by K T Kaye
“It isn’t. I don’t just read minds; I can also control them and…oh never mind! Nice to meet you Jason. I’m Roxy Ash. Yes, I am American, I’m from New Orleans. Oh, you think I’m attractive, thanks sweetie that’s cute! Don’t be embarrassed, lots of guys think that the first time they see me. You should really learn to block your mind; you don’t want the demons reading your thoughts!”
“Right,” I muttered embarrassed. I hadn’t even realised that I had thought Roxy was attractive. I must have just registered it subconsciously as I had been more focused on the fact that I was sharing a table with a vampire and two witches.
“I’m Roger Night,” smiled a tanned man with brown hair, “And this is my younger brother Ethan.”
“Hey,” waved Ethan, who looked almost identical to his brother, except he was pale and had blonde hair. Suddenly Ethan sneezed.
“Bless you,” everyone (but me) said in unison.
“Thanks. Sorry I’m allergic to dogs.”
“Right,” I muttered, wondering why he had just told me that. There weren’t any dogs in the room.
“I’m a werewolf,” Ethan explained, “So I’m kind of allergic to myself.”
Roger laughed, “No matter how many times you say it, it’s still funny!”
“Angel is their adopted sister,” Willow explained, “Hence why they have same surname but are different species.”
“Oh,” I hadn’t realised that their surnames were the same, I was still trying to cope with the fact that they were werewolves.
“How old are you Jason?”
“Eighteen.”
“Aw cute! Ethan this means you’re no longer the youngest!”
“Yes!” Ethan cheered happily.
“How old are you guys?” I asked.
“Our ages range between twenty-one and over two thousand.” Before I had chance to process and panic over this information, an Asian woman introduced herself.
“I’m Sue Lee. I’m a selkie. In case you were wondering about my accent, I’m Chinese-Canadian,” she bowed her head in my direction.
“Selkie?”
“Ah it means in water I turn into a seal.”
“Oh.”
“This is Elsa Sunday,” Sue gestured to the pale blonde-haired woman sat next to her.
“Vampire,” Elsa smiled. She spoke with an accent which I couldn’t place but before I could ask where she was from, a ginger haired man with sunglasses on walked into the room.
“Evening all,” he said with a Scottish accent, “Oh this must be the Master.”
“We’re just introducing ourselves. Would you like to…?”
“Sure, I’m Paris Surf, pleasure to meet you,” he held out his hand which I shook then he continued, “I’m half-gorgon. I assume you know what a gorgon is?”
“Medusa?”
“Exactly. I have gorgon eyes, which means I have to always wear sunglasses, or I’d turn you all to stone! Luckily I didn’t inherit the snake hair!”
“I think that’s everyone, oh except Sophie over there!” Willow pointed to the human-sized fairy sat at the end of the table. She had white hair and pale skin that seemed to glitter. Her eyes were a soft purple which matched the colour of her wings. At the mention of her name, the fairy turned invisible. I stared at her, my mouth dropping open. She was a fairy. A real-life fairy.
“Jason stop staring you’re making her uncomfortable,” Willow muttered, I dropped my gaze quickly, “That’s Sophie Day and, as you see, she’s a fairy. She doesn’t talk much. Ah I forgot someone else. There’s also Danny Park. He’s an illusionist.”
“Angel mentioned him,” I remembered.
“He’s the guy who made all those humans believe you were dead,” Roxy explained, “His powers and fighting skills are exceptional. His personality not so much. He’s Korean but…”
“Why are you talking about my nationality?” asked a tall, muscular Asian man as he entered the room.
“Danny, this is Jason the Master of…”
“I know who he is,” Danny said, before sitting down.
With the introductions over, we started to eat. They all seemed nice enough but to be honest I just felt overwhelmed by the whole situation. I didn’t eat much and was glad when I could go back to my room. As I got to my door, I felt something behind me. I turned and jumped. It was a ghost! A real-life ghost! The ghost was small and sickly skinny. Her hair looked wet (I later found out that this was because she’d died by drowning!) and she wore a long white nightgown. Her large eyes stared at me.
“I’m Helena,” the ghost whispered.
“H…h…h…h…hi,” I squeaked, this was the first ghost I had ever met, so naturally I was absolutely terrified!
“The Colonel wishes to speak to you.”
* * * * *
The ghost led me down a dark hallway inside the Colonel’s private manor. She stopped in front of a large wooden door. She turned to me, smiled, then flew straight through the door. I just stood there, unsure what I was meant to do. Then there was a muffled shout of “Come in.” I took a deep breath and entered.
“Master Jason welcome! It is an honour. I am so happy to see you alive and well,” the man smiled a cold smile. There was no warmth in his piercing blue eyes or his words. He gestured for me to sit. The Colonel was a tall man with white blonde hair and large shoulders that towered over me. Helena was sat floating in the air in the corner of the room, looking miserable. The Colonel’s office was smaller than I had expected. It had a large dark wooden desk in the middle, which took up most of the room, and several wooden shelf units covering the emerald green walls. It was a very dark office despite the large stained glass window. Behind the desk was a drinks cabinet, the Colonel was stood in front of it pouring purple liquid into two glasses.
The Colonel turned to look at me and laughed, “Boy you look like a ghost, no offence Helena, here have a drink.”
Helena muttered under her breath, “He looks like a ghost! He looks nothing like a ghost, he’s too pink to be a ghost!”
I was handed a cup of warm purple liquid. I took a careful sip. The drink was sweet and delicious. It made my stomach feel warm and it battered away my anxiety. The Colonel sat himself down on the other side of the desk. There was a moment of silence. The Colonel studied me for some time. The expression on his face was unreadable. Just as I was beginning to feel like a fish in a bowl, he began to speak.
“Good that’s put some colour in your cheeks. I know this must have been a traumatic experience for you. I am so sorry for the loss of your mother. Mr Jet will be found, and he will pay for what he did to you and to all the others,” the Colonel said looking distantly into the air.
“Who exactly is Mr Jet?” I asked, it had been a question I was desperate to know the answer to.
“Who is Mr Jet!? Mr Jet, he’s all they ever talk about. Stupid! They’re worried about the wrong people. Mr Jet isn’t the problem,” Helena grumbled.
“That’s enough Helena!” the Colonel snapped harshly, before turning back to me, “We don’t know. He turned up a few hundred years back and has slowly been getting more powerful. Don’t worry boy, we’ll get him. Now tomorrow morning,” he said, changing the subject, “I have you pencilled in for a sword fighting lesson with Alexander.”
Helena laughed, “He’s so dead!”
* * * * *
“The first rule of fighting is control,” Alexander said to his one pupil. Me. “Anyone can pick up a sword and stab a man but what makes it an art is the swordsman’s ability to be the master of his sword.”
“Right,” I mumbled. I had been pulled from my bed in the early hours of the morning for this sword lesson. I didn’t want to be here. I wanted to be fast asleep in my bed. Yesterday I had been in hospital but rather than giving me time to rest and recover, they were making me do exercise. And I hate exercise! Not only that, but which idiot thought it’d be a good idea to give me, with my track record of breaking things, a sword. I hadn’t been allowed to touch it yet, but
still! The sword looked incredible though. Its handle was gold and its blade jet black.
Alexander explained and demonstrated different fight techniques. While I’m certain everything he said was very insightful and probably very important, I didn’t listen to a word of it. I was too busy trying to cope with the fact that I was being taught how to fight by a vampire who had been alive since the Roman era.
“You didn’t listen to a word of that did you?” Alexander suddenly asked.
“Yes. No. Maybe,” I spluttered.
“Jason pick up the sword.” I did so. The moment I did, Alexander swung his sword in my direction. I jumped out of the way and stumbled backwards.
“What are you doing!? You could’ve killed me!”
“According to records, sword fighting has always come naturally to the other masters, I was seeing if that was the case for you.”
“Well it clearly isn’t so don’t do it!” I exclaimed as I doubled over trying to catch my breath. From the moment I had picked up the sword, my head had started to spin. My body tingled, and a strange shudder ran down my spine. I felt itchy. Really itchy!
“Jason? Are you okay?” I distantly heard Alexander ask.
The sword fell from my hand. A murky mist twisted around my body. My vision blurred, and dark lightning exploded from my fingertips. Alarms sounded as black flames spread across the training room. I suddenly felt a strange craving. A craving for flesh. Before I had time to satisfy this feeling, I felt someone pin me to the floor.
“That’s enough Jason,” whispered Alexander into my ear.
Then the world went black.
Again.
3
‘A Lot to Process’
JASON
Once again, I was awoken by the desire to eat mint ice-cream. As my vision cleared and I sat myself up, I found myself in the hospital wing. I looked around and found a thing stood at the end of my bed. It looked like a horse. It had white fur and a white mane like a horse. Two things, however, told me it wasn’t a horse, and those were the light blue horn that was sticking out of its forehead and the massive pair of wings that stuck out of its back!
“Afternoon,” it said.
“H…h…hi” I stammered. It could speak!? I hadn’t been expecting it to speak, to be honest I hadn’t been expecting it to exist, let alone speak! I couldn’t work out if this thing was a unicorn or a Pegasus. I think it must have seen my stare for it gave what I think was a laugh.
“I’m a pegacorn. My mum was a Pegasus and my dad was a unicorn. My name’s Skyjack. You’ve been out cold for four hours.”
“What happened?”
“Power overload and you also turned into a demon briefly.”
“Pardon? Turned into a…”
“Demon. Oh has nobody told you, a Master of Darkness is half demon. Which means you, my friend, can turn into a deadly monster from the pits of hell. Jason are you alright?” Skyjack asked as I fainted.
When I awoke, Skyjack was staring down at me. The closeness of his face made me jump and fall off the hospital bed.
“How long was I out?” I asked as I got to my feet embarrassed.
“Four seconds,” Skyjack replied.
“Oh. Wait you said I turned into a demon!” I could feel my body shaking and I felt faint. I sat myself down on the hospital bed. I had turned into a demon. A demon…no words can possibly describe how massively I was freaking out. A few days ago I had been a normal human being, going to school, failing at algebra and now I had turned into a demon. I bit my lip to suppress my sudden urge to scream.
“It was only briefly,” Skyjack said as if those words were supposed to give me comfort.
“That doesn’t make me feel better! I turned into a…I feel a bit sick.”
Skyjack trotted over to me and pressed his horn against my chest. My sickness vanished and a wave of calmness spread over my body.
“This will calm you down a bit. I have to say boy you’re certainly not what I expected. The other masters were so not like you.”
“I feel like you’re insulting me.”
“I am a bit, yes,” Skyjack admitted as he pulled his horn away, “Discovering that you can turn into a demon must have been very shocking for you. I’m sure Angel will arrange for you to have lessons with Willow and Roxy, where they’ll teach you how to lock your demon self away. So then you won’t have to worry about it taking over you.”
“I wasn’t worrying about it taking over me until you said that!”
“Ah my bad.”
“I turned into a demon,” I muttered repeatedly.
“I know! I heard you were huge!” Paris said as he walked over to my bed, “And that you had fangs and everything!”
“That won’t make him feel better,” Skyjack warned.
“Ah, are you feeling a bit weirded out by the whole thing?”
I nodded.
“Don’t worry about it. Just own it. You’re part demon and that’s pretty awesome! Few people can say that. Also panicking isn’t going to make your demon self go away. Angel’s got you down for some intense telepath training tomorrow, that’ll sort your demon self out.”
I nodded, not feeling even the slightest bit comforted by Paris’ words.
“Is he able to leave?” Paris asked Skyjack, “Angel has arranged for him to have tutoring sessions with me.”
“If that’s all he’s doing then that should be fine,” Skyjack then cautioned, “But keep an eye on him. He’s prone to fainting.”
“I will, don’t worry about it,” Paris nodded to me to follow him.
“Where are we going?” I asked as we left the hospital wing.
“Library,” Paris explained, “Because you’re new, Cap has asked me to tutor you, to get you up to date with the way this world works.”
Paris led me to the library, which was huge! It had a large glass dome roof and loads of towering bookshelves. The library was filled not only with strange books but with wonderfully weird creatures! Gnomes sat on small wooden stools reading gardening books, a large Minotaur was resting on a sofa enjoying a book on china teapots and behind the information desks sat two grey haired elves! Paris literally had to drag me through the labyrinth of books to stop me from staring. Once we had reached a small quiet area of the library, that was empty apart from a pair of small grey sleeping dragons (at the sight of which I almost fainted!), Paris sat himself down on a battered red sofa. Placing his boots on a small table (much to the annoyance of the elf librarians), he gestured for me to sit opposite him. I did so, feeling rather overwhelmed by the strange world of books and creatures I had walked through.
“So I’m Paris,” he introduced, “I know we’ve already met but I thought I’d give you a proper introduction. I’ve worked at the base for ten years. I’m also half-gorgon. My mum was the gorgon, my dad was human. He was blind and couldn’t really open his eyes, which is why he didn’t turn to stone. He also found snakes for hair attractive, not sure why, bit odd really. I’m so glad I didn’t inherit the snakes!”
I nodded, not really sure how to respond to Paris’ statement.
“Since you’ve lived in a completely different world to the rest of us, I think it’ll be best if you ask me questions. I’ll answer them if I can.”
“Right,” I thought for a moment and then asked, “Where exactly are we?”
“The Headquarters for the Demon Disposal Squads. We are in the paranormal world, a world that inhabits the same earth as the human world. This country, if you want to call it that, is called Transylvania and it is the centre of the paranormal empire.”
“Paranormal?”
“Yes, we’re actually badly named. We should have been called the supernatural empire, as supernatural is the correct title for the creatures that inhabit the empire. However it just doesn’t have the same ring to it. Supernatural empire. Paranormal empire. See what I mean, it just sounds better!”
“Paranormal?” I asked again.
“Oh right. Vampires, fairies, werewolves, wit
ches; the creatures humans deem as ‘mythical’. We’re a very diverse bunch. The empire is filled with more species then I can name.”
“Empire?”
“Technically we’re not actually an empire anymore. We’re more like an united kingdom, but that name was already taken. There are multiple kingdoms within the empire, but the ones you need to remember are: Transylvania, Atlantis, the Elf Kingdom, and the Fey Realm. They’re the big four. The ones who have the most land and the ones who make the decisions.”
“Atlantis is real!?” I exclaimed.
Paris nodded. I collapsed into my chair trying to take all this new information in. I was in an empire of supernatural beings. Beings that should not exist. Vampires, elves, fairies, werewolves, witches, creatures that belonged in movies and stories were real. Not only were they real, but I was sat opposite one. I was one!
“Mate, you’re not going to faint on me, are you?” Paris asked.
I shook my head, “Who’s in charge? Of this empire. Who’s in charge?”
“Good question. Each individual kingdom has their own leader. In fact the elf kingdom has seven, but that’s a conversation for another time. Now while these leaders do work together to create peace, they are technically led by one man. The big boss. Emperor Marcus Cloelius Pompeius. And yes he is a former Roman.”
“What is he?”
“Ah now he belongs to a species known as immortals. And, as their name suggests, they are immortal! They’re a bit like vampires only without the fangs and bloodlust. They are considered the supreme species. The closest one could be to a god,” Paris mocked.
“Not a fan?”
“Not really. They’re a bit stuck up.”
“Vampires…do they…do they…?”
“Bite people’s necks and suck out their blood? Nah! Not anymore. Only the bad ones do that now days. You can buy bottled human blood at the supermarket, so vampires don’t have to go out hunting anymore.”
“Bottled human blood!?”
“Yeah, oh don’t panic we didn’t kill the humans to get it! In fact I probably should have mentioned, paranormals aren’t allowed to hurt humans. It’s the golden rule. We get the blood from a blood bank. You know, where humans voluntarily give blood.”
