I stopped and turned to the left, the direction the creature was in. It was strong, but Damnit I was stronger. Whatever it was it didn't have any magic, so that was a bonus.
"You might as well show yourself. I know you're there and I'm in no mood for hide and seek." I yelled into the woods.
I heard the rustling of leaves and the sound of branches breaking under stress. Then I heard the same noise coming from the direction that I was going, from the direction of the house. Hells Bells!
"There are two of you. Well come on then, there's no sense in trying to surprise me, I'm not your typical human or demon hunter. So come out and face me you pansy ass cowards!" I yelled again, becoming angry and calling on my witch power. These stupid creatures were thinking they were going to play with me, in a way I felt bad for the worthless, pathetic souls who thought I was going to be an easy meal.
"We know who you are, Miss Katilyn Wesson. We know you are the hybrid demon witch who is being hunted by her father Lucifer. We have heard many stories of you and what you are capable of and we come in peace, offering our assistance. We mean you no harm and ask the same in return from you." The deep voice spoke from very close in front of me, but he was hidden very well behind the trees.
I stopped and thought about what he said. This could be a trick, a new and stealthy trick I might add. I heard the one behind me move closer again, with the sound of his footfalls he was a light weight, probably 140 to 150 pounds, but very agile. I took a deep breath and smelled the air!
"Since when do werewolves support the princess and not the darkness? You are a creature of the dark, are you not? And all the werewolves I have ever encountered have only ever tried to kill or capture me, why are you any different?" I asked with no sarcasm or disbelief, I merely sought the truth.
"Well if you know that we are werewolves, then the stories have been correct. You do have a heightened sense of smell." The voice stepped from behind the tree and a massive man stood before me.
He was tall and built like a brick wall. He was well over 6 feet tall and he had to weigh about 200 pounds maybe more, and it was all solid muscle. Before me was a good looking man, dark skinned and green eyes, the green eyes looked kind and forgiving. If this was a trick it would take a lot of my magic to take him out and that was something that I was not looking forward to. For all sense and practicality, I normally did try and not fight creatures this big, my vitality was more important than sending him to hell.
"Apparently the rumors are true. Now if what you are saying is true, I offer you no harm as long as you tell your young one to come up front from my left side. I will have no problem giving you an audience as long as both of you are in front of me and I don't have to watch my back at the same time." I turned my head just enough to get a better view in my peripheral.
I saw a young man; early twenties come and stand by the man. He was of the same build, just more agile and lanky. He was only a few inches taller than me, and like I had guessed 150ish pounds. After taking him in I saw he had the same features as the man, and his eyes were the exact shade of green. The only difference in the eyes, where the old mans' eyes held kindness and understanding, the young mans' held hardness and a coldness that I so often saw in dark creatures. Around this young creature, I would keep my guard up.
Chapter 10--Answers, more questions, and new guests
"Alright, so why do you seek an audience with me?" I asked loud and steady, keeping my eyes on both of them.
"My name is Adolphe Sandalio and this is my son Phelan. I am the Alpha of a pack in South Florida. Our pack is a peaceful pack and we have long since banned the dark ways from our pack. I wish to keep my peace in my tribe and with the village we live nearby. To keep that peace and tranquility we have to work to protect and help you in the battles that are coming your way." Chief Sandalio turned his hands palm up as a sort of peace offering, meaning that he meant me no harm and only sought to help me.
"Ok, Chief Sandalio, I'm listening. How do you and your pack plan to help me? And the bigger question is how did you even find me, when many higher level demons just can't seem to even trace down an old hairbrush?" I was extremely curious of this little tidbit of information.
"I will answer your second question first as I assume it is the one that is bothering you the most. When we renounced darkness and all of its ways over 50 years ago, mother earth accepted up back into her folds. We are allowed to use her elements as long as we do right by her and stay on the path of light. Although we do not possess any magic of any kind, we have discovered many different ways of manipulating the elements in a way that do not harm earth. We also have a seer in our pack that has seen many things and some of the more recent things she has seen involve you. She saw where you were and sent us here to find and talk to you." The Chief told me truthfully, he was completely honest and I had no choice but to trust him.
"Ok, I can understand that. Most things that revoke darkness are often granted certain things from mother earth; she is kind to those who only wish her well. Now about this seer, she saw that you would be helping me? Can you tell me exactly how you will be helping me?" I asked regardless of my intuition knowing he would not reveal all to me just yet.
"You must surely know that I will not discuss all the details just yet, I do admire your asking though all the same. Your prophet that you have encountered, he should be close to finding many answers that he has been seeking. In those answers will come many things that neither of you will want to learn. Once he has discovered the truths we will speak to him. His mother Linda, saw the same things that our seer did and that was that we will all work together to win the battle against Damien. There are only a few more details that must happen before we can fully realize our duties." Chief Sandalio finished and then he actually bowed to me.
Ok so the bowing thing, I have never, ever had happen to me and I just stood there like a big frozen idiot. Finally after an awkward silence and one that held a menacing glare from Phelan I found my voice again.
"Please do not bow to me. I do not claim that royalty, being the Princess of the dark is not something that I am actually proud of. I do however; accept your offer of help, in whatever form that is. I will do all that is in my power to win this battle against darkness. But now I really hate to make this short, but my prophet as you call him is probably desperately worried about me, I've been gone for quite a while." I motioned that I needed to go in the direction of the house and waited for them to answer, follow, I wasn't really sure.
Phelan looked to his father, and I could have sworn I saw a note of doubt in his look, but it was gone before I could be sure. Phelan just felt off, like he didn't trust me or something like that.
"There is a boat house by the lake? Am I correct?" the Chief asked. While I wanted to question that I didn't. I'm guessing he had already checked out the house, so I simply nodded a yes.
"Then we will stay there for the night. It is only the second night of the full moon and although I can control my transformations, Phelan is still young and must change on the full moon. Besides your prophet will not have all his answers till morning so we would not want to disrupt his senses at the moment. Go, clear your mind on the way home and remember that you are a force of goodness. Look for that light inside yourself, remember the sweet times and the ones who were always there for you, remember you are not alone and the serenity that you seek will come." The Chief told me graciously and then the two of them walked off into the woods leaving me standing there staring.
As I made my way to the inside of the wards I could instantly feel the anxiousness radiating off Jace. He was out of his mind with worry and fear. I instantly decided that I would not be bombarded with hugs and where have you been, so I placed a calming spell over him as soon as he was in my line of sight. It worked; he instantly calmed and decided that he was getting worked up over nothing.
"I'm back. Sorry I was gone so long, I just really needed to clear my head and center myself again." I said to the house knowing he would he
ar me in the living room.
I was wrong about the hugs; Jace instantly wrapped me in a breath sucking hug when I walked into the living room. I slapped his back making it sting so that he would release me, I might be super human, but damn no one just wants their breath squeezed out of them.
"Sorry I didn't mean to smother you, it's just you've been gone for hours. I thought something might have happened to you." He was clearly getting worked up again.
"Jace take a chill and breath. I am a hybrid demon witch who is bad ass. Regardless of what you might think, I have been taking care of myself, all by myself for several years now. I know how to protect myself so quit worrying over nothing." I said simply, but unfortunately it did have a sound of frustration to it.
The look that crossed his face was nothing short of being hurt. God, why did I have to deal with people now after all these years of being on my own, now I have to keep in mind how people might feel about me doing something and that is just what irritates me. I have been doing this by myself for so long and even before my mom died, we did things on our own. I wasn't allowed to have close friends, hell I hardly ever had friends at all. The times that I did get to go to school my mom had me so paranoid that someone might be a demon and try to take me that I was so withdrawn that often times the teachers thought there was something medically wrong with me, like they could put me on some kind of drug and wham I would be a socialite who enjoyed spending my days with kids my age.
Now I had to take a breath and remember to keep in check my level of frustration and to remember that other people have feelings and they often show those feelings.
"Jace, I'm sorry I didn't mean to sound so rude. This whole friendship thing is really new to me. I haven't had to deal with an actual person in what seems like forever. The few people I have worked with have all been dark creatures seeking to help me and they never really thought twice about it if I was gone for a few hours. Really it’s nice that you care, but you also have to remember I have been doing this all my life and for the latter part of my life, I've done this alone. Please don't take offense when I need space and don't readily accept your feelings of worry or relief." I tried to show him in a smile that I was truly sorry, and I was but I don't think that I pulled that off to well with him. Oh well, just another thing I can add to the list that I need to work on.
He smiled at me and it was a shy, quiet smile, maybe he did understand the position I was in and was trying to be okay with it.
"I'm sorry for being such an over protective brother. I haven't had anyone to really worry about since my parents and then you came along and it was like a whole new life happened before my eyes."
I couldn't help the laugh that escaped, "Jace it is a whole new life happening for you. You learned you are a prophet and have visions of the future; you also found out that all the things that go bump in the night and show up in the movies are all real. That is a lot to take in, even for a prophet. If you had grown up knowing about prophets that doesn't mean you would have known about the supernatural realm of things. Your mom may have never told you about this side of it, I don't know. There are so many new things for both of us and we just have to take a breath and deal." I was so proud of myself and then it hit me that I sounded just like my mom trying to tell me about the world of darkness and the boy I would marry someday that would help me change the world. Ugh, that just does not sit well with me.
"So what was so stressing that you had to stay gone for almost 4 hours? You didn't seem like yourself when you came home earlier, what's up?" he asked sitting down on the couch.
"Well you see I let the irrational side of me take over for a little while and while it will probably come back and bite me in the ass later, I still feel that I did the right thing. But after doing the stupid, petty, human thing I had to go and really clear my head to figure out what was going on in my head and my heart. I didn't find the exact answers that I was looking for but I did find some sense of peace inside my heart." I still wasn't ready to tell him what I had done to Elsie; in a way I think I was still ashamed of my actions.
"Well when you are ready to really talk about it I am here for you. I do have some news for you though. The next two journals that I read had more information and visions that relate to us, actually to you specifically in one of them." He was looking away from me, he didn't want to tell me what he was going to but he knew he had to get it out in the open.
"Ok, so go ahead and tell me. It's information that we need, so let's hear it." I said sternly and sat down on the couch next to him.
"My mom wrote down the vision she spoke to your mother about, then one you saw her talking to your mom about. Here goes, I'll read straight from it…" he picked the journal up and read aloud.
---I dreamed of Jacklyn last night. It was so dark that I could barely breathe under the weight of the darkness. Jacklyn was standing in front of a young Katilyn, protecting her from Damien. He had finally found them. The only thing I could do was stand back, watch, and listen. That's all I can ever do in visions.
"My sweet Jacklyn, you've been a naughty wife. You left me while you were pregnant with my child and you never let me know you were even pregnant." He smiled a devious smile at her that even made my blood run cold.
"Yes, I left to protect her from you and from your world. I never wanted to have a child with you, I even warded myself from becoming pregnant but somehow you broke those wards and here she is, but she will never be yours. She is pure and innocent and she will never be anything like your demon children." Jacklyn said loud and strong, she was determined to not let him intimidate her.
Damien just smiled that hellish smile and shook his head.
"No I do not believe, nor do I expect her to be anything remotely close to my demon children from the Underworld. She is also half witch and that is the catalyst that will make her greater than anything ever known, hell she will even be greater than me one day, and she will rule the Underworld after me." Damien said with great satisfaction. I could tell from the look in his eyes that he had this all planned out, he knew a child like her would be something greatly magical and would be the catalyst that could change the world.
"You will not have her! She will never rule the Underworld! I did not risk and con my way out of there for her to only be dragged back to hell for all eternity!" Jacklyn screamed at him, then a blinding light lit everything up and when it was gone, so was Jacklyn and Katilyn.
My vision ended there and I awoke. I didn't see anything for me to change, she would easily escape Damien and there was nothing life threatening in the vision. I would leave all alone for now.
---It has been two days since my last vision and the one that I had today was terrible. It was the middle of the day and Jace was with me, I did as always and played it off as a really bad headache, I don't know how much longer I will be able to keep this life from him.
The vision today was also terrifying in itself because it was so far in the future and I am sure I am gone by then. Katilyn was older; she would actually be coming into her full powers very soon. The thing that scared me the most was the fact that Jace was right by her side, fighting along with her.
This was something that I truly did hope would not get passed on to him, but it seems with the entire heritage he was likely to get it despite my hopes and prayers.
They were fighting two low level demons, but a higher demon showed up and Katilyn had to attend it. The demon took all her attention, and under any other circumstances the lower levels would leave her alone, but Jace was there and they went after him while she was distracted. By the time Katilyn sent the higher up back to hell, Jace had been beaten pretty badly. Lots of cuts and scratches covered his arms and some on his face, but he had held them off physically. Katilyn immediately did her job and sent them to hell. She was shocked looking when she looked at Jace, then her shock turned to anger.
"See, you did it Katilyn, even with me here you were able to stay focused" he smiled brilliantly at her with a bloody lip and that di
d not help her mood.
She looked away from him as she spoke, "Jace I was slow. My brain had a slow reaction time; I was constantly trying to check on you to fully put my attention on the higher level. I should have disposed of him a lot sooner, but with a divided mind and mixed emotions I was sporadic. I can't do this with you so vulnerable. I was stupid to let you near me." She sighed and sat on a log.
"Well you just need to learn to work with distractions. Doing these small jobs will help with that and you will get better. You need me Katilyn, there are too many things left in the open and too many big battles coming up." He gently touched her shoulder, trying to calm her and make her understand his position.
"I understand that Jace, and trust me I've had distractions before, and I have never been that slow. My distractions normally can't be killed any of the stuff that I fight. Our side is fighting bravely and I refuse to go to the Underworld." She stood and left him there while she went into the woods.
--I cannot deny that Jacklyn needs to know this. She will undoubtedly not be in Katilyn life in the future and she needs to prepare her for that. I also need to tell her about Jace and give her a way to inform Katilyn of this information. I will go see her tomorrow night.
Jace closed the book and sat it down, I could feel his eyes on me, but I refused to look at him. I just sat there in the chair, completely disgusted and fuming over what I had just heard. I didn't want to know anymore future events not even from Jace. I was done with prophets and their damn visions. I was consumed with thoughts of the visions that Linda might have seen, did she see Jacklyn's death after that, did she know that my mom would be murdered and did nothing to stop it. I did what I normally do, I choose to ignore it for now, and I would put it away and deal with it later when I was alone.
For now I got up and made sandwiches, in silence. Jace just followed the pace I set and cut up the tomatoes and lettuce, and then he poured us glasses of tea. As we sat down to eat he finally decided to break the long silence.
Hells Royalty The Princess Page 8
