Hermes | Book 1

: 17 :

If every impossibility is truly a possibility, then does that mean that there exists a state that has neither light nor darkness?

Chapter 17

CALM WASHED over Hermes like a drink of cold water on a swelteringly hot day as the men looked right at them. Asta had gone slack in his arms, her head still pressed to his chest so that she couldn't see whatever was happening behind her.

But somehow, he knew that nothing was going to happen. Hermes didn't know exactly, but he trusted Asta enough to know that they wouldn't get caught and so he started straight at them.

And sure enough, they looked right through them.

"Anything?" The burly man asked. The man who was looking at them- short, muscular and bald- nodded in negative. "Nothing. But I was sure..." He trailed off. With a shake of his head he followed quickly the other back to where they came form. But third one, a lean, black haired man who looked much younger than the others, still lingered in the spot.

Warning signs of a very bad headache rang loudly in his head but Hermes didn't even dare to breathe. Asta remain unmoving in his arms.

The third man looked at something in his hand. His startling blue eyes narrowed and slowly he made a move to walk towards them. Gritting his teeth and scrunching his eyes tightly shut, Hermes willed the pain that had started to bloom slowly but painfully from between his brows away.

"Vic!" One of the men hollered, the name echoing through the trees and reaching them in hundredfold.

Vic. Vic. Vic. Vic. Vic.

Asta's head pressed harder against his chest.

'Vic' stopped short. With one more look in their direction, he turned and walked away.

Hermes didn't move until Asta slowly untangled herself from him. Even then, he silently watched her as she stretched leisurely  like a cat and then pressed her thumb into something in her palm emitting a soft but audible click sound.

"Concealer," explained Asta, tucking loose strands of hair behind her ear with her free hand and squinting into the direction where the men had gone from. "The best one that is out there."

Hermes held out his hand and felt something tiny and rectangular press into his palm along with Asta's cold clammy ones. Walking forwards (with alternating cautious looks at every passing tree) he examined the tiny skin coloured object form between his thumb and fore finger.

Concealers were banned substance.

From the time it was founded (which wasn't long ago) it was a thief's best weapon and the police's worst enemy.

Able to manipulate the energy waves around them to conceal the holder of the weapon, Concealers made invisibility a dream come true.

Even now as he held the tiny object between his fingers, the pad of his thumb running over the minute designs, the back of his skull thrummed and his cheeks flushed in excitement. Hermes felt a flicker of recognition; a subtle beginning of a memory. But he was too slow and the memory slipped away from his grasp.

The model he currently held in his hands was something he hadn't seen yet; Asta was right, it was the best and most modern model out there.

It took him a second, but his perfectly manicured fingernails found the tiny slit of opening in its slim side like he had done it all his life and pushed up, hitting a delicate metal bit. He felt the sound of the click before he heard it; it vibrated through his fingernails and reached the bones of his wrist.

The air around his felt slightly tingly and upon looking at his arms, he saw the hairs rising.

Asta walked beside him, looking as though she hadn't felt the slightest bit frazzled at his invisibility. "Careful," she said, increasing her pace, "the radiation is not very good for the body."

Hermes felt of the lever and pushed down this time. "Ta da?" He said dramatically, but quietly.

Asta's chuckle reached his ears. He grinned at that. She turned to his direction and walked backwards so that she could see him. "I'm guessing that this- tu- Ta da is like the words to reveal something, like a magic trick?"

"Correct," said Hermes, making a show of clapping his hands.

Asta bowed, in a very old fashioned way.

"Where did you learn to do that?" He asked curiously. He had skimmed through some pages where illustrations of historic methods of respect if something of that sort was shown. He didn't remember exactly, but he did remember something of this sort.

Laughter lines became prominent in her corner of her eyes. "It's a secret."   She turned around-just in time to dodge a particularly large and villainous looking tree root- and began a brisk jog.

"Hey wait up!" Hermes said laughing, feeling oddly happy. Are the tree expelling some poisonous gas that's making them feel so high and happy? He decided that that must be it.

But he chased after her anyway, taking care to not to trip on any sneaky tree roots or slam face first into the tree, and caught up with Asta quite easily, who didn't look at him but grinned as she jogged. Comfortable silence fell in between them, the sound of snapping of twigs, shoes squelching in muddy parts, the sound of the wind whistling between the trees and the chirping of the particularly daring birds on the trees falling into the background.

Fortunately, they reached the edge of the forest in one piece; although they had twigs and leaves sticking out of their hair and clothes and mud splattered on their shoes and pants (they were not as experts as they expected to be- the forest played a pretty tough game of hide and seek with them).

The edge of the forest neatly gave way to a terrifying drop that ended somewhere after the eyes's farthest point of vision. Fog gathered at the bottom, making an eerily beautiful combination with the mystery greenery below.

Hermes gulped a little and put a few steps between him and the edge.

"Asta? What do we do now?"

Asta looked at him with flushed cheeks, glittering eyes and a drunken smile.

"Now we jump."