The Sleeping Girl

Chapter Eight

"Hello, Sleeping Girl," sneers one of them. "We were deciding if we should go out and attack you, but it would seem that you simply came right to us."

"It would seem so," I say, trying to keep the quiver out of my voice. I will not show fear. I will not.

"Quite convenient," another one of the sprites says. I am guessing that he is the leader. He seems larger, more solid, than the other five, and carries almost an aura of... power, authority. They all turn when he speaks. "You being here, I mean," he continues. "After all, we still need you dead and all. Just because you're awake doesn't mean you should get to live. On the contrary, actually."

"Oh?" I ask, trying to keep my tone light, trying to keep from shaking. I can handle this. I've faced danger before.

"Yes," sneers a third sprite. "We can't having you find that girl after we've all done such a good job of... crippling her."

My heart lurches. "What?" I breathe, my voice catching, betraying my cool facade.

"You're going to lose," sneers the leader. "The next Girl would have come to you. Your pathetic society is right. She was being drawn. So we all... grouped together. In fact, not just us sprites. All of us that you would call... dark. We all joined together. Almost like we're forming our own society of a sort." He laughs sarcastically, sending a shiver up my spine. My grip tightens on my blade.

"We took care of her," the leader continues blithely. "And now we are going to take care if you." He steps closer to us, advancing on us. I start to back away slowly with Mike, but to my fear I can feel the auras of many, many others, slowly growing stronger, closer. I whip my head around to see a couple sprites. Looks to the sides reveal the same thing.

We're surrounded.

This is going to be bad.

It's clear that we are going to fight them off if we want to escape with our lives, which are already dangling precariously.

"What did you do to her?" I ask, warily. I'm trying to stall them and find out more information at the same time. "Is she dead?"

"Don't be so melodramatic," laughs sprite to my left. Her voice is rough and husky, like the rough grating of stones. "The pathetic loser is still alive... barely. But that doesn't matter. She's far away from here."

"Where the hell is she?" asks Mike. His tone is low and frightening, a tone of voice that I have never heard him use before.

"Oh, does the wittle girl want to know," taunts the leader, a sick grin on his face. "Sowwy wittle girl, but," his expression turns hard. "You seek high," he says, the baby voice gone. "I am certain that you would never know in five hundred years. Now enough chit chat. We came out here for one reason, Sleeping Girl, and it was to kill you. And since you're here too, boy, I guess we'll have to kill you too. Shame. This would be easier if all of you insolent society brats would just abandon the Girl. Well, the Girls, actually. Both of them. But, it's no matter. Killing you will be a breeze."

My patience snaps. I fling my hand out, letting a bolt of power shoot straight out of my fingertips, striking the leader square in his chest, throwing him back several feet. Oblivious to the rest of the world, I stalk towards him, flinging bolt after bolt after bolt of magic, hitting him again and again and again. Strike, strike, strike. Shoot, shoot, shoot. Hit, hit, hit. Little particles of dark are flying off of him, turning the dark area even gloomier, blackening my mood.