Meridian Chronicles: Keepers & The Soul Key (#4)

Chapter 20

Chapter 20

Lahash swiftly entered his quarters to check on Echo, whom he had left to regain a bit of her energy as she was near passing when he brought her out of the iron prison. He walked through the doorway where the doors swiftly closed behind him. After a thorough examination of the room, at first glimpse Echo was not visible to him. As he walked past the bed and around a corner, there she was seated in a chair staring at the floor.

"Lahash! I want out of here! I want out of here right now!"

Lahash looked relieved to see her. "Calm down, Echo, you will leave here shortly. You will accompany myself and Valefor back to Earth."

Echo crossed her arms and dropped her chin down while she shot her death glare at Lahash. "Why suddenly have you let me out of prison? Why are you just going to allow me to go back to Earth? What is it you are up to? What do you think you will gain?"

Lahash leaned up against the corner in the wall, and in his thoughts of her, whom he was enamored with, he smirked and said, "I could always use the company here. I am sure you and I would have grand times. Maybe hoped is a better word," he said as his grin left his face, "I have to go back to Earth, and you need not be worried about the whys behind what the demons do. Or I could just let you stay here with me," his eyes danced back toward the bed that Echo had awakened in from her near passing.

Echo threw her arms down at her sides and let out a huff, and in a fluster, she stormed over to the swaggering demon. "You can't keep me here forever!"

"And why not? You can't leave on your own and even if the fairies come here for you. They would have a fight on their hands now, wouldn't they? If you want to leave here, you can, and it will be with myself and Valefor. We have business on Earth to tend to."

"Why are you doing this? What is it you want?" Echo flopped back down in the chair.

"It tires The dark one of drawing power from humans to a lot of demons, it would be a lot easier to draw our power from the cosmos as the angels do. If we take that power and destroy the hall of souls then things would be simpler. That is a way to put it."

Echo was incredulous, "How can you believe all this? Why? Humans, yes, you all draw your power from the ill-willed and the downtrodden. But there are humans out there that have good hearts, they have good souls and do not deserve this fate you speak of. You will fail in taking out the keepers. I think you all forget that just because they have been tucked away and hidden that they have no power. You will fail."

Lahash moved toward Echo, who remained fumed as she sat in the red velvet chair. Her arms were stiffly crossed, and her own grip left impressions in her arms. Her beautiful eyes, if knives, would cut with the rage seething behind them.

Lahash moved toward the steaming nymph who shifted her dagger like eyes away to stare at the stone floor her feet rested upon. He stood for a few seconds looking down on her, and then he knelt beside her and rested his arm on the back of the chair to steady himself. With an ironic looked of softened eyes that gazed upward to study the nymph he was so obsessed with, he forced a mutter, so quiet, "I know."

Echo's face dropped, and she stopped breathing. "What did you say?"

Lahash looked away from her sharp eyes, and winced at his own words, in shock of what he allowed her to know. Downward at the ground, he stared at his leather shoes made in Paris and said, "You heard me."

Lahash stood up, turned away, and moved toward the chamber doors as if to leave, but he stopped and said, "I know. I understand and respect the dark one and his will. I understand that to him, having the scum demons in the legions we command to draw power from those humans is beneath him. But without that energy source, we to would perish."