“You shouldn’t be able to do that,” he said. “What powers have the demons imbued upon you?”
“I dunno, but we should get outta here,” she muttered.
She glanced down at her fingers and noticed they were glowing red. It was as if someone had shone a light through her skin. She quickly pulled down her sleeves to hide her hands. “We need to get out of here now.”
“At least restore her hair.”
“I can’t. I tried! Get back into your clothes, and let’s go somewhere else.”
She could see a faint glow of red through her jacket sleeve.
What the hell is this?
Her fingers were tingling. It wasn’t an unpleasant sensation, but it was strange.
“What about my new suit?” He glanced at it with sadness in his expression.
“We’ll get it online.” She pushed him into the changing room. “Hurry up!”
“On a washing line, isn’t that stealing?”
“Just get changed, and I’ll explain later.” She tried not to panic over her new found powers and glowing hands, but it took all of her restraint not to freak out. She glanced down at her hand.
What the fuck is that?
“Really dear, there’s no need to rush.” Terrance tried to pull his arm out of Dora’s grasp as she dragged him through the crowds of people in the main food court of the Berkville Mall.
“We’re probably on the security cameras. It’s only a matter of time until that girl flips out over her sudden change in hair colour,” she said.
“Cameras, you mean there was a photographer in there? Don’t be silly. There wasn’t room for his equipment.” He paused as he stared around the food court with wide eyes.
“I’d like to try a Dunkin’ Doughnut before we leave, and what is a Panda Express? Does it have fast Pandas in it? Is it like horse racing, but with Pandas?”
“No it’s a take away.”
“What does it take away?”
“Your waistline,” she muttered.
“Why would you go to a place like that?” He stopped to watch a family with small children enter the restaurant.
“Because it’s fast food.” She tugged on his arm to try to make him keep moving.
“Why does everything need to be so rushed?” He kept his ground, refusing to keep moving. “Even us.”
“It’s just normal.” She eyed the exit. They were so close to it, and she really didn’t want to get caught here by any of her father’s congregation. It was Saturday, so some of them were bound to be in the mall.
“Come on. Let’s just get out of here.”
“I need to explore this world.” He folded his arms and refused to budge. “You may go, but I would like to stay.”
She groaned, trying to think of a good reason that would persuade him to leave. She knew she couldn’t leave him here alone. It would be a disaster.
She glanced down at her fingers. The red glow had now spread across her entire hand. She knew if she didn’t get out of here soon, everyone would notice it.
“Fuck it. Terrance, if you want to stay, you’re on your own.” She let go of his arm and rushed towards the exit, leaving him behind.
Why am I glowing? What the fuck is this?
Her pulse raced so quickly that she worried her heart might stop.
She glanced back to see Terrance turn in the opposite direction and head towards the statue of Ronald MacDonald that stood outside the restaurant.
He’ll be fine.
She tried to convince herself that he would be, but a nagging sense of guilt refused to let her to believe that. Also, the fact that he appeared to be trying to hold a conversation with Ronald was a tad worrying.
She stepped out into the car park and scowled.
She was trying to decide whether to go back and get him when someone grabbed her from behind. She opened her mouth to scream, but a rag was stuffed into it, and then a dark hood was pulled over her eyes.
She struggled to escape, but it felt as if several hands were holding her.
She was pushed forward, and then forced to bend forward before being shoved into a vehicle of some kind.
She smelled whiskey and cheap aftershave as people got into the back seat of the vehicle and hemmed her between them.
“Time to die, demon.” A dark voice echoed close to her ear.
She shivered. These people seemed way creepier than her father’s congregation did.
Kieron trudged along the side of the road with his head down as the scorching sunshine beamed down onto him. The roadside was dusty with sparse patches of dry grass.
He let out a sigh of relief as a large sign came into view.
‘Welcome to Berkville – Population 54,245’.
He wiped sweat off his brow. The sun burning down on him was unbearably hot, especially since he wore a long coat to hide his wings. For the first time in his existence, he felt irritable and uncomfortable.
He turned to face Carissa. “Thank Satan, this is nearly over.”
“We’ve only been walking for a mile. You act like you’ve never walked before.” Carissa looked cool in her jeans and loose shirt. Her wavy hair was tied up in a neat ponytail, and she didn’t even look warm, let alone sweaty.
He groaned and tried to stretch the muscles in his wings under the raincoat, which didn’t budge as they were tied to his torso to keep them down.
“You try walking while covered in feathers.”
“Be thankful the truck driver let us hitch this far,” she said.
“There has to be an easier way to get around in this world.”
“If your wings were more than decorative, there would be. What kind of angel are you? You can’t even fly.”
“I’m not an angel!” he snapped. He was getting really tired of her calling him an angel. Couldn’t she tell the difference between an angel and a demon?
She put her hand on his arm, turning him to face her in the process.
“Look, I know you don’t want to hear this, but whatever you are, it isn’t a demon lord. I know that much.”
“How would you know the intricacies of Hell? I lived there, you haven’t even been there.” He brushed her hand away from him and stormed down the road ahead of her.
“I may not have been there, but I’ve studied Hell more than anyone else on Earth.” She caught up with him easily. “And there’s one thing that’s certain, nothing keeps its own soul in Hell.”
He knew she was right, but he didn’t want her to be. If he wasn’t a demon, why did he have horns? How had he lived in Hell for so long unnoticed?
What am I?
“Dora kept her soul in Hell,” he said. He refused to admit he wasn’t a demon. He’d always been a demon and didn’t know how to be anything else.
“Then maybe she can help us find out what you really are.”
She brushed a wisp of hair out of her face and stared down the road. “Look, there’s a building ahead. If it’s a gas station, maybe we can hitch a ride to near her house. What’s her address?”
“Huh?” he asked.
“You said you’ve been to her house, so you should know her address.”
“I was summoned there. Can’t we just use a location spell?”
“Unless you have some powers I haven’t seen yet, spells won’t work. I don’t know about you, but I’m not a witch.”
He studied her. She wasn’t human, he knew that much, but he still didn’t know what she was.
“What are you?”
“That’s none of your business.” She avoided the question. “What about her surname?”
“What’s a surname?”
“Oh you’ve gotta be fucking kidding me. You don’t even know her second name? What do you call her besides Dora?”
He thought about the question for a moment. “Dora-minx.”
“Have you ever called her anything else?” She appeared frustrated, and her eyes began to glow golden again as a growl entered her voice.
“Minx-witch.”
“Dude, you’ve gotta give me more to work with than that.” She appeared to be battling with her frustration and losing as her front canines elongated into fangs.
“Are you a vampire? No wait, they don’t have gold eyes. What the fuck are you?”
“Give me Dora’s full name, and I’ll tell you.” She snarled as she emitted a low growl.
He pondered all the names he’d heard people call Dora and began listing them. “Dora, minx, whore, bitch, witch, demon … Dora-demon?”
Carissa shook her head.
“Human, Carridine, wicked—”
“Wait, go back one. Carridine, that must be it.”
“Really? I thought it was a human word for prisoner,” he said. “Earth is so confusing, full of meaningless names and addresses.”
She squinted at the building ahead. “I think you’re about to find more of those very soon.”
“What do you mean?”
“That’s not a gas station. It’s the sorting office for the postal service.” She pointed ahead.
“Will we be able to hitch a ride there?” He stared at the rather dull-looking building.
“I don’t know, but we’ll be able to find Dora’s address in their database,” she said with a wink.
“Databases, wait I’ve heard of those. They are torture devices for office workers.” He slowed his steps. “I don’t want to go near a database. I’ve suffered enough.”
“Don’t be such a chicken.” She growled, and her eyes flashed gold again.
“I’m not taking one more step until you tell me what you are.” He stubbornly folded his arms across his chest.
She scowled at him.
“We made a deal,” he added.
“Fine!” she snapped. “If you really want to know, then I’ll show you.”
“Yeah, yeah, I’m sure you will.” He turned his back to her and stared at the postal office, warily checking for Hell portals or demons carrying databases.
He heard a growl behind him a few seconds before something heavy launched at him, and he was knocked off the roadside into the thick forest beside it.
Hot breath heated the back of his neck, and sharp teeth grazed his skin.
He rolled over with a yelp, peering up at a giant wolf with golden eyes and totally fucked-up teeth. The fangs were too long in the tooth, and the claws weren’t long enough to be a werewolf. The wolf was still wearing Carissa’s loose shirt, but the jeans were nowhere to be seen.
“Carissa, what the fuck? Get off me!” he cried, but it was clear that Carissa wasn’t in control as her fetid breath whooshed in his face. Her wolf tongue lolled out of the side of her mouth, and a menacing growl rumbled through her body.
He didn’t wait to find out what she planned to do with her teeth. He ripped off his coat and untied the ropes around his chest, freeing his wings.
The second the wings were free, he stretched them out and used them to push his body off the ground, jerkily throwing the Carissa-wolf off him.
She smashed against the trunk of a tree and slid down it with a whimper.
“Good doggy, stay down.”
She growled and shook her shaggy head before jumping up onto all fours and launching herself at him again.
Instinctively, he flapped his wings and leapt into the air, rising on the power of his massive wing-span. The wolf couldn’t jump that high and landed on the forest floor below, panting instead. She woofed up at him and repeatedly tried to jump at him, but he was hovering in the air, a safe distance from her.
“Will you calm down, please?” He called down to her.
Judging by the expression on her wolf face, her inner animal was fighting with her conscious mind to be in control.
She peered down and sniffed the forest floor. He watched in awe as her furry legs became bare human ones.
“Is it safe to come down yet?” he asked.
“Shit, where are my jeans?” He heard the now human-looking Carissa grumble.
He descended back towards to ground and stood behind her. “Want me to look for them?”
She crouched on the ground covering as much of herself with the shirt as she could. “No, just give me your coat for now.”
He grudgingly picked up the beige coat from the ground and handed it to her before glancing around the dense forest.
“What will I hide my wings with?”
She put on the raincoat and tightly wrapped it around her slender form as she stood up. She tied a knot at the waist before glancing up at him. Her eyes widened in horror.
“What wings?”
He quickly reach back to feel his shoulders, and then let out a loud sigh. “Thank all that is unholy,” he muttered.
“Where did there go?” She appeared terrified. “Did flying make you human?”
“No, I don’t know. I think when you tried to kill me, it made me access whatever powers they have. I can fly and conceal them now. Well, maybe? Thank you for trying to kill me, Carissa,” he politely added.
That’s how it worked in Hell. It must be what happened.
“Yeah, er, sorry about that. I just meant to scare you. I didn’t expect to lose control.” She grimaced.
“So you’re a werewolf?” he asked.
“Half of me is.” She admitted while pulling a twig out of her hair.
“What’s the other half of you?”
“That’s where things get kinda complicated.” She shrugged off the question.
“Let’s get into the post office and see what we can find out. We’ve wasted enough time.”
“Okay.” He nodded in agreement while rubbing his bare arms and feeling naked. “Maybe they have a shirt I can borrow.”
“Chill dude. This is Berkville. A topless guy in jeans is normal around here,” she said as they made their way through the rough forest to reach the back of the postal depot.
“This is it!” Kieron cried, and then quickly glanced up from the computer terminal and around the empty sorting room to ensure no one outside of it had heard him.
Way to be stealthy.
“Carissa?” he hissed, but there was no reply. He quickly jotted down the address before scanning the vast room for her.
Where the hell is she?
He stood up from the administration desk and switched off the computer. He walked down the long aisle between the sorting machines and various industrial machines that filled the room.
“Carissa, where are you?” The room was silent. He searched the dark room for movement until he finally found her reading a stack of letters at a counter on the left. Above her was a sign for the ‘Dead Letter Office’.
“Hey,” he whispered. She didn’t turn around.
“Carissa, what are you doing?” he hissed again.
They’d broken in, and he’d finally found Dora’s address. The last thing he wanted was to get caught now.
“I’ve found it. You can stop looking now,” he whispered.
“Carissa!” He eventually snapped in a louder voice.
She jumped and dropped the letter she was reading on the counter, and then spun around to face him.
“What? Don’t make so much noise.”
“What are you doing? I found Dora’s address in the evil database. We can go now. Come on.”
“Fine, I mean good.” She gathered up the pile of letters and stuffed them into the pocket of her coat. “But we need to make a stop along the way.”
“What? Why?”
“I need to pay a visit to an old friend,” she said.
He frowned. “You have an old friend in Berkville, where?”
“The graveyard,” she muttered.
Dora was floating at the bottom of at the Berkville Park Lake. It was kind of peaceful, all things considered. She’d been down here for a while now, watching the fish swim past her.
She glanced down at the giant boulder she was chained to. She tried to remove the chains again, but the padlock wasn’t making it easy for her.
She sighed and sat down on
the boulder, dropping her shoulders in defeat.
Maybe I should stay down here. It’s nice and peaceful.
By the time she’d been dropped into the lake by a group of angry townsfolk, she hadn’t much cared about what happened to her. She’d already been shot, hung, burned and exorcised.
Decapitation hadn’t worked on her—the axes had just shattered. The bolt gun had exploded in Doug’s hands when he tried to use it on her head.
For some reason, even after fifteen attempts, nothing the citizens of Berkville did could kill her, so they’d bound her to a rock and pushed her into the lake in a final act of desperation.
She had panicked at first while gasping for air. But after a few minutes, she’d calmed down and realised that she didn’t even need oxygen.
What the hell am I?
A giant tropical goldfish shimmied past her face, completely oblivious to her being there.
She smiled at it.
The goldfish must have felt the vibration of her movement because it quickly swam away.
One thing about being under the water was that she had time to think, something that she hadn’t been able to do since she escaped her coffin.
With no interruptions, she’d gone over the events that had led to this point, from Hell and back.
She’d been losing her soul in Hell and had cast all kinds of spells upon herself to kill Kieron in the final arena. Fire, ice, earth and the final spell had been stone-based—it had been about making her strong.
Was that why I came back to Earth impervious to everything?
You didn’t cast air, but you don’t need to breathe to survive.
She shook her head.
No, it didn’t make sense. Neither did the glowing hand. None of this was from Hell.
She peered down at her hand. Her skin appeared to be totally normal again. The red glow had never spread past her wrist, and had begun to fade when she was kidnapped from the mall.
What’s with the whiskey smelling kidnappers, anyway, did the congregation turn into alcoholics?
Even her father smelled as if he was hitting the bottle.
But he never drinks.
She shrugged. With a heavy heart, she realised that no one was looking for her. Whatever happened next was her problem. She was on her own.
Deceased Dora Page 4
