Shadow Walkers (17 page)

Hector looks over at the other three elite Void. They stand perfectly still, showing no sign of hostility. He looks at Damon. “Why are they just standing there?”

Damon smiles and holds up his hand, which has a purple aura around it. “What do you think?”

Hector raises an eyebrow. “Just what the heck do your powers even do? You saved us from Valus and you can keep these two completely still- what’s the deal?”

Before Damon can respond to Hector’s question, Brutus yells and lunges towards Zerik, who swings his blade to cut the Void’s arm off. But the elite Void dodges, and slams his fist into the bridge. Before anyone can react, the bridge utterly shatters into many small fragments, and Hector finds himself falling through the air. He feels a hand grasp his shoulder, and looks to see one of the previously frozen Void now smiling in his face. Hector shakes off the enemy and screams. Over the rush of the wind he makes out Zerik’s voice telling him the same thing over and over.

“You’re going to have to mirror jump!” The prince yells.

Hector shakes his head. “I can’t! I don’t even know how to use mirror energy.”

Damon yells from Hector’s right. “Then you’re going to have to shadow jump without a shadow.”

Hector shakes his head and screams as the ground grows ever closer. “But I could die!”

“Trust me!” Damon yells. Hector makes eye contact with the boy, his eyes glowing with a purple fierceness. He knew it was pretty foolish, but he already did trust Damon. The Void boy smiles. “You’re gonna smash into the ground and die if you don’t try, Hector. I’ll find you afterwards, just stay alive! I believe in you.”

The boy’s words give Hector some kind of faith in himself that he never felt before. He swallows his fear, refusing to let it cloud his thoughts any longer. Damon was right, there were only two options- survive by shadow jumping, or die trying. Hector takes one last look at Damon and realizes how grateful he was for meeting the boy. And then he looks down at the ground, which was only a hundred or so feet away.

And after focusing his energy throughout his entire body, he imagines himself standing on the ground below.

Chapter Seventeen

Hector

The toll that a shadowless jump entailed was obvious to Hector the second he materialized on the ground. He actually expected a lot more drawback, but he was grateful that his expectations weren’t met in reality. His entire body ached and he felt as if he would collapse at any given moment. If it weren’t for the elite Void now closing in on him, he’d just lie down on the ground and go to sleep.

“Hector!” Damon yells. Hector looks around, but his friend was already at his side. He looks into the boy’s purple eyes and wants to just laugh. He was here in Eros because of Damon, and he wasn’t sure if that was really a good thing. After all, his friends were taken hostage and he just fell off of a bridge. But somehow, being with Damon made him feel like falling off of a bridge was actually a
good
thing. Hector starts to sway and topples forward. Damon steadies him and places a hand on his chest. Hector laughs.

“Hey stop! That tickles.” He says as Damon’s hand rummages around under Hector’s jacket. Damon pulls out a purple pouch and quickly unties it. Hector’s eyes light up as Damon pulls out three cubes of Shadow Sugar and places one in Hector’s mouth.

“Eat them.” He says as he places the other two and the pouch in Hector’s hand. “Stay back.”

Hector feels a surge of energy as soon as he eats the first cube of Shadow Sugar. The pain in his body suddenly vanishes and he manages to stand up straight. But with the elites now surrounding them, he couldn’t relax. Damon told him to stay back, and Hector didn’t really have any room to say no. The way his abilities were, he wasn’t at all suited for fighting. But even so, he had no idea if Damon was either.

“Damon, you sure you can handle these guys?” Hector asks after swallowing the final cube of Shadow Sugar.

“Just sit back and watch.” Damon says with a playful smile stretched upon his face.

The elite Void on the left laughs. “You think you can take on all three of us, you wannabe elite? You run away from mommy and still think that you can walk over all of us?”

Another elite joins in. “I’m gonna enjoy killing Valus’ little brother before he can do it himself.”

“Maybe whoever kills him will be promoted to the Queen’s Hand!” The final one adds. Hector couldn’t believe how apathetic the Void could be. They had no respect for their own kind, and viewed Damon’s life as some type of trophy. They were nothing like Damon. Their bloodlust made Hector’s skin crawl.

“None of you are even ranked Void?” Damon asks.

“So what!” One Void yells as they charge in for an attack. The other two charge in as well, and Hector feels his gut drop as one of the elites hand transforms into a blade and jabs straight towards Damon’s head. But without worry, Damon pushes the Void’s arm out of the way, and as the other two try to punch him, he ducks. He jabs both of them in their stomachs and they reel backwards. Hector smiles at how well Damon could defend himself.

“It’s a shame that none of you were ranked elites.” Damon says holding a hand over his head. “Maybe if you were, you would have stood a chance against me.”

None of the Void move from their spot. The one with a blade for an arm begins whimpering. “What is this?”

Damon walks up to the elite and smiles. “If you did your research, you would know that this is my Stitch. You all made the mistake of getting close to me, within range for me to mark you. I trained with Valus growing up, and know better than any other Void how to evade a simple attack. You had no chance trying to defeat me with brute force.”

Hector smiles. “Nice! I’m not sure what the heck you’re doing, but that was sweet! They couldn’t even hit you once.”

Damon returns the smile. “Thanks.These elites here were stupid for not figuring out my own powers before fighting me. If they did their research, they might have stood a chance.”

“You cocky kid.” The blade armed elite says. Damon loses his smile.

“This isn’t cockiness- this is just the difference between your strength and mine. Now go back to the Void where you belong.” With a snap of his fingers, the three elites suddenly combust into a cloud of purple dust.

Hector looks at Damon in amazement. “Are they dead?”

Damon nods as he cracks his knuckles. “As dead as the Void get. They’ll go back to the Void and enter the Chasm of Souls before returning their power to the Queen.” He stops and looks around the area. “More importantly, where are Zerik and Brutus at.”

Hector looks around and realizes that he hasn’t seen the other two since he shadow jumped. He activates his tracker abilities in order to trace Zerik and Brutus’ energy. After a few moments of searching, he finds Zerik’s location. Hector wasn’t exactly used to his tracker powers yet. Seeing a black marker just pointing to where Zerik was messed with his mind a little. It was almost as if a filter was just placed over his normal vision to showcase his powers.

“I found him. Let’s head that way.” Hector points in the direction of the Eros prince.

The two of them take off. Hector doesn’t dare let his guard down as they walk the streets of Eros. The Void were stronger than him, and could appear at any given second. The only thing that helped him relax was the fact that Damon seemed capable of defending the two of them. This was the second time that Hector was saved by the boy from the Void. He would never say it out loud, but a small part of Hector was insecure about being rescued so much. Being a tracker really just made him the weakest out of all his friends.

“Malia should be close to done with healing Isaac. Then we can go back to the human world and help take down the Void there.” Damon says as the two walk through an alleyway.

Hector smiles at the thought of Isaac. When he went to register for the Guard, he was sure that he was going to hate having to follow orders from some person he barely knew. But Hector actually liked his captain- they were both slackers after all. “That’s good.” He says. But as the silence fills between them, Hector grows anxious and desperate to keep the conversation going. So he asks something that’s been on his mind since he woke up.

“So Damon, why is Malia here in Eros? Did she run away too?”

Damon responds without hesitation, making Hector wonder if the boy had any sense of privacy. “No, Malia didn’t run away. My family has a pretty messed up history. My parents had Valus first. He was a prodigy, a powerful elite that quickly mastered his powers. During the pregnancy my father basically cheated on the Queen with a random elite. That’s how Malia was born. A couple years later and my father and the Queen had another baby- me. When the Queen found out that my father cheated on her, she killed him without mercy. And as a punishment for being his spawn, she sent Malia to Eros. Being half human like me, she isn’t a violent Void. Eros came to accept her after she healed many people using her Stitch.”

Hector cocks his head. “Her Stitch? That’s what you call a Void’s special power, right?”

Damon responds distantly. “Yeah, but her power to heal is only half of her ability. Though it’s the main reason that I brought you to Eros right away. She is the only one who can save Isaac. And your captain is too powerful to lose- so there was no way I was going to let him sacrifice himself.”

“Everything dies eventually.” A third raspy voice says from behind the duo. Hector quickly peaks over his shoulder at the sudden intruder. Instead of the Void he was expecting, he’s greeted by a man wearing tattered clothes. Hector studies the man’s emaciated arms and filthy face and quickly realizes that he was no threat. Though he was giving off an awfully eerie vibe.

“What did you say?” Hector asks.

The man crosses his thin arms and lets out a sickly cough. “Everything dies. Your captain will die one day, just like the rest of you. Why does fighting even matter when in the end, it’s all for nothing?”

Hector scratches the back of his head and shares a confused look with Damon. He shakes his head and shrugs. “Okay man, thanks for creeping me out, but we need to go. Sorry I don’t have any money for you.”

As Hector and Damon turn to walk away, the man laughs. “Don’t you want to know about your past and future, Hector Avern?”

Hector stops once again and turns to stare at the seemingly harmless man. “How do you know my name? Is this some type of Invert ability?”

The man laughs once more. “No, quite the opposite actually. I know many things about you, Hector- and your name is only one of them. You have to be a little bit curious as to what’s in store for you, right? If I were you, I’d want to know why my parents abandoned me.”

Hector bites his lip. There was something about this man that made him seem formidable, but not frightening. Though either way Hector’s curiosity was already piqued. Whether or not he could trust the stranger was a mystery. But if this man could really tell him about his past, talking to him was worth a shot.

“Tell me everything you know about me.” Hector demands. Damon reaches out and grabs his arm.

“Hector, I don’t think we should just trust some random bum on the street. We’re on a mission, remember?”

The man chuckles. “Your friend worries too much. Zerik is safe for now. His death does not lie here in Eros. Now if you want to hear my tales, follow me.”

Hector exchanges a look with Damon. He feels a tinge of guilt for dragging his friend along, but there was no way he could walk away from this man. There was something about him that told Hector they needed to talk. Without further complaints, the two boys follow the stranger, completely putting their safety in the man’s hands.

* * *

The sunlight barely manages to pierce through the old tinted windows of the building Hector was brought to. Looking around, he figured that it must be some type of abandoned garage. But he knew that where they were didn’t matter. What mattered was what this stranger was going to say to them.

“Speak now.” Damon snaps. “We don’t have all day.”

The man smiles and nods. Then he looks at Hector. “Serena’s ring, the Inverts want you to get it for them, right?”

Hector nods. “Yeah. On the 8th of May next year. Why?”

“Your parents were Charles Mound and Karina Avern, a Shadow Walker and Invert respectively. Serena was an Invert who believed in working with the Walkers. She held on to the belief that things that don’t willingly work together usually end up being the best combination.”

Hector squints his eyes. “What do you mean by that?”

The man shrugs. “Well think about it. Walkers and Inverts didn’t like each other. Serena believed that when two things aren’t allowed to work together or are opposed to each other, it’s because both of those things are strong willed enough to stay separated. In her eyes, only the weak things in this life would join forces without any objections. After all, when you’re weak, you want to become stronger so that you may survive. It doesn’t make sense for you to object against becoming stronger. But when two forces refuse to work together, they must already be strong enough in their own rites. And if they came together for some reason, the ultimate force would be created upon mixing what made those two things strong.”

“In other words,” Damon says, “Serena thought that if an Invert and a Walker had a child, the offspring would be stronger than the rest. The ultimate race, basically.”

Hector folds his arms tightly against his chest. Going from having zero friends to having everybody wanting to talk to you wasn’t the easiest thing to get used to. And he could only blame his Invert blood for that. “So what, my parents bred me to make some super race?”

The man nods his head. “Yes. They, like the King of Eros, believe that a hybrid race is the only thing that can open the door into Serena’s fortress. That is where her ring will lie. Your parents wanted Serena’s ring for the same reason as the King- to open a portal to the Void and murder their Queen.”

“Okay, but then why did they abandon me?” Hector asks. “Everything else sounds cool, but that part doesn’t click.”

The man shrugs. “A Void elite was chasing your parents and they didn’t want their child- the key to destroying the Void- to get harmed as well. They brought you to the Pit because they believed it was better guarded than Eros. And then your life played out until this very moment. Unfortunately, your parents were killed by the elite that was chasing them. You have met with him face to face a couple times already, so I’m sure you can take a wild guess as to who it is.”

Hector’s jaw drops in disbelief. There were only two Void that Hector has met on more than one occasion so far. And he knew that Damon wasn’t the person this man was talking about. Hector calmly says the name of the man who supposedly murdered his parents. “Valus.” He looks at Damon and knits his brow. “Valus killed my parents? Is that even possible? Valus can’t be any older than thirty.”

Damon shakes his head. “You’re right about the last part. Valus is only twenty-eight. However, you’re only seventeen. Valus would have been eleven when you were born. At that age, he had already been killing for three years.” Damon’s face scrunches up like he was just punched in the face. “I’m sorry my family is so screwed up. I know you probably hate me for being related to the two most dangerous Void alive, but I-”