The Elementals : The Dawn of Darkness

Chapter 10 - Don't I know you? No? Okay, please don't kill me

I woke up to a hand shaking me frantically. I opened my eyes groggily, it was still dark out, my body was simply not adapted for this time zone. I may as well be solar powered. To be honest I was glad to have been forcibly yanked out of that nightmare. I would be having bad dreams for the rest of my life after that one, but I had learned something that could just give us the advantage over the Bride of Frankenstein's ugly twin sister.

I groaned and tried to shut my eyes again, as a mumbled, "Edinburgh. They're in Edinburgh," as a sort of half-hearted distraction to whoever had decided to wake me up. However, that clearly didn't last long as the person who had decided to interrupt my beauty sleep was very determined that I stayed awake. So, they did the only reasonable thing and slapped me in the face. Hard.

I howled in pain, sitting bolt upright at such a speed I should have given myself whiplash, and then experienced another stage of agony when my forehead collided with the person who was still hovering above me. Until I have my morning coffee I'm about as coordinated as a cross eyed octopus, so it wasn't a pretty sight as I flailed on my back rubbing my cheek which was stinging like I'd just taken a patch of nettles to the face, and my forehead which I could almost feel it was going to become a Tom and Jerry style cartoon bump. (Kids ask your parents).

I opened my eyes to see who had slapped me and then had karma perform a one eighty on. Sheira was the unfortunate victim in this case, nursing her nose which was probably already red. And I say probably because I couldn't see a damn thing. The fire was smoking in its pit, which meant it had only just been put out, but a faint red glow was pulsing from just beyond the treeline. Add to the fact that Sheira seemed to be panicking initiated full red alert sequence. But first I had a slightly more pressing matter to attend to.

"What the hell was that for?" I hissed at Sheira. "Do you usually just go around slapping people first thing in the morning because that is a terrible method for an alarm clock."

Sheira's scowl was hindered somewhat by the fact that she was shielding her mouth with her hands, "what do you think that was for?"

"Can I have three guesses?"

"I have been trying to wake you up for the past fifteen minutes!"

I knew I was a deep sleeper, but geez, that was deep even for me. "You could have just poked me before causing me grievous bodily harm."

"What do you think I did first!"

"There's no need to move to violence!"

"Will you two SHUT UP!" roared Shadow. I honestly had forgotten he was there and he was looking panicked to say the least. He was pacing frantically and darting around the clearing, checking the sigils that he and Sheira had carved into the trees earlier tonight.

"Wusgoinon?" I said through a yawn.

"We may be under attack," growled Shadow.

Well that certainly woke me up. "What!? What did I sleep through?" I jumped to my feet and scanned the treeline. "And what the hell is 'may be' supposed to mean?"

"Alright, let me rephrase that. We are under attack so keep your voice down!" he hissed.

The red pulsing light appeared from more areas around the clearing. Alarm sigils I thought. Shadow and Sheira had been running around the campsite before we turned in for the night, carving sigils into the trees surrounding us. However, a sudden high pitch scream followed by a pulse of lightning made me very much doubt that these sigils were friendly.

Sheira was looking around in a panic, her eyes were wide and from the vague silhouette I could see, she was trembling. I walked over to her and took her hand in mine partly to calm her down, partly to make sure I wasn't going to be left behind in the middle of a wood, in pitch darkness, filled with people that wanted me dead. Sheira stopped trembling but, understandably given the current situation, still looked terrified.