“I’m impressed,” I said.
“Err, Keira, I’m not doing this.”
“KEIRA!” Jake shouted. “IS THAT YOU? THAT WIND IS FREEZING.”
“NO!” I shouted back as I jumped to my feet.
Lily ran over to me and we both made our way to the others quickly.
“What’s going on?” Danny asked, looking around.
“Something’s here,” Eligos said eyes now red.
All of us stayed close to each other. Looking around us, we waited for someone or something to attack us.
“I can’t…” Tyler went to say, before an invisible force hoisted him in the air and threw him into Lucian.
“Shit!” Eligos said. “Everyone to the cars, NOW!”
He grabbed my hand at the same time I grabbed Lily, and we all ran as fast as we could to the cars. Eligos and I made sure everyone was inside with the doors locked before we got in mine. Lily squeezed into Lucian’s and sat on Jake’s knee on the front passenger seat.
“What’s going on?” I asked him.
“We can’t fight them, we can’t see them yet.”
“What are they?”
“I don't know, but until they take form we can’t fight them. Get us all out of here.”
I was about to start the engine when all the windows in my car shattered. I turned quickly to see if the others had been attacked but they hadn't. They were staring out of the window with looks of horror on their faces. I could see they were struggling to get out of the car, but something was stopping them.
“They want us, not your friends,” Eligos said, opening the passenger door.
“I thought you said we couldn’t fight them,” I said, grabbing his arm.
“We’re going to have to try.”
I opened my door and got out of the car. Both of us stood together a few feet away from it.
“I’d put your game face on,” he said to me. “Show them you’re a demon, not just someone with power.”
I did as he told me and stood there waiting to see what or who would come at us. My car suddenly flew into the air and halfway across the field, before hitting the ground again and bursting into flames.
“YOU BASTARDS!” I shouted, “I LOVED THAT CAR.”
There was a loud bang as the car exploded, sending pieces of metal and tires everywhere.
“Oh when I get my hands on you I will kill you,” I said through gritted teeth.
Then something hit us both and sent us flying against Lucian’s car.
“Are you OK?” I asked him, picking myself up off the ground.
“Peachy,” he said in an annoyed tone.
“How can we win this?”
“I don't know, I’m thinking.”
“Keira, Eligos, run!” I could hear Lily shouting.
“Make it rain,” Eligos said to me.
“Why?”
“If the rain hits them, we may be able to see their outline.”
Dark clouds formed above the field and heavy rain began to fall. A moment later I could make out three shapes heading quickly towards us. The rain had worked its magic and made it so we could just about see them. Eligos had seen them too and sent flames out towards them while I threw static electricity at them from each of my fingers. The creatures, or whatever they were, screamed out in pain; their cries were so loud and high-pitched that my ears started to hurt. I made lightning strike them all again and again, until finally they seemed to explode.
“See,” Eligos said, “sometimes it’s not the actual fight that's hard; it’s working out how to fight them.”
“That was good thinking,” I said, walking over to him checking that he was OK.
“Don't worry about me; it takes a lot to hurt me.”
“Are they dead?”
“No, just injured…They’ll leave and heal themselves rather than carry on attacking us and risk being killed.”
The rain stopped falling and the sky returned to normal. The others had by now been able to get out of the car and made their way over to us.
“Are you OK?” Danny and Lily asked us both.
“Fine,” Eligos said.
“No,” I told them. “They completely destroyed my car, how the bloody hell am I supposed to fix it when half of its gone?”
“Keira,” Eligos said sincerely, wrapping his arm around my shoulders, “there’s no easy way to say this, so I’ll just come out with it. You may have to buy a new car.”
“Shut up!” I said, elbowing him in his ribs. “I loved that car.”
“What are we going to do now?” Danny asked.
“I’m going home,” I told them. “I’m in a bad mood now.”
“I can make two trips,” Lucian said.
“It’s OK, mate,” Eligos said. “I’ll take me and Keira back; we’ll see you there.”
“Hang on a minute; I need to get rid of the car. I can’t just leave it there,” I told him.
I did the same with my car as I had with the old windows from my house. The Earth opened up and swallowed it, before closing itself up again.
“Ready now?” Eligos asked me.
“Yeah,” I answered, turning to the guys. “See you later.”
He wrapped his arms around my waist and I watched as I started to disappear. Everything went fuzzy for a moment and then we were in my living room.
I flopped on the sofa and stared at the wall.
“It’s only a car; it could have been worse,” Eligos said, sitting next to me.
“I don't care; I hate losing things I love.”
“Go out tomorrow and get a new one.”
“No, I’m going now,” I told him, getting up.
I called a taxi and wrote the guys a note telling them I’d gone into town.
“Are you coming with me?” I asked him.
“Yeah.”
We pulled in the drive in my new black SUV and saw Lucian’s car parked up. They heard my engine and came running out.
“Wow!” Danny said as we got out of the car. “That is nice.”
“Thanks, but it’s not as good as my Hummer,” I told him sadly.
Chapter Twenty-One
Taken
When I opened my eyes the following morning it was still dark. I thought I had woken up too early until I realized I wasn’t in my bed. I was lying on my back on something hard and cold. I went to move, but my arms and legs were caught on something, I tried to pull them free but no matter how hard I tried I couldn’t release them. I tried to use my power but nothing happened. Nothing at all. It was as though all my power had been taken away from me. I started to panic and tried to tell myself I was just having a bad dream, then the place lit up. I looked around me. I was lying in a cave of some sort, and my arms and legs were tied to four metal poles sticking out of the stone floor. I looked above me and saw a symbol painted on the stone ceiling. It was a large circle, bigger than me, with lots of weird little drawings and symbols inside it. The only symbols I recognized were the pentagram in the center, and the elemental symbol for fire. The others just looked like scribbles or some form of writing I’d never seen before.
“Wake up, Keira,” I said to myself. “Come on, snap out of it.”
But I couldn’t wake up. I was panicking more and more. I started sweating from every pore in my body, and my breathing was getting worse and worse. I pulled and pulled at the poles but they didn’t move.
“Oh I love to see people frightened,” I heard a woman’s voice say. “Please, do carry on.”
I looked around and saw a woman standing a few feet away from me. Her eyes were bright orange.
“Who are you?” I asked.
“The one who is going to take great pleasure in torturing the Queen’s daughter,” she grinned.
“What do you want? What have you done to me?”
“You can’t escape me, you’re trapped and powerless, so there’s no point in trying,” she said, pointing to the symbol above me. “Oh yes, and I want you to scream.”
As she f
inished her sentence she threw some form of green energy at me from both of her hands. It ripped through me, and every muscle in my body seemed to cramp up. I screamed out in pain.
“More?” she said as she increased the energy flow.
“STOP!” I screamed.
I felt like I was being ripped apart. I could hear her laughing at me. The more energy she sent, the more I screamed and the happier it made her. I was praying that the pain would make me pass out but I wasn’t so lucky. She stopped the energy flow.
“Kill your friends, kill Eligos and I’ll let you go,” she said.
“Never!” I told her.
“Have it your way then.”
The metal poles flew out of the ground, and my arms and legs were free. I tried to stand but she started waving her hands around and the poles hit me over and over again. One of them hit my left arm hard and I felt something snap. I cried out in pain before another pole went straight through my thigh. I hit the floor, now in tears, clutching my leg and shaking like a leaf in the wind.
“Think about what I said,” she laughed.
The three remaining poles flew towards her; she caught them and then walked away. I looked at my leg; the pole had gone through the back of my thigh and was sticking out of the front about an inch. I tried to pull it out but whenever I pulled it, blood started gushing out and the pain was unbearable.
“ELIGOS!”I screamed. “ELIGOS, HELP ME, PLEASE!”
The room started spinning and then there was nothing.
“Hey, wake up!” I heard the woman say.
I felt something wet hit my face. I opened my eyes to see her standing a few feet away from me again. She had thrown cold water on me to bring me round.
“I don't remember telling you that you could pass out,” she snapped. “You’re not ruining my fun.”
“You sick twisted bitch.”
“Why thank you. I’ll take that as a compliment. Now, we need to talk.”
“I don't want to talk to you,” I told her.
“Well then don't; you can just listen.”
“I want you to kill your friends, and I want you to kill Eligos. You do that for me and I’ll let you live. You can find new friends and a new lover, and live your life peacefully.”
“Go to Hell.”
“Been there, done that. Got very, no sorry, extremely fed up. I like it here, and so this is where I plan on staying.”
“You’re not welcome here.”
“Well, I suppose I’m not welcomed by you, but others welcome me, and the others that I’m here with. At the end of the day, what you think is irrelevant. It’s a shame, you know, someone with your power wasting their time with pathetic humans. You should be with us; humans are a plague on this Earth. They destroy everything and each other, but they are given such a beautiful place to live in. Yet we have Hell, no crystal-clear blue oceans, no seasons, no perfect sun shining on us. Jesus, we can’t even watch the TV. And…and…we can’t have children, not our own. Every woman should have the right to have a child, but no, not us. All because we made one mistake in life…well, I don't think that’s very fair, do you? I mean, surely you can under-”
“Oh do shut up, you’re making me feel sick. You know, if you truly want to torture me then just keep on talking, I would choose pain over listening to you going on about yourself any day,” I told her nastily.
“Really?”
She stood up and threw an energy ball at me. I bit my tongue to try and stop myself screaming. I didn’t want to give her the satisfaction.
“Last chance, Keira…”
“Screw you!” I told her.
She turned away from me and disappeared.
I looked at my leg again. It wasn’t a pretty sight; there was dried blood all over me and in a pool on the floor. It wasn’t oozing out of the wound anymore; the pole was the only thing stopping me from bleeding to death. My arm was now black just above my elbow; the bruising had really come out. My mouth was so dry and my stomach was screaming at me, although I didn’t feel hungry at all, just dehydrated. I lay on the floor for what felt like hours, drifting in and out of consciousness. I kept thinking about Eligos and the guys; did they know where I was? Would they come for me? Would Lilith know where I was; if so she would surely call to Eligos and send him here, wouldn’t she? But if he came here would he be hurt? Was this a trap? I finally managed to drag myself across the floor a little, but as soon as I was in line with the edge of the symbol on the ceiling, an invisible wall blocked my path. I lay down again and finally cried myself to sleep.
I was rudely awakened by an energy ball hitting me.
“WAKE UP!” the woman shouted.
I didn’t even look at her, which seemed to annoy her. She threw the energy at me again, but this time only from one of her hands. It still hurt like hell, and I couldn’t help but moan with the pain. Then she threw energy balls continuously from her other hand. Now I screamed.
“Oh sorry, did that hurt?” she asked when she finally stopped attacking me.
“My friends will find me and they will kill you,” I told her, “very slowly.”
“Oh I doubt that. You see, since you wouldn’t kill them, we had too.”
“Rubbish!” I said, hoping she was lying.
“Actually it isn’t. Eligos…well, he’s gone for good, and you see if you kill a demon’s soul that’s it. They’re gone and they’re never coming back. I’ll give him this though; he fought as hard as he could. As for your pathetic little friends, they were no match for me. The males I killed rather quickly, but not too fast that we didn't have fun, but your little friend Lily…Oh how she screamed and cried. I had a lot of fun with her; she was in pieces when I left. You should have seen her face when I killed her lover in front of her.”
“NOOOOO!” I screamed.
“Yeah, she was pretty upset,” she said, smiling. “It’s your fault that happened you know. If you had done what I asked you could have made all their deaths quick.”
“I’m gonna kill you,” I said, now in a flood of tears.
“Oh, Eligos said something before he died. He looked up and said, “Lilith, tell Keira I love her”,” she said as she walked away again.
I lay on the floor crying so much that it was hard for me to breath. How could she enjoy killing them? How could I go on living when everyone I loved was now gone? What must have been going through Lily’s mind when that woman killed Jake? And Eligos, how, how could she have defeated him? How was I supposed to face each day without him. I knew one thing; I didn’t want to live anymore.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Missing – Eligos’s Story
I woke early and got up straight away. Once I was awake that was it, I could never get back to sleep. I got dressed and made my way to the kitchen. Lily was already up and cooking breakfast for us all.
“Good morning,” I said.
“Morning, Eligos; you’re up early. Are you OK?” she asked.
“Yes, I’m fine. Sometimes I just can’t sleep for too long.”
“Yeah same here. Is Keira up yet?”
“I don't think so. I didn’t go in her room; I didn’t want to risk waking her up,” I said.
“She doesn’t normally stay in bed late anyway; she’ll probably be down before this is cooked.”
“Where’s Jake?”
“Still sleeping; he sleeps like the dead.”
“You two make a good couple, you know,” I told her.
“Thank you; I think so too,” she smiled. “You and Keira do. I knew you would end up together.”
“I’ve always wanted her. I was just afraid if she saw the real me, well…”
“She loves you, more than anything in the world.”
“I love her. I’ve never been with anyone properly before. I never thought I was capable of loving anyone until I met her. She…she intoxicates me.”
“I’m glad you found each other.”
“It’s like I’ve been waiting all my life to meet her. There’s never
been anyone else in over four thousand years, and there never will be.”
“What was it about her that got your attention?” she asked me.
“Everything about her – the way she looks, the way she talks, how she moves, breathes, everything.”
“Wow, you really do love her, don't you?”
“I couldn’t live without her now; I don't know how I ever did.”
She smiled at me then carried on making the breakfast. Once it was cooked we went upstairs to get Keira and Jake. I knocked on her door but got no answer.
“I’m coming in,” I said as I opened the door.
I looked at her bed but she wasn’t there. I looked through into the bathroom but there was no sign of her.
“Keira!,” I shouted loudly but there was no response.
“Is she up?” Lily shouted.
I walked out of her room and into the hallway.
“She’s not there,” I told her.
“Well, she hasn’t left a note saying she’s gone anywhere. I’ll call her.”
She pulled her phone out of her pocket and dialed Keira’s number. I could hear the phone ringing and opened her bedroom door again; it was on her bedside table.
“No good, she hasn’t taken it,” I shouted to Lily.
“That’s odd, she always takes her phone,” she said, walking into the room.
I walked over to the window and looked outside.
“Her car’s still here,” I told her.
“I’ll check around the house; you check outside.”
I checked all the gardens but there was no sign of her. When I walked back into the house Lily told me she definitely wasn’t in there.
“Maybe she’s gone for a walk or something; she may have thought we’d have been in bed longer,” Jake said, joining us.
“Yeah maybe,” Lily said. “Come on, let’s eat and wait for her.”
I sat in silence, not really eating much. I could feel there was something wrong.
“Eligos,” I heard Lilith shout. “Eligos, you must come now.”
“I need to go,” I told Jake and Lily. “Lilith’s calling to me. When Keira gets back tell her to shout my name, just so I know she’s OK.”
“Will do. See you later,” Lily said.
I arrived at the Palace and walked down the long hallway. There were people running around everywhere. When I got closer to the main room I could hear Lilith shouting. I ran in wondering what was going on, only to see her standing with Lucifer and looking anxious.