by Greg Dragon
“Alysia Knight!” it roared, but it dared not turn to look at her.
“So you do talk,” she said, squeezing her eyes shut to stop the burning while simultaneously wiping the thick black blood off her blade.
“Why?” the beast asked. “Why do they help you?”
Alysia didn’t understand the question. She knelt and checked on Isobel, who hadn’t moved from where she had fallen. The little girl was brave and smiled up at Alysia, a smile that reflected a reverence borne of respect and awe rolled into one.
“You will heal for me, won’t you, my little Izzy? You’re my angel. I don’t want to do this alone, I just—I just can’t do it.” Isobel blinked so slowly that Alysia worried she would never open her eyes again, but when she did, she understood it as her way of nodding affirmatively.
“Why does the Turevila help you?” the demon asked again, but Alysia was not in the mood for a question and answer.
“Tell your leaders that they help us because your time grows short, V’kosha dog! The Twilight Sword will take your souls, and then you will be weakened, and forced to face us in the other realm!” she screamed.
The demon’s silence was one that reflected the fear and surprise that came with hearing what Alysia had said to him. She stood up and stared at him, his furry back dripping blood from the deep wounds her sword had made during their fight. She held the hilt with both hands tight, and then rushed in and jumped, twisting violently and removing his head in a fatal cut.
The original demons that had fled watched from across the bridge, but when they saw the head drop, they scattered back into the city.
“You are something else,” Tracy said, as she sat with James, cradling his head. She smiled up at Alysia with a look of pride, and then looked back at her father as if she wanted to make sure he was still there.
“Dad,” Alysia said in a meek tone as she knelt in front of him to make sure he could see her. A smile crossed his lips but nothing else and she got up quickly to wipe her tears. What could they possibly do to save him, now that he was so broken that he couldn’t even talk? Isobel would be back to form with time, and Alysia would be too. They would struggle to make it back to the base, but after a few weeks of laying low, eating, and sleeping, they would be ready to go back outside to find the next elite demon.
James Knight did not have this privilege; he would need a real doctor, a medical facility, and actual medicine; all the things they did not have. She closed her eyes and thought about it: what could she do to save her father?
“Isobel,” she called to the tiny girl as she walked over to where she laid. She had pulled herself up into a tiny ball and was on her side with her back turned to Tracy. Alysia sat on the ground next to her, and then lay down on her side so that the two of them were face to face. “Izzy, I need your help, girl. Are you awake? Do you think you can help me?”
“CeeCee?” the girl whispered with her eyes closed, wincing every minute or so from pain that Alysia could only imagine was unbearable.
“Yes, little one, it’s your CeeCee,” she said.
“You want to help your father, CeeCee. You want to know if I can help you know what heals your father.” she said between gasps as Alysia nodded repeatedly before realizing that she couldn’t see it.
“Yes. Is there a way? Can I save him?” she asked, hoping with all her heart that Isobel would say yes.
“Petition, Chaos Lord, CeeCee. He can heal – him, but … price …,” and she passed out after saying it.
Alysia got to her knees and meditated in the way that the girls had taught her to do when it was time to summon Chaos. She stayed like that for a very long time, and though Tracy called out to her several times, it did not register as she sat there, pushing through all of her human doubts to reach the master of the Turevilas.
When Alysia wouldn’t answer, Tracy assumed she was doing a demonic ritual to resurrect her fallen friend. She understood that James was out of luck since he was merely a human being. She didn’t know how bad his injuries were but he was no longer moving. There had to be some internal bleeding, and he needed to be properly diagnosed.
Tracy analyzed her own health as she sat with her man, trying to decide what to do next. She, too, had been beat up by the demons, but she had pushed them back, so there wasn’t anything major for her to be concerned with.
There was nothing she could see that would help them. If there was a vehicle, it was not close to them. She hoped that whatever it was that Alysia was doing would come with a way to take them home, but with the way their luck had been, she didn’t dare hold her breath.
~ * ~ * ~
“Alysia Knight.”
The deep voice spoke to her, and behind its tone was expectancy, as if he knew that she would reach out to him.
“Lord Chaos, I come with questions,” she began, but then the darkness dissipated from her mind and she found herself on the shores of the black lake, the sky a mustard color yellow, with black, demonic creatures flying around.
There was a gazebo on the left side of the lake away from where she stood, and within it sat Chaos with a beautiful, blonde-haired woman in a fancy red dress. Alysia looked around, confused, but walked over to where they were and stopped. She looked down at herself and saw that she was still in the tattered clothes she’d worn when she fought the demon.
“Alysia, this is Adrica, my wife. You interrupted me when we were having our time together,” he said.
Alysia forced a smile and bowed her head to the woman, who stood up—she was tall— and walked over and hugged her lovingly.
“I hate that you have to go through this, young Alysia, but you must not hate my husband. His heart is in the right place,” she said. Alysia returned the hug, though she didn’t know why. Adrica’s touch made her want to be nice to her, so Alysia’s hug was genuine, and the whole thing made her want to cry.
The woman backed up and used her gloved fingers to remove dirt from Alysia’s face. She kissed her on the forehead and then returned to her seat next to Chaos.
“Come, earth warrior, come and sit with us.” He beckoned to her. “I assure you that you have time. Let’s have a proper talk, and when we are finished, you will be very happy that we did.”
Alysia walked over and sat with them. A few of the warriors from the Bloody Garot materialized from the trees and brought them food on silver trays. There were four of them in all, two boys and two girls. When they placed the food down, Alysia expected them to keep their heads bowed like broken slaves, but they waved at her and smiled.
One of the girls—a leggy, dark-haired, waif, who seemed to be in her late teens—walked over and hugged her tightly as if they were old friends. “Thank you for humbling Dibolosa,” she whispered in her ear and then skipped off into the woods with the others trailing her.
“So your father is wanting to help, but is too weak to deal with the might of the lost?” Chaos asked, cutting a slice of bread and then smearing jam on one side before taking a large bite out of it.
“He’s dying,” Alysia replied, amazed that she could say it without her voice quivering.
“Why didn’t you stay with him, see him off with the loving face of a daughter?” he asked.
“I would have if I hadn’t thought that you could help. That you can go there, treat his wounds, and allow me to continue my mission without the burden of a broken heart,” Alysia said. “If I lose my father, I will lose all reason to live. This will affect your plans, so I came to beg you to help him, since it has bearings on everything you have invested to make me strong.”
Chaos looked angry and annoyed at Alysia when she said this, and he twisted and contorted his features in order to reason through what it was that he would say to her next.
“Foolish girl, have you not learned by now that there is no asking? There is simply exchange! Do you want your father to live? Then give to the afterlife someone else in exchange for him.”
Alysia thought about his words and whether or not it was true. Even
if they were, she would never give up Tracy or Jaime to death in exchange for her father, and the girls were off-limits.
“I’m not asking you to resurrect my dead father, Chaos. I am asking you to heal his wounds. If you can’t or won’t do it then say so, but I have nothing else to give you,” Alysia said.
“What if I tell you that a part of healing him would be for him to get the same blood you got when you defeated the Dra’yr?” he asked, seeming to calm down as he did.
“What would be the cost of that? If he can be given the blood, then why not Jaime and Tracy too? They travel with me, and they will be assisting me to defeat the demons. As I said before, this is to our advantage, giving them this extra power. You should have seen how the demons took advantage of their vulnerable humanity,” Alysia replied in stern tone.
“My mention of the Dra’yr was simply that, Alysia Knight: a mention. The slaying of the beast and the melding of the blood is wrapped up in ritual. The ritual of the one that is chosen to save her world. We do not allow old men to start the ritual; it serves absolutely no purpose to the cause. I’ve already explained to you why you were chosen,” Chaos started.
“We are very sorry, Alysia, but even if we wanted to, we cannot give your father the blood,” his wife chimed in.
“So coming here was a waste of time then,” Alysia said, standing and taking a deep breath in frustration. “I left my dad to die while I came here on a gamble. My Isobel suffers and I’m not with her. We are miles away from help, so there is a chance that one of them will die.”
“It is hard for you, I know,” Chaos said, “but you are not without resources. You will find that as you become more successful at thinning their horde, your power will grow with time. Take the fruit back to your people as a gift from me and Adrica. You can contact me after your next victory.”
Alysia gathered up an armload of food, nodded at Adrica, and walked towards the forest. As she did, she felt herself getting light-headed, so she looked back to see what Chaos and his wife was doing. The gazebo was missing, but the serene view of the lake and the trees that bordered it made her smile. The leaves were red and there were tiny white flowers growing around it.
She really liked this world and its off-colored foliage, yellow sky, and strange people. It was a welcome change from the stark white rubble that was left of the earth and all the sadness that came along with it. If her father died, she would no longer have a place in that world. Who would fault her for returning to the demon world and helping their cause once her life was void of everything she loved?
She steeled herself and shook her head, letting the self-pity pass as she walked through the dark foliage of the trees. My life was forfeit from the day the demons attacked us, anyway, she thought. I will do what I can, and then when it is allowed of me, I will die to rejoin my mother in heaven.
4
The world grew dark and disorienting and then Alysia found herself no longer walking, but kneeling, with numbing pain running through her body. She opened her eyes and struggled to keep the food from falling, as she saw Isobel lying in front of her, clutching at her shirt as her eyes squeezed shut with dried tears running down her cheeks.
She looked around and saw her father. He was seated up against one of the posts and there were makeshift bandages wrapped around his abdomen. Tracy sat on the base of a statue, staring at her. She ran over when she realized that she had opened her eyes.
“Damn, CeeCee, I was hoping that you hadn’t gotten yourself in trouble with the demons,” she said, looking down at the fruit and dried meat cradled in Alysia’s arms.
“Here, Tracy, you eat. Give some to Dad. It’s special food; it should help,” she said, finding her throat dry and scratchy when she did. “How long was I out?” she asked as Tracy grabbed a number of items. She bit into a peach when she stood up, as if she hadn’t heard the question. Her eyes rolled into the back of her head as she bit it, and she glanced at Alysia wide-eyed and then ran over to James and forced him to bite into the rest of the fruit as she held his chin.
Alysia watched her do this with some curiosity and she whispered up a silent prayer when her father took it with his own hand and began to eat it voraciously. Tracy handed him a few apples and jerky, then stood up and walked over to where Alysia knelt, her steps seemingly stronger than before.
“You’ve been like that for about 24 hours, CeeCee. Isobel told me not to touch you, so I let you be. I tried to see if I could get some help, but as you can see we’re all alone out here,” Tracy said. She ate another peach and looked at it as if it was the best thing she had ever tasted. “What kind of magical fruit did you conjure up from meditating, girl?” she asked as she looked down at the rest of it that Alysia held in her hands.
“I made a deal with the demon lord to help get my father back to form. He sent me back with the food, but I’m still not sure what we’re going to lose for—” It was as if her own words made her realize what it might be, and she reached down and touched Isobel’s cheek to see if she was doing any better. The tiny girl stirred and opened her eyes, and Alysia drew her knife, cut a sliver of pear, and fed it to her. “Okay, so we’re all back,” she said to no one in particular. “This means that it’s me; he has taken something from me.”
She couldn’t reason through what it would be that Chaos had taken in exchange for the fruit, but she didn’t want to guess, since it would only lead to speculation and sadness. Whatever it was, she would deal with it when the time came. This was how she had handled everything, so it wouldn’t be anything new to face whatever it was that she had coming.
“CeeCee,” her father announced, and she looked over at him in a slow, deliberate way. “CeeCee, you need to eat too,” he said, and she realized that she hadn’t eaten anything since the moment she sat down to talk to Chaos and Adrica. She nodded and ate the other half of the pear that she fed Isobel, and then took the grapes and popped them into her mouth. The food seemed to accelerate her healing, and as bones set themselves and bruises took to healing, she bit down hard and closed her eyes in order to bear the pain that came with it.
James Knight stood up and retrieved his jacket. As he walked over to where his daughter stood, Tracy intercepted him to hand him his rifle. Alysia got to her feet and lifted up Isobel; she felt as light as a feather but she was strong enough to reach up and grab her neck.
“Dad, I know that you won’t like what I am about to ask you, but I need you to hear me out and agree with me,” Alysia said as they moved to walk back across the bridge.
“Doesn’t sound like it will be a question, then,” her father joked, but she picked up the pace, glancing down at her sword to make sure it was still there.
“On the next hunt, I will need for you, Tracy, and Jaime to stay behind. Please do not follow us again, even if you think it will be too much for me.”
“What sort of a father would allow his one and only daughter to go out into this mess alone, CeeCee? Don’t be silly. I know that you’re worried—”
“DAD!” Alysia shouted at him. She wheeled around to let him see the redness of her pupils and the anger in her features at his stubbornness. “Dad, this isn’t a request. If you knew what I would have to give up to save any of you if you die, you would just listen to me and stop at playing hero, especially when I don’t need it. This is not a human war where you can use motivation like love and honor to overcome crazy things. This is a war between realms, where human life is moot, and where I can heal from scars, burns, and broken bones, but you and Tracy will die!”
James Knight wanted to object but didn’t want to argue with his daughter, especially after coming so close to death a day before. She was right in what she was saying about the healing, but what did she expect them to do while she risked her life? He glanced at Tracy, who wouldn’t look back, and then at Alysia. She stared at him, waiting for him to acknowledge what she was asking.
“We won’t come after you again, CeeCee, not when you are going after one of these things,” he said in
surrender after concluding that she would take no other answer.
“Thank you, Dad,” she said under her breath and continued her march across the bridge.
It felt as if every step brought with it new energy, as the blood and the food did their magic to heal them all as they moved. By the time it was late and they were forced to make camp, Isobel had her eyes open and was able to walk on her own.
They found a well-preserved movie theater and rigged the seats to serve as beds. It was a welcome change from the hard floor and open sky they’d had to deal with on the first half of the hunt, and with the theater having four exits and no other way inside, they could secure three of the doors and keep watch on one.
Alysia sat in the front row so that her feet could rest on the cushioned railing in front of her. She reached back, touched her hair, and flinched at how dirty and unkempt it had become. Isobel sat with her and had her head on her shoulder. The girl had refused to leave her side since the time she woke up and had felt well enough to stand on her own.
“What is this place, CeeCee?” she asked, and Alysia looked around and smiled with nostalgia. They had set fire to a few makeshift torches and their light illuminated the massive theater in a way that reminded her of the dimmed lights before a movie started.
“This is where we would come to watch movies, Izzy,” she replied and then thought about the fact that Isobel would not know what a movie was. “Moving, holographic pictures that put you into the mind of a character in a story, but played out in vivid detail to fool your brain that you are really there.”
“That sounds amazing,” Isobel said. “So, instead of hearing it and using your imagination, you could just see it?”
“And smell it, feel it, and experience enough of it to truly enjoy it,” Alysia said. “Though some of the movies were not meant to be enjoyed. Some were historic and showed us how harsh life was for our ancestors. The wars with crude weapons and lack of empathy for life, the harsh living situations that many endured, and then the death … some directors loved to make their audience experience death. I was never too fond of those.”
