Drugs

Chapter XV

It wasn't like I had the time to celebrate this victory or smile at his death. The three-headed creature walked towards us through the remains of the battered buildings. Power surged through me, coming from Samael's corpse as she regarded us before she spoke.

"Domenic time is running out. Make a deal with me. I did more than what Rainbow would have done for you. The deal is only to make sure we both end up surviving this."

"No thanks. I have made more than enough deals for a lifetime. Was it true what he said to me? Is Samael really me?"

"You really believed the nonsense he was spouting. It was probably just a tactic for you to lower your guard," Ash said as she sat on the pavement. "I am just glad that bastard is dead."

"Regardless of what I tell you. You wouldn't believe me and it doesn't really matter now with the gatekeeper dead," Enêpsigos said as she looked up to the sky and debated with herself in a foreign tongue. "Time is running out and we have to leave."

"What about those people in the sanctuary?" I asked.

"We either take them with us or we leave them here, those are the only options. We have to attack Lilith before she acts," Enêpsigos replied.

"What do you mean?"

"She is going to open the gate, but she doesn't fully understand what she is doing."

"We aren't leaving anyone behind, Ash interjected, "I have left too many people behind and too many debts that could never be repaid even if you have been the one helping us along and speaking to the girl. Everyone comes with us as far as they can safely go. Then we think of something else."

I turned towards Ash as the sunlight illuminated the blood on my face.

"Think of your daughter besides, I saw Mallory in that castle. I never trusted that thing I told you from the beginning and look at you now, having to fight the same things that you latched on to like a child."

"Now is not the time for this. We will get moving then. How many days?"

"We have to start moving now. Your troops will meet us halfway, " Enêpsigos said.

This sounded like a bad idea, but it wasn't like I had many options in the matter. I sensed many monsters in the area and if we left these people alone. I knew the result of that decision would've been death.

My body had adjusted back to normal.

"Alright then, I am ready."

Those words came from my mouth, but my legs caused me to fall to the ground.

***

My body was slowly healing. Why has she insisted on pushing us so hard? What was it that she feared so much that she wouldn't let us rest? She had restrained from showing the people here her three heads, but around me, she did it constantly. The heads kept in deep argumentative conversation with each other. Speaking words in tongues I had never heard in my life. Was it even a language?

We had barely taken a moment in this abandon looking shack to rest. Whoever was here had picked it clean. The trek had become slower with so many humans complaining about basic needs: food, water, clothes, and the women requiring health care stuff. Here we were Ash, Enêpsigos, and I supposedly trying to find some common ground in this rest meeting. It was at this moment a knock came to our door, causing Enêpsigos to revert to her human form.

She opened the door, and a scared, rugged young man stepped in. "Monsters!" he shouted, "talking ones, they are asking for someone we assume it to be either one of you, " his hands were visibly shaking.