“Passed over where?” Keely feels her heart beating faster suddenly.
“Demon realm.” Bryon runs a filthy hand through his hair feeling defeated.
“Which means there is no Calvary coming. We’re on our own here,” Lila states. In one of the coolest moves Keely has ever seen—Bryon’s recent display excluded—Lila turns and kicks the cell bar on the ground. It flies up in the air and she catches it, spinning it like a baton. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”
“If we’re in a Demon realm, isn’t there going to be, umm, Demons?” Keely asks. Her feet feel glued to the spot in which she stands. Can she really face more of these creatures? When is it going to stop?
Observing the alarm on her face, Bryon decides to take her hand. With a slight tug he moves her forward. “Yes, but we have no other choice. They may not even bother us if we don’t bother them. Most Demons only care about themselves. It’s like…walking through a bad part of town. Just keep your head down and move fast.”
With a tired laugh, Lila adds, “And if the local gang gives us any shit, we kick their asses.”
Walking quickly through the dark tunnel, Keely can’t seem to shake the feeling she is in a haunted house, just waiting for the monsters to jump out. The orange light that illuminates their way is both reassuring and eerie. She wonders how the sons of Angels can be so horrible. “There aren’t a lot of Demons though, right?”
Lila laughs and Bryon nearly stops walking as he gazes at Keely incredulously. “They have us outnumbered by far,” Bryon says raising a brow.
“But there are only twenty-two, right?”
Now Bryon does stop. “Originally, yes.” He rubs his neck while he thinks of the best way to explain this. “People assume that when a person dies, they either go to Heaven, or they go to Hell.” He looks around and begins moving again as he talks. “Things are not that black and white. It’s easier to think that way, but it doesn’t make it true. See, it’s like how for years, everyone thought the world was flat, then discovered it to be round. Or how they thought the sun rotated around the world, then one day, someone realized the opposite was true and there were actually even more planets that orbited it. There are things worse than Demons. Things that mated with Demons, and they spawned children, then those children mated, and they spawned children. You understand? There are still some Originals left and they’re extremely powerful, but there are billions of lesser Demons. Probably more. On Earth, people die all the time. Demons are harder to kill, and when they do die, they just end up back in Hell.”
“So what’s the point in killing them?”
“It’s believed that when you go to Heaven or Hell, you go without a body. Only your soul. I’ve had a lot of contact with Demons and they are flesh and blood, and they are soulless. Now how can you only be a soul if you haven’t even got one? But, I think that when they’re killed and sent back to Hell, they’re stuck there, no longer able to travel the realms. That’s why it’s important to kill them and not wound them.”
“How can you tell the difference?”
“Hidden in the sand, they’re wounded. Salt of the Earth, they’re dead.”
“You know that’s not always easy to distinguish? Like when you’re under attack.”
“Eventually, you get the hang of it.”
“So why does God allow them to exist?”
“I can’t answer that. You know how scientists thought the atom was the smallest amount of any substance, but then someone looked inside and discovered there was actually a nucleus made up of even smaller protons, neutrons, and electrons?”
Keely nods, trying to absorb everything he is telling her, while also coming to the realization that though she has never seen him crack open a book or do homework, Bryon is a really smart guy.
“So, just like that, we are constantly finding out new things. God is a complicated being, many, many layers and levels. There’s so much we couldn’t even begin to understand, but I’m sure He has a plan for even Demons. If God made man so complex, I mean, think of all the things about ourselves we haven’t discovered, just try to imagine other beings and other places. There is Heaven, Hell, all the planets in between, and then there are yet the different realms where Demons reside. I always think of it like, the U.S. is made up of fifty states or the world is made up of different countries. That’s how Hell is divided. I’m sure Heaven has realms as well, but I’ve never met anyone from there. I’m guessing it’s so great, nobody has the need to leave. But like I said, we don’t know everything there is to know. Probably never will.”
“My father came from Heaven. He would know about realms if there are any. But he also found a reason to leave.”
“Which should give you the first clue to his sanity,” Lila says quietly. After a moment’s thought, she adds, “No offense,” just in case.
Keely just nods, lost in her head. Bryon has given her so much to think about. Too much really. “What do you think happened to their souls?” she asks as they turn a corner carefully.
When Bryon knows it’s clear, he says, “I don’t know. Maybe they just never had one.”
“But I thought you had to have a soul to live. If God didn’t give them one, then how do they exist? Could he have taken it back? In which case, shouldn’t they be in Heaven?”
“Souls in Heaven, soulless in Hell,” Lila reminds her.
“O.k. I just can’t think about this right now.” Keely massages her forehead. “Does anyone else feel like we’re going in circles?”
“Or like we should have come across someone by now? Yeah, I’ve been getting that feeling too,” Lila agrees.
“This place is a labyrinth. Maybe we should start marking our turns,” Bryon suggests.
Using the cell bar, Lila scratches an arrow on the wall, marking their direction as they clear another corner.
“Where do you think everyone is? I mean our people.”
“We don’t even know where we are. One task at a time, Keely,” Lila snaps.
“Sorry. I’m just worried.”
“Yeah, I know. I am too, but I don’t want to think about that right now. If we’re stuck here, we can’t help them.”
“You need to take a deep breath and concentrate. You can get us out of here, Lila,” Bryon says softly. She looks at him, desperation clear in the crinkles around her eyes. He nods, reassuring her.
Lila closes her eyes, slowly inhales deeply. She is very still, very quiet. Her fingers trace the hem of her shirt. “Keep going. We’re on the right path,” she says as she opens her eyes.
Keely opens her mouth, but before she can utter a word, Lila silences her with a raise of her hand. “I’m sure.”
“Is it still Friday?” Keely asks Lila as they start forward again.
“I think so. Or Saturday morning. Why?”
“Just checking.”
“It’s your birthday, isn’t it?” Bryon shakes his head. “I forgot. Happy birthday.”
Keely smiles at her him. “You kind of had a lot going on, Bryon. And thank you.”
Bryon smiles back, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. Not that she can possibly blame him for that. He’s been through so much already and they’re not even out of danger yet. Who knows if they ever even will be? Just the fact that he’s a Watcher and she’s a Demon Princess.
“Life is never going to be normal, is it?” Her voice sounds sad even to herself.
Bryon puts his arm around her shoulders. “I don’t think so.”
“If it helps, there comes a point when you get so used to abnormal, it just becomes, normal,” Lila offers.
“Do you ever wish you could change it? Be someone else? Do something else?”
Lila laughs quietly. “You just say whatever you think, huh?”
“I know. My mom says I don’t have a filter. Ya know, to sift through what I think and what I say. She’s always hated it. Not my dad though. He thinks it’s great, always being honest.”
Lila regards Keely for a moment. “Sometimes I want t
o quit. Be free to go where I want. Do what I want. Whenever I want to. I would never want to change who I am or where I came from though. I love my family, my heritage.” She stops and closes her eyes as they come to a fork, splitting the tunnels. “This way,” she says moving to the left. “In the end, we are special. We’ve been given a gift. Even you. Even if you don’t feel like it. So, although I have moments of weakness and wish I could be a normal teenager, doing absolutely mundane things, I would not change it.”
Keely ponders this. “Even now?” She holds her hands up and looks around them.
Lila shrugs. “Even now.”
“What about you?” Keely eyes Bryon.
“Man, I’m awesome. I kick ass. How can you even ask me if I’d want to be someone else?” He winks at her and squeezes her arm.
“Even now?”
“If you had asked me yesterday, I may have said yes. But I wouldn’t have meant it. Lila’s right. Being who we are is a gift. We have a purpose. And we help a lot of people. We make the world a safer place.”
“But the danger…”
“If there wasn’t anyone like us, the danger would be much worse. Imagine asking a fire fighter or a police officer this question.”
“Yeah, but they have a choice.”
Lila and Bryon both look at Keely questioningly. Bryon says, “We have a choice. We don’t have to do what we do.”
“We can’t choose our parents or our upbringing. But we choose to do this as a career. There are some that travel the world doing this kind of thing. Some just stay local. Some relocate. But there are a lot that are just on call or that don’t do the job at all,” Lila adds.
“My parents worked for years,” Bryon says. “My mom stopped when she had me. They thought I should have one safe and stable parent. Then my dad retired last year. God gave us free will, remember?” He is quite the open book lately.
“I don’t feel very free right now.”
“I hear you. This place is claustrophobic and ridiculously huge at the same time,” Lila snorts. She makes an adjustment on the lantern as it begins flickering. “We don’t have much time left,” she says as she raises it so they can see.
“We can’t lose the l-light,” Bryon stammers. The panic on his face hurts Keely’s heart. Again, she tries to imagine how scary it must have been for him. Held captive for days in total darkness. She takes his hand and squeezes it firmly.
“Can we run?”
“We better,” Lila says.
They move in unison, jogging at first, but picking up the pace every time the fire flickers lower.
“I have no idea how much farther we need to go,” Lila pants.
Keely’s mind whirls. She doesn’t want to be stuck going through this maze with no light. And she doesn’t want Bryon to be scared again. There has got to be something they can do. Just as she finishes her thought, the lamp burns out with one last flicker. Bryon’s hand tightens on hers, nails biting into her skin. She can hear his breathing accelerate rapidly.
“Shit,” Lila spits. “Take my hand, Keely. I’m going to have to feel my way through. Guess there’s no point in marking our turns anymore.”
Keely grips Lila’s hand and pulls on Bryon who is refusing to move. “Come on Bry. We have to keep going.”
“Damn it. I hate this,” he whispers.
“I know. I’m sure we’ll be out soon.” They had to be getting close to some kind of exit by now.
“I can take a room full of Demons. I can take Witches and Warlocks. I can even take your creeper brother, but this freaks me out. I need some kind of light.”
“I know,” Keely says again. She understands how terror can take over. But she also knows you can overcome it. At least to a point. She herself has come a long way very recently. “I’m here with you. You’re not alone, Bryon.” He grips her hand so tightly it begins to feel numb. “Wait, did you say there are Witches?”
“And Warlocks,” Lila says as she tries to move forward again, but Bryon is holding firmly to his spot.
“Come on. You can do this. I just watched you kick a Demon’s ass in less than a minute. Remember, you’re awesome?”
“Keely, please. I just need a second.”
She releases Lila’s hand and wraps her arms around Bryon. His body is rigid. His clothes soaked in sweat. As she hugs him to her, his heart slams against her ear as if it is pounding out of his chest. She wants to cry, she feels so bad for him. This Watcher who wouldn’t change what he does, even now as terrified as he is.
A pale bluish light glows beyond Keely’s closed eyes. She opens them quickly looking for the source of the light.
Bryon holds her at arm’s length, eyes large and full of wonder, gazing back at her. Keely glances around again before her eyes settle on Bryon’s. She sees herself reflected there, light radiating warmly around her. Softly glimmering off of her skin everywhere.
“What the…?” Lila murmurs. “Well that’s new.”
Twenty:
“Kiem, this is either the coolest, or the most disturbing thing I have ever seen,” Bryon utters through barely moving lips. He tilts his head to look around Keely, unsure. “You’re luminescent.” His mouth spreads slowly into a smile. A real, Bryon smile. His skin and teeth reflect her light, casting a blue hue.
Inhaling shakily, Keely looks down at her hands. She turns them over, examining her palms. The hairs on her arms rise and even they are glowing. It’s such a pretty color, bright in shade like Bryon’s eyes, but pale in illumination. She smiles back hesitantly. In her mind, she seconds Bryon’s earlier statement. She’s freaked out, but totally enthralled simultaneously. The only word she can manage is a nearly inaudible, “Why?”
Lila circles her like a vulture before coming to a halt beside Bryon. She places her hands on her hips and inspects Keely from head to toe, then back up again. “It’s pretty,” she finally decides aloud.
Bryon nods in wonder. “I say we don’t look a gift horse in her light conjuring face. Or however that saying goes.” Bryon shrugs and Keely squints at him.
“Did you just call me a horse?”
Once again, Bryon shrugs. Lila is monumentally giddy. Turning Bryon so they can continue on their way, she is almost skipping. “You are just full of surprises, Keely.” Smiling, she adds, “Do you realize that you basically became a flashlight when we needed light the most? It’s amazing.” She shakes her head. Lila’s long pink-blond hair falls over her shoulders as her tiny frame bounces with each step, reminding Keely again of a pixie.
“Do you know how you’re doing it?” Bryon hasn’t stopped smiling at her.
She mulls it over, constantly looking down at herself. She’s unable to wrap her mind around it. Light is coming from under her clothes so she knows her entire body is alight. “I’m not positive, but I feel a humming throughout my body, and something keeps rolling in my stomach. But not in a bad way. It feels almost normal to me.”
“Do you think you could turn it off if you needed to?” Lila gives her a panicked look.
Keely shakes her head. “I don’t know. I don’t even know how I turned it on.”
“O.k. We’ll just deal with that when we get to it. We may need to hide and darkness is probably our only hope here.”
Nodding, Keely bites her lip. She wants to try turning it off just to make sure she’s capable of it, but doesn’t want to take the chance of not being able to turn it back on. As it turns out, she doesn’t need to worry about this any longer. As they round the next corner, there’s a light at the other end.
Keely focuses on switching herself off as they jog toward the light. She imagines herself as a lamp and pictures herself flipping a switch. When that doesn’t work, she thinks of a flashlight, like Lila had said. She envisions pressing the button. Keely even thinks about removing the batteries. Still she is glowing. Looking at Bryon, she bites her lip wondering how to stop the light. With several flickers, like the lantern shortly ago, her light abruptly burns out.
Lila and Bryon look qu
estioningly at her. She shrugs, unable to offer a theory.
They are close enough to discern it is not natural light, but definitely coming from an electrical source. Keely can hear the hum from the wires above their heads, mirroring the feeling that had just been throbbing inside of her.
Bryon stares at Lila. She nods, giving the all right. They hover around the open door, listening. There is a sound and Keely can picture feet anxiously shuffling. It’s followed by a long sigh and her heart thumps hard against her rib cage. Everything goes very still around Keely for an excruciatingly long second as it registers in every cell of her being that she knows that sigh. Without any indication she is going to make a movement, Keely rushes through the door, leaving Bryon and Lila in shocked silence.
“Mom?”
In the half of a heartbeat it takes Keely’s eyes to find her mother sitting restlessly in a dark wooden chair, Lila and Bryon are at her side.
Kimberly Kiem stares back at her daughter, her mouth rounding in an O as if bewilderment is the only emotion she is capable of at the moment. She stands so quickly her chair tips over, making her jump as it hits the floor with a loud thud. “No.”
“Mom?” Something seems very wrong to Keely. Shouldn’t her mom be happy to see her? Shouldn’t they be embracing in a long overdue hug? Shouldn’t… She looks around the room searching for her dad. “Mom?”
Shaking her head, Kimberly looks at her daughter in horror. “Why did you come?”
Before she can feel hurt by her mother’s reaction, Bryon is wrenching Keely’s arm. He pulls her back, shielding her with his body. Before, when bad things happened to her, everything seemed to slow down drastically. That has not been the case tonight. It all happens so quickly, her eyes don’t even have time to focus.
A dark blur moves through the air at an insane speed. Keely can almost make out an outstretched leg right before Bryon’s head whips to the side with a spray of thick blood. A splatter of red drops hit her face. She is still reaching up to wipe them away as Bryon springs after the unknown being. Keely hears her mom scream and looks in her direction as Lila fills Bryon’s spot guarding her.