by Ross Turner
Slowly, ever so slowly, he halted the multiplication of his mind’s eye, and began merging the figures back together. As they merged, each new creation, though they were fewer in number, became more powerful, instilled with an alarming strength that was very much a part of Cole himself.
Finally, after almost a painstaking hour of concentration, Cole was on the verge of collapse, but he was down to sixteen figures. His legs were shaking and his senses were failing him.
He could no longer hear the wind, nor see the falling leaves, nor feel the chill of the encroaching evening. Eight figures. Dizziness and exhaustion surged to claim him. Four figures.
Cole fell weakly to his knees, drifting in and out of consciousness, his body convulsing uncontrollably. Two figures.
Cole collapsed and blacked out.
A sudden burst of power finally overwhelmed him and he lost his focus, sending him sprawling to the cold, damp earth at his feet.
His body heaved an enormous sigh. His lungs filled with a huge gulp of air and then emptied almost completely, grateful for eventually being allowed to rest, and the searing pain in his mind was finally gone.
But he had not quite completed the task that he had set out to accomplish. His fatigue and his weariness had gotten the best of his weak physical vessel, and in the near-darkness of the disappearing day, two black silhouettes darted away from the unconscious adolescent, lying helplessly in the dirt, exhausted, drained of his strength.
The black figures moved with incredible speed, each with four long, powerful limbs, they felt suddenly very alive. Having only just come into existence, they were overwhelmed with new life, and the sights and sounds all around excited them beyond belief.
They shot off in separate directions into the darkness and vanished amongst the shadows, disappearing into the night.
8
Zanriath was upstairs when it happened, and Isabel downstairs, but he knew instinctively that something was very wrong, somehow before even he heard her scream. Her shrill cry was similar to that when she awoke from a nightmare, but this one was instilled with more terror than he had ever heard from her before - a terrifying fear of the unknown.
He rushed downstairs with urgent haste and entered the kitchen to find his wife pale and shaking, but thankfully still conscious. Her eyes darted to him immediately.
“Zan!” She almost shouted. “I can feel them! They’re here! What are we going to do? This can’t be happening!” Her words tumbled out in shocked frenzy and Zanriath was at her side in seconds, cradling her shaking body.
“Isabel…Isabel! Calm down!” He urged gently, holding her close, his breathing fast and panicked, but he hid it well, for it was nothing compared to his wife’s. “What happened?” He asked, trying to get her attention and steady her breathing. She took several deep breaths and seemed to calm slightly before she spoke again.
“I felt that power again, but it was even stronger this time.” Her breaths were sharp. “This time it wasn’t spreading, this time it was focused.” She looked to Zanriath with pleading in her eyes. “Where’s Cole Zan?”
“He’s in the village.” He told her. “He’s probably on his way back now.” Isabel’s shaking intensified once more and her arms went almost rigid.
“It was close Zan. Very close.” She said quietly. “Then it just stopped. It vanished like it had never been there at all, but I could still feel something, only faintly. I can still feel them.” Her voice was hushed now and full of warning.
“Them?” Zanriath asked, his attention focusing more intently.
“There are two Zan, two demons. But they’re fresh, and still weak, only new-borns.”
“New-borns?” Zanriath asked in a wavering voice now, alarm clear in his tone. Isabel nodded gravely.
“Zan, whatever it was I felt summoned them. It hasn’t let them through from the demonic realm like Depozi did, it created them.” Her husband did not reply. He was dumbfounded, shocked. He gaped at Isabel, not knowing how to react, his logic forgotten. It was not often he was caught so off guard.
Eventually he broke the silence.
“How?” He managed to ask. “I thought you said no one had ever done that?”
“The demons do it in the demonic realm, but I think it takes two. No human, as far as I know, has ever tried. But if they did, I imagine it would take at least two, if not more. I wouldn’t like to try it alone.”
“So this great power that has created these demons, it’s two Demon-Slayers? Maybe more?” He shook his head in disgust. “Why!? It goes against everything they know!”
Isabel bit her lip and shook her head in response, her face paling somehow even further.
“What then?” Zanriath asked.
“There aren’t any Demon-Slayers here…only in Land…” Isabel said resolutely. “I would have known…” She sat up slightly, her shaking subsiding a little. “And even if there were…I only felt one, the same one, both times.”
“So if it is only one person…” Zanriath began hesitantly, already knowing the answer to the question he was about to ask. “How have they managed to create these demons alone?”
“They must have power we have not yet encountered.” Isabel surmised - it was a frightening thought.
“I thought demonic power was abandoned after you banished the demons?” Zanriath said, admittedly confused. “And you’re the most powerful Demon-Slayer anyway…” Again Isabel shook her head.
“Not anymore…” She whispered.
They sat silently for a few minutes before Isabel finally spoke again in a hushed voice, cradling close to Zanriath for comfort, as the reality of their situation dawned upon her.
“What worries me the most…is why they’ve summoned them in the first place…” She began. Zanriath only looked at her, the honesty in his eyes betraying the same concern.
“Why would they have done?” He asked.
But Isabel did not have an answer for him. It seemed that recently she did not possess any of the answers she required to the questions that burned so insistently in her mind.
“I don’t know Zan…” She said quietly. “I really don’t know…”
Later that night, after Isabel’s terrifying, demonic discovery, she sat alone once again in her home, stricken with worry, staring blankly at her reflection in the darkened glass of the living room window. What lay beyond the black glass, past her reflection flickering by candlelight, and far out across the plains of her home, she could only imagine. No matter how hard she tried to hold on to it, everything seemed to be slipping from her control.
She was simply sitting, waiting while Zanriath and the others from the village conducted as extensive a search as they could for her once again missing son.
Cole had not returned home for the second time, and a growing fear was building inside Isabel like a disease that she could not remove.
What had happened to her son? Was he ok? Had the demons hurt him? Had he summoned them?
Her questions burned at her torturously, but the answers did not reveal themselves, and Cole did not come home. She had not sensed any demonic power when she had touched his mind the previous day, and so that only leaned towards the conclusion that Cole had not summoned them, and was now in terrible danger. Either way, the outcome seemed bleak at best.
For much of the night Isabel wept and waited, unable to sleep. Eventually, in the early hours of the morning, almost even at dawn, Zanriath returned home, exhausted and frustrated, the search having turned up nothing.
Daylight eventually dragged its way through the darkness and the search resumed with renewed vigour, everyone in the town halting their immediate business and committing themselves to finding young Colvan.
Unable to spend further worried hours sitting alone, Isabel joined the search fervently, though she and the others were all exhausted. For hours they scoured the village and its entire surrounding commons, expanding their range as widely as possible with the limited numbers they had, managing to cover many miles in every
direction.
It was getting on late into the afternoon when Isabel, her weariness and grief taking hold of her, was firmly sent home by her husband to eat and rest, else he threatened to have her carried back for her own safety. Isabel finally gave in, hoping that Cole had somehow evaded their search party and returned home, though she severely doubted it.
Strangely, as she dragged her weary limbs back towards her stone home, she felt as if something more than just her husband’s wishes was driving her return, though once again, the feeling was one that she struggled to place.
Isabel approached the house, her head pounding and her legs heavy from exhaustion. It was only as she neared the front door that she sensed something was amiss. It was quiet, very quiet; she could hear nothing but the faint rustling of the last falling leaves in the wind. The eerie silence made her wary, for she had experienced it before, several times, many years ago.
Then she sensed what she had been waiting for. There was something here, a demon, and it was close. She expanded her thoughts, slowly and carefully, so as not to alert whatever it was she could feel of her attempts to find it, to try to detect its location.
Her breath caught in her throat and her heart almost stopped.
It was in the house.
Silently, moving as cautiously as she could manage, Isabel pushed the wooden door open and peered into the empty abode. The wooden stairs over to the left were empty, as was the kitchen at the back of the house, and the living room over on the right. Without a sound she searched the ground floor, keeping her mind’s eye on the demonic threat that she could feel emanating somehow all around her, unable to pinpoint its exact location.
Then she made her way cautiously upstairs, her every movement slow and quiet and precise, her exhaustion forced to one side. Upstairs too, after a nerve-wracking search, presented itself to be deserted. Both bedrooms and the bathroom were all empty, and Isabel headed back downstairs, confused and worried.
Not knowing what to do next, her desperate desire finally overtook her caution, and she prepared herself shakily, taking a deep and trembling breath.
“Cole?” She called her son’s name through the empty house.
The demonic power she had been monitoring flickered and intensified, blurring her vision and rattling her thoughts as the pressure compressed her mind. She panicked and whirled around, her gaze spinning as she did so, searching desperately for the source.
“COLE!?” She screamed helplessly as she raced from the living room through to the kitchen, her back to the front door.
The threat vanished.
The shock of its sudden absence cleared Isabel’s dizziness and even panic, replacing them entirely with confusion. It was only as she leant out to the kitchen table to steady herself that a sound behind her made her jump, her heart almost leaping into her mouth.
“Mother?” Her son’s voice sounded from behind her. She leapt with both relief and surprise as his voice startled her, her nerves already severely rattled.
She whipped around to see Cole standing by the door, looking both exhausted, but also contented. Saying nothing, Isabel threw herself at Cole and held him in a crushing embrace. He returned it gratefully and they remained there for some time, tears of relief streaming down Isabel’s cheeks, even more relieved to see him unharmed than she had been the previous day.
She finally released him from her protective arms and looked him dead in the eye.
“Where have you been!?” She demanded. “What happened!?”
“I got lost in the dark again, and had to find somewhere to sleep.” He lied unconvincingly. He had not been raised on dishonesty after all. “I couldn’t find my way back until this morning.”
Isabel, though grateful he was safe, did not believe her son’s simple story after what she had sensed, and was clearly unsatisfied with his explanation. This time she was not prepared to let his disappearance go unquestioned, not now that she knew there was imminent danger afoot.
“Colvan.” She said sternly, in a serious voice she rarely used. “What happened? It’s important Cole. It could be very dangerous if something has happened and you don’t tell me.” She tried to explain.
“Nothing happened!” He insisted - it was not his outright denial, but his false expression that confirmed Isabel’s notion.
She probed his mind gently and sensed what she was looking for.
“STOP THAT!” Cole shrieked horrifically, recoiling away from her, his hands coming up to the sides of his head defensively.
“Cole, you can’t hide it. This is too important.” She tried to tell him.
“I know what it is!” He shouted back at her, something other than his newfound potential clearly driving his reaction, but what it was, Isabel could not decipher.
“Cole, you have to calm down.” Isabel urged gently. If it had indeed been his power she had sensed, she would have to handle this carefully, for she would not be able to contain it if he were to lose control.
“NO!” Cole shouted, only becoming more agitated. “I knew you wouldn’t understand! You’ll only try to stop it!” He cried as he tore from the house and out into the cold once more.
“Cole!” Isabel shouted as she raced after him. She reached him just as he got to the end of the pathway, and caught him by the arm, turning him forcefully to see tears streaking openly down his face. “I’m not going to try to stop it.” She said very calmly and clearly, relaxing her panicked grip. “I want to help you control it.”
Cole looked at her through hazy eyes and struggled to control his laboured breathing enough to reply. He closed his eyes and forced the words from his mouth as if they came at the price of death.
“I didn’t mean me.” He whispered in a barely audible voice. Isabel failed to reply, and it was only at the last moment that her shock registered. She sensed the attacker at the last second, giving her precious little time to react.
She whirled back around to face the house, only to see the demon cascading through the air towards them, having already leapt from the rooftop.
The beast stood taller than the largest of horses and its powerful legs rippled with muscle. Its skin was black, but covered with sleek brown hair; it actually looked quite elegant, more so than any demon she had ever seen before, as it sailed through the air.
Its long, thin tail whipped in the breeze as it soared towards her and, even in that briefest moment, Isabel took in with fright the demon’s razor-sharp claws, its monstrous predatory teeth, and its eyes a gentle brown, identical to Cole’s, set with deadly intention upon her and her son.
It touched down with surprising grace, barely ten feet from Isabel and Cole and, in a single moment, without even breaking its enormous stride, darted straight for them.
Isabel had no time to formulate a plan, force an attack, or even consider creating a defence; it had all happened too fast. All she could think of was Cole.
And so, in a desperate and futile effort, she put herself between her son and the charging beast, holding her arms spread wide, and awaited the inevitable.
9
The demon’s charge did not falter. It reached Isabel in less than two paces and she clenched her eyes shut tight, bracing herself for the searing pain of the impact. But there was no tearing of flesh or snapping of bone as she had anticipated. She had expected the creature to clutch her immediately into its monstrous jaws, and for the pain to be unimaginable.
But instead, the speeding beast surged forward and blundered directly into Isabel, hurling her ten, if not fifteen feet through the air. She spiralled radically until she eventually made contact with the ground, landing painfully in a tangle of arms and legs.
In the impact Isabel knocked her head and for several minutes she caught only dizzy and fleeting images of the monster casting her aside to reach her son. It was these thoughts, and these thoughts alone, that forced Isabel to her feet, though she struggled to stand, or even to see.
Finally, she righted herself and turned to where she had been stood wit
h Cole. The demon met her gaze with a challenging ferocity; it crouched low, more like an enormous lion than a horse, ready to pounce. She could not see her son, and saliva dripped from the monster’s lethal fangs.
The beast bared its teeth and gave a low, threatening growl. Isabel gathered her will.
“NO!” She heard a familiar voice shout. Isabel was stunned for a moment as Cole appeared and placed himself perilously between the demon and the Demon-Slayer.
“COLE MOVE!” Isabel screamed, charging forward in a mother’s desperation to protect her son before the demon could harm him. But she never stood a chance.
The beast was to Cole in barely a second, but did not touch him; it ignored him in fact, moving carefully around him, and began for Isabel. She faltered, her will having already dissipated in her desperation to reach Cole, she found herself defenceless.
“ROSE! NO!” Cole’s voice cracked sharply like a whip, and the demon came to an abrupt, skidding halt, its claws grinding into the earth and dirt. Between them now, the beast glared at Isabel, still salivating at the mouth, and standing protectively in front of Cole.
Isabel had no idea what was happening. Cole moved purposefully to the beast’s side, running his hand gently through its sleek fur as he walked.
“She’s my mother.” Cole said sternly to the beast, yet with love, in the exact same way Isabel would chastise him. The demon’s aggressive stance eased, but did not relax, its eyes still fixed solidly on Isabel, watching for any movement.
Still confused, Isabel acted on instinct and once more gathered her will, only to find her futile effort crushed by a sharp and fleeting bout of energy coming seemingly from Cole’s direction, leaving her feeling drained of her strength.
“And she will not hurt you!” Cole stated more forcefully, casting a fierce gaze in Isabel’s direction. They remained at a standoff and for several minutes. No one spoke as Cole allowed time for the tension to dissipate slightly, though it did so only by very little.
