Starbright (The Starbright Series) (31 page)

             
Serena
called us into help tonight
and so Seth and I had showed up to offer backup. And she actually called us, with a cell phone. Phone communications had been previously deemed as unnecessary risks, but with the shortage in our natural communication skill we broke protocol to ensure we could
communicate with
each other. I called it the “Bat Phone” but
nobody else seemed to get the joke. Nate and
Serena
were new to
E
arth and Seth had been raised in apparent neglect and without Nick at Night. Regardless,
Jupiter kept
the high-tech phone
with him at all times, in case
Serena
and Nate needed our help or vice versa.

Seth gave me a wicked smile and then swooped toward the barren ground beneath us, his
favorite
cutlass,
pirate swords flailing. We were
meeting the temporary Protector and her Warrior
somewhere over the remote villages of East Africa,
currently in the process of
taking on a
horde
of Shadows. We hadn’t even made it to solid ground before the
angry demons
swept up to meet us, their dark figures concealing
Serena
and Nate and the light
the Angels fought with
while we engaged in battle.

My swords glided gracefully around my body as I let my
instincts
take over
, even hovering midair
, and my skin heated with the healthy glow that would burn my attackers.
I was so much more prepared this time around, my movements felt natural, strong and confident. A few Shadows snuck up on me, especially the back of my thighs and calves, which seemed to be areas of my body that were harder to protect, but I was fighting back, becoming a force to be reckoned with.

I fought through the Shadows that had come against me in the air until my feet were firmly planted on the dry African soil. Being on the ground gave me a clearer view of how Seth,
Serena
and Nate were doing, which was well except for the sheer number of Shadows, the foot soldiers of the Darkness.

Serena
had the power to light up
as bright as any Star in the sky
and banish them all away, but there were after-effects to becoming a miniature version of the sun in the middle of a planet and it was
safest
for humanity if we fought and killed them the old fashioned way. Besides, it was always better to kill something
outright
th
a
n let it hide away
in the darkest places of space
, festering in evil, until it found another opportunity to attack. Not that our l
ight couldn’t kill them either
b
ut it was like our version of a nuclear attack, both sides understood we were capable of it, but because our side respected and loved not only the planet but its inhabitants there was no way we would ever us
e
our light on planet so drastically.

I sunk my blade into the chest
of another Shadow and turned my head for a millisecond to avoid the black, acidic spray of
sticky
blood that splashed crudely when I removed my sword to sink it into another Shadow. I glanced up at Seth, never once stopping the movement of my arms as Shadows surrounded
me from every direction. He illum
i
nat
ed the darkness around him, lighting up the night sky as his body worked and fought against evil. His strong biceps flexed with each sword thrust and met his mark expertly every time. His brow furrowed in concentration and his lips pressed together both as a sign of
focus and
because
nobody wanted to accidentally get Shadow blood in their mouth. It was awful….
and tasted worse.

Feeling my eyes on him, he looked up at me, arms still swinging, swords still finding their marks and smiled his wide grin. His eyes twinkled with success and his skin heated even more, brightening the glow around him and sending Shadows shrieking from exposure.

“Looking good over there, Stel,” He called, turning his head just a fraction to avoid the blood spray from his latest victim.

             
“Thanks,” I called back, plunging my katana into the center of a Shadow, its long wispy body a mere manipulation from the crack of bones and sickening gush of blood I heard when I removed my weapon. “You too!” I offered, thinking sinful thoughts that had more to do with exactly how
good
he looked than how many Shadows littered the ground around his feet.

             
“So this…. uh,” Seth started and then paused to turn swiftly in a kicking full circle, taking several Shadows with him, their painful shrieks sounding loudly in the otherwise silent African pla
in
.
“Uh, this Valentine’s dance, is it a big deal?”

             
I smiled, despite the last spray of icky, black goo that somehow managed to land in my hair. I resisted the urge to run my hand over it and sunk my sword deeper into the culprit with extra-splashy blood. “Why? Are you thinking about taking someone special?”

             
“Well, I was thinking about it, but if it’s…. uh…. lame
,
then you know, it’s not a big deal,” Seth answered nonchalantly.

             
“No, it’s not lame. I mean,
I
don’t think it’s lame. It’s a dance, so it’s going to be fun,” I shrugged my shoulder not wanting to put pressure on him to go. So much of his time at
school
had been spent with me and my friends that I wanted to give Seth as much space as he needed to make his own life there
, choose his own friends…. even date if he felt so inclined or gave into the throng of girls who seemed to worship at his feet
.

             
“
So you’re going?” Seth pressed, crossing his blades in front of
him
and across the heads…. or head-like places of two Shadows.

             
“That’s the plan,” I agree
d
. Finally there seem
ed
to be a dwindling of Shadows as the
wall of
blackness attacking me lessen
ed
. I c
ould
see
Serena
and Nate clearly through the last of the lurking evil, finishing their individual piles as the dead and slaughtered disappear
ed
into the night as if they really were smoke, back to hell, back to where they came from.

             
“Are you going alone….? Or do you and Tristan already have plans?” Seth asked and then cleared his throat quickly. I looked up at him, feeling slight traces of anxiety and watched as he threw himself into the last dregs of battle, flipping into the air and finishing what was left of the Shadows in graceful, expert moves.
His body burn
ed
with light and his movements le
ft
residual traces in the air around him.

             
“What? Tristan?” I asked and then laughed. “Tristan and I never go to dances together. People already have a hard enough time believing we’re just friends! Showing up at a dance together would be like…. it would be like…. well, we would
never
live it down!” I laughed again. I plunged my katana into the last of the Shadows, taking my time and twisting the blade to ensure death. The Shadow fell away and poofed into black,
insubstantial
nothingness before its blood had even stopped splattering.

             
I lowered my swords and looked around at the nearly empty battlefield. The desolate African pla
in
was mostly obscured by night, but I relished in the dry, hot air. I loved feeling the heat on my
b
are
arms and wished more than anything I had traded in my yoga pants for shorts. The cracked, dry earth spread out like a sea of sandpaper around me. The different, foreign grasses of Africa waved in a gentle night breeze, sending scents of freshness and earthiness to invade my
senses
.

             
I needed to start traveling.

             
On a regular basis.

             
Without all the blood and carnage and saving the world stuff….

             
Serena
and Nate joined us in a tight circle as the last of the Shadows disappeared back to the inner most circle of hell.
Good riddance.

             
“Do you know what their plan was tonight?” Seth asked Nate as he wiped blood off his hands with a bandana he pulled from
his back pocket
.

             
“Not the particulars, it’s hard to get definite information from them in between all the shrieking,” Nate smiled easily, lightening the tension from fighting.

             
“It really is the worst,” I agreed, looking up at a sky full of
S
tars. Even the wide open Nebraska sky couldn’t compare to the vast array of constellations and twinkling of
H
eaven’s army in their battle formations on display from
this empty African valley
.

             
“No, the smell,”
Serena
groaned dramatically, “the smell is definitely the worst! Off planet we didn’t have to deal with these small demons and there was never the intensity of this smell.” She shuddered again, her orange hair shaking with her movement like living fire.

             
“I could live without the smell,” I agreed, realizing I would never get the chance.

             
Silence fell over us as
Serena
and Nate pulled out a couple of water bottles and offered them to Seth and me. I took it gratefully, wiping my mouth of sweat, dirt and speckles of blood on the inside of my t-shirt before taking a long drink.

             
It was in the silence that I felt the chill of another evil creep over my skin slowly and softly, as if it were a whisper of something sinister floating down from a high place, or echoing off the distant mountains. The hairs on my arms
rose
in alarm, and I looked around quickly trying to find the source.

             
Nobody else seemed to notice the drop in temperature or the feeling like we were being watched; watched by somebody calculating our moves…. our conversations…. our abilities.
There were not a lot of places for somebody to hide out here, this far from any kind of civilization. A few clusters of
cluttered
brush dotted the horizon, but nothing that could hide the depth of evil I felt present.

             
“Do you guys feel that?” I whispered, interrupting the conversation the other three had fallen into.

             
“Feel what?” Nate asked, his instincts on high alert with the mere idea of me feeling unease.

             
“I don’t know what,” I half-grunted in frustration. “It’s like…. it’s like I can feel an evil presence out there, but I can’t at the same time. It’s almost like an echo of evil instead of the real thing….”

             
“Stella you’re going to have to explain better than that,” Seth pressed gently, putting a strong hand on my lower back to encourage me to be clearer.
He looked around at the pla
in
, the same way I had done, his narrowed eyes scrutinizing through the darkness, struggling to find some remnant of remaining evil.

             
“I don’t’ know how to explain better,” I sighed, feeling the threat disappear
with
each word
spoken
out loud. Maybe I had imagined it. “You felt them before, right?” I asked Seth, hoping I hadn’t imagined that too. “When we fought at Lincoln’s farm?”

             
“Yes,” Seth replied confidently and then shifted uncomfortably before adding, “Well, I thought I saw them more than
felt
anything, but I can’t be all that sure. But you saw them and felt them so I know they were real.”

             
I sighed, wishing more than anything I didn’t feel like a crazy person right now. “And you guys don’t feel anything now?” I held each of their gazes for a moment, pleading with them to feel what I did, but only concern and sympathy met me.

             
“No, I don’t,”
Serena
said softly. “That doesn’t mean anything though
, I didn’t feel
anything
the night you fought so close to your home. We didn’t even know you were in trouble.” She gestured between herself and Nate and he kind of shook his head as if her were ashamed.
“So maybe there is something blocking our senses.”