” The other one complained in a childish way. “You know I can’t resist the temptation to drink her blood...”
“Of course you won’t!” roared the vampire of the tattooed head. “Darry asked us to take her alive!”
“Okay, I won’t kill her... It will only be a little...”
“No!” Ali heard how his partner gave him a hard blow on the head that would have been enough to knock out any human. However, he merely uttered a rather capricious moan. - Mr. Darry was clear: he wants her blood and he wants it all for him. We will take her to him safe and sound and then you will go and hunt as many young girls as you want... But this one you will not touch. You understand me?
“Yes...” muttered the other. Ali began to think that it was a child because of the silly, childish tone of his words.
“I haven’t listened!” roared the first.
“Yes, Jay! I get it!”
“That's better ... I'll be back soon”.
With half-closed eyes, Ali saw the vampire with the tattooed head shoot out of a window. It was not what she expected but running away from her new guard seemed easier. Or so she thought. The vampire carried her into a room and dropped her on the cold, damp ground.
“I don’t understand why this insignificant girl is so special...” he huffed. Then he left and left the two leaves of a towering and heavy solid wood door closed.
“Damn it!” Ali hissed when at last she was alone.
There were no windows or doors to escape. It was clear why the vampire had even taken the trouble to tie her up. There was nothing humanly possible to do. That was it! What if she could burn the door with her strange gifts? Ali closed her eyes and thought about the fire. She lifted her palms to the door and tried to revive in her mind everything that had angered her when she had managed to incinerate the vampires. She thought of Chase and his last look of despair as he was being dragged by the vampires. It didn’t work. She tried harder and thought of the night she saw her house on fire. Then, she imagined her father tied up in a putrid cell similar to that, suffering hunger, thirst and cold or even being tortured by the insane Gladius Dei.
At last she lowered her arms and let herself fall on her back. It wouldn’t work. She simply was not in control. Maybe Kaliel was right. She was just a silly girl.
“I could help you...” muttered a velvety voice in the shadows.
“Who are you?” Ali jumped up. The darkness didn’t allow her to see.
At that moment, a small fire arose on the opposite side of the room. Ali saw that it came from a hand.
“I'm Larsen, but you can call me Lars...” the boy brought the flames to show his angled face and feline look.
“Why are you here?” Ali tried to maintain a firm tone of voice so that the boy couldn’t notice how frightened she was.
“Hunting vampires... And you? Are you the entrance or the main course?” The boy joked.
“What do you think?” Ali snapped with contempt.
A few steps snapped and rumbled through the room as the mysterious boy approached without taking his eyes off her. Vampire, she thought. His perfectly beautiful and harmonious face could not belong to another species. He could also be an angel, but his gaze hid a daring and malicious glint. Too disturbing to be an angel.
“Now that I see you better...” he whispered as he ran a lock of hair with his forefinger “... I would say you're the dessert”.
“Larsen...” Ali backed away. Her legs were shaking.
Outside there was a rumble.
“Shhh...” Larsen put a finger on Ali's lips and told her to keep quiet. Then he reduced his own voice to a whisper: “trust me. I'm your best option now...”
Ali nodded shakily. The boy took her hand delicately and dragged her to the other side of the room. In the light of that small fire, she could see the grate of a ventilation system that passed through the roof.
“I'll go in first and I'll help you. Follow me. Go for my voice or touch my leg, okay?”
“Ok…”
She had no choice. The fire disappeared and Larsen entered through the hole.
“Take my hand” he said. Ali obeyed and he pulled on her. “Okay, take it, put the grid again. We will let them solve it for themselves...”
Larsen guided her through the narrow ventilation system for jus
t over ten minutes. The air was beginning to thicken and Ali no longer felt able to continue. If she had had to stay there any longer, she would have suffered a crisis of claustrophobia and started screaming. Fortunately, they didn’t take long to reach more open spaces.
“Come I'll help you down” said Larsen, holding out his arms. He then took her by the waist and placed her gently on the table on which he was standing.
They had gone out to a kind of party hall. That must have been the entrance. Behind them, two light wooden stairs curved toward the same rest. Nearby, an ancient crystal chandelier hung from the ceiling, covered with cobwebs. The house must have belonged to a very rich family in previous centuries.
“We'd better hurry...” Larsen smiled. He didn’t look scared at all.
Larsen just opened the front door and watched.
“The coast is clear...” he murmured. “When I tell you, we run in silence to those trees” he indicated a pair of bushes on the other side of the street. “Ok?”
Ali nodded. They both slipped out of the house and stopped to listen with their backs against the wall.
“Now!” announced the boy but, to her surprise, he took her hand before running. She didn’t want to admit it but she wouldn’t have been able to run so fast if it wasn’t because he dragged her. Maybe he, too, had realized how useless she was.
Larsen released her as soon as they hid behind the trees and dropped to the ground. His chest was shaking but he smiled relieved.
“Get down!” He said and pulled Ali down to sit next to him. “Do you want to be seen? By the way, you haven’t told me your name yet”.
“Alanis, but you can call me Ali” she answered. She began to trust him; the boy didn’t look like a threat. Or maybe…
“What do you do?” He laughed. With a quick movement, Ali had pulled the boy's cheek to see if his lips hid the fangs of a vampire.
“Sorry. I wanted to be sure you were not a vampire...”
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