Guardian: Protectors of Light (35 page)

“
I- I’ll
try,” James said. “I’ll try whatever it takes to finish this quest
and bring the Master to a stop. I promise, Aubry.”

Aubry and Sabrina
exchanged a short look. “But... there’s something about this Ritual
the Spirits require you to do, my boy,” Aubry said. “What I’m going
to tell you now, is something you need to keep in mind.”

James fell silent,
worriedly anticipating what Aubry would say next. Had the Master
been telling the truth?

“
It is
possible,” Aubry said carefully, “that you die after having
performed the Ritual. But this happens only under very specific
circumstances.

Guardian, I beg you,
tread carefully. Be careful who to trust.”

James swallowed and
nodded. “I will.” The Master had been telling the truth.

He was distracted just
long enough to miss Sabrina snapping her fingers. A few moments
later, a young woman screamed. James instinctively turned around
and ran toward the place where the scream had come from. Sabrina
grinned.

“
HELP!” the
woman screamed. Other townspeople were screaming as well; one of
the houses had been set on fire.

But James wasn’t the only
one who had heard the scream.

Thomas and the others
were running through the neighbouring village of the village where
James was, and they were just close enough to be able to hear the
scream. The next thing Thomas heard, was James’s voice
shouting as well.

“
What-!?”
Thomas shouted, as he scanned the ruins of the destroyed houses.
“JAMES!?”

The screaming continued.
Thomas started to run into the direction he thought the sound was
coming from.

He ended up at a village
wall. The village seemed to be completely destroyed, but when he
climbed over the “destroyed” outside wall...

A hidden village! And
James was here!

“
Come on!” he
shouted toward the others, who followed him quickly. They were
going to be reunited at last.
But what had actually happened in the village? 
“HELP!” the woman screamed, as James ran toward one of the houses.
The screaming woman was the mother of the little girl who had lead
James into the village.

“
My house!
It’s on fire!” the woman shouted, grabbing James by the shoulders.
“And suddenly, as if there was sorcery going on, the water in the
well evaporated while I was filling my bucket! It just disappeared!
And my daughter and son are still in there! My husband’s gone to
get them! Please help my babies!”

James looked at the
crying woman. “Don’t worry,” he said. “I’ll help.”

He concentrated on the
house, keeping a well in mind. “Water,” he whispered. “Water is
what I need. Lots of water.”

The woman stared into the
well; nothing happened.

“
Water,”
James hissed, while pushing harder, still unaware of the very pale
colour of the stones around his neck.

“
WATER!”
James shouted, as a thick stream of water shot up out of the
nearest well, blasting the house.

James tried to stay
focused, even though he was tired. He kept sending water toward the
house, until the fire had been extinguished completely.

“
JAMES!”
Thomas, Samira, Bella and Antonio shouted.

James turned around, and
grinned at them. “Hey, guys! Took you so long?”

“
You saved
our children,” the man said, as he stumbled toward James and his
crying wife, this time crying tears of joy. He was carrying the
little boy in his arms and the girl was holding her father’s
hand.

“
Thank you,
James!” she shouted, ran toward him and hugged him.
James knelt down in front of her. “Here,” he said, as he picked a
poppy bud from the grass field and let it bloom with a wave of his
hand, giving it to her. The next moment, he would’ve wished he
would’ve never done that.

Because that was the last
drip, the last drip of Magic to make the stones turn completely
white.
James staggered and fell backwards in the grass.

People gasped in shock,
as Aubry and Sabrina neared the fainted boy.

“
No!” Thomas
said. “Not- not again!”

“
Don’t worry,
kid,” Aubry said, laying a hand on James’s chest and examining the
white stones. “It’s his Magic. He has used every single drop of it.
He’s completely exhausted, that’s all. Let him sleep, and he’ll be
fine.”

Thomas let
out a sigh of relief. “Finally, he’s not at Death’s door for once,”
he mumbled. “I think it’s best if we let him sleep and we went to
sleep as well. It’s near sunrise.

“
You can stay
here for the night,” Aubry said. “I have plenty of spare beds. Come
along, and take your friend with you.”

“
Sure,”
Thomas said, as he knelt down to pick James up.

As he knelt down, he
noticed Sabrina, hidden away in the shadows. Thomas threw her a
dangerous squint. He knew what she’d been up to, and luckily for
James, his friends had arrived just in time to prevent it from
happening.

Take
Care

Late in the afternoon,
after school, teenager Lucy Flynn decided she had to go visit her
aunt. With all the recent events that’d terrorised the family, she
felt like it was the right thing to do.

Of course she’d been hurt
by the news that her two cousins had disappeared, it hurt their
mother even more. David, her godfather, had been briefing in on
Cheyenne’s situation to her by mentioning the woman every once in a
while, and after nine days had passed since the disappearance, Lucy
had decided to drop by herself for once.

Lucy and Cheyenne always
had a close bond; the redhead had always loved to come by the house
and play with her favourite cousins. She knew that Cheyenne
cared.

Cheyenne cared so
much.

And now her son and
daughter had been taken away from her, out of her reach, leaving
her unable to protect them from whatever kind of danger they would
be up against.

Lucy understood how hard
that was on her; Nathaly, her mother, had always felt the same way
whenever Angelo (her husband) had to leave home.

It got even harder the
night he never came home.

Lucy walked through the
backyard to the back door; she owned a key to that door, knowing
she was always allowed to use it whenever she needed to.

And right now, she felt
like she did.

She entered the house,
walking through the kitchen; the dishes had been done, and the
house had been cleaned. Cheyenne was slowly getting herself
together again.

“
Aunt Chey?”
Lucy said. “Are you there?”

And she was; Cheyenne
looked up from her book, and smiled as soon as she saw Lucy
standing in the living room. “Lucy,” she said. “It’s good to see
you.”

Cheyenne stood up to
greet Lucy with a hug. “How have you been?” Cheyenne asked the
fifteen-year-old.

“
Fine, I
guess,” Lucy replied. “I kind of came here to check and see if you
were doing okay. I’ve heard so much about you.”

Cheyenne smiled at Lucy.
“That is so sweet of you,” she said. “I’m doing better than I was
before, thank you. David’s been helping me to put everything back
together... although it’s been nearly two weeks.”

“
Just have
patience, aunt,” Lucy said. “They’ll be back, right?”

Cheyenne nodded. “Yes,”
she said, “they will. I saw James in a dream a few days ago; it
seemed as if they were still doing fine, which gave me a bit more
hope that they would be coming home okay.”

“
Then make
sure you hold on to that spark of hope,” Lucy said. “We’re all cut
from the same wood in this family, after all.” She chuckled; she
and James had always been the more active side of the family, while
Samira and Cheyenne only showed their truly mean sides when they
had to.

“
Do you
remember what it used to be like around here when you were kids?”
Cheyenne said. “This house always used to be one big
party.”

Lucy chuckled. “It still
can be,” she said. “We could hang out here again. Every
day.”

“
But it’d
still be different,” Cheyenne said. “You kids have grown up, after
all. You’re not running around in pink frilly dresses
anymore...”

Lucy shrugged. “That’s
right,” she said. “We don’t. To be honest, I’d prefer to go back to
the time when we were like that as well,” she said. “Things were so
much easier back then. No worries, no school...”

“
Life goes
on, huh?” Cheyenne said. “Welcome to adulthood. In ten years,
you’ll be having kids of your own.”

Lucy laughed. “Aunt,
please! I don’t want to be thinking that far into the future yet.
I’ve still got two years to go in high school.”

Cheyenne gasped. “Oh
dear, that’s right...” she mumbled. “This is James’s last year...
He’s going to miss so much just because of all of this! He’s never
going to make it through his exams if he misses too
much!”

Lucy crossed her arms.
“He’ll be missing hardly a month,” she said. “He can catch up with
that, I’m sure of it. James is smart enough to find himself a way
out of it and ace his exams.”

Cheyenne rolled her eyes, but couldn’t help but smile. “I
know, I know...” she said. “And yet, still, I wish that he would be
given a fair chance to study as much as the other students. I mean
– his exams are in
May
, and we’re almost
halfway through November. He doesn’t have that much time left to
study...”

Lucy laid a hand on her
aunt’s shoulder. “Just trust him, aunt,” she said. “Trust him that
he’ll pass his exams like you trust him to come home
safely.”

Cheyenne smiled at the
redheaded fifteen-year-old in front of her. “All right,” she said.
“I will.”

Lucy happily clasped her
hands together. “Good!” she cheered. “Is it... okay if I bring my
Mum and brother over for dinner tonight?” she asked. “Or do you
have other plans?”

Cheyenne chuckled. “Of
course not,” she said. “I’d love to have you guys over. It’s been a
while, hasn’t it?”

“
Great!” Lucy
cheered, hugged her aunt and made her way to the door, eager to
tell her mother they’d be eating at her aunt’s. “See you tonight,
then,” she said.

Lucy was already at the
door, but Cheyenne stopped her by calling her name.
“Lucy?”

The teenager turned
around. “Yes?”

“
Don’t forget
to invite David.”

Lucy’s face lit up after
Cheyenne had told her to invite her godfather. “Of course not!” she
said, and quickly left, while waving at her aunt.

Lunaria

Samira was awakened by a
familiar sound. She hadn’t slept as well as she had now in days,
which made her feel good for a split second. But the good feeling
slipped away as soon as she looked aside, where the sound was
coming from.

James was trashing about
underneath the thin blanket, his face contorted in pain and fear,
silently mumbling the same words over and over again.

When Thomas
moved a little closer toward James, he could hear what he was
mumbling:

“
No, please.
Please don’t hurt them. Please, take me instead... Don’t hurt my
sister. Don’t hurt Samira. I’m sorry... I’m sorry...
Sorry...”

Samira frowned and
shuddered slightly. James had started to have nightmares about the
future.

It gave Samira little
reassurance that the stones of his cape, which lay folded up next
to his bed, on top of Thomas’s cape and armour, were glowing again.
There was still something else bothering her.

There was something which
was triggering his nightmares, but Samira couldn’t figure out what
it was. James hadn’t had a single nightmare concerning their future
since the last attack in the Twilight Forest.

Then, her eyes moved up.
She noticed something in the corner of her eye, someone hiding in
the shadows.

Two red eyes and a red
stone, which glowed just strong enough to reveal certain parts of a
familiar face, glowed in the dark shortly before disappearing into
thin air.

“
Sabrina...
She’s one of them,” Samira grunted. “I knew it. The dark energy
those Spirits radiate causes James to react like this. Not a very
reassuring thought, if you ask me...”

She stood up and shoved
his bed closer toward James’s.

As she lay back down on
her side, she laid a hand on one of James’s twitching
shoulders.

“
Shh,” he
whispered. “It’s all right, James. You’re safe.”

“
Samira...”
the redheaded boy uttered, as his tensed body seemed to relax
completely by his sister’s voice and touch.

“
We’re going
to finish this as quick as possible,” Samira whispered. “We need to
get you out of here. And the quicker, the better.”

Samira wanted to remove
his hand from James’s shoulder, but she could feel the muscles
underneath tense up as soon as she even only moved his
hand.