Silverblood Demons (Daughters of Darkness Book 1) (18 page)

“I know how,” Amber replied. “If you make the glass cube to keep them in, I’m going to summon a friend to help us.”

Amber put her hand over the Grphyn arm-band and somehow communicated with Golleenia. “She’ll be here soon.”

What happened next took us completely by surprise. Our world was about to be shaken to its core.

We were all caught off guard. Sarine grabbed Kira as she turned away and had her arm around her neck, she was choking her. Sin-dy pulled on Sarine’s arm but to no avail, Elektra began pummeling her on the head but it still didn’t stop her. We all attacked Sarine but it was of no use, we couldn’t break her hold on my sister, she just kept up the pressure, Kira’s life ebbed away from her, Sarine finally let her go and Kira’s body slumped, lifeless to the floor, she was dead.

“I always keep my promises,” she said. “Now it’s time for you to keep yours, let’s go to Sector Seven, I want Tulaqan, you want the girls.”

“You fucking bitch, I’m going to kill you!” Elektra lunged at Sarine blasting her with her elbow right on the mouth.”

“Go ahead, kill me and see if any of the girls make it out of here alive,” Sarine taunted all of us as we pulled Elektra off her. We were devastated. There was a loud rustling of wings outside, Golleenia had arrived. We didn’t have any more time to react to what had just occurred. Everything was happening too fast.

“Quick, Jasmine!” Sin-dy shouted.

Jasmine formed the glass around Ophelexa and Sarine with a loop on top of the cube.

Amber was at the window. “Golleenia! We need you to take those two back with us to Sector Seven.”

“Stand back!” Golleenia ordered.

She crashed through the walls of Sedah Hall into the room, placed her powerful talons over the loop and took off.

I picked my sister up off the floor, we had to get out right away, guards were at the door and we had to leave, fast. The term, bittersweet. didn’t do justice to our feelings, with my sister dead in my arms, the joy we had felt that the girls were to be released was completely gone, we were crushed.

Nothing could catch Golleenia, she would arrive soon and there would be celebrations at Sector Seven. But for us it was going to be a painful time of mourning. Flying back, the comforting voice of my aunt Victoria echoed in my mind, I looked over to Elektra, she heard her too.

“Fate, is a twisted angel, she can change a thousand times.”

Chapter 21

Kira’s soulless body lay there on a soft bed of red roses, surrounded by hundreds of white candles. We were outside in the gardens of Sector Seven, and even the unexpected light mist in the air seemed to be mourning her loss. Elektra was kneeling, holding her sister’s hand and wept quietly. Amber was there too, with her head on Elektra’s shoulder. I stood back withholding my emotions inside of me as Sin-dy held me closely. We watched as Jasmine came in with Jade, who threw herself down and cried uncontrollably, this was truly the worst moment of our lives, we were devastated.

The steady beat of wings drew our attention to the sky above us, it was Golleenia, she had already delivered Ophelexa and Sarine, who were now being guarded by Xenakaz’ forces.

Our friend returned for a different reason, she circled overhead three times, opened her mouth and let out a roar, out of her mouth flew thousands of butterflies that swarmed around us as though paying homage to our sweet sister. Golleenia looked toward us, bowed respectfully, then disappeared into the distance.

I felt a touch to my shoulder, it was Xenakaz, he tilted his head to draw me away, he wanted to talk.

“Sarine has changed her mind, she no longer wants to release the girls, wewanted to send out envoys to relay her message bu
t－
”

“How would she usually approve of a decree?”

“Her tongue is unique, she uses the three tines independently of each other to inscribe commands into royal chromium tablets, after twenty one minutes her saliva turns the writing into a third level of invisible that only her Sukah Magi can read. It can’t be forged.”

“Then she wants more,” I said. “Can we speak to her?”

Xenakaz slowly nodded yes.

I walked back to Sin-dy and whispered what Xenakaz had just told me. Elektra noticed and after hugging Jade and Amber she made her way over to us.

She narrowed her eyes, her body glowing a deep blood red hue, she was seething. “What is it?”

We told her, but she didn’t wait for us to finish. “Where is she?” Elektra was already walking away from us, we ran to catch up and Xenakaz led the way.

Sarine and Ophelexa were out of their glass prison but restrained by several shackles and chains. The entire perimeter was guarded by hundreds of demons and several more were in the war room with us.

“It isn’t enough that you took my sister from me and that you’ll get Tulaqan, but now you want more?” Elektra was pacing with her hands on her hips and looking away from Sarine.

“Save your venom, if you want me to release the girls. Oh, and I just wanted to let you know, I haven’t enjoyed killing someone so much in a long time, I wish I could do it again.” Sarine hissed and laughed at all of us.

“What do you want Sarine?” Sin-dy asked. “Tulaqan is all we have.”

“No, there’s more and you’re going to give it to me, or I’ll make sure every girl in Sarturas suffers for a long time.”

“Quit being so vague, or I’ll cut out your tongue,” Elektra gripped her dagger.

“Oh I’m going to enjoy this so much,” Sarine mockingly said. “That bitch niece of yours has the Grphyn arm-band, I want it, that thing will be at my beck and call, oh I just love negotiations don’t you?” She looked over to Ophelexa who cackled in response.

She had us at a complete disadvantage, there wasn’t any way we could say no.

“I’ll talk to my daughter, it’s up to her,” I walked out, Sin-dy came with me.

We found Amber in the room that had been transformed into a play area for my youngest daughter Coral, and Kira’s daughter Davina. They still didn’t know what had happened but Coral knew something was going on, Amber was hugging them both and her eyes were red from crying.

“Dad!” Coral came running over to me, I felt bad because since all of this had begun, I really didn’t get much time to spend with her.

“Amber’s crying a little bit,” she said sadly. “I don’t want her to.” Davina ran over to us too and hugged Coral.

“She’s just upset becaus
e－
”

“She’ll be okay,” Sin-dy spoke up. “Amber just wants to go home to New York, we’re all going soon. Why don’t we go sit down over there, I can tell you what it’s going to be like in your new home. Sin-dy led them away so I could talk to Amber.

We left the play-room and made sure we were far enough not to be overheard.

“What is it dad?”

“It’s Sarine,” I went on to explain everything to her.

“I’m going to call on Golleenia,” Amber said. “But I don’t know what she’s going to do.”

Amber left to be by herself and I went to find Sin-dy and the kids. When I found them, Jade had returned from Kira’s side leaving Jasmine there. She was braiding everyone’s hair, including Sin-dy’s. “Your turn dad.” She forced a smile. I sat down next to Sin-dy and held her hand, we were both too emotionally exhausted to even speak for a couple of minutes while Jade braided my hair into a pony-tail.

“What did Amber say?” Sin-dy eventually asked.

I replied, “She’s talking to Golleenia.”

“There you go dad,” Jade walked around to sit in front of us.

“That’s a pretty necklace,” Sin-dy was looking at Jade’s pendant.

“Thanks, I got it back, that night from Madame Tutella’s bag−”

“Dad!” Amber came running in. “She’ll do it!”

I couldn’t believe it, we could finally make plans to release all the girls. I listened as Amber explained what had happened with Golleenia to Jade and Sin-dy, but something seemed to be theatrical about the way she was recounting things.

“I’m going to call Golleenia dad.”

We all met back at the war room, Golleenia couldn’t come inside because she was too big so she stood outside the enormous open Palladian windows.

“Give me the arm-band, now!” Sarine held out her hand. Amber slid it off her arm and tossed it in Sarine’s direction. Sliding it on to her arm, she commanded Golleenia to bring the head of one of the guards to her.

“Yes Mistress,” With that said, she spread her wings and flew away.

“Here,” Amber said. She handed her a royal chromium tablet. “I did what you asked. Inscribe this with your decree for the release of
all
my sisters.”

Sarine took the tablet and using her triple tined tongue she spent the next several minutes and etched the decree.

“You’ll get this when I see the guards head.”

Golleenia was back, flapping her wings and twisting her body she tossed a severed head through one of the tall windows, it rolled into the middle of the war room, its eyes bulging and its spinal cord still attached.

“Don’t even think of ordering Golleenia to attack us,” Xenakaz threatened. “Your head will be lying next to his.” He pointed at the remains of the demon that had just landed in the room.

Sarine threw the tablet at Amber. “Don’t pout little girl, the Grphyn will be well fed, with all the heads of my enemies.” She looked at Golleenia. “Stop staring at me and get out of my sight until I need you again.”

Golleenia shrieked wildly and left.

“How long will it take to organize all the girls to return to their homes?” I asked.

“The decree will go out right now,” Xenakaz said, as he read the tablet. “There are reports that the Templars are gathering at the outside of the Adamantine gates. If all goes well, the girls will be back on Earth in the next forty eight hours.”

“I’m going to sit by my sister’s side,” I said.

“I’ll come with you dad,” said Amber. “I have to talk to you about something.”

Sin-dy came with us but Elektra decided to stay and watch Sarine and Ophelexa.

Jasmine was still with Kira. “Thanks for staying by her side,” Sin-dy said. “Jade wants to braid your hair too, look.” We both showed off Jade’s handiwork on our hair.

“Awesome! Oh I learned that word on my MP3 player.” She smiled and left to find Jade.

“You’re not going to believe this dad,” Amber was excited.

“It’s Golleenia, we planned the whole thing−”

“What did you plan?” Sin-dy asked.

“She isn’t being manipulated by Sarine, she’s just pretending, only
we
have a special connection.”

“But the guards head,” I was confused.

“No dad, it wasn’t a guard, we guessed Sarine would ask that. Golleenia had already left Sector Seven and killed one of Sarine’s forces and brought its dead body back here, all she had to do was bring its head to her, it worked perfectly.”

“Amber, you’re incredible,” Sin-dy hugged her tight.

“We have to tell Xenakaz,” I said. “If anything goes wrong he has to know.”

With my emotions mixed between the imminent release of all the girls and the death of my sister Kira, I looked on at Sin-dy and Amber celebrating. They were holding each others arms and spinning around in circles, it felt like they were moving in slow motion. A breeze stirred and blew some of the rose petals away from Kira’s bed, it moved her black hair and rippled her white gown, for a moment I imagined she was still alive, just sleeping.

I closed my eyes and tried to remember our short time together, when we first met back at her cabin, her eyes sparkling like jewels and full of life, the time she first met her daughter Davina and had to choke back her tears of joy, how she fearlessly protected our children, risking her life every step of the way, and then, this, laying in peace. I hoped she was somewhere that she could see we were almost within reach of everything she’d fought for.

Then something stirred inside of me, it was that feeling of invincibility that my sisters and I had felt in the past, I couldn’t understand,
how could that be?

“Kylar,” Xenakaz had come looking for us. “I think you should return to the war room. It’s Elektra, she’s arguing with Sarine and her body is almost flaming.”

Sin-dy and Amber quickly returned back to the war room with me.

“I licked your sister’s neck while she drew her last breath,” Sarine’s tongue came out twitching as she taunted Elektra. “Mm, it was delicious.”

“Aunt, don’t listen to her,” Amber tried to calm my sister down. “Trust me, everything is going to be okay.”

“I’ll never be okay,” Elektra replied, “until she pays for murdering my sister.”

“Oh, murder?” Sarine continued taunting Elektra. “No no no, I was just doing her a favor, I heard her husband had died, and I choked her to death so she could meet him, you should thank me you ungrateful bitch.” Sarine and Ophelexa burst out laughing.

Sin-dy became visibly upset at Sarine’s comments, and especially at the way Ophelexa was laughing, at her.

“If you think that’s funny,” Sin-dy was mad, “then you would have loved it when I sliced off your sister’s head, it fell down bobbling all over the place, I danced all over its ugly head.”

“That was you? You’re going to die for that!” Ophelexa screamed.

The mood in the room became charged with hatred and feelings of revenge, emotions were escalating and it didn’t look as though there would be a good ending to it all.

“What about you Kylar, cat got your tongue?” Sarine didn’t know when to stop. “Ophelexa told me all about how you loved the way she licked your−”

“That’s enough!” I yelled.

“No, it’s not enough!” Elektra screamed. “But this is!”

She leapt at Sarine and as they struggled Elektra set her on fire. Sarine was screaming and the rest of us tried pulling my sister off, but the flames were too hot. Sarine grabbed Elektra by the throat and yelled, I’m going to kill you!” She gripped her throat tighter still. “You whimper like a coward, just like your sister,” she taunted. “Now you’re going to join her.” Sarine’s tongue came out and touched Elektra’s face.

“The cat hasn’t got your tongue, but I have.” Elektra managed to pull out her dagger and before Sarine could react, she reached over and sliced her tongue right off. Sarine was writhing in pain and let go of Elektra. “You looking for this?” Elektra was holding the tongue and shoved it back in Sarine’s mouth, then using both hands she plunged the dagger through the top of her head, Sarine stopped struggling and slumped, dead, to the floor.

Elektra fell back and her flames began to subside. Sarine’s flames didn’t, they continued to blaze. Elektra got back up on her feet and we rushed over to her. “I’m fine, but
that thing,
has taunted my sister for the last time.”

We heard a clunk, it was the Grphyn arm-band that had fallen off Sarine’s body. Elektra walked over, picked it up and placed it on the window ledge. “Let it cool off Amb’ she won’t need this any longer. If anybody wants me I’ll be with my sister.”

Elektra left the scene of devastation as Ophelexa was stuttering. Sin-dy glared at her. “Don’t say a word, or . . . . ”

This was good, but at the same time it was
really
bad. If her father, the Devil himself, or her sisters got wind of this, I didn’t even want to think about it. We had to keep this a secret until all the girls were released. Sarine’s decree was already out and the only one left to give orders was Ophelexa.

“What do we do now?” Amber asked.