The Astral Ordinance
Book I
Meltem Y. K
Copyright 2012 by Meltem Y. K
Astral Ordinance
The Beginning
PART I
The Nightmare
CHAPTER 1
“Aaaaaaghhhhhh…”
Ethan cried out in frustration as he leaped in the air, flipped and landed behind the demon that was trying to kill him. He lunged with all his might and buried his light dagger in its medulla. The demon extinguished. Ethan knew that if not struck in his most vulnerable point the demon would revive in a few minutes, turn around and attack him with a vengeance; demons did not extinguish easily.
Demons were everywhere, destroying everything in sight. They didn’t discriminate between animals and people, they were on a rampage. Blood was running like a red-river on the streets, smoke was coming from the many fires the demons had started with their breaths. Ethan could feel his throat burning from the toxic fumes. If he didn’t get help soon, this would be his last fight.
“Can I get some help, please?” Ethan yelled telepathically directing his thought towards the Ascended Masters in the Astral plane.
In his peripheral vision he saw a scuffle. That meant that someone was putting up a fight and not dropping dead like the rest of the victims in this mayhem. Maybe this was the reinforcement he was wishing for. It took only one good demon fighter to even the odds.
A demon was quickly approaching him. His teeth were pointy and jagged as broken glass. His eyes were red and glowing; his muscles were obscenely huge. In an instant the demon was on him, squeezing the life out of him. Ethan knew that his life would be over in the next few seconds unless a miracle happened. Once he was killed in this dimension, his death would take place within minutes in the Earth plane. His parents would find his body in the morning and autopsy results would show that he died of heart failure in his sleep.
He wasn’t ready to die yet, not here, and certainly not in the Earth plane. At eighteen he had his whole life ahead of him. He had a lot of things to accomplish yet; he would not allow some grotesque demon to snuff out his life. This thought gave him the courage to summon the last bit of his energy and fight for his life. If there was anyone nearby who could help they would hear him.
In the next instant the demon vanished and Ethan fell on his ass.
Ouch, that hurt.
He would rather fall on his ass than die. He took a deep breath and shook his head, rubbed his eyes to clear his vision.
Miraculously, all the demons had vanished. The fires were burning out and the smoke was dissipating fast. The river of blood on the ground was slowly disappearing, too. This was the kind of help he was wishing for. It was a miracle; he wondered who his savior was. He looked around.
And then he saw her.
A girl was standing short distance away. She seemed lost and confused in the midst of the devastation. She had beautiful, dark copper hair cascading down her back and a set of gorgeous legs; but what was truly amazing was the fact that she was clad in a tank top and a pair of hot pink Victoria’s Secret pajama shorts. Did one of their models jump out of a catalogue and save the day?
Ethan gave his head a shake. What was going on here? Did he die in this battle? Was this the angel that came to escort him to heaven?
He wasn’t sure.
What the hell was she doing in the middle of a disastrous battle with demons? Somehow, she had appeared in the midst of this madness. She was no one Ethan recognized. He decided to investigate this.
“Hey,” he called to the girl, “you just saved my life. Thanks.”
The girl turned around in the direction of the voice and all sane thoughts escaped Ethan.
The girl was simply stunning.
Ethan swallowed hard and fired another question at her.
“How did you do it?”
His savior walked closer looking even more confused. Up close, she was more beautiful than Ethan’s first impression of her.
Ethan’s heart hammered faster in his chest. The girl took his breath away.
“How did I do what?” she asked, “I am not even sure where I am. What is this place?”
Ethan looked at her and blinked to make sure she was not an apparition and wouldn’t disappear as mysteriously as she had appeared.
“You don’t know where you are, or what you just did?”
The girl shook her head and brushed her beautiful hair back with one hand, still confused.
“No.”
“You slew a demon army,” Ethan told her.
“I did,” the girl replied incredulous. “I don’t think so.” She shook her head.
She came closer; Ethan’s heart pounded harder. The mystery girl was having quite the effect on him.
“Are you okay? You look like you took a good beating.”
What a way to meet an incredibly beautiful girl, Ethan, he chastised himself, sprawled on the ground, on your ass.
The girl looked around to see if the thugs who beat up this guy were still close by. Without thinking she loosened her muscles by giving them a small shake and slightly bent her knees, ready to fight if there would be a surprise attack from somewhere. She took a quick survey of her surroundings. There wasn’t anybody in sight.
She leaned over and offered her hand. Ethan took her hand and allowed her to pull him up while trying hard to swallow his groans. Every muscle in his body hurt.
“Yeah, I took a really good beating alright. I thought this was gonna be my last fight. I am curious though, how did you do it? Did the Masters send you?”
“Mmmmm… No, nobody sent me.”
The girl looked at the scenery around her and shook her head in disbelief. The landscape was changing rapidly. The crimson sky was turning to cloudy grey, the burnt trees were coming back to life and the air was becoming more breathable, less acrid, although her throat still burned.
“I don’t know what you are talking about,” she said. “This is the strangest dream I’ve ever had.” She shook her head. “No, this is not dream, it’s a nightmare.”
Ethan looked at her and this time he managed a smile, his eyes sparkled.
“You think this is a dream?” He laughed, a soft chuckle escaping his parched lips.
“Yep.” Her copper head bobbed up and down. “It sure is. Look I am even wearing my pajamas.”
The girl smiled and every sane thought fled Ethan’s head once again. He was falling under the spell of the most beautiful girl he had seen in his life. He better find something intelligent to say to her; put his poker face on; stop gawking at her.
“No, guess again,” he said, “and stop pinching yourself. You won’t wake up, because this is not a dream.”
“Then, what is this place? Where am I?”
“You are in the Toxic Plane.”
The girl looked at him as if he was speaking in tongues.
“Toxic what,” she asked.
“Toxic Plane. It is between the Astral and the Earth planes. This is the place negative energies from the Earth plane condense; lower energy beings and demons dwell here. It’s their playground.”
Ethan took a breath and winced again, but he wasn’t too worried about the pain. He was more concerned about the girl thinking he was an escapee from a mental hospital. He thought he’d try a new approach.
“I am Ethan. What’s your name?”
He held out his hand for a handshake.
“I am Jayna.” She took his offered hand without hesitation.
“Nice to meet you, Jayna. I am glad you showed up when you did.”
That’s much better, Ethan thought. I don’t want to scare her off with all this stuff; she doesn’t even know how she got here.
Ja
yna was done shaking Ethan’s hand but wouldn’t let go, she was now squeezing it. It felt like a real, flesh-and-blood hand to her, although she wasn’t sure how she could tell the difference between a real hand and a hand that existed only in a dream.
Ethan smiled at her. “You still don’t believe me, do you,” he asked.
Jayna shook her head.
“Nope.”
“I am real, you are real and so is everything else you see here. It’s only a different dimension,” Ethan explained.
Jayna repeated after him as she nodded with exaggerated movements.
“We are both real, I am not in a dream, or a nightmare?”
“That’s right,” Ethan confirmed. “We are in the Toxic Plane. It’s a very thin slice between dimensions, and a very dangerous place.” Ethan explained. “I am curious, how did you get here? You didn’t tell me.”
“I was home, in my brother’s room, trying to comfort him. Liam is only five and sometimes has nightmares. He woke up screaming and crying. I went to him, crawled into his bed until he fell back to sleep. I must have dozed off, had this nightmare. That’s all I can think of. So, no, this isn’t real. It can’t be real.”
Jayna was perplexed.
“Why am I trying to convince a guy in my nightmare that this isn’t really happening,” she asked herself.
Ethan smiled again; he was enjoying their little debate - and the view of Jayna in her Victoria’s Secret lingerie. The nightmare explained why she was in her pajamas. She had entered the Toxic Plane through a nightmare and her mind kept the clothes she was wearing in the Earth plane.
So, Jayna slept in Victoria’s Secret lingerie….Focus, don’t let your mind wonder, Ethan warned himself. This is a dangerous place.
Ethan forced his thoughts back to the discussion they were having.
“You are trying to convince yourself; not me.”
Jayna was annoyed.
“You know, for a guy who just had his ass kicked by a bunch of demons, you sure smile a lot.”
And it was well worth it. You came to my rescue.
“Tell me how you stopped the demons, Jayna.”
Jayna rolled her eyes as she sighed; still not believing all this was real.
“Humor me, will you? How did you stop the demons,” Ethan asked again.
“When I realized I was in the middle of this demon filled nightmare” she made quotation marks with her fingers to emphasize the word nightmare and the fact that she still did not believe him, “first, I yelled at the demons and told them to go back to the hell they came from and leave my brother alone. I am sure these are the ones bothering Liam the last few nights. My yelling didn’t faze them, they kept coming at me. Then I put my hands out and slapped the really mean looking one in the front. He stumbled back and next thing I know they all disappeared, like someone turned off a switch.”
“Yes, that’s exactly what happened and you are the one who turned off the switch. May I see your hands?” Ethan asked politely.
Jayna gave up trying to convince him that this was not really happening and stuck out her hands to Ethan so he could look at them. Since he was so polite, Jayna saw no harm in playing along. Ethan gingerly held both of her hands and studied them with a serious look on his face as if he was looking for something specific. When he turned her hands over and looked at her palms his face lit up.
“Aha, I knew it. You did extinguish them. You have the sacred markings on your hands. Where did you get them, Jayna?”
“Those are scars from a bicycle accident I had years ago. I fell and tore my hands.”
“You may think of these as scars, but they are symbols that give you Astral Warrior powers. When you touched a demon with these symbols, you extinguished the whole lot. Your symbols are powerful enough to extinguish not only the one you touched, but the entire band.”
Ethan wished he had some Astral light to shine on the markings. He was positive they would jump out and convince the girl that they were not really scars. As it happened, he was out of all his Astral light, his weapons were drained during the battle.
“Since you know so much about this place, demons and symbols, could you show me the way home? I really would like to go back,” Jayna said.
“Sure, but first let’s get out of here. We’ll have to go up to the Astral plane before you can shift back to the Earth plane. Follow me.”
Ethan leaped up, stood in mid-air and floated away. Jayna’s eyes popped open as big as saucers at the site of him flying. “Hey, wait up. Don’t go. Please! Don’t leave me here.”
Ethan was about ten feet above ground. He called out instructions to Jayna.
“Just leap up and will yourself to fly.”
“Leap up and will myself to fly? And that will work?”
“Yes, just do it. I will help you.”
Jayna pressed on her temples to push back the headache that was threatening to bloom, shook her head and walked back a few paces. She ran, leaped up and was surprised to see that she had managed to go up to Ethan’s level. He quickly grabbed her hand and started pulling her up with him.
“Will yourself to fly, come on, you can do it.”