Failed Attempts

Chapter 2: Elise

Seeing Glenn pretend to be a Bassett Hound was strange enough but when the fat man who was following me earlier stepped off the ladder and into the sewer I'd had enough for one day.

It didn't make sense. I'd been coming here for months and nobody else had ever been able to find their way in, so why had he been able to?

I thought about what Glenn had said moments before. "It's not good." I didn't understand. I mean, it's not like the fat man had any weapons. The worst he could do was sit on you...then again that's not too good either.

Just when I thought things couldn't get any weirder, Lara reached into her bag and pulled out a long, shiny object with a sharp tip. It appeared to be some kind of...sword.

"What are you?" She said thrusting the sharp object out at the mysterious man.

"Lara be careful!" Glenn shouted anxiously at her.

I watched as Lara stepped closer, so that the tip of her sword was gently pressed against the man's throat, he didn't even seem to flinch. A shiver crept down my spine. She dug the tip of her blade deeper into his the front of his throat so that a tiny trickle of blood dribbled down his neck and onto his shirt but still, he didn't seem to care.

"I said what are you!?" She shouted through gritted teeth. I didn't seem to understand why she causing the man such trouble, after all, he was probably just lost.

The man just stood there staring cross-eyed at the blade slicing his throat and for a minute I thought that maybe he would just leave...of course in a perfect world that would be the case...but you can't always get what you want now can you?

"I AM MORMO, COMPANION OF HECATE!" He shouted in blood curdling scream. The sound echoed off the walls of the dark sewer and into my head. I had no memory of anybody named "Mormo" but I did remember hearing something about somebody named "Hecate" before.

As much as I hated school, I always payed attention in History. I loved it. Hecate was the Greek goddess of many things, crossroads, entrance-ways, dogs, light, the Moon, magic, witchcraft, knowledge of herbs and poisonous plants, necromancy, and sorcery. But they were just myths. Obviously this guy was delusional...but little did I know, he meant every word of what he said.

I watched in horror as the greasy haired man sprouted leathery bat wings and sharp talons. His face became very square and the same leathery brown colour as his wings. He grew large muscles on his biceps and his upper torso grew by 3 sizes, tearing his "I Heart NY" shirt to shreds. Thousands of razor sharp teeth, much like tiny daggers, grew from his gums and overlapped onto his upper lip. The most terrifying part? He kept the same Bermuda shorts on.

He tried to lunge forward at the rest of us but Lara cut him off stabbing him in the shin. Wailing, the thing put it's claws to good use. He slashed Lara in the stomach and she toppled over. Her sword hitting the floor with a clank.

"Lara!" Ross shouted in alarm. He hastily went to help her. Gaping in shock, I saw Ross turn over her limp body.

He whole front was stained with blood and the shirt that she was wearing was torn in the place where the man had slashed her, leaving us to see the deep wounds on the front of her belly.

"WELL DON'T JUST STAND THERE, HELP HER!" shouted Glenn to Steven and I, we ran to Lara.

"What are we supposed to do?!" Steven demanded.

"Get her out! Get her some nectar and ambrosia! Do whatever you can just don't let her die! I'll finish him off don't worry!"

I attempted to lift Lara's body but I noticed that the man demon hybrid thing had been eyeing me since Lara was injured. When the others scolded me for not helping I came out of my daze.

We were at the ladder when he lunged. He ran straight for my legs making me fall flat on my face. He stood on my back, preventing me from getting up again.

"Elise!" Glenn yelled from across the sewer.

"Nasty little girl! Running away from your mother all the time! Children like you need to be punished!" The man said half hissing half speaking.

He bared his fangs and began to snap at me with them. He slowly lowered his head until he was right next to my face, still snapping his jaws and hissing at me.

He opened his mouth so wide that I could see his uvula wobbling back in forth in the back of his throat. He moved his face closer to mine, his mouth still fully open and daring to bite me. Then he sunk his teeth into my flesh and so began excruciating pain.

I could feel the blood running down my cheek from where he had bit me. I screamed. It felt like a thousand needles had been given to me all at once in the same area. He grabbed my foot and bit a huge chunk of flesh out of my toe causing me to let out another blood curdling shriek.

I could feel my back about to crumple under the weight of him. He seized my hand and was about to bite my entire pinky finger off when the strangest thing happened. I heard a quiet tune playing and I guess the fat man must have heard it too because he let go of my hand. Then he got off my back.

I sat up alert. Then I was suddenly aware of what was happening. The quiet tune was coming from Glenn who had started playing it on a pair of pan-flutes. The song seemed to be putting the man in some sort of trance and it seemed to be working.

Just then, thousands of green tree roots burst up through the floor and started wrapping around the man. Glenn played faster and the tree roots wound tighter around the man, eventually binding him to the floor. As soon as Glenn thought the roots were tight enough and not going to move he stopped playing. He dropped his pan-flute on the floor and came rushing over to see me.

"Are you all right?!"

"I'm fine." I said lying, I was definitely not fine.

"Can you stand?"

"Uh, I think so."

I tried to get up but I immediately fell back down. My back was definitely busted.

"Here let me help you." He crouched down in a crawling position and I sat on his back, put my arms around his neck and my feet around his waist, piggyback style. He stood up.

He walked to where Lara had first pointed her blade at the man. It still lay there on the ground.

"Go on, pick it up." Glenn said crouching down again so I could reach out my hand and pick it up.

"Why?" I asked puzzled.

"I think you should do the honours, I mean that was your first monster and all." It took me a while, but I finally got what he meant.

"You-you mean kill it?"

"Yes."

Nervously, I picked up the sword. It was to long for me but I held it anyways.

He walked us back to where the thing lay tightly bound in tree roots. I didn't think I would be strong enough to stab that thing but as soon as the tip of the blade touched the monster, it exploded into gold dust. Glenn had called it Celestial Bronze.

As we walked back to the ladder I thought about all the things that still made no sense. How did that man get in? How come nobody can see us go in? How did that man turn into a demon thing? What was that demon thing? Why did it say I needed to be punished? Why does everybody carry weapons? How does one summon tree roots with a pan-flute? Why did the demon thing turn to gold dust when I killed it? That was only half of it.

***

When Glenn lifted me out of the sewer, Steven, Ross and Lara were still there. Lara, to my relief, was sitting upright and awake. She still wasn't looking too good but at least she had survived. When Glenn climbed out he announced to the others how I had killed the man with Lara's sword.

They cheered and Ross lifted me off of Glenn's back and into the air, they chanted my name. I didn't really see what the big deal was, if anything they should be cheering Glenn for that thing he did with the pan-flute, now that was cool. The cheering went on for a few more minutes until finally they just stopped. All at the same time and they all had the same expression on their face, pure shock. Ross put me back down. They bowed to me. I didn't understand what was happening until I noticed something glowing above my head.

"Hail Elise Von Derve, Daughter of Hades."