The Girl in the Garden

Chapter 21

There was a ringing in Ben's ears as he stared at Wish's limp body, impaled through the stomach on the wall. Through the ringing, he heard Rani screaming. It sounded like she was somewhere distant, but Ben knew she was just a few meters away. She had been locked in battle with some of the blood spawn, but when Ben looked back at her, she exploded with energy that sent the demons, and Ben, soaring off their feet.

Rani leaped into the air, her skirt was alive with green light, and it erupted all over her skin. She was consumed with magic, and it propelled her up into the air. She soared down towards the monsters she'd been fighting, blasts of green shooting from her fists and ripping through the creatures.

In the light created by Rani's explosion of magic, Ben looked into the grass beside him and noticed the dagger. Gathering his courage, he reached for it and realized it wasn't quite the weapon he was looking for. It was the first blade, still sticky with Sparrow's blood.

Ben held the dagger in both hands and looked down at it, then back at Wish hanging on the wall, then he finally laid his eyes on the demon who had caused all this chaos. He began to feel heat brewing inside him, a feeling he easily recognized now. He even had a level of control over it now.

The bloodmother was nearly loose from her portal. She had ten giant leech legs free, and there were still many more still squeezing through the small portal. She was intent on Rani, who was still blasting at the spawn and fighting off those toothy tentacles.

Ben let the heat inside him expand. He gripped the dagger tight in his right hand and ran at the bloodmother, leaving fiery footsteps in his wake. She turned to see him running, and one of her disgusting tentacles slammed into his gut. He fell to the ground and glanced down at his body, there were more tiny blood spawn clinging to him, and even as he pulled them off, they were bubbling and transforming.

At first, his instinct was to kill them before they got bigger, but he knew they were just a distraction. If he could banish the bloodmother, her spawn would die too, so Ben turned back to face the demon. She was focused on Rani again, who was completely consumed by her magic as she soared through the air, swatting away the ever-multiplying tentacles with green bolts of energy.

Ben took advantage of the demon's distraction and started running again. He felt the fire in his footsteps explode like rockets as he jumped into the air, dagger gripped tight and poised to strike.

Time seemed to slow down as Ben propelled himself towards the bloodmother. She turned to see him, but she was too late. One of her tentacles swung towards him, but he was moving too quickly. She raised her hands in a final attempt to defend against Ben's attack, but the dagger plunged through them and pierced deep into her chest.

The demon's eyes locked onto Ben's, and everything else stopped. The sounds and lights of battle disappeared, the moon and the stars vanished, and in the black void, Ben found that he couldn't move.

"My lord will find you, you know." The bloodmother said, though her body looked to be frozen in time. "There's no sense hiding. You already use his gifts."

"What gifts?" Ben asked, surprised that he could speak without moving his body, which was just as stuck as the demon.

"You're touched by the Inferno, Ben. He will find you." A bright light exploded out of the wound in her chest. She screamed as her body was ripped away from Ben, sucked into the vacuous void around them.

Ben was alone then, still frozen in time. A voice came to him from somewhere in the distance. "Ben? You need to wake up, Ben, please!"

It was Rani, her words were echoing from all around him, and somehow he realized he was dreaming. He opened his eyes, and it wasn't night anymore. The sun was peeking over the garden wall, creating a glorious silhouette around Rani as she looked down at him.