The Slayer

Chapter 4

Chapter 4

Sapphyre stared at the screen of her laptop. A blank document was out and her fingers rested upon the keyboard, but they didn’t move an inch. The insertion point on the document blinked repeatedly, waiting for her to begin typing.

    She had been sitting like this for hours, glaring right through her laptop and sitting completely still. Her assignment wasn’t due until next week, but Sapphyre wanted to start it before she would have had to stay up late to complete it again.

        Obviously, she hadn’t made any progress. She had other matters occupying her mind.

           

        “Nothing?” Henry asked.

        “Sorry, sir,” Jett said. “We could not retrieve the necklace.”

      “That is fine. I never asked you to retrieve the orb, only to slay the daemon travelling between our dimensions.”

        Henry sighed and rubbed his temples.

        “Sir…?” began Sapphyre, concern lining her tone.

        “I am getting old, indeed. It’s good you attempted to retrieve the orb even without me asking you to. Though, I should have told you so anyway.”

        Sapphyre eyes looked down at her feet, her head bowed. She bit her lip and thought of Cooper.

        For sure, it was him who took the necklace. For sure, the daemon wouldn’t have acted so strangely if he hadn’t possessed the necklace. For sure, Cooper had killed the daemon in order to steal the necklace. Sapphyre was sure of it, but she couldn’t bring herself to tell Jett and Sir Henry about the mysterious man.

        And what was it that was stopping her?

      “Sir,” Jett’s voice broke into Sapphyre’s thoughts, “would you like us to go back down and find the orb?”

        Henry shook his head gently. “Leave it for now. You’ve worked hard enough today; you must go home and rest. Come back tomorrow evening and we’ll continue this discussion.”

        “Of course,” said Jett and Sapphyre together, bowing in sync.

        They spun on their heels and began to walk off. As Jett closed the door behind him, he sighed in frustration.

       “I don’t understand,” he began. “Why did that daemon act so suspicious when he never had that stupid orb anyway?”

       Sapphyre looked up at him. “Well, perhaps he was covering up for someone else who did have it. And even if he didn’t have the orb, we would’ve killed him anyway. He probably knew that and that’s why he was scared.”

       Jett rested his chin in his fingers. “Perhaps…but…I don’t know. Something just doesn’t feel right…”

           

       “Sapphyre?”

     Sapphyre jumped in her seat and looked up from her screen. She turned her head towards Jett, who stood at her door wearing an apron.

         “Are you alright?”

      Sapphyre raised her eyebrows. “Huh? Oh, well yeah. I was just really focused on my work.”