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Chapter Five Kali gulped. A demon was standing right in front of her. Could she do anything to scare it away? The only thing she knew how to do was the thing Gary had just taught her, but what could that do against a demon? Gary glanced at Kali. For the first time he could read her expression. She was scared. She was afraid, frightened, and she didn't know what to do. Panic should be setting in about five seconds… Five . . . four . . . three . . . two . . . one . . . "Gary! What do we do? It's going to eat us, or take me back to my mom! I can't do anything, what do we do!" Kali said, starting to get an adrenaline rush. "Calm down, and try not to panic. We shouldn't have to do to much, I think it's only hunting for food, not necessarily for you." Kali whimpered in fear. "Don't worry. I can scare it away." Gary looked at the demon, who looked at him in fright. Surprised, yet feeling slightly braver, Gary commented, "See, that wasn't so hard, was it?" Kali, who was looking past Gary, was not ceasing her fear. In fact, it looked as though she was even more afraid than before. Puzzled, Gary turned around to face a bigger demon, this one taller and heavier, and not nearly as agile as the other demon. The animal demon, who was only hunting for food. Right away, Gary knew the difference between the born demons and the man-made demons. Man-made demons had qualities more like humans, most likely because they were once human, and the born demons had qualities more like an elf or a nymph. "Hand her over," the demon hissed, in a scratchy, snake-like voice. "Or there will be trouble." Barely thinking, Gary did the only thing he could think of. He hoisted Kali over his shoulder and started running down the hill, her weight nothing to him, she could have weighed a feather. "You're making a big missstake," the demon announced, bounding after them. "Now you will not be ssspared." Gary ran faster, though the fact that Kali was now screaming in his ear did not help him. Dark clouds started forming over head. A flash of light almost blinded Gary. Kali's scream was muted by a very loud clap of thunder. The lightning couldn't have hit too far off; maybe it had even hit the demon. All hopes of this vanished, though, when he again heard the demon's voice. "Nice try, but it won't be that easy. I can sssee you've already taught the half-demon a few tricksss, but that won't sssave your ssskin." This time, the demon was even closer than before. But what had he done? He hadn't called on this storm. Could it have been Kali, who didn't know a thing about her magic? Gary urged himself to run faster. "Let me down!" Kali screamed. "I can run on my own!" "You'd be dead meat. I've seen you run before." "You're not going much faster!" Gary bolted down the rest of the hill, jumped down the last few feet, and kept on running towards the city. His speed had surprised him, and he had wondered what had made him suddenly run so fast. Certainly Kali's competition couldn't have done it; she didn't know what she was talking about. He could run rings around her running, he'd done it before, only she hadn't known he was there. He noted that it would be better if he never mentioned that, though. "Okay, okay, you've proven your point! Now slow down!" "No! The demon will catch up!" "The demon stopped about a mile ago! We past the force field!" "How do you know?" Gary said, trying to shout over the wind roaring in his ear. The storm that was about to start seemed to have strangely disappeared. "I felt this weird prickly feeling about a millisecond before the demon stopped. It stopped because of the force field, it had to be!" Gary abruptly stopped, and Kali was almost thrown twenty feet into the air, had Gary not been holding her over his shoulder. He set her down on the ground and looked behind him. He could barely see the demon standing there, about a mile away, staring at them. Between them stretched a baron landscape. You wouldn't have believed that they were in England. They seemed to be in some sort of grass desert. "I've got a feeling that we're not in England anymore," Kali said uncertainly. "I think you're right. We can't be. I know that the valley and the mountains were all made by magic, and couldn't be seen to the human eye, but I don't recall this landscape before. I've been to the city along that path. We're definitely not in England. But then, where are we?" "I wish I knew the answer to that. But you've got more explaining to do. Like, perhaps some info on the demons would be nice." Gary looked at her. He'd have to tell her something. "From what I know, there are two different types of demons. One type that's born demon, the other type that's changed into a demon in later life. The born demons are skinny little creatures, very nimble, agile, whatever you want to call them. They are more animal than human. The first one we saw was one of those. It was hungry for food, and was hunting us. You were an easy target because you were weak and didn't know much about them. Easy prey. "But at the site of the demon behind us, it ran away in fear. The animal demons, the born ones, despise the ones that were changed into demons. But because those new demons are more advanced in mind and magic, they are dangerous, and the born demons aren't stupid enough to stick around when one is hunting. It must have known that the demon was after us in particular, which is probably why it ran away so quickly. "The humans-turned-demon don't remember their human life, and serve only the one who changed them. What might happen if the master dies is not known, since the only person with the power to change humans to demons is your mother. You were almost a human-turned-demon." "Why is it so important that you protect me?" Gary hesitated. "If your mother were to get hands on you, then her plan would be complete, and that's all I know. I know her plan has something to do with world domination or something like that anyway. You know, what most evil doers are after." "Do you protect me for the world or for me, for my life?" Gary looked at her, puzzled. "What kind of question is that?" "A personal question that I need answered." "I'm sorry, but I don't know what you mean." "You don't know what I mean, or don't know how to answer?" "Neither, I really don't get what's going on here--" "I'm the missing link, right? The only reason everyone is after me is because I'm part of some plan. That's it--I'm part of some plan. I'm not worth anything to anyone--except for the fact that if my mother-who-isn't-my-mother needs me for world domination! How comforting, there's no one out there to love me! Forget it, I can protect myself!" Kali turned and stomped off towards the city, or where the city would have been if they were in England. Gary stood there, staring after, wondering what he had said wrong, and what he could do to comfort her. Comfort her? Why do I want to comfort her? I'm only supposed to protect her. The feeling left him, and he started after Kali, to make sure she didn't do anything rash.
Kali sat at the edge of a pond, stirring the water with her finger. A teardrop fell from her face and rippled the water. Looking up at the night sky, Kali withdrew her hand from the water and wrapped her arms around her legs. Why me? What did I do wrong? Why couldn't I have just lived a normal life? I believe now that I was kidnapped. But why did I have to be kidnapped? Why did I have to possess this stupid power? Kali screamed in frustration, and splashed her hand in the water, at her reflection. "I guess I might as well go along with life, but I don't see the point in living if my life is wanted so much. I don't want to become one of those demons, but I don't want to keep running. Why can't I just stay here and be safe?" "Because we need to start looking for three things that we can't let your mother find." The voice startled Kali, and she hadn't even realized she was speaking out loud until the answer. She knew it was Gary, and didn't need to turn around to see him. She didn't think she could face him, she was slightly embarrassed about what he had heard her say. Instead, she looked down at her reflection, then across the small pond. It took her a minute to realize what Gary had said. "What three things?" "The horn of a golden unicorn, the flame of a black dragon, and the ashes of a phoenix." "And just where, exactly, are we supposed to find those three things? Besides the fact of why we need to find those, I think that where is a reasonable question." "Here. If we are where I think we are, it shouldn't be too hard." "Then where are we!" "I think we're in some sort of hologram that your mother made up to keep us from getting to far away. I think she just changed the landscape. If we keep along this path, then I'm assuming that we'll end up in the city. So technically, we're still in England." Kali sighed. "When we get to the city I am taking a very long, long resting break." Gary could have said that they wouldn't have the time for that, but he didn't feel like getting into another fight with Kali. Instead, "The sooner we get to the city, the sooner you can rest." Kali nodded and stood up. "Then let's get going." |
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