The Arwain Chronicles Book I

Chapter Nine

The Arwain Chronicles: A Beast...

"We found him," she reported in a level tone as she redirected the cold hard gaze she was receiving from him, back at their master.
"Where?" Came their master's harsh whisper like voice.
"He's somewhere in the U.S." she answered. "We can't tell where exactly. He's protected by very powerful cloaking and obstruction spells," she added explanatorily.
"Not good enough," Their master's voice became even harsher if that was even possible.
"Should I motivate them to do better master?" Viera, who'd been standing beside their master, spoke up.
Her tone of voice paired by the predatory manner in which she was eyeing both she and her brother, who was standing beside her, made her very uneasy. Her brother was using his abilities to protect her from any attempt their master might make on her mind.
"He would have been much easier to track if we were actually in the same continent as he is," she spoke up in a hard tone. "The fact that we even have a clue as to where he is, is a lot more than most would offer you," she shot at him.
"How dare you!" The vampire spoke up the inky blackness leaking into her eyes clearly showing that her feral side was close and fast rising to the surface. "You will show resp...."
"Viera!" Their master called snappishly. "Leave us," he ordered.
The vampire paused turning back to their master but not daring to look him in the eyes. The pain in her eyes was clear for them all to see "Master..."
"Leave us!" Their master repeated cutting her short. His tone was no less harsh than the first time around. The vampire looked like a whipped dog as she turned around and left the room without another word.
Though she'd never had that much great love for the vampire, she did at times feel sorry for Viera. Especially when she saw what the vampire had been reduced to at the hands of their ruthless master. The fierce vampire that had once inspired both fear and respect in equal measure was no more. At their cruel master's mind warping and manipulation the vampire had been reduced to a servant. A slave that only lived to please her master.
Her free will had been taken away and in its place put an unendingly gnawing desire to please their master and do his bidding. With every passing day she saw less and less of the vampire they'd met the very first time they encountered her. Once again she found herself thanking the universe for her brother. There was absolutely no doubt in her mind that had it not been for him, she would have been in the same state as the vampire if not dead already.
"You have already taken up a lot more time on this one simple task than I would have granted anyone else. And you dare stand before me to tell me you've failed?" Their master asked through gritted teeth, his voice becoming dangerously low.
"If you have other people who can do this better than we can then I highly recommend you to get them on this right away," she returned icily. They were the best at tracking magic through the magic force plane, both they and their master knew this.
Their master glared ice daggers at them for a while before he finally snarled, "We leave within an hour, be ready." He then turned away from them, and faced the window that looked out over the castle grounds in an unspoken dismissal.....
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Though he stood looking out the window, he was barely aware of the castle grounds before him. And even lesser, the vague reflection of his own face in the clear glass of the window pane.
His hair which was only about two inches long, had long since turned completely grey over two centuries before. Other than that there was no other indication of his true age. His cold iron grey eyes only ever relayed either one of two emotions, anger or none at all. His face was angular with high cheek bones, a long nose and a strong jaw. All elements of his face seemed to merge in a way that made him look forbidding even at first glance.
His looks however were the last thing on his mind. He'd come so far. From a street rat, society's reject, to the strongest mage in Europe possibly even the whole world. His was the strongest following in the whole world, that was undisputed. All he needed as the last crowning jewel to his following was Lord Arwain's heir.
The heir to all the power that Arwain usurped from the world. If he got to him early enough he could get into his mind and enslave him. Just as he'd done all others in his following save for those damned twins, something he sought to rectify real soon and permanently. If he didn't get to him in time then he would have to consider an alliance, his jaws clenched, a sour taste filling his mouth at the thought of it.
If he couldn't be enslaved and refused to agree to an alliance with him then things would become much more complicated. For his plans to succeed he'd need the heir's power, it was the center piece of his whole plan without which everything else would fall apart. Killing the heir was not be an option. At least not for now, he thought a cold smile crossing his face.
His jaws clenched tightly as his hand reached forward for the wall beside the window for support. Pain of a kind that would break even the hardest of men tore through his head. Taking deep controlled breaths, he forced himself to stand back up straight and open his eyes. This time he wasn't looking out at the compound, his eyes were focused on his reflection. The eyes that looked back at him were a deep dark red. Not the red of alpha weres, but a more malevolent and sinister red that spoke of pure and unadulterated evil. It was a glimpse of the creatures he'd allowed himself to merge with to gain the kind of power he possessed.
"A promise," the first of the familiar malevolent whispers began in his head.
"Yes, a promise was made," The second whisper-like voice picked up also full of vicious malice.
"A promise made to us," a third voice went on with the same tone.
"A promise that is yet to be kept," The fourth and final voice finished with twice the malice of all three former voices put together.
"We're close, closer than ever before. I can feel it," his voice also a hard whisper without a trace of emotion to it. For the first time in over two centuries there was confidence in his voice as he said this. This time he was sure.
"The same words," the first voice began.
"Yes, the same words said," The second voice continued.
"The same words said to us many times before," the third voice picked up.
"The same words that are yet to be delivered on," The fourth voice finished off. The corrosive malevolence the voices bore only seemed to increase as they spoke from first to last.
"This time it's different," he said firmly in reply. "We are closer than ever before. The two worlds will merge as promised and together we shall rule over both worlds," he continued just as firmly.
"Where?" The first voice questioned him.
"Yes, where is he then?" The second voice asked.
"Where is he that was promised to us?" The third voice followed up.
"Where is he with whose power you will merge the two worlds?" The last of the voiced finished off.
He could have easily deciphered what they wanted to know from the first voice's question. He however remained silent till the last one had finished. He'd long since learnt that interrupting them would lead to a kind of punishment which he would sooner embrace death than have to endure ever again. "We already have an idea of where he is. We leave within the hour to find him," he answered.
"A reminder," The first voice spoke up coldly, causing fear to coil icy tendrils around his heart.
"Yes, a reminder he needs," the second voice picked up the malevolence in it clearly palpable.
"A reminder of what happens," the third voice continued the malicious anticipation for what they were about to do barely hidden in it.
"A reminder of what will happen if you disappoint us," the fourth voice once again finished off.
Though the thought of what was about to happen sparked liquid fear within him, he said nothing training all his features to betray nothing of what he felt. If there was anything the creatures abhorred even more that failure, it was weakness. Betraying any would only cause his punishment to be compounded on itself. "That is not necessary, we will...."
Whatever words that were to follow next were lost as a guttural scream tore through him. He fell to his knees, his eyes closed tightly. His hands gripped his head as if he was trying to keep it from exploding into a thousand pieces. The only reason his scream was not heard throughout the whole castle were the several silencing and sound proofing spells he'd put around his office.........
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'You're worried.'
Her brother's mental voice filled her head causing her to stop staring at the clouds. She turned her head away from the plane window to him. 'Of course I am,' she returned calmly through their mental bond. 'We are lying to one of the most powerful mages of the dark arts in the whole of Europe, may be even the whole world. I'd be an idiot to take it lightly,' she added mentally.
Her brother's head turned to regard the seat where their master was seated way at the front. 'You're right,' he said mentally equally as calmly. She could see quite clearly in spite of his expressionless face, that gears were turning in his head. 'It would be foolish not to take the matter seriously," he concurred. "But that is not what you're worried about,' he added turning back to her.
She regarded him for a while before a smile finally crossed her face as she shook her head. 'I can't hide anything from you Chris, can I?' She more of mentally said it than asked, calling him by his real name. 'Wait, you're not poking around in my head, are you?' She then went on to ask narrowing her eyes at him.
Her brother remained silent regarding her in the same way he always did when she'd said or asked something he didn't believe merited an answer from him. Her eyes rose to the luggage compartments above her as she made a show of shaking her head. 'I'm joking you idiot,' she informed him with a smile. 'I trust you completely,' she added truthfully. 'You know that right?' She posed.
A slight smile from him was all the acknowledgement she was going to get, it was all she needed. 'What is he like?' She asked rhetorically. 'Have you thought about that?' This time she directed the question at her brother. 'I mean, we are on a plane travelling across the Atlantic to put ourselves at the mercy of another powerful wizard. For all we know, he could be just as evil if not more than the one we are currently serving under,' she said some of the worry she'd been tightly holding in leaking into her mental voice. 'How can we be so sure that we're not jumping from the frying pan and into the fire?'
'We can't Katelyn,' her brother answered simply, referring to her by her real name. His gaze once again moved to their master. 'But whether he is just as evil or even worse, is irrelevant to us. We stick to the plan, and if all goes well, we'll be free in a few weeks' time,' he went on to say.
'And if not?' She posed regarding her calm brother.
'Then most likely we die excruciatingly slow and painful death at his,' he said nodding to their current master. 'Or the hands of the other wizard. Either way it all ends soon,' he said looking at her with a small smile..........
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"Why? Why would he do such a thing?" She asked once again as she paced her bedroom. "Why attack Greg unprovoked?"
"That's like the thirtieth time you've asked that, and the answer remains the same, we don't know," Carol answered her best friend.
"And what business did Greg have attacking the human to begin with?" Elly once again asked some of the anger and frustration she was feeling at the whole situation leaking into her voice.
"You mentioned that Jim had been flirting with you earlier in the day," Victor spoke up. "We all know Greg doesn't like competition," he added explanatorily.
Elly had already made the connection long before Victor said it. "He's a human how could the idiot possibly believe I would be interested in the guy," Elly posed.
"Why do you even care anymore?" Carol posed." He's officially made himself an enemy of the pack when he went after Greg and then refused to apologize for it. He even took it a step further and challenged your dad," she said. "Right now we should be thinking of how to get back at him. To send a clear message to everyone else who might consider it, that this is not a pack you wanna mess with,"
Elly could quite clearly hear the ire in Carol's voice. "Is it the pack or Greg being attacked that has you in such a mood?" She posed quietly directing a critical gaze at her.
"Both," Carol immediately answered. A sigh escaped her after a while when Elly kept the gaze fixed on her. "Okay then, Greg more that the pack. Are you happy now?" She said.
"No," Elly answered truthfully turning away from her. "I'm not Carol. I don't want Dan to be an enemy of the pack," she added. "I just wish I knew why he did what he did so we can clear everything up," Elly went on.
"How do you know he didn't do it out of some sadistic compulsion? Because he enjoys seeing others suffer?" Carol posed.
"He didn't and he doesn't," Elly answered, her voice firm with conviction.
"And how exactly would you know this?" Carol further questioned. Elly remained silent not looking at her friend. "I know it sucks that the first guy you crush on doesn't turn out to be what you excepted him to be, but you have to accept the truth for what it is and move on," Carol said a little more softly to her friend. "Besides, there'll be a lot more guys for you to crush on before you find your mate" she added with a slight smile.
"No there won't," Elly said quietly as she stopped pacing and stared unseeingly into the air. "Because I already did find him," there was silence in the room as her words slowly sunk in the minds of the other two occupants of the room.
When she'd last spoken to her brother Victor, she'd only been speculating as to the possibility of it. But after what happened in the hall and how strongly she'd reacted to Dan's touch, there was no more doubt in her about it. Carol's eyes widened as what Elly was saying, finally dawned on her. "Wait, you...."
A knock on her door cut Carol short, Elly walked over and opened it. "Elliana," it was Jacob, or Jake, as he preferred to be called. He was the beta that served directly under their father's second in command, Rick. "The alpha wants you in his office," he informed her. She glanced back at both Carol and Victor. Both of them still seemed to be trying to wrap their heads around what she'd just told them. She turned back and walked out of the room after Jake.
"You called for me," Elly said as she entered her father's office. Other than she, both her parents, Rick and Loraine were the only others in the room.
"Yes," her father answered. "Close the door behind you," he instructed. She did so. "I want you to tell us everything you know about Dan," her father went straight to the point of his calling her.
It was the moment she'd been dreading ever since they left school. The moment she'd have to tell them. "Let me remind you that your first obligation is to the pack," her mother spoke up when she noted her hesitation to answer.
A sigh escaped Elly. "There's not much to tell," she spoke up. She felt guilty that part of her was actually glad that this statement was true.
She knew it already, she could feel it, her wolf had shifted loyalties. Her first obligation was no longer to the pack but to Dan. If it came down to the pack versus Dan, she already knew which side she would be on.
How to tell that to her parents and family knowing what would follow, was what she was trying to find a way for. "I mean, you already know that this was his first day back since his first day in school," she went on.
Rick sighed. "Look," he began in a voice that made Elly's heart contract painfully with guilt. The rage was gone from it, all that remained was a father's worry for his son. "I know that you and my son haven't exactly been the closest of friends and that you don't see eye to eye most of the time," he continued in a tone that compounded Elly's guilt. "But I would like to believe that if nothing else, there has been mutual respect between you and I," he said. "Please Elly, anything you know," he pressed. "His strengths his weaknesses, what kind of were he is, what are his...."
"He's not a were," Elly offered the only thing she knew in spite of her wolf's protests.
Confusion etched itself on the faces of the other occupants in the room. "We all saw his eyes turn...."
"He's not a were," Elly once again repeated cutting her father short. "He's somehow magically bound to a pair of them, but he is a wizard not a were," she explained.
"What kind of weres is he bound to?" Rick asked.
"Weretigers, a pair of them," she answered. There was silence in the room as the four adults processed this new piece of information. "What do you plan to do to him?" She finally asked breaking the silence that had covered the room.
"He attacked one of our own, what would you have us do?" Loraine, for the first time spoke up in a voice that was deceptively calm.
"You all felt the power that filled the hall," Elly said. "In what world does the pack win against that kind of power, even if we all attacked as one?" She posed.
There was another span of silence in the room. They all remembered the immense amount of power that had filled the hall when Dan took off the chain he usually wore around his neck. All the power they'd ever experienced or encountered in their lives paled in comparison to what they'd felt in that hall, even if it was all put together.
"You still haven't answered my question," Loraine was the first to break the silence. "What would you have us do?"
From the undertone in her voice paired with the way she was eyeing her, Elly clearly got the unspoken accusation Loraine was making. It was no secret that the second in command's mate was her mother's closest confidant. Elly could already connect the dots and knew that her mother must have told Loraine about her liking for Dan. "My daughter is not the subject of scrutiny here," her mother spoke up in a voice that clearly warned all to tread lightly, her eyes fixed on Loraine.
"No mom," Elly spoke up. "Her son has been attacked," she said returning Loraine's gaze with equal intensity as she was receiving it. "She has every right to ask what her pack would do for her," she said. "I will go talk to him first thing in the morning," she declared. It took a few seconds for what she actually meant to sink in.
"Absolutely not!"
"Not happening!"
"It's too dangerous,"
Her parents together with Rick spoke up almost simultaneously, all three of them looking at her incredulously. Loraine was the only one of the adults who'd remained silent. "If any one of you has a better idea, now is the time to speak up," Elly said.
"I have a good number of alphas that owe me favours, big favours. A well planned attack and a large enough group to make it and we will have him," her father said firmly.
"Of course, brute force," Elly murmured though she knew perfectly well that they could all hear her. "Dan totally won't see that coming," she said with no small measure of sarcasm dripping off her voice. "Greg told you that Dan was seated with a hunter the first day in school, didn't he?" Elly posed now looking directly to her father.
Her father nodded once his confusion at the turn of the conversation evident. "Well what he didn't have a clue to was that that hunter is none other than Arthur Ravencloft's daughter," she informed them and went on, completely ignoring the shock that registered on the faces of the adults. "What he also didn't know is that Dan has an alliance with a succubus, and a damn powerful one at that, probably powerful enough to take us all on by herself. Whether human or magical creature I also don't know. But Dan has another alliance with a being that has power of a kind that I highly doubt any one of us has ever encountered before. Alone I reckon he she or it whichever it is, could take on all the packs on the continent may be even globally. And single handedly wipe them all out. Taking from the colour of his eyes and how easily Dan took Greg both times that they faced off, I think it's safe to assume that the two weretigers that Dan is bound to are not weaklings. No alpha in their right mind would pit their packs against the kind of power Dan has on his side, let alone the power he himself possesses. It doesn't matter what kind of favours they owe you," Elly explained in one long tirade.
There was silence in the room as her father and all the other adults took in all that she had just said. "Why am I only finding out about this now?" Her father finally broke the silence. "Your first priority and loyalty is to this pack, you should have brought all this information to me the moment you got it," he said in a hard voice his ire palpable.
His question was followed by silence. Elly steeled herself and gathered all the resolve she could muster before she finally spoke. "Because it no longer is!" she informed them.
"What do you mean?" Her mother broke the silence that followed her pronunciation.
It was common knowledge that the fastest was to make a wolf go rogue was to try and keep it from its mate. Her wolf had chosen Dan, there was no way that she could unchoose him. If she tried to deny Dan to her wolf, then it would retaliate by doing everything it could to try and seize control from her. Although she'd hidden details of Dan from them, Elly would never knowingly lie to her parents and the whole pack about her being loyal to them and being on their side. Only to turn around and betray them at the last minute. "I mean that my loyalty is no longer with the pack," she said. "My loyalty now lies with Dan.... My mate," Elly added to their further shock.
"Are you sure," all the accusatory undertone had left Loraine's voice. Even she understood the weight of what she was saying. Her beta instincts had risen to the surface once again. She sought to protect her pack members even from harm that they themselves may unwittingly put themselves in.
Elly remembered her reaction to Dan's touch. "Yes," she answered firmly.
"But he's not even a were," her mother spoke up. "You just said that," she added.
"I know," Elly answered. "Neither I nor my wolf seem to be bothered by the fact," she informed them. "Besides, though rare, it wouldn't be the first time that a were has mated with a non-were," she added.
"How do you know that he isn't a sadistic son of a bitch who enjoys torturing and seeing the pain of others just for the fun of it," Loraine asked regarding her critically.
"He's not," once again Elly found herself answering the question firmly without even the slightest shred of proof for her answer.
"Is that reason or emotions talking?" Her mother asked.
"Both," she answered without hesitation.
"A wizard as powerful as he is will have a harem, a large one at that, are you willing and ready to share your mate?" Her father questioned.
A sigh left Elly her jaws clenching as she once again considered this. "Do you honestly believe that there is any angle from which I haven't looked at this?" she finally asked. "Like I said, Dan is human not a were. He wouldn't know or understand the significance of a mate. If I were to ask him to choose between me and all the other females I could scent off him, then I will most likely end up getting rejected by my mate. And I..." Elly paused finding both the human and werewolf part of her, unable to fathom a world where Dan rejected them.
The fear etched onto her features making it clear to the adults just how much that turn out would hurt her. "If I have to share him to be with him, then so be it," she finally said firmly looking up at them. "But I can't lose him," she said her head unconsciously turning from side to side in a negation gesture. Elly sighed at last when after a long while nothing was said. "I'll leave tomorrow," she said.
"So soon," there was a pleading note of sadness in her mother's voice. As if she'd just realized that she was about to lose her daughter somehow.
Elly smiled sadly at her fighting the urge to walk over to her and pull her into a tight hug. To tell her that she wasn't going to leave. She couldn't, when she knew perfectly well that she had to. "It's pack law mom," she said instead. "I can't be part of the pack if I am not loyal to the pack," she recited the law. "In fact, by pack law I should be leaving right away. But I don't have anywhere to spend the night," she went on. "So I'll be spending the night here and leaving tomorrow, only of that is okay with you of course," she directed the question to her father. The formality in her tone making it clear that she was addressing him as alpha and not as her father.
Her father gave a single nod. The way both his jaw and fist were clenched so tightly telling Elly that he was fighting the fatherly instinct within him that wanted to keep his daughter from leaving. "Stay as long as you need," he offered his voice suddenly gruff.
Elly nodded once before turning and leaving the office.....
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Elly had just folded another of her tank tops and put it away in her suitcase when the knock sounded at her door. "Come in," she called out over her shoulder as she tried to decide what else she needed to take with her and what she could afford to leave behind.
"Who would have guessed huh?" Carol said as she walked in the room with a suitcase in tow. "Who'd have thought that we'd leave the pack at some point? I always saw us as two old ladies still giving orders to our children and grandchildren in the Raymond pack. Your son being alpha of course," Carol went on.
"We?" Elly repeated inquiringly. "What do you mean 'WE', Carol?" She posed though she could already make a guess at it.
"Come on," Carol said tilting her head at her friend. "You didn't think I was just going to let you leave the pack and go out there all on your own, did you? What kind of friend do you take me for?" Carol spoke up feigning offence but the smile on her face giving it away.
Elly's mouth opened and closed repeatedly with no words coming out. Carol would never fully understand how much the simple gesture meant to her. "Oh Carol, you're the greatest, I just don't know what I would do without you. You're also secretly my icon," Carol spoke up with a smile when she noted her friend's loss of words.
In spite of herself, Elly found herself laughing. "Please," Elly spoke up some measure of composure returning to her. "You're my best friend Carol," she said genuinely. "Which is why I can't ask you to leave the pack and your family because of me," Elly said.
"I've already said my goodbyes to dad and mom, so you can save yourself the breath. Like it or not, you're stuck with me," Carol said.
"How did you know that I was leaving anyway?" Elly posed as the thought occurred to her. "I doubt that my parents or Greg's have told anyone yet," she added narrowing her eyes at her best friend.
"Well....." Carol began biting her lower lip in the same way she always did when she'd done something wrong. "I mighta, kinda, could have, may be, possibly.... overheard the conversation in your dad's office," she said letting out the last half of the statement much faster than the first.
"You eavesdropped on us?" Elly posed her eyes widening as she regarded her friend incredulously.
"Eavesdropping is such an ugly word," Carol said turning away from her and walking over to the bed and picking up one of Elly's jogging shorts, folding it then throwing it into her suitcase. "Besides, my best friend tells me that her mate is the same guy that has just become the pack's enemy. Knowing how our pack deals with enemies, what did you expect?" She posed with a shrug turning back to her.
Elly sighed knowing perfectly well that Carol had indeed done it cause she did truly care for her. "You could have gotten into a lot of trouble," she finally said.
"But I didn't," Carol replied dismissively in very much the same way that she always did when she almost got caught for something she'd done wrong but managed not to. "Now this may be the very last sleep-over that we do while in the Raymond pack," Carol went on with a smile as she put away the last of Elly's clothes. "I'll sleep on the right," she declared letting herself fall onto the bed.
"Wait, don't you wanna spend the last night as part of the pack with your family?" Elly posed regarding her friend.
"So you can sneak out in the night without me!" Carol said without raising her head from the pillow. "Not happening buddy," she added. Elly sighed resignedly. That is exactly what she would have done and they both knew this perfectly well. "And just in case you still get it into your head to try anything, Victor's outside that door, so don't even think about it," Carol said.
"What?" Elly exclaimed in surprise. Walking over to the door, Elly pulled it open to find Victor standing on the other side of it. He turned around and smiled at her. "What do you think you're doing?" Elly questioned.
"Making sure that you don't try to make a quick getaway and leave without us," he answered simply.
"Not you too Vic," Elly said unable to help the guilt that marred her voice. "You guys, this pack is all you've ever known. Family is here for the both of you. I can't ask you to leave on my account," she said.
Victor shrugged. "I always planned on leaving anyway," he said causing both Elly and Carol to turn shocked gazes to him.
"What do you mean?" Elly asked, the shock evident in her voice too.
"Come on Elly," Victor said with a half-smile. "Do you honestly believe I would have stuck around with Greg as the alpha?" He queried. "So I leave a bit earlier than I initially planned, big deal," he said shrugging once again.
Elly's brows rose, she'd never actually thought about it. But now that Victor mentioned it, she highly doubted that she too would have stayed with the pack once Greg became alpha. "But Greg won't be in any position to become alpha for close to another five centuries," she said coming back to the topic at hand.
"Look Elly, like Carol said you might as well said save your breath cause you're stuck with us," he said folding his arms before his wide chest.
From the expression on his face Elly knew perfectly well that he wouldn't budge from the decision. A sigh escaped Elly as she finally gave in. "You don't have to stand guard, I won't try anything," she said resignedly returning the half smile she was getting from him.
"Do I have your word on that?" Victor posed regarding her critically.
With her lips pressing together tightly to form a straight line, she nodded once.......
**A****FEW****HOURS****BEFORE**
Her hand froze mid-sentence as she felt it. 'Dan...,' Chloe called out in her head. 'Hey Dan...... HEY DAN!' Only silence answered her. The part at the back of her mind where she could always feel Dan's presence at ever since she become bound to him, now felt empty. Chloe immediately rose from her desk not caring even in the least that there was an exam going on. She shot out of the room dropping her paper at the teacher's table as she moved.
"And that students, is what happens when you don't prepare," she vaguely heard Mr. Johnson's bored voice say as she exited the room. Chloe couldn't have cared any less for the exam, even though she'd known all the answers to all the questions she'd seen on the paper. Right then she was trying with everything she had to quell the bad feeling that was quickly welling up within her.
Chloe made the first turn to an adjoining hallway. She was just in time to see it as Dan's guardians appeared in a burst of flames in the deserted hallway. "Where's Dan?" Ember questioned soon as she caught sight of her.
"I thought he was with you guys," Chloe answered her confusion evident. The feeling she'd been trying to push down started to rise once again.
"Why would he be with us when school isn't over yet?" Athena posed her brows drawing together.
"He got into a fight with a werewolf and left school early," Chloe answered.
"Why was Dan fighting a werewolf?" Ember immediately questioned.
"I wouldn't exactly call it a fight, more of a beat down. Dan beat the werewolf within an inch of his life," Chloe said. "The werewolf, his name's Greg, he'd attacked some guy. Claire tells me he's called Jim, Dan's older brother," Chloe answered.
Chloe took in a startled breath her body reflexively flinching as Athena suddenly turned and punched a hole into the locker nearest to her. "Jim is no longer his brother," Athena remarked curtly though from the look in her eyes, Chloe could tell that the words weren't directed at her.
"That's what Claire told him," Chloe answered. "Didn't seem to faze Dan though," she added. "He was called to the principal's office after. When he came out he didn't wanna tell us much of what had gone on in there. All he said is that he'd been expelled, before we could press him any further alpha Raymond appeared,"
"Who's alpha Raymond?" Athena asked dangerously.
"He's the strongest werewolf alpha in the country, his pack is also the strongest," Chloe answered.
"And how is it exactly that you know him?" Karra questioned.
"He's the representative for the were faction on the council of Arwain," Chloe's distaste evident in her voice as she mentioned the council.
At this point, Claire came sprinting around the corner from the other end of the hall they were in. "I can't feel Dan through my bond to him," she spoke up soon as she saw them. Fear and worry was evident in her voice. "Did something happen to him?" She questioned the guardians.
"That's what we'd like to know," Karra answered. Her tone that made it clear that if anyone was responsible for Dan's disappearance, they wouldn't be alive to tell tales of it once she caught up to them.
"We can't feel him through our bond either," Kirra informed the hunter, worry also present in her voice.
"What happened after?" Ember pressed her eyes never having left Chloe.
"Well, Raymond threatened to let a pair of his betas tear Dan limb from limb," the look that crossed all four of the guardians caused fear of a kind she'd never known before to grip Chloe. Even with the knowledge that the fury she could see in all four sets of eyes were not directed at her.
"And?" Ember posed in a voice that held bore deceptive calm.
"Well, Dan took off the chain he usually has around his neck," Chloe said. She remembered the pure and raw power that had filled the hall. It made every other magical signature within it seem insignificant, virtually nonexistent.
"He did what?" Athena asked looking like she was about to explode.
"He took off his chain and dared Raymond to try," Chloe answered.
"How come we couldn't feel it from the fort?" Karra questioned. "Dan's got enough power to be felt from across the country, we would have felt it from the fort," she further stated.
"He's learning," Ember said in a murmur more to herself than anyone else in particular.
"Learning what exactly," Athena questioned her.
"Mental discipline," the phoenix stated. "It's the only way he could have prevented his magical signature from being felt by the whole country," she added explanatorily. "What happened after that?" She asked turning back to Chloe.
"Raymond left without fighting but promised to be back," Chloe informed them. "And Dan decided to go to the fort after that," she finished.
"How long ago was this?" Kirra asked.
"About thirty minutes ago," Claire answered the question.
Ember's brows furrowed, "The fort is a less than ten minute drive from here. He would have been there already."
Chloe's jaws clenched her eyes closing tightly in self-disgust. "Except he didn't drive," she said pulling Dan's keys out from her pocket. She now hated herself for ever accepting them from him.
"Why do you have Dan's keys?" Athena posed in a voice that caused her heart to beat faster.
"He gave them to me," she immediately answered. "He was really angry and he didn't want you guys seeing him like that. He said if he drove to the fort he'd get there before the anger had gone down so he would walk instead," she said.
"So after fighting a werewolf and being threatened by the strongest alpha in the country you just let him walk out of here on his own," Athena posed through gritted teeth taking a threatening step forward towards the necromancer. The jade colour her eyes usually took when in human form turned into a more inhuman slightly yellowish green.
"In case you forgot," Claire spoke up stepping in between Athena and the necromancer who'd frozen with fear under the demon's glare. "Dan is our master, he says and we do. I asked to accompany him and he said he'd rather go on his own. While neither of us were happy about it, there was nothing we could do," she shot back at the demon.
"We're wasting time," Ember said curtly. "Kirra, Karra can you pick up his trail?" she went on framing the words more as an order than a real question.
The twins turned in opposite direction, Kirra facing the direction Chloe had come from and Karra the other.
"What happened to your hair?" Claire posed her brows furrowing as she finally noticed it. The flame colour in Ember's hair had gone up higher. It was now two inches from its roots rather than the tips as it usually was.
"Not important," Ember said dismissively. The tone of finality in her voice left no room for any debate on the issue, as she turned from one of the twins to the other.
Both of the twins took in deep breaths of air and went silent for about a second before Kirra spoke up. "I've got it," she announced then took off in a sprint.
Karra had also turned around and started after Kirra catching up to her less than a second later. Both of them jumped high in the air at the same time morphing fully into two snow white tigers. They landed without missing a step or losing speed. If anything, they only seemed to gain more speed in this form.
Both Ember and Athena weren't far behind the two weres. Ember was now a streak of flames moving after the twins as she glided in her phoenix form just at their tails. In spite of the fact that she was flapping her wings instead of gliding like the phoenix, Athena easily kept up with the other guardians. The only reason she was behind the other three was that the tips of her wings were only a few millimeters shy of scraping the lockers on both sides of the empty hallways.
"Come on," Claire called out, she too breaking into a sprint as she ran after Dan's guardians. "We won't be able to keep up with them on foot," Claire said when Chloe caught up to her a few seconds later. "Give me Dan's keys," she directed.
"No time for that," Chloe replied a second before she reached out and firmly gripped Claire's shoulder. Less than a second later both of them burst into a pitch black cloud that wove its way through the air. They were moving after the guardians at almost twenty times the speed they'd initially moving at when they were sprinting......
********************************
Cold.....
That was the only word that she could use to describe it as she felt herself lose her physical form. It wasn't the physical thermal cold that one felt on their skin. But an even deeper cold that could be felt all the way into the soul. Claire could see and hear everything around her clearly though in passing given their speed. She however in a deep and integral way, she felt detached from it all. The only thing that at the moment seemed real was the necromancer's tight grip which she could still feel on her shoulder even in this form.
From the way Dan's guardians were weaving through both people and traffic without anyone reacting to their presence once they were out of the school building, Claire knew that they must have cloaked themselves. Just as Chloe must have somehow cloaked the both of them. No one seemed to be noticing the dark cloud that was weaving through the throngs of people. At some points, the cloud broke in to two or more arms which later rejoined into one large cloud stream once they were past whatever obstacle it is that they were trying to get around.
Once they'd gotten outside the school building, the twins had quickly accelerated to full speed. Soon enough they were running past cars as they moved towards the town following Dan's trail. With the speed they were moving at, the town quickly came into view.
In spite of the larger density of people they encountered once they reached the town, neither the twins nor the guardians moved any slower than they had been on the way there. Instead Ember and Athena rose above them. The twins wove and maneuvered through them expertly in ways that Claire highly doubted she would have been able to match had she not been in this ethereal form.
The twins suddenly turned from the street they'd been on into an alley way. Both Athena and Ember also deftly made the turn without missing a beat. Chloe however had to slow the both of them down some before they could make the turn. They moved into the alley to find that Ember and the others had stopped at the center of it.
Claire forced herself to take in deep breaths. Calling on all the discipline she'd learnt through countless hours of training, she tried to stave off the wave of nausea that threatened to overwhelm her. "What the hell was that?" She asked in a hoarse whisper once Chloe let go off her shoulder.
"Something I discovered two years ago when I was sixteen, I call it shadow motion," Chloe answered. "I know, I know, not too many points there for creativity," she added shrugging with a sheepish expression. "Sorry, I know it can be real uncomfortable if you're not used to it, especially the first time around," she added looking apologetically at her. "But it's the only way we could have possibly kept up with them," she said nodding towards Dan's guardians.
"If it helps us find Dan faster, then I have no problem at all being uncomfortable," Claire said dismissing the apology with a wave her voice much stronger this time as she turned to the guardians.
Kirra and Karra were now moving from its center towards either ends of the alley their noses to the ground. Kirra was moving towards the end they'd come in through, while Karra moved towards the other.
Both Ember and Athena seemed frozen as they stood at the middle of the alley. Both their gazes were fixed on something on the ground before them. Claire had to force herself to remain calm once she caught the look pure and liquid rage dancing their eyes.
Athena got down on one knee, her eyes still fixed on whatever it was they were looking at. With both the index and mid finger of her left hand she swiped at the ground before her. The demon raised the two fingers which were now crimson with what Claire easily recognized as blood. She now understood their rage and felt her own spike several notches higher that it had ever been before. Athena brought the two fingers below her nose. From the way her jaws clenched tightly, Claire already knew what she was about to say. "It's his," she announced.
"Kirra, Karra," Ember called out in a voice that trembled with rage. "Where is he?" She questioned curtly.
Both Kirra and Karra morphed back into their human forms at the same time. "It's odd," Kirra spoke up both the anger the frustration evident in her voice. "His scent comes into the alley,"
"But it doesn't leave it," Karra finished her twin's statement as she relayed what she too had found.
"Do you think may be the wolves came for him?" Chloe asked as both she and the hunter moved to where both Athena and Ember now stood.
"If they had, their scents would have been all over this alley, we would have caught it. It wasn't the wolves," Karra answered.
"Maybe whoever took him, magically masked his scent or any trail of him," Claire offered.
"No," Kirra answered firmly without the slightest bit of doubt in her voice. "No amount of masking, magical or otherwise, could have hidden his scent from us," she stated.
"Well he didn't just vanish into thin air," Athena snapped the look in her eyes murderous.
"Actually," a voice from the other end of the alley spoke up. Claire immediately recognized it as belonging to the vampire that had joined their school about two weeks before. Aliya, if she remembered right. The vampire was at the moment leaning against on the left alley wall regarding them neutrally. "He did," she finished off her sentence......
******************************
"I told you not to hit him so hard, he's of no use to us dead," Twenty two berated the younger girl as she eyed the boy who'd remained unconscious since they left the alley. Though admittedly it wasn't that long ago. Only about twenty minutes had passed since.
"You felt the power that came off him," Two said defensively. "I wasn't taking any chances," she added
That was true, she had felt the power that the boy possessed. She had tracked his movements for about half a day without seeing anything extraordinary about him except for him pinning an alpha female against the locker. Which, the wolf could also have just as easily been faking so as not to rouse any suspicion from a human. She'd been about to turn around and get back to her car and drive away believing that they'd been wrong, when the fight broke out between him and the other alpha werewolf.
Being pinned against a locker could have easily been faked but there was no way the fight could have. It was the fight that convinced her to stay on a bit longer and that maybe they weren't wrong after all. Later on when he walked out of the principal's office and stood up to the werewolves, she got all the proof she needed.
For a moment after his power was revealed to them all, she'd been rooted to the place where she'd been standing. It had became sorely clear the kind of madness they were about to attempt. It had felt exactly like Two had described it, like standing before the sun and feeling all its energy up close. Raw magical energy had come off him in waves, filling up the whole school and drowning out all other magical signatures. For the first time ever in her life, she'd considered aborting a mission. But at the thought of Twenty one, her jaws had clenched hard and her resolve once again turned to steel.
"He's waking," Two's words brought her attention back to the boy who'd just let out a groan and was grimacing probably from the pain.
Good, Twenty two thought coldly......
***************************
He couldn't help the feeling of déjà vu. Once again he found himself feeling like someone was pounding on his head with a sledgehammer. And all the voices around him sounded like they were coming from the other end of a very long tunnel. "I told you.... to hit him.... hard.... he's of..... use to us dead," fragments of the first voice of the one speaking reached him. He struggled not to sink back into the darkness from which he was just emerging.
Something was wrong, something was very wrong. Something other than the fact that the ones around him were talking about killing him. His mind however couldn't figure out what it is through the fog that was clouding it at the moment.
His jaws clenched hard as enough of the fog lifted for his brain to start processing the pain he was in. Not just his head, but his whole body. It felt like every nerve fiber in his body was on fire and shooting pain impulses to his brain.
Discipline Dan, Focus! The memory of Ember's voice from training came to him. Forcing himself to calm down and steeling his resolve, Dan took deep slow breaths. You won't stop feeling the pain, you just have to keep your brain and mind from reacting to it! Athena's harsh voice also came back to him. Ironically, the memory of her voice gave him some sense of comfort and control despite its tone. Ignore the pain, force it to the back of your mind and focus on the more important things around you, Kirra's voice climbed up from the recesses of his memory.
Though they felt like barrels of lead had been attached to them, Dan forced his eyelids open. He blinked a few times trying to rid himself of the blurry vision. Using all the focus he could muster, Dan summoned his magic trying to heal his body of whatever was ailing it and rid himself of the fog clouding his mind. A groan of agony immediately escaped him, his face contorting into a grimace. His jaws almost breaking from how hard they were clenched as the pain increased tenfold at his effort.
You have a to choose Dan. Focus on the pain and nine times out of ten you will die! Focus on the things going on around you and five times out of ten you might just live to focus on the pain later. Karra's cold and detached voice filtered its way through the pain. Gritting his teeth hard, Dan once again started pushing the pain to the back of his mind.
"He's waking up,"
It clicked. At those words, his mind figured out what exactly was wrong. He was regaining consciousness! If he was regaining it then it only meant he'd lost it. How was that possible when he was bound to Ember? Dan called on all his will and self-control to keep the panic he felt slowly building up within him, from overwhelming him. 'Ember,' he mentally called out calmly. Except for a sharp jab of pain shooting through his head and eliciting a wince from him, nothing apart from silence answered him. 'Ember... Athena, can you hear me?' Dan's eyes closed tightly even before they'd fully rid themselves of the blurry vision as the pain shooting through his head quadrupled. Focus damn it, Dan mentally berated himself as he once again pushed the pain to the back of his mind. 'Ember.... Athena.... Kirra.... Karra.... Claire.... Chloe, can any of you guys hear me?' A groan of agony escaped him as only ten times the pain he'd first experienced when he called Ember, answered him.
Ignoring the pain became a lot easier as full blown panic interlaced with ice cold fear started to fill him. What had happened to them? Dan spread out his senses trying to feel them through his bond..... Nothing. Even the very bonds were no longer there.
"Ahh," the sound escaped him as knuckles connected hard to the side of his face.
"I'm talking to you," an icy feminine voice reached his ears and a hand gripped hard at his hair and jerked his head back. "Now answer me," the voice demanded.
Dan hadn't heard what the voice had asked and right at that moment, he didn't give a fuck. "Where the fuck are my guardians?" He posed to the owner of the voice, as he forced his eyes open once again. He once again tried to rid them of the blurry vision.
A second blow connected to the other side of his face. Dan barely felt it as his rage started to rise and burn harder than it ever had before. "If you have done anything to my guardians. I swear to you, I will make you suffer in ways you have never even thought possible," he ground out through gritted teeth. Dan was at the moment only remotely aware of the fact that the pain he was in was rapidly spiking the more his rage burned.
His vision came into focus just as the third blow connected with his face at the same point where the second blow had hit him. Reacting on base instinct, Dan tried to lunge forward at his attacker. An effort that brought with it a new realization. Dan looked down at the ropes that now kept him bound to a wooden chair. His hands had been tied down to the chair's arm rests, his legs to the two front legs of the chair. The whole of his torso was crisscrossed with ropes tying him to the back rest of the chair. A second try at moving affirmed what he'd already gotten from his first attempt at getting off from the chair. The ropes had been tied tight, save for some kind of miracle happening, since his magic was for some reason failing him, he wouldn't be getting out of them on his own.
He looked up at the one who'd just attacked him. His rage rose even higher as he immediately recognized the two standing before him. They were the two girls that he'd tried to help in the alley. The younger one who'd called for help and hit him with a lead pipe once his back was turned, was standing off at a distance eyeing him warily. The other girl, the one who'd been seizing in the alley, now stood before him with bloody knuckles and a murderous glare. Dan slowly exhaled forcing himself to be calm as he returned the girl's glare with triple the degree of intensity he was receiving it. "I will kill you," he said in a voice that held a deadly calm. "If even one hair on any of my guardians is not as I left it when I last saw them, I will kill you in the slowest, most excruciatingly painful way possible," he added.
******************************
A smile that bore no mirth crossed her face as she regarded him. "I must admit, I am a bit disappointed and impressed by you at the same time," she spoke up ignoring his threat. "For one as powerful as you, you were one of the easiest catches I've ever made," she informed him. "And yet for one as powerful as you are, you are surprisingly unaffected by that collar around your neck," she pointed out.
From the way his face betrayed realization as he unsuccessfully tried to look down at his own neck, it became clear to Twenty two that he'd been unaware of the suppression collar Two had put on him. "What the hell is it?" The boy asked eyeing her suspiciously.
Her brow arched, taking from the serious look on his face, it wasn't a trick question. "It's designed to keep anyone wearing it from using magic by turning their magic against them and causing them excruciating pain any time they try to use it," Twenty two explained. "With the amount of power you possess, simply having it on should be causing you unimaginable pain."
"Then it's working just fine," the boy replied coldly in a level tone his face a solid cold emotionless mask.
"It's also why you and your guardians can't communicate. Your bond to them is by nature magic, and as such the suppression collar just turns it into pain. It's not broken and I haven't touched your guardians," she watched the relief cross his face before suspicion quickly followed in its wake.
"For the moment, you're the one in control and didn't have to tell me anything. So why did you just tell me all that? And how do I know you are not lying to me," he posed.
Twenty two did not miss the implied threat in the first statement. "I'm not big on wasting time. If I hadn't told you all that, you'd have spent the better part of the short time you still have breathing asking me about your guardians. As for whether you should believe me or not, well... in the grand scheme of things, it doesn't really matter whether you do or don't," she replied.
Of the array of reactions she'd expected from him at her threat, the loud derisive laughter that left him hadn't been one of them. He only made any effort at trying to stop laughing when her punch connected with the side of his face drawing more blood. Even then the side of his lips tilted upwards in a half amused smile half derisive smirk. "So you plan on killing me?" He posed seeming more amused by the prospect than terrified.
"Yes," she answered simply. "How you die however is completely up to you. Do everything as I say exactly as I say it when I say it, and I can promise you a quick death. Fail to comply," she said leaning forward so as to bring herself to eye level with him. "And you are the one who will find out just how slow and excruciatingly painful death can be," she ground out. Her teeth clenched hard with irritation as the guy let out a loud artificial yawn and eyed her unimpressed.
An artificial smile also crossed her face a second before a dagger materialized in her firm grip. The smile became genuine at the guy's scream when, with a hard swing, she sunk the knife to the hilt right through his left leg and into the chair below. Standing back up, she turned around to Two. "Watch him," she ordered. "He tries anything, kill him," she said before turning and walking out of the room.
*******************************
"You," the word barely left the succubus's lips before she'd zipped across the alley and pinned her against the wall she'd been leaning on. She didn't react or make any move in defense. Apart from the fact that doing this would only serve to escalate the situation, she had already expected as much from the demon. "You've picked the worst of days to show your face here," the demon ground out regarding her with inhuman eyes.
"Considering that I am the only lead you have to finding Dan," she offered in a tone that exuded more calm than she actually felt. "I wouldn't exactly say that if I were you," she went on. "Now if you wish to hear anything else from me, take your hands off me," she stated firmly leveling a hard gaze at the demon.
Ailin could feel her fear rise a few notches as she watched a chilling smile cross the succubus's face as she regarded her in a predatory manner. "I could do that," the demon spoke up in a deceptively calm voice. "Or I could get the information out of you my way," she added more maliciously drawing her clawed hands back ready to strike.
Ailin only saw the demon's hand start to move forward to execute the strike before her eyes closed reflexively and she braced herself for the assault. The demon's grip disappeared from around her neck as if someone had ripped it off, a second before she heard the sound of something or more accurately someone being slammed against a wall. Her eyes opened up to find the succubus getting up from the ground just as the one with the flame coloured hair stepped into view.
She recognized the vibrations coming off her. She was the one who'd been in the girls' bathroom with Dan. Ailin had heard of phoenixes. Tthe last one of them is supposed to have died in the great war that saw the end of the reign of magic. Yet the one standing before her matched all the descriptions of phoenixes she'd ever encountered, at least the ones that she'd gotten from reliable sources.
From the look etched onto her face and the fire she could see in her eyes, Ailin knew that the phoenix was in no mood to play. "Speak," somehow, the one word uttered by her, inspired more fear in her than the threats of the succubus.
"He was captured, by a fourteen year old girl," she said.
"Impossible," the succubus spoke up from behind the phoenix.
"Didn't even take that much," Ailin went on, ignoring the succubus's objection. "They used the oldest trick in the book..."
"They?" the phoenix cut in inquiringly.
"There were two of them the fourteen year old and another the same age as Dan by my estimation. The latter was an assassin," the vampire informed them. Out of the corner of her eye, she didn't miss the change in demeanor and look of pure loathing that crossed the hunter's expression.
"What do you mean an assassin?" The phoenix inquired.
"They're just like hunters, trained from a very young age how to become the most efficient of killers. They came into being about five hundred years after the hunters. They are taught how to use their magic to conjure up any kind of weapon imaginable and others they come up with on their own," the hunter, Claire as she'd introduced herself, informed them. "Unlike hunters however, they are like guns for hire. Pay them enough and they'll kill whoever it is you want dead, no questions asked. They are the one section of the magical community that is responsible for the most killings of hunters," she said. "If someone's sent an assassin after Dan, then we need to find him, and real fast," Claire said emphatically.
"Well, at least we already know there is no chance of the assassin killing Dan," the necromancer, Chloe, said to the vampire's confusion.
Though she couldn't understand why the necromancer had made that statement, even Ailin felt the change in the air within the alley at her words. The air temperature seemed to drop a few degrees as the phoenix, succubus and the two weretigers all turned an icy glares to Chloe. "And what exactly, do you mean by that?" The demon spoke up in a dangerous tone.
From the way her expression changed as fear etched itself onto it, the necromancer knew that she'd said the wrong thing. "Uuh... Well... the predi..."
"I would stop talking right now if I were you," the hunter cut in curtly. Her eyes were fixed warily on the four magical beings.
"No, I wanna know what she means by that statement!" The demon spoke up her fury now seeming to have spiked beyond the point of rationality. The vampire's eyes only just barely registered it as the demon zipped forward in a blur towards the necromancer. However just before she could get her hands on her, the necromancer burst into a pitch black cloud that rose through the air. She rematerialized at the top of the roof of the building opposite to the one Ailin was now standing with her back to.
"Athena!" The phoenix called out harshly just as the demon had opened her wings and was about to take off from the ground in pursuit of the necromancer. "She's right, we already know that one of us will be the one to kill him, so stop wasting time," she ordered.
"The only reason you can say that with such indifference is cause you know you'll be dead by tomorrow," the succubus returned equally as harshly.
Apart from her own, Ailin didn't miss the shock on that registered on the faces of both the hunter and the necromancer. "What is she talking about Ember?" The hunter demanded turning to the phoenix. The necromancer once again descended as a black cloud back down to the alley as she too waiting on the phoenix's answer, her fear of the demon forgotten.
"Right now, the only thing that you should be concerned with right now is finding Dan," the phoenix answered in a tone that made it clear in no uncertain terms that what the succubus had just said was not going to be discussed. "What did the assassin and the girl do?" The phoenix asked turning back to her.
"The older girl took some pills that made her start seizing, the younger one then began screaming for help just as Dan was walking past this alley," she related. "Dan ran over to play knight in shining armor. While he was occupied with the seizing girl, the other younger girl slapped a suppression collar around his neck and knocked him out cold with a lead pipe she'd conjured," Ailin finished.
"That's why we can't feel him through our bond," Chloe spoke up.
"The suppression collar has turned his bonds to all of us into pain," the phoenix said. In spite of the calm and levelness of her tone, Ailin could see the rage burning even harder within her eyes.
"I must say, he may be extremely powerful, but Dan's not exactly the sharpest tool in the box if he fell for tha..."
Ailin stopped short her hands quickly rising to her throat as she fell to her knees on the ground, choking on her own blood. Her eyes were wide as she looked on at the succubus who now stood before her holding the tongue she'd just ripped from Ailin's throat in her clawed grip. "You were saying?" The succubus, Athena as the phoenix had called her, posed in an icy tone as she crushed the tongue in her hand.
She could feel blood gushing from the severed blood vessels into both her gullet and windpipe into her lungs. She coughed it up in choked spurts as she tried to keep herself from drowning in her own blood. Her eyes turned frantically from one to the other beings in the alley, in an unspoken plea for help. The necromancer had gone white as a sheet. The hunter seemed frozen by shock her wide eyes fixed on the minced tongue that the demon had just dropped to the ground. The remaining four stood eyeing her with not even the slightest remorse or mercy in their eyes or expressions.
Ailin fell to her side before rolling onto her back looking up at the demon and the phoenix who were the ones now closest to her. Contrary to the popular fictitious belief, it wasn't only a wooden stake to the heart that could kill a vampire. Inflict enough damage or just the right kind, and you could kill a vampire just like any other being. They were only harder to kill due to their superhuman abilities and fast healing. If the blood gushing from the wound left by her missing tongue filled up her lungs as it was quickly doing, she would drown and die in her own blood. Her vampire healing wouldn't be fast enough to stop the blood loss before she bled out, and even if it did she would still drown in her blood.
The phoenix slowly dropped down to one knee beside her eyeing her coldly. "The only reason I'm going to heal you is because I need to know what happened to Dan. If I didn't, I'd let you choke to death in your own blood," she said in a tone that left Ailin with no doubt that she would have done exactly as she said. "Is that clear?" Ailin nodded emphatically unable to verbalize anything without her tongue. "If you say anything like that about Dan again, then believe it when I say that she will be the least of your worries," the phoenix warned nodding towards Athena.
She reached forward and immediately the phoenix's hand touched her chest, Ailin took in a deep breath of sweet air as she felt all of the blood that had been quickly filling up her lungs disappear. The phoenix's hand rose to her throat and the wound left by her missing tongue sealed and new flesh started to reform where her tongue had been ripped off.
*******************************
"They teleported," Ailin said pushing herself up from the ground into a sitting position as she regarded Ember once her tongue was fully reformed. "After Dan was knocked out, the younger gave the older one another pill that made her stop seizing and brought her consciousness back. Once she was up she grabbed a hold of both of them and vanished into a dark purple cloud," she explained.
"And how is it exactly that you conveniently came to be exactly at the right place at the right time, just as Dan was being taken?" Kirra posed eyeing her suspiciously.
"I wasn't in the right place at the right time," Ailin answered. "I'm one of four people who were following Dan around today," she went on to say.
"Apart from you and the two girls who else was following him?" Ember asked.
"A werewolf," she answered. "But he was called off after Dan fought with the other werewolf,"
"You could have stopped it. You could have saved Dan, so why didn't you? Why'd you just let him be taken?" Chloe posed.
"I was going to, I'd planned on stopping them before they left the alley. I just hadn't expected the assassin to be able to teleport," She answered.
"How do we find him now? The assassin could have jumped to any point in any direction," Chloe stated.
"There is a way," Ember said raising once again to her feet and turning to the others in the alley. She seemed to have dismissed altogether the fact that the vampire existed now that she had what she needed from her. "The furthest any one can jump in one teleportation is roughly ten miles," she informed them. "I know a were that can pick out a scent over one hundred miles away," she said turning to regard both Kirra and Karra.
"If you are saying what I think you're saying, then forget about it!" Kirra said in a hard voice with an equally hard gaze directed at the phoenix.
"If you've got a better idea, by all means do enlighten us," Ember answered in a level tone.
"The fact that she can only move ten miles per jump, doesn't mean that they didn't jump over a hundred times to get wherever it is that they are at right now," Karra spoke up in a tone just as hard and twice as cold as her twin sister's. "They could have jumped in any number of random places and random directions just to mislead any tails they might have. It could take ages to figure out the right direction to go in," she added.
"All the more reason why we shouldn't be wasting any more time talking about it," Athena snapped harshly.
"There has got to be another way," Kirra spoke up regarding the other two guardians imploringly.
"I'm all ears then," Ember answered in the same level tone she'd answered the twin weres with the first time around.
"You could track his magic," Karra offered.
"You already know that the suppression collar has turned all of his magic into pain, I can't track pain," Ember shot down her idea.
"Then track the assassin's magic," Kirra offered instead.
"Too many magical signatures have been through this alley, even before we ourselves walked in, it will take too long to figure out which is the right one. And if we don't, we might end up going on a wild goose chase," the phoenix answered.
"What exactly is it that you want them to do?" Claire posed regarding them with slight confusion. The guardians however paid no mind to her question as they continued to eye each other.
There was silence in the alley as the two twins seemed to be trying to get around what Ember was proposing. "You know perfectly well that I still don't have control yet," Kirra said both anger and defeat in her voice as she seemed to finally give in and consider what the phoenix was offering.
"You don't have to," Ember replied enigmatically.
Both Kirra and Karra narrowed their eyes at the phoenix. "In the state you're in? With what's about to happen to you? What if it starts while I'm still like that and you lose control of me?" What happens then? It's too big a risk," Kirra stated.
"I will do my best not to, I can promise you that," Ember offered.
"And if she does lose control of you, then I'll deal with what comes after," Athena spoke up in a cold tone.
"We both know that you and I are equally matched when I'm like that," Karra said in an equally cold but twice as hard tone.
"We're wasting time!" Ember snapped her patience wearing thin. "If you have a better idea then speak now," she curtly shot at the two weres. Silence met her words as neither of the two weres seemed to have a good alternative to what the phoenix was offering.
Kirra walked up to Ember. "You better be sure of this," she said quietly before going silent...
*****************************
Claire had been confused by the whole conversation, past the point where Ember said she knew a were that could pick out a scent that was over a hundred miles. Which to begin with, was impossible. She knew of a good number of weres with extraordinary sense of smell, and even for weres, the furthest they could pick a scent out from was about five miles off. A hundred miles was just preposterous. She had tried to seek clarification from Dan's guardians, but she might as well have remained silent for all the good that did.
Her confusion now further deepened as she watched Kirra stand silently before Ember. Both of them staring intensely into the other's eyes as if trying to see into the other's soul. "I have control," Claire's brows rose high in surprise. The words had been spoken by Ember but both Kirra and Karra said the words together with her in very much the same way a speaker repeats what one is saying just as they are saying it. It now dawned on the hunter what had been going on. The two guardians hadn't just been staring into each other's eyes, Ember had been infiltrating Kirra's mind and was now the one commandeering it. Why Karra also seemed to be affected by this though was lost on Claire. The eyes of both weres were no longer the light caramel brown they usually were when they were in human form. Instead they now mirrored Ember's flame coloured eyes.
Claire watched as both Kirra and Karra moved and started to take off their clothes. "What's going on? What are you two doing?" Chloe who was still standing beside her, asked regarding both Kirra and Karra with confusion. Her question however, just like Claire's, went unanswered.
Once they were both naked Kirra stood astride with her arms stretched out to the side as Karra walked up to her and stood behind her. "I don't think this is the time for..." The words got stuck in the hunter's throat her eyes widening with shock as she watched Karra take another step forward... into Kirra.
****************************
His jaws felt sore from being clenched for so long, the seat had become sticky from his semi-clotted blood. He'd been trying for the past half an hour to push his foot up to his toes in an attempt to dislodge the knife from the chair. The ropes that kept his leg bound to the chair however, were tied in too tight.
"She's good, real good," the younger of the two girls finally spoke up moving closer to him and breaking the silence that had filled the room since he'd stopped screaming in agony. The older of the two girls was now silently drawing runes and patterns around the room and muttering spells that Dan didn't recognize.
"The blade's gone through your leg without touching any major blood vessels. Do you even have a clue the kind of precision it would require to pull off that strike with the ease she did?" The girl now seemed to be talking more to herself that Dan.
"Enlighten me, why don't you? Dan replied sarcastically though weakly.
The girl looked back up at Dan once again. Some of the wariness she'd had initially seemed to come back to her as she took a step back from him. "If you keep doing that, you'll will die," the girl said to Dan's confusion.
"Doing what? Sit here and be tied up. Thanks for the heads up," since sarcasm seemed to be the only weapon left to him, Dan was using it in no small measure.
"Moving your leg," the girl said ignoring his sarcasm. "The blade might have gone clean through your leg but it's awfully close to your femoral artery, move your leg the wrong way and you will bleed out," she informed him causing him to cease his motions.
A sigh escaped Dan. "You know, by the look in her eyes I can tell that she has something personal against me. Whatever it is, I'll be damned if I knew," Dan said nodding towards the older of the two girls who was now repeating the runes she'd drawn on the other three walls on the wall to Dan's right. "But you, I simply do not get, why attack me? What could you possibly have against me?" Dan questioned regarding the girl critically.
"Nothing," the girl answered simply. "Except maybe the fact that you might try to kill me if by whatever chance, you happen to get free," the girl said shrugging. "Which I should mention, the chances are very slim. So don't get your hopes up too high," she informed him.
In spite of the situation, Dan felt his brow arch in curiosity at the girl. "You talk of me killing you so easily, as if you've already made peace with the thought of dying," He said.
"Death is not a possibility, it's an inevitability," the girl said in a manner that gave Dan the impression that it was something that had been repeated to her severally. "Fearing death is just as stupid as fearing the sunrise, whether you do or don't, it will come," the girl said with indifference in her tone.
Dan was silent for a while as he considered the girl's words. Though a harsh thing to admit to yourself much less say out loud, it was true, nothing on the earth, magical or not, lives forever. "Well," Dan finally spoke up. "My name's Dan. If you're going to kill me you should at least know that," he said.
"The way you say that," the girl said tilting her head as she regarded him in a clinical way. "It's as if you're sure that we aren't going to kill you," she said sounding mildly amused by this. "If you're hoping for mercy or a change of heart, I can tell you right now that it won't happen," the girl said in a hard matter of fact tone.
"Damn, how'd a girl as young as you get so fucked up? Your mom did not cuddle you enough?" Dan posed.
"Soon as I was old enough, my first orders were to kill my mother," the girl answered indifferently. "She put up quite the fight....... I slit her throat in the end," the girl related staring blankly into the air as her mind most probably replayed the memory. "So I guess you could say I am a bit fucked up," the girl finally said turning back to him.
"What kind of monster would order a child to kill their own mother?" Dan asked appalled, his cheeks blanching at the idea.
"It's what all trackers do when they come of age," from how easily the girl answered him, Dan doubted she understood exactly what a mother was. If not that, then she must have been raised in a way that she never grew attached to her birth mother. Whatever a tracker was Dan wasn't sure he wanted to know, at least not yet.
"So why are you so sure that you won't die before all of this is over?" the girl asked matter of factly. Genuine curiosity could be heard in her voice. The morbidity of her question didn't seem to register to her.
"Well, let's just say that there is a kind of morbid comfort you get when you know the exact people who will kill you in the end," Dan answered calmly. "Neither of the two of you feature anywhere on that list," Dan added his lips tilting in a half smile at the girl.
"Well, you might wanna scribble her name as a footnote on that list," the girl said casting a glance to the older girl. "She seems pretty determined." The older girl was now pouring a white substance that appeared to be a mixture of salt and ash, at least that's what Dan thought it was, in a circle of roughly two meters in radius. "I'm Two by the way," the younger girl said almost as an afterthought.
Dan's brow arched at the girl. "Really, well now that you've mentioned it, you do look kind of twoish. Silly me, I would have pegged you for a fourteen year old," he said sarcasm thickly lacing his voice.
The younger girl rolled her eyes. "I am fourteen," she answered. "Two is my tag, not my age," she added to Dan's further confusion.
"Tag?" Dan repeated confused.
"What I'm Identified by," the girl said speaking as if she was trying to explain a complex scientific concept to a lump of rock.
"What kind of name is two?" Dan posed. "If your mother gave you that name I can see why you killed her," he added sarcastically.
"It's not a name, it's a tag. And my mother didn't give to me, I earned it," the girl replied in a hard voice.
"You're not a product to be bought, you can't have a tag," Dan said mirroring the tone the girl had used with him when explaining what a tag is.
"She bought me for seventeen gold bricks," the girl answered nodding towards the older girl.
Dan's mouth wordlessly opened and closed a number of times as she regarded the girl, before he finally started shaking his head. "You know what," he finally spoke up. "Forget I even said anything," he said just as the older girl walked back into the room. Dan hadn't noticed that she'd left. She had with her another chick that Dan hadn't yet seen up to this point. "And let me guess you are One?" Dan said turning to the older of the two chicks who'd been in the alley.
"Not that is matters, but I'm Twenty two," the girl answered curtly.
"Wait, don't tell me," Dan said feigning being deep in thought as he turned to the last of the now three girls. "You're Two hundred and Twenty two. You're all one big happy family," Dan said with feigned joy.
His words however didn't seem to even register on the girl as she kept on following Twenty two to where she came to a stop just outside the ring of salt and ash. Dan got the impression that the girl would have kept on walking had Twenty two not turned and whispered softly for her to stop.
"She," Dan did not miss the rage that had sparked in Twenty two's eyes at his words. "Is the reason why you're here," she said seeming to fight the urge to walk into the circle. "You will undo what you did to her," she ordered causing confusion to etch itself onto Dan's expression.
"What I did to her?" Dan repeated his confusion apparent. "I don't even know her," He said.
From the way Two and Twenty two shared a glance Dan got the impression that he'd just confirmed something they had previously known. "Roughly about three week ago, she and I were on a mission. We were tracking someone. She went into the magic force realm to try and locate our target. But before she could, you scrambled her mind," Twenty two said.
"Three weeks ago," Dan repeated his confusion not fading. "I only came to know of the existence of magic three weeks ago. I can't be the one who did this to her. The only thing I did three weeks ago, was become a..."
Dan froze mid-sentence as he remembered what his guardians had reported to him the next morning after he became a wizard. What they explained to him about the magic force plane. His magical signature had been nuclear, the girl must have been caught up in the wave of his power and her mind totally destroyed by it. His jaws clenched as she looked at the blank eyes of the girl now standing beside Twenty two, as guilt started to slowly fill him.
He now understood why they'd attacked him, he'd hurt one of their own so they'd come for him. He would have done the exact same thing had he been in their position. "You needn't have to do all this," Dan finally spoke up looking back to Twenty two. "Had you just told me, I would have done everything within my power to undo what I did," he said casting another guilty glance towards the girl who now stood gazing blankly into the air.
His response seemed to throw Twenty two off a bit before her expression solidified once again. "No doubt about it, you will do your best," she said in a hard tone. "Cause if you don't, I promise to do my best, to make you suffer till you beg for death which will not come unless I permit it," she returned.
Dan remained silent choosing not to engage her.
"Not to point out the obvious," he instead began. "But how I supposed to help her when I am strapped to this chair with this thing around my neck?" He asked.
Twenty two murmured a spell with her hand directed at him, the ropes vanished in a puff of purple clouds about a second after. "That still leaves the tincy wincy issue of the collar," Dan said tilting his head to the side to emphasize his point.
"Here," Twenty two said holding out her hand to him, in it was a small key.
"Uuh, not to sound rude or anything," Dan said unable to help the sarcasm in his voice. "But I'm kind of pinned down at the moment," he said regarding her neutrally with a flat expression. Twenty two's eyes dropped to the knife in Dan's legs. Her mouth opened to cast the spell that would rid him of it.... "Wait, wait, wait," Dan emphatically called out holding out his hands to her to indicate for her to stop. "How sure am I that I won't bleed out if you pull the knife out," he said looking at her warily.
"You aren't," Twenty two said simply before turning her attention back to the knife. A short muttered spell later the knife vanished in a puff of purple clouds.
Dan forced himself to look away from the ghastly wound that was left after the knife's disappearance. Part of him wanted to lash out and attack them for all the pain that was coursing through him at that moment. But with the collar still around his neck there wasn't much he could do. Besides, he rationalized to himself, he was the one that made the first affront.
With his fists clenched hard and his jaws even harder, Dan forced himself to ignore the pain as he rose from the chair and started to limp over to where two was standing outside the circle. Once he was within reach of her, Dan held out his hand to receive the key from her.
"Don't..!" The warning came too late. Whatever spell Twenty two had cast with the ash and salt, the moment Dan's fingers touched its boundary, he was immediately thrown back hard all the way to the other side of the circle where his back crashed hard against what felt like a titanium wall. Dan fell to the floor a sound of agony escaping him as he held the hand that had been outstretched with his other hand. It felt like the part that had crossed the boundary had been dipped in acid. Dan looked to the white circle before he turned and once again let his eyes land on Twenty two.
His rage burned hard within him, his jaws clenched hard as he tried to rein it in. "What the hell was that?" Dan questioned his rage not hidden.
I tried to warn you," Twenty two said her tone not all too concerned. "Did you honestly think that I would take that collar off your neck without a way of protecting myself?" she posed regarding him indifferently.
"I just told you that I would help you," Dan said through gritted teeth.
"In my world, a person's word doesn't mean much. People will say anything when they know they are going to die," Twenty two answered in a cold tone. "The spell I've cast on the room ensures that neither you nor your magic can cross that boundary. So I would think twice about any spell you might wanna throw at me. They'll do the exact same thing you just did," she warned.
Dan's eyes turned from her as he studied the air around him. "You do realize that I am a thousand if not ten thousand times stronger than you are, right?" He said turning a deadly gaze to her. "Breaking through any of your spells would be child's play to me," he said in a matter of fact tone without the slightest bit of bragging in his tone.
"I am perfectly aware of that and normally I would have let you find this out yourself, but like I said I don't have time to waste," she said. "The spell that is keeping within that circle is anchored by your own blood," she said causing him to study the boundary once again. "The magic that fuels it is drawn from you, so by all means hit as hard as you can and see what happens," she taunted throwing the key into the circle.
Dan limped over to it and picked it up. After feeling around the collar for where the lock to it was, Dan inserted the key and turned it. Dan couldn't help the sigh that left him as he felt his magic flow through him once again instead of the incessant pain that had taken its place. The wound on his leg sealed up moments after adding to his relief. "Why can't I feel my guardians through our bond," Dan asked not turning to Twenty two as he let his body fully heal.
"Like I said, your magic can't go beyond the boundary," she answered briefly. "Now, undo what you did," Twenty two said bringing his attention back to her once again.
The other chick, the one that had and still held a blank expression on her face was now standing inside the circle. Though Dan felt sorry for the girl and guilty for what he'd done, the rage he felt towards Twenty two at that moment overshadowed both of the former emotions. "You've kidnapped me, bound me to a chair like a hostage, run a knife through my leg, and even after I offered to help you still find a way to cause me more pain! What makes you think I would still wanna help you?" He asked breathing hard after the tirade.
"Look at the fingers of your right hand," Twenty two replied in a level tone. Dan turned to regard his hand. Though his whole body had healed from all the wounds that had been inflicted on it, the tips of his ring, mid and index finger were still a very angry red and now that his attention had been drawn to them, still hurt like hell.
"The only reason both your back and the back of your head are not in the same state is thanks to your shirt and your thick head of hair. Though you might need a new haircut," Twenty two went on as Dan turned to regard where the fallen pieces of his hair were now turning black on top of the salt ring. He hadn't hit an actual wall, he wasn't even anywhere near any of the walls of the room, he must have hit the opposite boundary of the ring. "That damage was inflicted by your own magic, magic just as strong as the one still coursing through you. It won't heal as fast as the other wounds you've just healed from," she informed him.
Schooling his features so as not to betray just how painful his fingers were, he turned back to her. "If you think one burn will change my mind," he began with a scoff escaping his voice. "Then you're in for quite the disappointment," he said.
"I didn't expect it to," Twenty two answered in a calm voice before she raised both her hands to the ash and salt ring. "But for your sake, I really hope you can stand on one toe," she then went on to say before she started casting another spell. Dan's eyes widened as the ring started to gradually grow smaller in size.
"Wait, wait, wait, STOP!" Dan called out to her. "I'll do it," he conceded seeing as he had no other choice.
"You have fifteen minutes, every five minutes longer is a foot I take off from the ring," she informed him. "Now get to work," Twenty two ordered before once again walking out of the room.
Dan warily eyed the ring which had already shrunk by a foot in diameter, before turning to the blank-gazed girl who by all indications seemed unaware of all that was going on around her. Taking from the fact that the ring had shrunk to beneath the girl's feet and how she remained unaffected by this, Dan concluded that the spell Twenty two had cast was meant specifically for him. Which seeing as it had been forged and was now anchored by his blood, made sense now that he thought about it.
"What's your name?" Dan posed trying to gauge how responsive she was.
"She doesn't have one," the younger girl that had aided in his capture, Two, interjected.
"What's your tag?" Dan corrected himself his eyes never leaving the chick. Only silence met his question. "Great," Dan muttered some of the optimism he was trying to muster fading. After a deep controlled intake of air, Dan slowly let it out as he closed his eyes.
"I thought you needed to look into the eyes of the one whose mind you were trying to enter," Two spoke up.
"I don't," Dan answered. "What I do need however, is silence," Dan said curtly though he didn't really need it.
He hadn't done it again or even tried it since he did it with Claire. It didn't take long for Dan to enter the cerebral plane now that he knew what it was and how to find it. With one glance at Two, who in this plane was eyeing him curiously as she probably was also doing in reality, Dan walked straight into the other girl.
Unlike the white room that Dan had found himself in when he'd entered Claire's mind, Dan now found himself standing in what looked like a vast empty desert. Except, instead of the white slightly orangish colour that dessert sands usually had, the sand he was standing on was black... scorched black. It was as if a fire had burned through everything including the soil itself. Dan's hopes sunk even further as his guilt increased. Was this what he'd done to the girl? Dan started turning in all directions trying to see whether he would see anything that could help him.
It was on his seventh turn that he saw it, a slim projection up from the ground quite a distance away. Had he been turning any faster, the would have missed it. Dan began sprinting towards it, he wasn't sure whether time moved the same on this plane as it did in reality. But he had already spent too much time in that one spot, he didn't want the ring getting any smaller. To his delight, on this plane he moved almost as fast as Athena did in reality. Though there wasn't any real air to brush against his face, Dan could feel it as the distance vanished beneath his feet. He arrived at the projection only a few moments later.
Once he was close enough to it, his brows furrowed in confusion. It wasn't a post as he'd initially assumed, it was the top end of a periscope. Dan got down on his knees and started scooping up sand trying to find its source, but that soon proved to be an effort in futility. The sand was too loose and unconsolidated for the hole to go any length, it kept flowing back into the hole.
Getting back onto his feet, Dan dearly hoped that his other spells apart from cerebral magic could still work in her mind. If it couldn't then the time he'd been given wouldn't be enough to get through all the sand. Summoning all the magic he was sure he could use without causing further harm to the girl, Dan spoke the words of the spell he'd learnt for deflecting object thrown at him. Dan had to keep his joy in check so as not to lose concentration as the sand started moving out of the way.
Ten meters into the sand without finding the source of the periscope, his joy and optimism was quickly fading. He was about to give up when a metal surface appeared from beneath the parting sands. Part out of joy, part out of desperation at the time which was quickly running out, Dan set aside caution and summoned a lot more magic than he was currently using. With one short spell, the sand parted around him as if a bomb had gone off right where he was standing, He now stood in what looked like a crater. Dan looked down at his feet. The parted sand also revealed something else.
He was now standing on top of a very large metal cube, about the size of a house. Jumping down from it, Dan studied the structure. The only thing he could relate it to was a nuclear bunker. Dan fought to quell his excitement not wanting to be disappointed. Was she in there? Had part of her mind somehow cocooned itself in the bunker to protect itself from the havoc his power had wreaked on the rest of her? All he'd have to do was let it out and the girl would be back to normal. Dan started to gather the magic he would need to breach the bunker. By its looks it wasn't going to be a small amount. Once he was sure he had all the magic he would need he directed his hands towards the bunker.
"Don't you even think about it!" Dan's eyes widened as what looked like elevator doors parted from what had previously been a seamless sheet of metal. The girl, or at least a projection of her mind appeared at the doorway. "Get in here, quick!" She ordered waving him in with her hand. The urgency in the girl's mental voice caused Dan to quickly move into the bunker.
To call the inside of the bunker Spartan would have been a compliment. Apart from a single wooden chair, a single monochrome computer on a table, and the other end of the periscope the only other things in the room was the vast array of weapons that adorned the wall, Dan knew some of them while others he didn't. He wasn't even sure whether some of the ones he was looking at actually existed. There was absolutely nothing for comfort within the room. "How do you even sleep in here," Dan found himself asking.
"I don't," the girl answered. "Sleep is one of the things you took from me when you did this to my mind," the girl said pointing to the periscope. "All that you see in here is a representation of what is left of my consciousness. The periscope itself is my awareness of what is happening to the rest of my mind. I get a front row seat to watch it as it turns to shit. This junk heap over here," the girl said pointing to the monochrome computer looking like she wanted to kick it. "Is all the awareness I have of my surroundings and all the control I have of my body," she said. "Say one word, and I can get what you mean. Make it a sentence and everything on the screen turns to gibberish. I can't start walking or stop for that matter unless someone asks me to!"
Dan clearly heard the frustration beneath the ire in the girl's voice. The guilt he'd been feeling came back to him in a flood. "I'm really sorry, I never meant to do any of this," he said truthfully.
"That for now, is immaterial," the girl said turning to him. "What really matters is whether you can do what Twenty two brought you here to do?"
"I thought you had little awareness of what's going on outside," Dan said more out of surprise than suspicion.
"I can create a picture from the snippets I get," she answered. "Now can you?" She questioned once again.
"Yes," Dan answered. "I did it once before," he said.
The girl's brow arched. "Another mind you destroyed?" She asked not bothering to hide her disapproval.
"No," Dan immediately answered. "Her father did that, I just fixed it," he said.
From the way she eyed him, Dan could tell that she didn't believe him. "So how do we do this?" She posed at last.
"I give you some of my own energy, your mind should be able to get itself back into shape after a while," he answered.
"OK then, what do I need to do?" The girl asked.
"Give me your hands." Since the girl wasn't bound by any spells that might harm him as Claire had been, Dan had decided it would be much easier to transfer his magical energy to her when in contact with the girl. Without wasting time the girl held out both her hands to him. Dan took them into his hand started the spell...
"Why did you stop?"
It didn't take Dan long to realize it. "Something's wrong," he said letting her hands go. Unlike the first time he'd done the spell with Claire, the girls mind was not taking in the power it needed to fix itself from him. He was consciously pushing the power into her.
"What?" The girl questioned curtly.
"You should be siphoning the power to fix yourself from me," he said part of him going over all that he'd done so far trying to see if he'd done anything wrong.
"Then nothing's wrong, I could feel your power," the girl said taking his hands into hers. "Now continue," she ordered. Dan remained silent as his mind went over the situation again. Once again he had the annoying feeling that he was missing something that was staring right at him. "What are you waiting for?" The girl questioned through gritted teeth.
Dan pulled his hands from hers as he turned to scour and scrutinize the room more closely hoping to find a clue as to what it was he was missing. Dan's own teeth gritted in frustration as he looked around the room for the third time, it was here somewhere, of that he was sure. What 'it' was however, was what he couldn't figure out. There was nothing else in the room except from the things he'd seen when he'd first walked into the room. The weapons, the chair, the table, the monochrome computer and the other end of the peri...
Dan's eyes widened a sound of exasperation escaping him as it finally clicked into place. If he'd had the time, Dan would have paused to slap himself at the back of his head. "Open the door,' he immediately said walking over to the wall that he'd entered through.
"For what?" The girl posed her confusion at his request topped off by her frustration at the situation and her impatience all merging to come out as anger in her voice.
"Don't you see?" Dan asked turning to her. "You're not the one that needs healing, that is," Dan said pointing towards the periscope.
"My periscope?" The girl questioned now predominantly confused.
Dan couldn't help rolling his eyes. "No you idiot, it's the wasteland out there," Dan corrected her. It was all starting to fall into perspective. His error had been to assume that only the projection of the girl was her mind. A mistake he'd made based on how he'd interacted with Claire when he was in her mind. Claire had lost control of her will, that's why everything else had been intact except for her. This girl on the other hand, had found a way to preserve her 'self' while the rest of her mind was totally destroyed.
The girl cast a wide eyed look to the periscope as she too started to follow his line of logic. "What are you waiting for?" She questioned turning to him. "Go!" She said as the door appeared from the seamless wall.
Dan stepped out back onto the blackened sands. He'd come a really long way from when he'd healed Claire. But looking at the endless sea of sand before him, Dan knew that the spell would take a lot from him. He knelt down let his hands sink through the black grains. Mustering all the mental will he could Dan tried to recall all what Ember had taught him about holding his own even against taxing spells. Wasting no time he began the spell....
A groan of exertion left Dan as he fell to his knees only barely managing to hold on to his consciousness. He was now back in the real world, and not a moment too soon seeing as how the salt and ash ring was now a few centimeters off from touching his knees.
"Did you do it?" Two asked her curiosity unhidden. Twenty two was a few feet from the girl studying her.
Dan turned to regard the girl who was still standing where she'd been when he'd entered her mind through the cerebral plane. Dan could feel his heart sink as he studied the girl's still blank gaze. A sigh of defeat left him, his head hanging from both exhaustion and disappointment, he'd tried everything he possibly could. "Yes he did," Dan's head turned back to the girl so quickly that he was momentarily dizzy. A sigh of relief escaped him as he found her regarding him with life now back in her gaze.
She was now smiling down at him. It wasn't a friendly smile. It was more of a she'd-gotten-what-she-wanted-out-of-him smile. Dan didn't care. He turned back to Twenty two who was still looking unbelievingly at the other girl. It was as if she hadn't expected for it to work and for Dan to be able to heal the girl. "There you have her back, now let me go!" He spoke up forcing strength into his fatigued voice.
Twenty two turned and eyed him silently for a while before finally speaking up. "No," she said. "Even if I let you go now, I have no assurance that you won't come after me in future," she went on to say.
"I give you my word," Dan said coldly. He wasn't going to beg or bend to her will anymore.
"Like I said, a dying man will say anything," she countered raising her hands towards the salt and ash ring and beginning the spell to shrink it further.
Dan closed his eyes focusing all of his energy onto the ring. A smile slowly crossed his face as he opened his eyes once again to regard Twenty two without breaking his concentration. He relished the struggle he could see in her eyes and the realization that was quickly filling them that she wasn't going to make the ring any smaller than it already was. "Having trouble?" Dan posed mockingly.
"How the hell are you doing that?" Twenty two posed unable to hide her shock.
"I've been thinking about what you said. The magic that powers the spell is drawn from me. Equal to me in strength, so while I may not be able to overpower it and break free. But its magic is similarly incapable of overpowering me and growing any smaller," he said.
Dan hated the smile that crossed Twenty two's expression. He'd wanted to see anger and frustration on it. "Very clever," she conceded. "But you see, one way or the other I still win," she said. "It's just that, you're not the only one who knows about pocket realms," she went on. "In fact right now, we are in one such realm," she informed him. "And like you to yours, I also happen to be the key to this one," she further said. "In a way, killing you now, would have been mercy. But seeing as how you've just proven that impossible, you can rot here until you're nothing more than a bag of bones," she said turning away from him. "Come on," she called out to the rest.
The girl Dan had just healed squatted right next to the ring regarding him with a smile. "It's Twenty one," she said to Dan's confusion. "You asked for my tag," she explained when she noted his confusion. "Take care, I've got a feeling that we'll meet again real soon," she said before she too rose to her feet and turned away from him.
Twenty one barely made three steps away from him before a loud bang resounded throughout the whole house shaking it visibly from its foundation. All three of the girls turned to him wide eyed.
A smile slowly spread across Dan's face as another bang shook the house even harder. Dan didn't need his bond to tell that they were close. He could feel the rage of each one of them burning almost as hard as his own. Looking up at them with a cold smile, he spoke. "I never really got the chance to properly introduce you guys to my guardians, did I?......
**A***FEW***MINUTES***BEFORE**
Chloe blinked several times, her mind refusing to believe what her eyes had just seen. Karra had not just walked into and merged with Kirra.
Her mind kept repeating this even as she looked on at the one who stood where Kirra had been before Karra merged with her. There was nothing physically different about her from how either of the twins looked individually.
For about a second or so after they'd merged, nothing happened. Until.... A growl deeper than anything Chloe had ever heard even from the strongest of alphas tore through the alley. It reverberated so deeply that Chloe felt it in her chest. The merged twins took a few disoriented steps backwards her hands on her head, it was as if she was trying to fight off some unseen force off. The look of both concentration and iron clad determination on Ember's face, told Chloe that it was her control that the twins were trying to rid themselves of. "Stop," Ember's steely voice was heard.
Another growl was heard as the twins morphed into their animal form. Cold terror flowed through Chloe as a tiger that was easily four times bigger than either of the twins individually stood before Ember growling at her threateningly. Even Claire had gone ashen beside her seemingly paralyzed right where she stood. Athena was eyeing the were uneasily as if she was preparing herself for the possibility that the situation might slip out of Ember's control. Ember however, stood her ground leveling a hard gaze at it. Chloe could tell that there was still a mental battle going on between the two of them. Her mind refused to even try and imagine what would happen if Ember lost that battle.
Relief of a kind Chloe would never be able to put words to, washed over her as finally the tiger took a few steps back from Ember. The phoenix had won. The tiger turned back towards where Dan's blood was. Chloe clearly saw the flame colour that was usually in Ember's eyes in the were's eyes, however around it was a ring of crimson red so deep that it almost appeared black. The ring kept shifting in size sometimes growing smaller till it was almost completely gone and then at others pushing out the flame colour. Though Ember was currently in control, the mental battle for control was still on.
The tiger sniffed at the blood for about two seconds before it raised its head and took a deep breath of air. It turned its head towards both ends of the alley. At the sight of the vampire who'd still been on the ground, there seemed to be a further struggle between it and Ember. The vampire rose and vanished from sight at superhuman speed.
It was only when she was out of sight that the tiger seemed to relent. Chloe had also been readying herself to move out of the way just in case the weretiger came in hers and Claire's direction when suddenly the tiger jumped high in the air onto one of the walls of the alley its claws digging into the concrete. With another jump it vanished from sight as it took to the roofs. Ember vanished in a burst of flames probably pursuing the tiger. Athena wasn't far behind as she with one flap of her wings soared through the air out of the alley and out of sight.
"Come on Claire," Chloe called out drawing the hunter out of her shock. Putting her hand on the hunter's shoulder and gripping it firmly, both of them burst into pitch black clouds that quickly rose towards the roof as Chloe once again shifted to shadow motion.
In spite of its size, the tiger was moving at a pace that made the twins look like they'd been moving at snail pace when they'd been each on their own. It took Chloe a whole minute moving at top speed to catch up by which time the tiger had already stopped at another point and was sniffing the ground again. Without wasting another second it jumped up back on to the roofs and took off in another sprint. It wasn't until they'd done this same routine about five times or so that it clicked in Chloe's mind. The tiger was going through all the places the assassin teleported Dan in an effort to lose their trail.
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It wasn't until they reached the twenty-eighth point about twenty minutes later that the tiger turned back to Ember who'd been at its tail the whole time.
"He's here," she called out morphing back to human in a burst of flames without breaking the steel grip she had on the weretiger's mind.
"I can't sense or feel anything," Athena stated as she came to land beside her. Chloe and Claire landed in a black cloud about a minute and half after her.
Ember remained silent her eyes keenly roaming over the area where they'd come to stop at. They were now somewhere deep in the forest that bordered the town. "Me neither," Ember conceded when she found nothing that could point them towards where Dan could possibly be.
Both she and the demon turned to regard the tiger as it stood growling a few meters from them. Its eyes were fixed unmovingly at a point in the air before her. "You're in her mind," Athena spoke up. "What is she seeing?"
Ember closed her eyes and delved into the mind of the were. She could feel the human presence in the mind but that part of the were was completely overshadowed by the much stronger animal side. There was very little chance of the human part ever regaining control from the animal side. Ember, however was not concerned with this at the moment. She bypassed the struggle and delved even deeper. When her eyes opened once again, she was no longer seeing through her own eyes. The were was seeing everything in red and right before her there was what seemed to be a hair line crack in the air.
Ember blinked a few times as she pulled out of the were's mind. "A pocket realm," she said her fixed on where she'd just seen the doorway through the weretiger's eyes.
Without preamble, Ember directed all of her magic at the doorway, hitting it with a force that shook even the trees around it to their roots. Unlike the doorways between whole worlds which were really sensitive and the slightest interference with which could have disastrous results. The doorways into pocket realms were much more stable. Much more so that they were no different from normal doors. With the right crowbar you could break through them. Except that in this case with pocket realm doorways, the crowbar was magic. Magic which she was in no short supply of.
Ember's second blow on the door landed a second before Athena's own blow which was quickly succeeded by tiger's own as it slammed its body against it. What had been a hairline fracture quickly widened till it became visible to plain sight. Gathering all the might she could possibly muster a sound of exertion left Ember as she directed the final blow to the door breaking it wide open into a circular doorway with jagged edges....
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Dan's moment of triumph was short-lived. He watched a smile cross Twenty two's expression after the initial shock had passed. "Seems you might just get to live after all," she said walking over to the circle as the assault on the house continued.
Dan smiled mirthlessly at her. "Sorry I can't say the same about you," he returned.
"Oh, you don't have to worry about us," she returned. "One of the first things you learn in my line of work, is to never to enter a place with only one exit," she said before nodding for the others to follow her. She took off in a sprint in the other direction opposite to the one they'd been going in initially.
Dan watched them vanish through the other set of doors in the room, which up to that moment he'd for some reason not noticed. A cloaking spell, he deduced. At the bang that followed, the door to the room through which Twenty two had been moving initially burst into several pieces, splinters flying everywhere.
Dan smiled as he turned back towards the door. His smile however straightened his eyes widening as a tiger jumped through the new open circular doorway. It looked every bit like Kirra and Karra did except for the fact that it was almost four times larger than either of the two. "Relax, she won't bite," Dan heard Athena say as she walked in after it "Now where are they?" Athena asked looking around the room with a murderous gaze.
"What the hell is that?" Dan asked unable to keep the fear out of his voice, barely hearing Athena's question.
"Not what," Ember said as she too walked into the room. Who?" She corrected.
Dan's brows furrowed turned to regard the tiger once again. "Kirra," he called out.
"No," Athena answered.
"Karra," Dan tried once again.
"Both and neither at the same time," Ember said to his further confusion. The Phoenix's eyes roamed over the room before it came to land on the salt and ash ring around him.
Dan's brows rose as he turned to regard Ember for the first time. "Your hair," he said regarding it, the flame colour in it had climbed up all the way to its roots.

As soon as he said this, the phoenix's eyes widened. Her hair turned into a bright yellow flame that quickly covered the rest of her body. "EMBER!!" Dan shouted calling out her name as she fell to the ground a scream of pure agony ripping through her. Dan had to use all of his self-will to keep from trying to run over to her. The spell that bound him to where he now was, was still in place. A deep heavy growl reverberated through the room.

Dan to turn his head to the weretiger just in time to catch it as the last of the flame colour faded from its eyes and all that remained was the deep dark crimson fixed solely on him...