Preternatural (Worlds & Secrets) (46 page)

“
Alessandro, take care of Liam,” Trailian quietly instructed. The man nodded. Tammy instantly picked up what Trailian had said.

“
Liam, look out!” Liam looked ahead of him quickly. To his amazement, two long arrows with stone spearheads had stopped inches from his chest, floating gently in front of him. “Tammy?” he asked. “It’s not me.”

All attention was suddenly on Jade.
Everybody looked at her as she stood stiff with her purple eyes staring at the arrows and her jaws clenched. Robbie looked at them. His eyes lit to their superb hazel. The two arrows suddenly started to split and replicate into at least a hundred separate ones. Robbie lengthened them and thickened the sharp arrow heads. He took a long blink. Jade knew it was her
turn to co-operate.

She turned the arrows around. We could all clearly see that
she reeled them in as they tilted backwards towards the sky. Then, Jade let go of the telekinesis holding them like a slingshot.

“
Aden!” said Jojo. My eyes and hair lit to marvellous red. The arrows were set ablaze with my incoherent thoughts of igniting them. The arrows started to descend towards the Barons with speed, cutting through the air. All at once, the flames turned a dark purple and black before immediately disintegrating into soot. Trailian chuckled undertone.

Liam and Trailian were
suddenly found in a dual of thick, ricocheting static electricity and beams of vicious black-purple fire.

Alessandro held his arrows steadily, ready to stab and kill.
He suddenly struck Tarmo with his arrows first as he lunged towards him. Tarmo quickly somersaulted over him, sprang off from his shoulders and landed steadily on the ground. Mychaela, Jordan and Aemilia were still tag-teaming against the nine Demon Grinners, surprisingly being able to take them all on in a series of coordinated, fluid martial art movements. Alessandro came shooting back towards Tarmo but he merely created a ray of chakra energy, bursting out of his hands which he used to lock Alessandro’s hands and arrow.

“
Liam!” Tarmo yelled. Liam looked back at Tarmo and then back at Trailian – both wanted him. Liam shot out rays of electricity from both of his hands: towards Trailian which countered his mass attack of fire and dark energy and towards Tarmo who absorbed it and channelled it as deadly static passed into Alessandro’s system. Fernanda pounced on Jaden who roared at her with elongated, serrated animal teeth. His animal strength kicked in but he didn’t Shifftocast. After Fernanda attacked him, the pair maliciously rolled around in a ball, crashing into columns, scraping against the floor, smashing into the face of the cliff – the pair were worse than animals as they brutally fought. Jaden pulled her by her hair and she would pin him on his back before he would get back up again and crash her head through the granite cliff surface. Nothing worked against her. Margaret stood in front of Jade and grumbled. She advanced swiftly on her. My sister attempted to make a strike but Margaret had disappeared. She suddenly swiped Jade from her feet, about to grab her by the collar and drag her from the floor, when she was suddenly repelled by Jade’s telekinesis. Margaret was sent flying away in a jolt. Jade leaned backwards, managed to push herself upright again and finally flew off upwards. She rushed to Margaret and smashed her into a glowing marble column, knocking it down like a towering Jenga puzzle fortress.

Robbie, Jojo and Tammy were a deadly machine that operated in three, taking care of
Allyn in a series of swift attacks too quick for my eyes to pinpoint.

Liam flexed his hands and electricity wrapped
Fernanda in a cocoon. Suddenly, Liam’s focus on electrocuting her was broken as Ricardo tackled him wildly. He disappeared and reappeared behind Liam.

I was the only one currently free of a
raging fight. I was scared; I had to protect myself because everyone else was busy, switching enemies every other minute. After all, I was the prime target. Ricardo took Liam by the throat and flexed the muscles in his hands. I looked around and saw Liam suffocating. I shot my hands out and vines from the ground tore through the surface, entangling themselves around Ricardo, especially his neck. I clenched my fists and the vines ejected thorns. As Liam was let go and Ricardo was being choked, I lifted myself off of the ground and span speedily, mid-air, towards Liam’s attacker with a gale of air around my elastic body. On my fourth spin, I landed in front of him and performed a series of moves my body executed before my mind realised what was going on. I kicked him up in the face, my leg stretching all the way up almost vertically and then away with a strong blow to the side of his head. These must have been the reflexive changes Dorian was talking about.

“
Oh. Thanks, A.J.,” Liam said gratefully.

“
Anytime.” I suddenly looked around.

“
Where’s Trailian?” I asked, panting.  Liam looked up and saw him jumping from column to column, heading towards the exit.

“
Everybody DUCK!” Liam yelled. None of us hesitated to hit the floors as he emitted a series of electric shockwaves that encircled the entire Cavern. The Barons were temporarily paralysed, the Grinners were left on the floor in spasms of electricity and Trailian was knocked out of the sky.

“
RUN TO THE DOORS! CLOSE THEM!” Liam yelled.

“
Hang on! Since Jojo can’t teleport –” My hair streaked to brown whilst my eyes shone an emerald green. I stomped a heel into the ground and shot my fists out towards the entrance. The earth instantly rose like a spring and we were sent surging upwards by the Earth. We soared through the dark sky effortlessly and landed on the lookout point with firm stances. We immediately sprinted to stand outside the Cavern doors. Alessandro regained consciousness. He stood back up, stretching his hand backwards to take his bow and an arrow. As he brought an arrow in front of him to slide into his archaic bow, he deliberately ran a long, deep slash through his forearm. Dark, reflective, oil-black blood was smeared on the arrowhead and oozed to the floor in gleaming droplets. Suddenly, with his pinpoint accuracy, he shot the arrow through the air, cutting its way through the cave and piercing me
perfectly
in my right shoulder. I immediately began to feel a numbness yet shooting pain in the upper right side of my torso as I set my first foot out of the Cavern. It wasn’t an ache you’d expect from a piercing wound but it felt like a stroke. It was making my joints and body stiff. I groaned and yelled loudly in agony as I fell to my knees.

“
Quick, pull it out!” Liam yelled to Mychaela as we stood outside of the Cavern on the bone-ridden ground. Mychaela precipitously ran over to me. The others ran back to the door as Trailian got up and attempted to escape his prison. Jaden caught sight of him drawing closer. Suddenly, his face turned in all ways monstrous, like that of the Grinners’ who were venturing towards us. Jaden immediately Shifftocasted into what looked like a large yeti ridden in fur and horns. He dragged the doors closer together at a much quicker pace with tremendous strength.

Behind Jaden
, the shooting agony seemed to spread to my lower arm as I yelled in horror from the torture. Mychaela was frustrated as she tucked her hair behind her ears.

“
Aden, I’m sorry about this but –” she broke off the arrow head, grabbed a firm hold of the arrow and sturdily yanked it out. I cried out more as it came out but Mychaela was dumbstruck. The tip of the arrow had black
blood on it and my white shirt was being stained by a black, ink-like substance. I ripped the shirt open and looked at my shoulder, dazed, confused and traumatised – it was
my
blood. It had to be. As Trailian rushed on towards us, the doors were inches away from each other. But by the time he had jumped onto the lookout cliff, they were locked together. The thin gap in between the two rocks had emitted the slightest sealing sound and soon became a faded scar. We collapsed to the ground as the pain in my arm receded to that of a casual wound and the others stayed shocked on the floor. It was done. That’s all I was thinking, it was done.

“
We did what thousands couldn’t do before….
how cool is THAT?
” Tarmo yelled jubilantly. Jaden morphed back into his normal humanoid form and treaded to me with Jade; they hugged me with extreme care in order not to pressure my fresh wound.  I opened my hand and saw the bead I had accidentally ripped off the arcane bracelet before plunging it into my pocket for safe keeping.

“
It’s not over yet,” Trailian groaned. He pulled out an obsidian dagger and slit his wrist. His dark black blood dripped on the floors of the Cavern, spreading over all the shards of bones and skull heads. He spread his palm over the ground.

“
Let the guard of the prison awake and revive, to destroy those who I do not want alive,” he uttered.

BANG –
we heard from underneath.

“
Did you all feel that?” I said, carefully standing up.
BANG
! The ground shook again. We moved away from the sealed Cavern doors and we huddled into a group.

“
Everybody…look!” Aemilia pointed out at the floor. The grey sky started to crackle with thunder. The skulls and bones on the floor started to let out a dark colour of a thick, wine texture.

“
Is that…
blood
?” Jojo asked. We remained silent. Not a single sound was heard, except the tiniest crack – we mistook it for the snapping of a twig or bone. And suddenly,
it
exploded out of the surface of the ground with a loud and vicious roar. A hideous monster, with the top half of its body being as lengthy as the entire cliff and its bottom half still emerging from the ground with an ear-splitting roar. It had long ram’s horns which twisted behind it. Its flesh was just
like that of the Grinners’: raw meat ignited with fire in the rips and tears of its skin, burning with blazing hellfire, except its flesh seemed more of a ruddy colour. Its muscular stature was, in every way, larger than us. Its long yellow talons were probably longer than Liam altogether. It stood up sluggishly, but simultaneously shaking the earth as it stood proudly.

“
RUN
!” Liam yelled. Jordan held my hand alone and sent voltages of energy shooting through my body so that I would be strong enough to not feel the pain in my shoulder and continue the journey. We ran forward towards the back of the bowl-like area. I swayed my hands forward. The water I had rolled up over the cliff immediately began to flow downwards wildly.

Unfortunately, we were now being followed by a collapsing tidal wave.
But that didn’t stop the monster from chasing after us. We ran around the long pillar of land we were atop of at first and ran towards the cliff.

“
WHAT ARE WE DOING?! WE’LL CRASH!” Jade yelled.

“
NOT IF I CAN HELP IT,” I responded through the loud rushing of water. The boost of energy Jordan had given us enabled us to elude the rushing seas that were chasing me directly, and in extent, the others – since
I
was the one who conjured it to return. I shot my fist out towards the cliff which was just feet away from us. We covered our faces as a large hollow gap exploded like a bomb in the middle of the cliff’s face, sending debris in all directions. We ran into the hollow hole and all our Vernaescian reflexes kicked in. We suddenly neared the end of the hollow, cave-like space I had created in the cliff. We ran up the rough wall and bounced off it with built in free-running reflexes that we seemed to be performing, jumping onto the upper surface of the cliff. The monster smashed its way through the bowl’s walls and was still tailing us. It was gaining on us as we ran on a long, wide and deserted road of these wastelands.

“
ROBBIE! CAN YOU GET US OUT OF HERE NOW?” Jojo yelled out of frustration. The monster was gaining on us. It had its hand stretched out towards us, almost within grabbing distance. We ran like lightning, our arms moving forwards and backwards like swift blades. The demon behind us took large steps as he tried to grab us, but we burnt too much energy avoiding, dodging and sprinting with this impeccable speed to be caught.

“REVEAL TO US THE HIDDEN WORLD, COVERED AND PROTECTED BY THIS REALM OF SHADOWS!” Robbie yelled, picking a coin out of his pocket and flipping it overhead behind him. The coin fell to the ground and singed its way into the cliff floor. Our breaths grew heavy as we continued to sprint, air rushing past our ears and faces.

Suddenly, as we ran with unwitnessed velocity, our surroundings began to change. The sky began to streak to a light heavenly blue that looked like the ocean had been sheeted over us, the stuffy, smoke-filled air that was whipping against our faces suddenly became rich in moist and salt, I looked down at my feet and noticed that the dirt road my feet were rapidly running on were lightening to white as the texture softened to loose sand. I then looked up and noticed that the tenebrous sky was being peeled away by overpowering light; that was the impression we got, moving at precipitous speed and not staying idle as we moved from one world to another during the traversing process. Despite being chased by a monster, seeing the transformation of this world from this perspective was
marvellous
. The grey half-light of this realm around us began to shine; our bruised, dirtied faces were hit with rays of golden light that exploded out of nowhere from the heavens. We rushed our forearms to our eyes to block the gracious sunlight that broke onto the now sandy road we sprinted on. The sunlight was following us like a spotlight. This dirt road was no longer a wide plain of endless rock; the thin strip we were running on remained the white sand it had transformed into, but everything else around us for thousands of miles to go had softened and lightened to an aquamarine blue that began to swish, wave and burst with sea salt and a refreshing sea breeze, sending our hairs billowing behind us like cloaks trailing in the wind. The clouds quickly puffed into existence and finally, we were in the Vernaescian Caribbean whereabouts. But the demon had crossed with us.