Boom! Boom! Boom!!
I was awoken from my peaceful sleep by the loud knocking on my front door.
" Who could that be?”, with fuming ears, I dragged my duvet over my head and thinking out loud as I didn't expect visitors, not now and certainly not so soon.
It was a wet season so it was raining heavily outside which would have been the most favorable kind of slumber time which anyone who likes rain would enjoy.
Boom boom boom!!
Someone was persistent and looking for a kiss of death from yours truly. I was practically about to erupt as I silently prayed that they'd go away and hopefully I'd sleep peacefully along with earth's melodic down pour.
The knocking grew louder and desperate by the second which gave me a quick migraine and in the process letting my minute grain of sleep edge away, and that made my blood boil, whoever that was, was in for a good scolding or maybe a curse or two.
I jumped out of bed, tossing my comfy duvet aside as I wore my slippers and I proceeded to the door. Stomping with every step trying to match the thunderous knocking down the numerous stairs, yet it was all drowned out by the heavy rainfall. I was in my pajamas without any the robe and despite the cold night, my boiling blood was keeping me warm, for now.
BOOM BOOM BOOM!
Off with their heads! A mantra that I whispered as I stepped down the stairs as fast as my legs would let me. I was still holding onto the specks of sleep like I wouldn't get any soon or later.
"I'm coming…I'm coming!" I shouted at whoever was knocking,
"and this better be important" I mumbled quietly as I opened the door, but nothing could prepare me for what I saw next. It was a girl around ten years old trying with all her might to support a man who was terribly injured, he was bleeding all over her blue denim pinafore but she didn't seem to care, they were all soaking wet and dripping and probably cold.
"Please, help us… The demons are coming after us, please.." she cried out with bloodshot eues and she was panicking while trying to support the man. Her eyes were sunken and I could see her trembling either from the cold or fear or both. She would often look behind for any sign of their pursuers while trying to convince me for help. Such hard work for a little child, my heart melted with sadness as my own memories materialized there and then but I had to push them back for the matter at hand was more important than my past.
Suddenly I felt so cold all my boiling anger faded as quickly as it came exposing my skin to the cold wet night so I immediately helped the girl with the man as we took him and I laid him on my sweet, lilac velvet coach. I do hate stains so sue me.
"Stay here, let me close up first" I told her while moving towards the door and she nodded still holding onto the unconscious man's hand, it was all her glassy eyes could look at and I proceeded to close up but I got a whiff of rotting flesh.
Demons!
I immediately decided to open s door that I wish would’ve stayed shut. I had no time to think this through, demons were nasty creatures. With putrid smells plus aggressive behaviours and don't forget the ugly looks. Ugh!
Focusing all my mana,I didn't want to leave the doorway or else they'd enter, so I commanded the threads of magic from within mine vessel to reach out as I summoned a salt can into my hands from the kitchen, I drew a handful of rain water that had collected into a pail on my porch ( hey the roof leaked), I mixed the two together since salt worked wonders against demons.
I used it to draw a protection sigil on the front door that upon completion, a powerful force field of raw energy engulfed the whole house and I let out a huge sigh of relief and tiredness after being drained for activating such a sigil. Immediately I heard hissing and whimpering as the demons quickly went away.
It worked! Apparently after five years of no practice, I still remembered it all somehow.
"Now, let's see…hmmm" I tried to remember where I had placed my grimoire, the most important part of witchery, so I left the girl after closing the front door and confirming that the demons were not getting her anytime soon. The putrid smell of decomposing flesh was no more. I ran up to my bedroom before the worst could happen.
On my wall to the left near the bed stand, I went on and tapped the same wall two times using my pointing finger and whispered my password. There was a woosh and a sizzle as the wallpaper vanished to reveal a wooden box sitting within a rectangular space. I got it out and opened it to find my rusty brown leather bound grimoire intact plus other things I had kept, things that must've meant something to me because of the gap I had in my memory. It had been with me since I could remember opening my eyes in this very house at the sight of my uncle sitting on a chair Infront of me.
I was hesitant to open it up as I'd be opening old wounds and failed attempts to reveal what was lost but a life was at stake.
The door was open and there was no turning back.
"No Hellion, don't ! It's me Helen, your sis…" I heard the little girl cry and scream out the man's name, probably her brother but he was now turning into a demon and the only ones that would turn into a demon by scratch or bite are the magic folks only. I'd feared as much when I saw him with black veins snaking around his bloody wood.
I ran as fast as I could, jumping steps( and I had to get a house with a long staircase?!), to find Hellion holding his sister by her throat. He was in the third phase, which was transformation but it was half done. Helen's eyes were full of confusion, shock and fear. She couldn't speak but only gurgle saliva that had collected in her mouth. There was no time.
"Let her go" I shouted at him with a quivering voice that wouldn't chase a mouse but he turned to look at me with black eyes and without letting her go. He turned back to Helen and continued adding more pressure on her throat, he was going to kill her if I didn't act. I closed my eyes and reached out to the river styx. It's from that same river that all demon slayers got the power to slay demons. I was afraid that the connection was long gone after years of no practice but suddenly I felt like a dam had ruptured inside of me. The power I had was so happy to be set free that it immediately filled me up my vessel causing me to take a step back and I released the power that I had thought was just in my head all the time.
"Demon obey thy will at once!" I commanded with a voice that quaked through the house, shaking the chandelier and furniture. When the demon turned to look at me again, it was shocked to see that my eyes were bright blue like the river styx, and it began to cower dropping the girl to the ground with a thud and she coughed wheezed while getting faraway from the monster that her brother had become.
Right now I was focused on the demon that hissed and hid in the corner, but I was glad Helen was alive.
"Slayer, Slayer" it trembled and hissed the same word while it tried squeezing into the corner with some hope of escape. Immediately I held out my hand to Helen who weakly took it and stood behind me. She was shivering with fright. Poor girl!
I opened my grimoire and chanted the purgatorum anima which caused the demon in Hellion to immediately start crying. The demon fell down and began to convulse. A could of black smoke rose up from Hellion’s mouth and dissolved into the ground as I finished the chant, which left him in his true human form with wounds and looking so pale and at death's door.
Helen ran to him.
" He's not breathing, you killed him" she shook with tears, she had long forgotten that he was trying to kill her, and now she was pointing fingers at the helper. ( How rude?!) But I didn't blame her, she had been through a lot for one night or days they had been on the run. I had a lot of questions but they'd be asked later.
"Relax, the purgatorum anima makes one look dead but he's fine”, I assured her trying hard not to fall down from the mana rush I'd had earlier on. The power had come and gone just like that. I needed to sit down but first,
“Help me put him on the couch so that I can clean him up" I told her confidently but deep down I was hoping I'd done it correctly, this was still new to me in a sort of way. I was barely able to remember how I did it, it was a reflex, muscle memory of something I used to do as my body had moved on its own depending on my mana.
My mind had had a blank gap ever since I started living with my uncle, who had been gone for God knows how long.
It's been years since I came here, I hardly remember most of my life before I came here. My uncle was rarely home so I only received a text or two from him and a handsome check each month to help me out. I ran an apothecary/ herbal pharmacy if you may, on my own since I came to this town. Pretty much I've been on my own. I didn't have friends but I didn't remember having enemies either. The neighbours were good to me and I'd get orders for they concoctions from now and then. My medicine was a gift.
I proceeded to remove the soaked shirt and pants from Hellion after I gave Helen a pair of my old pajamas and sent her away to take a shower. I would've performed a healing spell but I couldn't risk more magic on him, so I decided to use my nursing skills and alchemy. Good thing I still had a wounds’ balm in here somewhere.
I looked at him sleeping soundly with peace and I saw the resemblance to his sister. The dirt blond hair they both shared to the purple lips. Where Helen's jaw was soft and feminine, Hellion's was sharp and definitely masculine. They had the same hooked nose that extended a bit forward that I'd cast a shadow on their mouths if they weren't lying down. I couldn't guess Hellion's eye colour but if it was the same as his sister's, I'd be wine red.
Magic folks, I'm I right?
On opening the shirt, I was greeted by a broad hairy chest, muscular and definitely a warrior with cuts and scars of battle,(Hello there!). I absently traced my fingers on the scars across his cold body that felt like bumps and grooves across his body map. Huge pecs that were full and nipples that would stand erect if he was aroused. This body really looked familiar and as I continued to trace my fingers along his abdomen, it felt like my fingers knew every inch of this same body which was rather peculiar.
There was a very distinct mark on the left side of his abdomen that must've been a birth mark that was shaped like a circle drawn half way to the centre, it felt like the circle was supposed to be full but something happened and it was left half drawn.
I felt a push and the need to touch it in hopes it would be complete. I was in a trance.
'Behave man!' I thought to myself, so I withdrew my hand before I could touch it and I focused on healing the person before me. This person was really familiar and he was huge and I wondered how Helen managed to hold him up.
After cleaning him, I covered him up with a blanket leaving his chest out, ( don't judge! You'd leave it out too if you were me).
I went on to let him sleep but before I stood up, I once again noticed a tattoo on his left arm, a star shape with three moon's above it. No way, it can't be. Of all people I couldn't have been in the presence of the crowned prince of Constellar kingdom. I read of this kingdom in one of the books I found in my uncle's library. The kingdom of Constellar was a kingdom of heavenly bodies that ruled all magical beings.
‘What were they doing here?’ I wondered to myself, I decided to touch the tattoo because I was curious at this point and the tattoo was not on any inappropriate area. I remember reading that this tattoo was magic itself and it was given to the warriors of the royal family.
The second my fingers touched the tattoo, I blacked out and a bunch of my forgotten memories flooded through me. Memories that had been tightly locked within a certain prison. Suddenly, I felt the gap in my mind that had been eating away at me, repeatedly being filled with information and connected with everything up to now. This was too much so I stumbled back. It was all dizzying.
“Are you okay, sir?” a small girl's voice asked me from behind and that centred my scattered mind, I remembered that Helen was here and they'd come for me help, I decided to keep this information to myself.
"What is the meaning of this?" I asked Helen calmly after I took a long breathe.
"That's a long story sir" she whispered and fresh tears started spilling down her face. Sadness was allover here face.
“ Just call me Morgan” as I tried to speak calmly, I was on the verge of panic."
What happened? Why are the crown prince and princess being chased by demons? Where is king Solan and queen Litia ?" I had a ton of questions since I had gotten my memories but my only answer from Helen was tears rolling down her eyes and then her entire body shook, I was asking the wrong person. She was too young probably around eight years old since I'd left when she was three years old and fragile. I felt bad for bombing her with such pressure.
I was about to go calm her down when I suddenly found myself on the ground, pressed down with one massive hand, my hand held behind my back,and a knee came crashing down my spine leaving me to gasp for air.
