Dancing With Monsters (14 page)

I woke to a multitude of footsteps and
voices all speaking at once. Pushing myself up, I realized I was
back in the bedroom and lying on the hardwood floor next to the
bed. Seth hovered over Ezra. There was a woman with grey-silver
hair and a girl about my age with white hair. They were concerned
about Ezra.

“
Seth, the stone,” the
silver-haired woman said.

He pulled a yellow stone, about the
size of his palm, out from his pocket and looked at her.

“
Place it in your palm and
hold it over Ezra,” she instructed.

“
I don’t know its powers.
What if I hurt her?”

“
You won’t, and if you
don’t, she’ll die.”

I sat still and watched as Seth held
in his palm the stone now glowing in an amber shade. Dew-like beads
of sweat formed on his forehead as his unblinking eyes focused on
Ezra’s pale face. With his other hand, he pushed away her dark
strands of hair from her face. His eyes were distant and solely
focused on her as if lost in a memory that was immune to the silver
haired woman’s non-stop commands. Ezra was so pale, it looked like
she had already died and Seth wanted to follow her.

“
Listen!” The white-haired
girl yelled and smacked Seth across the face. He hardly flinched.
“You can’t bring her back if you don’t listen to Ayil!”

Ayil cupped her hand over the stone as
Seth cradled it in his palm. Their eyes locked.

“
Concentrate on the stone,
summon its light,” Ayil said, in the now quiet room.

Gold, orange, blue and purple flecks
of light curled like fog around their hands containing the stone.
It brushed across Ezra in the multitude of colors until it nearly
concealed her. Suddenly, she gulped in air like someone that had
been underwater for too long.

“
It’s alright, I got you,”
Seth let the stone drop to the floor, and wrapped his arms around
Ezra who gasped for air. “I’ve got you and I’m not letting you go
again.”

“
The Shadowlands….I
can’t…”

“
Don’t talk,” Seth said,
looking Ezra in the eyes. “You’re here and that’s all that
matters.”

Ayil picked up the stone, and handed
it to Seth. “Here, you better keep this close.” Seth took it and
placed it back into his pocket.

I stood up, unnoticed, and crept
towards the door. I didn’t know these monsters, or what their
intentions were. I had to get out of here.

“
Where do you think you’re
going?” A boy with black hair and ice-blue eyes asked blocking the
doorway.

I stopped and gazed up at him
speechless.

“
You can’t leave our
little party yet, the fun has just begun. And besides, we’d love to
hear all about the party at the Ivy Inn.”

Seth

April stood frozen like a tiny rabbit
that had been caught by a hunter. She was frightened, and I knew
we’d get nowhere with her in that state.

“
Malachi, let her go,” I
said, with a shocked look and an arch of Malachi’s left
eyebrow.

“
Let her go?” He looked at
me like I had gone crazy. “She’s kind of important here, and you’re
letting her go.”

I stood as Ayil led Ezra to the bed.
“Yes, but if she leaves, I can’t speak for her safety. There are
demons still on the loose and strong ones at that. She knows we are
monsters like her, and mean her no harm, but if she wishes to
go…”

“
You can’t let her go.”
Malachi glared at me as if I had gone mad. “You got your girlfriend
back, and you think that’s all that matters here. Well
that’s…”

“
I know that’s not all
that matters here,” I said raising my voice. “April has no warrant
out for her capture or reason to be held.” Force was not the way to
get April to tell us what she knew, Malachi didn’t understand that.
“But she also has a spell on her—a love spell designed by the Fae
and infused with the power of monsters.” He crossed his arms and
half smirked at me. “You can leave, April, but I don’t advise you
to. The demons that attacked you at The Ivy Inn are still out
there.”

She looked away as tears streamed
freely down her pale cheeks. She had been through a lot, and I knew
if we forced her, it would be close to impossible to get anything
out of her. Ezra had already risked her health by entering her
dreams, and we barely got her name. April, just like a skittish
rabbit, had to be coaxed, and I had the ability to
compel.

I let my eyes lock into hers. She was
drawn in easily, either out of curiosity or fear. I gently took her
by the arm and let my mind blend into hers.

“
Seth,” I heard Nessa say
my name beside me and I shushed her keeping my eyes on
April.

She let me in easily, almost as if she
was begging for help, but didn’t know who to trust and as a result,
cautious. April was like walking into a spider’s web—no matter how
much you pull and push you aren’t going to get anywhere by force. I
had to remove strand by strand.

“
My name is April
Snow,”
she said to me in her thoughts—she
knew what I was doing.

I smiled inwardly at her innocent and
child-like manners.

“
My name is Seth
Fairstone,”
I replied.

“
I’m scared,”
she said, with a tremble.

“
There’s nothing to be
scared of when in the company of monsters—we are the same as
you.’
” I tried to encourage her to keep
going and not fall into the fear that had nearly taken her
over.

“
No, I’m not,”

Instead of words, April used emotions
to tell me her story. Her mother had given her away in ignorant
fear as to what had inflicted her daughter—April had been bitten by
a demon. She lived in foster homes, and finally an institute where
the people living in shadow reside. It wasn’t until Ben found her
did she finally felt a place had opened up for her—she belonged
somewhere, and to someone. But that had been taken away by another
demon.

“
What did the demon look
like, say, and did it reveal its name?”
I
asked

April paused, and I thought I might
have lost my compelling connection to her.

“
The demon was Eveie, and
she ran The Ivy Inn. She knew Ben and the serum he had
created,”
she paused again.
“
He—he protected me…the explosion and he
died so I could live…”
She was beginning
to fade.

I released my hand from her as April
stood with her dark hair curling around her face like black, frayed
ribbons. Her skin was as pale as a full Iethia moon, and her
child-like eyes peered up at mine.

“
Evie was after the serum
and I have the secret ingredient in here,” April said, lifting her
left hand and revealing the sparkling ring on her third finger.
“And I want revenge.”

6

April

I had been compelled to love Benjamin
Marsh by a love spell he had put on me, but I didn’t care—he had
cared about me more than anyone in my life. He died protecting me
and entrusted me with the ingredient to his other love—the serum he
had created.

“
Please, April, you must
be hungry,” Ayil said, in a motherly tone. “I can make you anything
you like.”

I couldn’t help but to smile at her.
“No, I’m not hungry, but thank you,”

Since Seth, I learned compelling was
his monster ability, had used that power to talk to me, everyone
has been quiet and acted as though we were not in danger. I stood
by the window and gazed through the sheer curtain. On the outside
of the window, I’d look like a ghost to a passerby, but to me the
world outside was shrouded in a haze that was slowly thickening the
more I found out.

“
So what happens next?” I
asked tuning around. “We can’t just stay here and cook and eat as
though nothing has happened.” I tried to not sound agitated, but it
came off that way anyhow. “A demon, which ran a B&B just killed
my…” I let my words trail off, “and tried to kill me over a serum
that can turn humans into an army for demons—kind of like zombies
in a movie…a bad, bad zombie movie.”

“
Pancakes are ready,” Ayil
yelled into the living room like she was calling her family to
breakfast.

“
So you’ve seen firsthand
what the serum can do?” Ayil asked.

I watched Nessa and Malachi take a
seat at the table.

“
Yes, and it’s horrible,”
I said, shaking my head remembering the man in the alleyway. I
could still feel his energy enter me and the way he begged me with
his eyes to put an end to his misery. I opened my eyes, Malachi was
putting syrup on his pancakes and Nessa was impatiently waiting to
put some on hers. “What are you people doing?”

Malachi passively looked up at me.
“Eating. No sense in going hungry when chasing demons and saving
not only this world, but our own as well.”

Our world. They had a ‘their world’
that I now belonged to too. “So, where is your world at?” Might as
well get some questioned answered since we don’t seem too worried
about finding the demon and the serum that was so
important.

“
Turn left when you go out
the door, walk about three miles to the portal, and in the matter
of seconds you’re in Iethia,” Malachi said being the first to
finish his stack of pancakes.

“
I’m going to take
something to Ezra.” Seth started to get up.

“
No, you hardly touched
anything on your plate.” Nessa gently wrapped her hand around his
wrist. “Sit, eat, and I’ll take something to her,” she said quickly
getting up and leaving with a plate of pancakes before Seth could
get out of his chair.

Seth rubbed his forehead and let out a
worrisome sigh.

“
Iethia, is it something
like sanctuary?” I asked shifting my eyes to back to
Malachi.

Ayil twirled around from the dishes
she was doing at the sink. “Sanctuary, you mean like an angel
sanctuary?” She asked as blobs of soap bubbles dolloped on the
floor from her hands.

Malachi and Ayil gazed at me waiting
for an answer as Seth stared blankly at his barely eaten pancakes
and twirled his fork through the syrup on his plate.

“
That’s where Ben and I
were to go,” I said, not taking my eyes from Seth. “But he said it
was built by angels.”

“
And how were you to get
there?” Ayil asked drying her hands off.

I shifted my eyes to her. “I don’t
know. An angel, Yolanda, was to take us there. Ben gave her the
recipe for the serum for safe keeping. She was going to meet us in
about a week.”

“
Where?” Ayil
asked.

“
Ben didn’t tell
me.”

“
Of course he didn’t tell
her,” Malachi said turning to Ayil. “She was his spell-struck pet,
and he wasn’t going to reveal anything to her.” He flipped his hand
at me as he kept his eyes on Ayil. “She might be a demon made
monster, but that doesn’t make her a true monster,” he said looking
at me over his shoulder with a smirk.

I never thought not being considered a
monster would make me mad, but it did. I wanted to challenge
Malachi, but now wasn’t the time or place.

“
Angels can’t always be
trusted.” Ayil shook her head. “The majority, yes, but there are
those that fringe on the border of who they are supposed to be. The
Demon-Angel wars didn’t help the matter either.”

“
Those wars were a long
time ago,” Malachi said as I took Nessa’s spot at the
table.

“
Yes, but the effects
still linger.” Ayil leaned against the counter and lit up a
cigarette.

“
Yolanda smoked too,” Ayil
slid her eyes over to me as I said my thoughts out loud. “I mean I
was surprised to see an angel smoke. I thought they were supposed
to be pure and protect people.” It was too late; I think I had just
put my foot in my mouth.

Malachi let out snicker and shook his
head. “Oh, spell-struck pet, your head has been miss-led to the
fabricated stories about angels. Yes, there are good ones, but most
are like you and me only with superpowers far beyond our
own.”

“
And even the prettiest,
fairest of angels can’t be trusted. Sometimes it’s the ugliest,
most unlikely creatures that are your allies.” Ayil crushed out her
cigarette and joined us at the table.

“
Ben must have trusted
Yolanda enough to give her the recipe before she took us to
sanctuary,” I said as Malachi shook his head again at me like a
teacher trying to instruct a struggling student.

“
You don’t get it,” he
looked at me with his blue eyes that nearly matched the sky
outside. “The serum can, if used successfully, tip the scales on
who controls the portals connecting the realms, decides which race
should survive and which one should be exterminated, and last but
not least, who should rule for eternity—and that spell-struck, is a
very long time.”

Seth