by Greg Dragon
“The savior of the world is forever chained to our order, and to Lord Chaos,” Koko spoke up. “Dibolosa has been with us for many years after her world was released.”
“Okay,” Alysia said. “I still don’t get it. Don’t you guys like her as your queen? Why would she have to give it up just because another world is in need of saving?”
Isobel and Jasmine started laughing uncontrollably. It was so annoying that Alysia hopped off the stone table and yelled at them to stop. “What the hell is so funny?” she asked.
“Well, you called Dibolosa ‘queen.’” Jasmine giggled. “There is no king or queen, silly. We all fight for our realm and our lord, Chaos. Dibolosa is trapped here, due to the ritual that allows her to wield The Twilight Sword.”
“The Twilight Sword?” Alysia asked. “Can you all just give me the whole damned story instead of the bits and pieces?”
“Okay CeeCee,” Isobel said, and then handed her a black kimono as she spoke. “The only way an outsider to our realm can wield the Twilight Sword is to take on the life force of Xatas. It is a mystical energy that can only occupy the soul of one individual and that individual happens to be Dibolosa.”
“So when the earth is saved then I will be trapped here as well.” Alysia said. “Trapped and awaiting another heroic girl to come along and best me in a fight to take on this life force. I’m not doing it. It’s all so stupid. What if Dibolosa was to beat me? What happens then? What does she get out of the bargain, and what will happen to your holy war?”
Jasmine pointed to the slab and Alysia sat down. She then knelt, oiled her feet, and placed a pair of soft leather boots on them. She looked up at Alysia while she did this and her eyes were sad and distant. “You would die a dog’s death if Dibolosa kills you, CeeCee. You will vanish from your world. One of your friends that Lord Chaos asked us to hide will also die, and he will simply find another girl that is better than you to become his champion.”
“What does Dibolosa think of this whole arrangement?” Alysia asked.
“Why do you care so much?” a strong, but sultry voice intoned as the girls scattered to one side of the room and bowed.
Dibolosa walked in, all white legs and grace, and she nodded to the girls to let them know that it was okay for them to rise. Alysia was in awe of her looks. She had removed the spikey armor in exchange for a long, black, silk gown; and she looked human with the exception of her alabaster skin color and hair that favored the sea. She had light-green eyes and her tiny, button nose floated above lips that were full and ruby red, which completed a mask of hard, high cheekbones, and a neck that kept it miles away from slender, muscular shoulders.
“For a non-queen, you sure do look like one,” Alysia said to her, trying hard to swallow but unable to look away from her. The beautiful woman walked up to her until she was in between her legs and whispered into her ear.
“Worry not for me, sweet Alysia. My death will allow me to return to the wasteland that my world has become, but your death will allow me to live on as a revered warrior in this, the world of Chaos. Once you cross over and have the Xatas, life and death become less absolute, my dear.” She stepped back from Alysia with a smile on her face and then walked out, letting her gaze linger on the three cowering girls that stood in the corner.
“Okay, that woman is absolutely frightening,” Alysia said once a few minutes had passed and the girls were back to their normal selves.
“Dibolosa is a phenomenal warrior, CeeCee,” Isobel said to her, as she strapped her old sword to her waist and stepped back to make sure that she looked the part. Koko had begun to do her hair, so she couldn’t get up off the slab, but the girls seemed pleased at what they had managed to do with her.
“Where are you girls from?” she asked them. “You took the trials too?”
The girls exchanged glances when she asked them the question, and they seemed to struggle with an answer for her.
“You’ve all been lying to me haven’t you?” she asked them next, and Jasmine stood still with her hands fidgeting uncontrollably.
“You will become like us," Isobel said sadly. "Trapped, fighting for the worlds.”
“So, all the stuff you've been telling me about this fight is a lie?” Alysia asked. “I won't die if I lose, I just lose my humanity. Awesome, girls,” she said, shaking her head and sighing as she looked around. There goes my other parent, she thought. “Thank you for the bath, and for oiling me up to be a slave. So, is anybody ready to tell me what really happens if I win?”
“You won't win,” Koko whispered as she walked out from behind the slab, finished with her hair.
“I won't win because you think that she's better than me, or I won't win because of something else?” Alysia asked, motioning with her hands for them to spill the beans.
The girls stood tight-lipped and Alysia realized she was asking them to answer a question that would get them in trouble. "Never mind," she said. "You've told me enough already and I’m grateful. Look, I'm sorry I yelled at you. I know what you’ve given me is probably enough to have you punished, but you did it anyway. Let’s go ahead and start with the training, rituals, or whatever it is we need to do. I want to be ready for Dibolosa, and I know that you all will do your best.”
Chapter Four
They came upon an old station and climbed the stairs out of the subway to the mostly vacant streets of New York. It was midday but shadows flitted this way and that in the distance, and a few desolate, hungry people shambled by, looking at them as if they were hopeless.
“Well, we’re back in the city,” James said. He held on to Tracy’s waist as they stepped out of the subway. Jaime came up behind him and began to look around frantically.
“You mean we’re back in the middle of hell,” he said. “Except this time, we don’t have the guns to hold those things back. We’re all consumed with finding CeeCee, but we can’t even survive our damned selves if we don’t find a set of guns and a whole lot of ammo!”
James knew he was right so he merely nodded. They hadn’t gone very far from the house that they had commandeered, but he wondered where the creature had taken his daughter and how much of a fight they would have to go through in order to get her back. He looked down at Tracy, who looked pale and emaciated, as if poison wracked her body. She had wanted him to lance the wound, but he refused to do it since they had no medicine, and he didn’t want her to get a worse infection and die.
“Mr. Knight, she’s starting to smell,” Jaime said, and James looked at him as if he wanted to rip his jaw off to prevent him from talking.
“We’re on the strip, and there are stores literally everywhere, Jaime. Listen, we can go in this hotel. I’ll clean her up, and you go scavenging for something to help her out, man. Can you do that?”
“Yeah, I can do that for Tracy. She’s gonna be alright, right?”
“She’s a fighter. She won’t go unless there is absolutely no other option,” James said.
They kicked in the backdoor of a seedy motel and found a room on the second floor to call their own. They heard a few more people in the adjoining rooms but with the apocalypse upon them and owners abandoning their places left and right, anywhere was fair game. Having neighbors in an abandoned motel was pretty much par for the course.
Jaime took note of where the room was located and took off as James filled the bathtub with cold water. He then removed Tracy’s clothes and sat her in it. The cold brought her back to life almost instantly, but he held her down so that it could do the job and whispered words of encouragement into her ear. He washed her to the best of his ability, taking his time around the bites. He saw that she had many scars and he knew most of them were new, due to the creatures they had fought.
“I bet you were just a young, feisty officer that gave your coworkers hell, weren’t you Trace?” he said to her, squeezing the water over her head and grabbing the shampoo to wash her hair.
“It hurts so bad, Jimmy,” she managed to say. “You have to cut them to
let it drain out. That thing put something in me; I know this is not from those old bites.”
He thought about what she was saying and looked closely at the three black and blue bruises. He thought about it for a while, and then went back to washing her hair quietly.
“Got you a bunch of stuff from the convenience store,” Jaime said as he came through the door. He slammed it shut and dropped a large paper bag next to Jimmy. “Whoa! That’s way more of Tracy than I would ever expect to see … man, she sure is built … wow, and those bruises look nasty!”
James closed his eyes to summon patience, and then eased his breathing to keep himself calm. “Jaime, can you give me a few minutes with her to do what I have to do? I don’t think she’d appreciate you gawking at her when she’s this vulnerable.”
“Yeah, yeah, of course, Mr. Knight. Was just thinking out loud is all. I’m gonna go back out, see if I can find us some guns. You know how it is. If a demon don’t get us, those spice heads next door probably will. You hear them in there? They must be shooting up to stay high during this whole thing; I can smell the burned glass through the damn door. We need to watch them close, they like to steal. You know how it is.”
When he was finished rambling he looked around awkwardly, then he snuck another peek at Tracy’s breasts and then exited the bathroom, closing the door.
“This is going to hurt worse than anything else you have ever felt, Tracy, but we—”
“Just do it, Jimmy, just do it,” she said without opening her eyes.
He reached over, grabbed one of the towels, and stuffed it into her mouth. She lifted her hand out of the water to help him get it in and then took a firm grip on the edge of the bathtub. James pulled out one of the razors from the package Jaime had brought him, and removed the blade. He brought out a lighter and used the fire to heat the edge and sterilize it, and then he made a small incision under the highest bruise mark. Black blood jumped out of it as if it needed to escape, then a stream of pus that came out thick and disgusting, followed by pure, red blood.
James sliced the other bruises in the same manner and let them drain, then pushed down on them as Tracy bit into the towel and pounded the bathtub to fight the pain. He made sure the pus was out and that only blood remained, then he applied peroxide to the wounds, and bandaged them to stop the bleeding.
“How do you feel?” James asked her after removing the towel from her mouth. Her head slumped to the side and she gave him a thumbs up. He then handed her a small bottle of rum and she threw it back as if her life depended on it. The water was a disgusting mix of dirt, soap, pus and blood, so he made her stand up and dried her off. She took the towel to dry herself and he released the catch in the bathtub and cut on the shower to wash the residue off the edges. “Let’s get you to bed,” he said.
“I promise you that I am not really this needy,” she joked, and he brought her in and planted a big kiss on her lips. “What’s that for?” she asked as she grabbed a robe and tied it on.
“That’s for coming through this alive, you hardheaded girl. We walked ten miles and you never stopped. A mere mortal would have probably died back in that tunnel.”
“Pah! You give me more credit than I deserve,” she said. “You dragged me for about seven of those miles because my mind was somewhere else. I feel a lot better after that minor bit of surgery back there. Thank you, baby. I really mean it.”
He took her to one of the twin beds and tucked her in, then sat with her and fed her one of the sleeping pills. “I need you to rest to get your strength back. We can eat later and talk about the plan to get my CeeCee back, but for now, I need to watch your condition. Make sure those wounds aren’t really infected.”
“I’m having a wicked bout of déjà vu here, Jimmy. Please tell me you feel it,” she said.
“What do you mean? The motel room?” he asked.
“No, I mean you taking care of me while your daughter is kidnapped out in the world.”
“I hope its déjà vu because the last time she ended up okay,” he said to her.
“Alysia is not the type of girl that needs rescuing,” Tracy said. “If anything, she will probably be the one coming to save us.”
~ * ~ * ~
“Dibolosa is very good,” Isobel said.
“Very good,” Jasmine repeated. They sat atop a hill in Yalem as Alysia went through the motions of her kata.
“I’m surprised that you all are still talking about her,” Alysia said. “A few days ago you were afraid to answer my questions.”
“This is because Dibolosa always spies on us. She keeps us where she can watch us, and so we don’t get close to Lord Chaos,” Jasmine said.
“So, Chaos was telling the truth about the duel being necessary for me to save my world. But, Dibolosa is in love with him and is not ready to give up the sword to me so that I can save my people,” Alysia said as she spun and thrust her sword one way, then spun again and thrust it in the opposite direction.
“Yes, that is the reason why you will not win,” Koko finally said. “Dibolosa is very good, and she will do everything she can—including cheating to keep her seat by the lord, Chaos.”
“She’s a pathetic wench and I know I can beat her,” Alysia said.
“You are a very arrogant warrior,” Koko said to her.
“Says the girl that let a blue-haired harpy come into her organization and manipulate her leader,” Alysia said, annoyed by Koko’s attitude.
“I don’t deserve that,” The girl said to her as she stood up and walked in front of Alysia to interrupt her motion. “You take that back and apologize, because I do not deserve to be blamed for Dibolosa.”
“Oh, come on Koko, she didn’t mean it,” Isobel whined.
“She sure didn’t Koko; we all know that you aren’t to blame. Don’t be upset. We’re here for Alysia,” Jasmine said.
Alysia looked around at them and stopped. “How did you all get here? At first I thought you were demons like Chaos, but the more I get to know you guys, I’m thinking that you’re more like me. Humans tainted and made to stay with that monster.”
“We’re exactly like you,” Koko said to her. She hadn’t budged since getting up to demand a challenge. “We are the failed warriors that have tried to save our worlds. Isobel is from Dibolosa’s world. She is the eldest of us all.”
Alysia looked over at Isobel. “But she’s so young,” she said with sadness in her heart. “So young and stuck here. There has to be a way to get you all home.”
“Perhaps you didn’t hear me, Alysia Knight,” Koko said as she stepped forward menacingly. “We came here because we were chosen and we accepted our fates as warriors to fight Dibolosa.”
“Wait! Dibolosa defeated you all?” Alysia asked, and they all stood up and revealed the areas where Dibolosa’s blade had struck its fatal blow.
“The cuts from the Twilight Sword leaves marks that will not heal,” Jasmine said. “For you to beat Dibolosa, you will be accomplishing the impossible. You will do what the warriors of two separate worlds haven’t been able to do.”
Alysia thought of her bedroom back at her parent’s house, and the countless trophies that she filed inside of her closet for kendo and kenjutsu. James Knight had sent her to the most exclusive of sword masters to perfect her technique, and she found it highly unlikely that an upstart demon queen would be able to defeat her.
“How does Chaos keep you tethered to the temple, girls?” Alysia asked, picking up where she had left off.
“He killed our families, and Dibolosa slaughtered our friends. We have nowhere to turn,” Isobel said.
“The Bloody Garot is our family now,” they all said in unison.
Creepy, Alysia thought but then she wondered about Dibolosa, and how good she really was. Part of her training had dealt with sparring sessions against the girls and she knew that Koko was extremely good. Was this information another part of the training, and would her encouragement be seen as treason and lead to her failing?
C
haos had told her that all demons shared a hive mind. This was how he knew that the demon huntress had uttered her name, and it was how he knew they were after her. Wouldn’t he be able to read what Isobel and company were saying? Maybe not. They had not started out like him and were probably more human than they were demon.
“I have a strange question,” Alysia said.
“What is it?” Isobel perked up.
“Does Lord Chaos love Dibolosa?” she asked, and all three of the girls shook their heads.
“The Lord has a wife that lives within this realm,” Koko said. “He loves her very much, but due to the nature of the war, they seldom get to see one another.”
“I see,” Alysia said and shook her head. “So how is it that you guys pull me into the demon realm?”
“Oh, we merely have to touch your palms when your mind is not resisting it, CeeCee,” Isobel said, and the other two agreed.
“Could you all do it to Dibolosa?” she asked, and they quickly exchanged glances as if they were worried that she could hear them.
“Yeah, I guess we could do it, but she could just step back out as soon as we did it,” Koko replied. “It would be a hilarious prank, but she would thwart it as soon as we tried.”
“Not if I was waiting on the other side to fight her,” Alysia said, and the girls began to whisper back and forth to one another so she couldn’t hear it.
“You want to have the duel here?” Isobel asked, and Alysia nodded. “But why, CeeCee?”
“The human realm allows her to use the gifted power of the Twilight Sword to gain an edge on her challengers. It is a spiritual blade from what you tell me, and it draws from the power of the Bloody Garot. With all of you there to witness the fight, she will be stronger than ever and will cut me down before we even start. If I can bring her here, it will even things out and my old sword will be lethal against her, since she will be a mere mortal here just like me. Like you said, she will blink back to the earth realm as soon as I am getting the upper hand, but if I can get Isobel to bring me back with her, I can finish her off in front of everyone.”
