Chapter 21 - Invasion
Submitted April 17, 2009 Updated June 22, 2009 Status Incomplete | After getting kidnapped, girl finds herself in world where the supernatural exist and to find that she's not human, but a sorceress I don't have a title for my story yet Be harsh on the comments y'all cos i'm thinking of getting this published x
Category:
Fantasy |
Chapter 21 - Invasion
Chapter 21 - Invasion
“Can we leave now?” she asked Joshua, who was drinking coffee.
“I’ll be done in a few minutes,” he replied, stirring milk into his coffee.
Drake nudged her. “You two must be really getting along,” he whispered to her. “He never stands up to anyone.”
“Not even Arik?” She whispered.
“Definitely not Arik.”
“How about Sitara?”
Drake frowned. “Why do you ask that?”
Kerri immediately realised that Joshua’s friendship with Sitara had been a secret. “I don’t know,” she said hastily. “Just asking. How about to you and Carter?”
Drake shrugged. “He doesn’t talk to us much.”
Kerri nodded and turned back to Joshua, who had just finished his coffee. “Now can we go?”
He stood up and stepped over the bench they were sitting on. “Where are we going?”
“I don’t know. Do you prefer my place, or yours?”
Joshua looked at her. “Have you been anywhere in this place except for your room, my room, and the dining hall?”
Kerri thought about it. “I’ve been in Arik’s old room once when we were moving his stuff to my room, and I’ve also been to the medical centre. Oh, and I’ve been to Drake’s room.”
Joshua raised an eyebrow, one side of his mouth gently tugging upwards. “How about I take you to the garden?”
“Wow, there’s a garden?”
Joshua shrugged. “It’s more like a botanical garden. They keep the plants there for scientific research and all that shoot.”
“Wow,” Kerri thought. “He just swore. Oh well, I guess you learn something new every day.” She followed him, and he led her to a maze—she was hopeless when it came to directions—and finally they came in front of a pair of big, tall, glass door. The glass was shaded so that only people from the inside could see what was outside, but people from the outside couldn’t see in.
“Wow,” Kerri said, looking out the glass. “It’s so beautiful.”
“It gets better,” Joshua said, pushing open the glass door. “Come on.”
***
“This garden has a flipping waterfall?” Kerri exclaimed. “That is amazing.”
“It’s man-made.”
Kerri shot him a look that said duh. “I know. But it looks so real.”
“Come on, I want to show you something.” Joshua led her towards the waterfall. It was beautiful, so big, towering above her, with its water rushing down to a pool which led to a small river that ran all the way around the garden.
Kerri smiled. Joshua had opened up so much more once they were alone and once they were in the garden. It was obvious that he loved this place.
“When this waterfall was finished,” Joshua was saying, “people just kind of thought that that was it. Like, oh, that’s the waterfall in the corner of the garden. However, what they didn’t know was that the people who had built this waterfall actually built something behind it.”
“Oh wow.”
Joshua turned to look at her. “You’ve said ‘wow’ at least three times in the last half hour.”
“Well, I’m sorry, Mr. Observant.” She pushed him playfully on the shoulder. “Come on, I want to see what’s behind this wall of water.”
Joshua led her down to the bottom of the waterfall, where green leaves and vines climbed around the rocks that made up the cliff for the waterfall. He pushed away a couple of vines, and there, between two large rocks, was a gaping black hole.
“Is that a cave?” Kerri asked him.
“No, it’s a tunnel. Come on,” he climbed in, and Kerri hurried after him.
When they had finally walked out of the tunnel, they were greeted with warm sunlight and what was paradise to Kerri. Meadows, trees and flowers were everywhere. There was also a pond with fish and tortoises, and butterflies and birds fluttered about everywhere.
“Oh my God, it’s…beautiful. It’s…paradise. It’s like the perfect place.”
“I come here almost every day,” he replied, sitting down on the grass. Kerri sat down as well.
“Why? Don’t you have training to do?”
“Once humans have been taught how to fight, and they’ve mastered the art of it, they have nothing else to do. Except to practise for an hour or two everyday to make sure you don’t go rusty or to go help out at the factory. Other than that, they can do whatever they want.”
“What do you mean, help out at the factory?”
“Well, our company is a factory, and we need people to work in it to produce...goods. That’s where all the money comes from.”
“Oh, okay. So...you’d come here alone while all the others are training when you don’t have to meld silver or something?”
“Yes.” Joshua paused. “I used to come here with Sitara.”
“Oh.” Kerri racked her brains for something else to say. “Uh, did she not have any training to do?”
“She was never fully trained, because there was a limited amount of werewolves, and only one or two fully trained ones, so she had lessons once every few weeks.”
“So…what did you guys do here?”
Joshua shrugged. “Mostly just lay down on the grass and talked.”
“About what?”
“Anything.”
Wow. Joshua must have been really good friends with Sitara to be able to talk to her about anything. Kerri bit her lip. “Were…were you sad when she left?”
Joshua turned his head to look at her with his piercing blue eyes. “Yes.” He was sitting in front of a tree, and he leant against it now, one leg relaxed and straight in front of him while the other was bent at the knee with his arm resting on top.
“Was she your best friend?”
Joshua paused. “She was the only person I could trust and talk to,” he said carefully.
Kerri paused before she asked the next question. “Am I your friend?”
Joshua looked at her wordlessly. After a while, he shrugged. “If you want to be.”
“Would I be as good a friend to you as Sitara was?”
A shadow passed his face. “I hope not. I don’t think you can be.”
Kerri frowned. The words he had used were insulting, but somehow, they didn’t offend her in the least. In fact, they made her worry about him. What was so…different or special about their friendship that couldn’t be replaced? Then it made sense to her.
“You loved her, didn’t you?” she asked him softly.
His head snapped up from where he was looking at the ground. “What?”
“You heard me.”
He looked away, not say anything.
“Don’t worry,” Kerri reassured him. “I’m not going to tell Arik. I promise.”
“That is…I can’t…” he trailed off. “I can’t talk to you about it right now.” He paused. “Maybe when we get to know each other better.”
Kerri nodded. “I understand.” And she did. Sort of. She lay down on the grass and closed her eyes, bathing in the warmth of the sun. “Now I know why you guys would lie down in the sun,” she murmured. “It’s so…warm.” She yawned. “Sorry, I’m a bit tired.”
“You can sleep here for a while, if you want. I’ll wait.”
Kerri laughed. “You’d wait while I sleep?”
“Yes. I can do some thinking here anyway.”
“Well…if you don’t mind…”
“Sleep.”
And so Kerri did, and it was one of the best naps she had ever had. That is, until Arik woke her with that creepy telepathy thing.
McCarthy!
Kerri gasped and woke up, half dazed. What the hell?! You have got to stop doing that.
He ignored her. Where are you?
I’m out in the gardens with Joshua. She looked around and saw Joshua staring at her. She smiled at him to let him know that everything was okay.
What the hell are you two doing out there?
Well, I was sleeping before a certain someone woke me up extremely rudely.
Did you not hear the alarms?
What alarms?
The alarms telling us that there’s been A frackING INVASION!!
“What?!” Kerri yelled. She turned to Joshua. “Did you not hear the alarms telling us there was an invasion?” she asked him.
He shrugged. “Think of it like this. If the people who’ve actually lived here for more than a hundred years don’t know about this place, then the enemies who haven’t set foot in here for about thirty years wouldn’t know about it either.”
Joshua thinks that nobody would be able to find us, she thought to Arik.
Where exactly are you?
She looked at Joshua. “Should I tell him where exactly we are in the gardens?” she asked him quietly, shutting off the conversation she was having with Arik in her brain so that he wouldn’t hear.
Joshua shook his head.
She switched back to her conversation with Arik. Erm, I don’t know. Just…somewhere in the garden.
Oh, for...The boss will have my head for this if they manage to take you. Arik groaned. Stay put and tell Joshua to stay on his guard, he snapped, and with that, he ended the conversation.
Kerri looked sympathetically over at Joshua. “You’re going to have to stay on your guard.”
Joshua nodded.
“Do you have any kind of weapons at all?” she asked him. “You know, just in case they do find us.”
Joshua nodded again.
“What do you have?”
“Two fully loaded guns, two knives, and a sword.”
Whoa. “And uh, where are they individually?”
“A gun in my back pocket, a gun in the inside of my jacket, two knives in my front pockets, and a sword…well, you can see the sword.” He motioned to the sword, which was encased in the scabbard and hung from his hip.
“So it’s either cut out their hearts, or cut off their heads, right?”
“Yes.” He stopped. “Are you scared?”
“Yes,” Kerri admitted. “Can you die?”
“Yes.”
Kerri thought he was going to ask her a question, because they were onto a pattern, but he didn’t. “But I thought the medicine made you immortal.”
“Not really. It stops me from ageing, but it doesn’t mean that it makes me immune to death.”
Kerri shuddered. “Aren’t you scared that you’ll die?”
“Not particularly. If I die, then I die protecting the company, which means I didn’t die without reason.” He drew out his sword, checked it and blew on it. “I better warm up a little; I haven’t practised in a while.” He looked at her. You may want to take a few steps back.”
Kerri practically flew to the other end of the...what should she call this place? The secret garden? Whatever it is, she flew from one side of it to the other.
Joshua, when he was fighting—or rather, practising—was an amazing sight to see. He was extremely quick, but graceful and elegant at the same time. He did back flips, somersaults and all sorts of other things that Kerri would kill to be able to do, his sword gleaming in the air as he sliced through it. He wasn’t even out of breath when he finished.
Kerri gave a low whistle. “That’s…something.”
Joshua smiled. He actually smiled. Kerri thought she would faint, because he looked so flipping hot when he smiled. But he didn’t look nearly as hot as Arik. Kerri was still dazed over Joshua’s smile when he flicked the tip of his sword towards her with his wrist, and suddenly a flower landed in her lap. “A flower to thank the lady for her compliment.”
Kerri frowned. “I thought you couldn’t do magic.”
Joshua tilted his head to one side. “I didn’t know that cutting off a flower’s stem and flicking it towards you was magic.”
“Oh. I didn’t see that. You were…very quick.”
“I have to be.” Joshua was just about to sit down again when suddenly a loud explosion came from the building, and he jumped up to his feet again.
“shoot!” Kerri exclaimed, leaping up next to him. “What was that?”
“The C.E.,” Joshua replied grimly. “Bombing’s their trademark initial attack. They like to start off with a big bang, so as to speak.”
“Why?”
“So that there’s fire, smoke, confusion, and chaos.”
Kerri nodded. “They’re pretty clever.”
“To be able to start an attack against us, they have to be.”
There was another explosion, and immediately after that, shots could be heard. There was also quite a lot of slashing noises, and Kerri assumed that the men were fighting with swords.
“Why don’t the immortals use their powers?” Kerri asked Joshua, who had tilted one side of his head upwards, as if listening for someone.
“These are humans. Humans always have to fight first. We’re the first layer of soldiers, if you know what I mean. The immortals are next. You’ll hear them soon enough.”
Indeed, in about a few minutes, curses and spells could be heard muttered, and water, wind, fire, smoke and all kinds of other things whirled through the sky.
“Wow. That looks...really scary,” Kerri said, staring up at the sky, where a bolt of lightning had just struck.
“Yeah, and it’s going to get worse.”
Suddenly, Kerri could hear men shouting nearby. Next to her, Joshua froze for about a second, and then motioned for her to be quiet. He drew out his sword.
“Check the whole place!” a man yelled. “We need the girl.”
“Yes, sir,” came a chorus.
“Are they looking for me?” Kerri whispered.
Joshua nodded, and Kerri groaned and hid her face in her hands.
There was a lot of rustling and shouting going on, and as the noises got louder and louder, Kerri backed into the furthest corner of the garden so that her body was partially hidden by the rocks that were behind the pond.
“Sir, there’s a hole here,” a man close by shouted.
Kerri froze while Joshua swore under his breath and slipped into a fighting position.
“Sir, can you hear me?” the man was yelling. “Sir? Hello?”
Joshua motioned for Kerri to shut up and stay put, and he disappeared into the tunnel that led into the garden.
Was he out of his mind? “Joshua,” she hissed. “Get back here. Joshua! Joshua?” She received no response.
“Sir,” the man outside was still calling for his commander. “Sir, can you hear—” his call trailed off into a gargled yelp as a sword’s metallic slash could be heard, and after a thud as something heavy fell onto the ground, there was complete silence. Seconds later, Joshua came in dragging a headless body, his sword covered with blood and gore.
Kerri cringed and moved away from it. “Ew.”
Joshua raised an eyebrow at her. “It’s either him looking like that or us looking like that. Take your pick.”
Kerri chose to ignore the jibe. “What do we do with him?”
“I think he’s more of an ‘it’ right now.”
She shuddered and looked away. “Please don’t remind me. My lunch is threatening to come out the wrong way: up.”
“Sorry. Wait here, I have to hide the body.” He disappeared out the garden with the body again, and she heard some rustling as Joshua covered up the headless soldier.
“Where’d you put the head?” Kerri asked him when he came back.
“Once you cut off the head, it disappears. Well, not disappear. It evaporates. Sort of.”
Kerri wrinkled her nose. “That’s just...wrong.”
Joshua shrugged. “It protects the identity of the dead. Sort of like a kind of respect.”
“They have a weird way of showing respect here. You see, back when I was a human, we did funerals,” drawled Kerri sarcastically.
Joshua rolled his eyes. “Keep quiet, we don’t want to them to hear us.”
Kerri was tempted to imitate an opera singer but she remembered that her life—and Joshua’s, for that matter—was in danger, so she thought better of it and shut up.
McCarthy, are you there? Arik’s voice rang in her head.
Kerri muffled a shriek, and then recomposed herself. Did I not tell you to stop doing that? she snapped at him, annoyed.
Just checking to see that you’re still alive.
Are they gone?
No, but I managed to get away from them for a while.
Why?
I’m coming to look for you.
Why?
Because the attackers are a lot more powerful than they were last time this happened and Joshua might not be able to save you when one of them comes to take you.
Kerri looked urgently at Joshua. “Arik says he’s going to come look for us,” she said, blocking out the conversation in her head again.
“Damn it,” he muttered. “Come on, let’s go.”
“What should I tell him?”
“That we’re in the east side of the garden.” He grabbed her arm and led her out the tunnel.
We’re in the east side of the garden, Kerri thought to Arik. Where are you?
Arik groaned. The west side of the garden. Coming. He ended the conversation.
“He’s coming all the way from the other side,” she whispered to Joshua.
“Good, come on.” Crouching slightly, he hurried Kerri over to a bush, where they kneeled down immediately when they heard footsteps approaching.
“Where’s Henderson?” A man barked.
“I don’t know, sir,” one of the men replied. “He strayed off a while ago.”
“The idiot. Spread out and look for him.”
Uh oh. Spreading out was not a good thing, Kerri thought. She looked at Joshua, who had blanched visibly.
“Come on, let’s go, let’s go, let’s go,” he hissed to her, grabbing her by the arm again and bolting towards a big rock.
Kerri had just gotten behind the rock when she accidentally stepped on a twig, cracking it. Joshua winced as a soldier whipped his head around.
“Sir? I think I heard something,” he called out.
“Then go see what it is, moron,” came a gruff reply. “The others, did you not hear me telling you to spread out to look for Henderson?”
“Sorry, sir” chorused the bunch of soldiers. Footsteps faded into the distance until there was only Joshua, Kerri and the soldier in the area.
“Henderson?” the soldier called nervously. “Is that you?”
“No,” came a reply from behind him. “It’s your old friend Channing.” The soldier, Kerri and Joshua turned to see who it was.
Arik emerged from behind a tree, smiling.
The soldier slipped into a fighting position and growled, but Kerri could see that it was trembling. Aw, the poor guy was probably a newbie.
Arik smiled. “Is that all you can do? I hope your bite is worse than your bark.”
The soldier replied with another growl, and suddenly, to Kerri’s astonishment, he began to grow, and he dropped to the ground, his clothes bursting and fur taking its place. He was a werewolf.
Arik hissed and jumped up into the air out of sight. When he landed again, he wasn’t human anymore. He was a dragon, with scales that gleamed and shimmered so that Kerri couldn’t make out what colour he was. Long, slim, elegant, and powerful. He was beautiful. He tossed his head, his eyes sparkling, as if to beckon the werewolf over.
Kerri could almost hear the poor werewolf whimper, but he growled and leapt forward, snapping at Arik, who ducked and dodged, his body whisking and winding gracefully between the trees. Suddenly, he swept up into the air, disappearing into sight and leaving the werewolf looking around bewilderedly.
Kerri squinted from the glare of the sun, putting a hand over her eyes and tried to look for Arik. All she could hear was a sudden whoosh as the dragon plunged down on its prey. She buried her head in Joshua’s shoulder and tried to block out the tearing noises she heard. Joshua seemed surprised at first, but after a while, he put his hand on her back. He stood up as soon as the ripping noise had stopped, pulling Kerri gently up with him.
“Sir,” he said to Arik, who was human again and was wiping his hands on his shirt.
“A new guy,” Arik said, shaking his head. “Shame. I was looking forward to a real fight.” He looked up. “Where were you two hiding?”
“Behind that big rock, sir,” Joshua replied.
Arik frowned. “And that’s where you two thought you wouldn’t be found? Are you crazy?”
Joshua and Kerri shared a look. Oops.
“Erm, that’s where we were hiding when you found us, but we were...moving around constantly,” Kerri hastened to explain.
Arik raised an eyebrow, still frowning and turned away. “Let’s go somewhere safer,” he said, squinting up at the sky. “I don’t like the look of this battle.”
Out of the corner of her eye, Kerri saw Joshua shoot her a grateful look and she smiled quickly before dragging him off to follow Arik deeper into the garden.
He led them to a wall, where he waved his hand over it and a hole drew open and gaped at them. “Get in. Hurry.”
Kerri grimaced. She was going to have to get used to black holes appearing out of seemingly nowhere. She put her foot in and realised there was no solid ground and was about to ask Arik whether he expected her to fly or something when he pushed her in. She shrieked as she fell down and the opening of the hole got further and further away. She hit the bottom with a splash, splattering water everywhere. Ew. There were two quiet sloshes as Arik and Joshua landed lightly next to her, Arik with his magic and Joshua with his graceful form.
Kerri struggled to stand up, the water coming up to her knees. It was so dark she couldn’t see anything. She held her arms out so that she wouldn’t crash into anything.
“McCarthy, stop poking me in the eye,” Arik’s voice snapped at her in the dark, and he grabbed her wrist. He clicked his fingers and a flame erupted from his hand, lighting up the entire room.
Kerri bit back a retort, clenching and unclenching her fists and looked for a topic to distract her from punching him. “Did you just call yourself Channing when you were fighting?” she asked him sceptically.
Arik shot her a look for the randomness of the question. “Yes.”
“You were pretending to be Channing Tatum?” Kerri asked disbelievingly.
“Channing Tatum?” Arik repeated, frowning. “Channing’s my last name. Who’s Channing Tatum?”
Kerri waved away the question. “Nothing. Forget it.”
“At last even you realise the importance of your question.”
“Shut up.” She looked around the blackness. “Are we just going to stand here in this hellhole? It stinks in here.”
“You can sit if you want.”
“Don’t shoot with me. Where is this place?”
“This is the sewer.”
Was he serious? “Are you serious?”
“Do I look like I’m kidding?”
“Well, we all know you have a sick, twisted sense of humour.”
Arik pursed his lips. “This is the only safe place right now. They’d never look for us here.”
“That’s probably because the smell would drive them away.”
“Be grateful, McCarthy. You would get killed up there.”
“At least I’d smell good.”
“You may want to rearrange the priorities that are on your list right now. Somehow, I don’t think smelling good should be on top.”
“Whatever. Can’t you just shift us back into our room or something?”
“The rooms have probably all been broken into.”
“But we can’t just stay here...it stinks!”
“Again, you might want to reconsider whether the smell matters that much—if not at all—when your life is in danger.”
“Whatever. I’m getting out of here.” Kerri closed her eyes and shifted.
“I’ll be done in a few minutes,” he replied, stirring milk into his coffee.
Drake nudged her. “You two must be really getting along,” he whispered to her. “He never stands up to anyone.”
“Not even Arik?” She whispered.
“Definitely not Arik.”
“How about Sitara?”
Drake frowned. “Why do you ask that?”
Kerri immediately realised that Joshua’s friendship with Sitara had been a secret. “I don’t know,” she said hastily. “Just asking. How about to you and Carter?”
Drake shrugged. “He doesn’t talk to us much.”
Kerri nodded and turned back to Joshua, who had just finished his coffee. “Now can we go?”
He stood up and stepped over the bench they were sitting on. “Where are we going?”
“I don’t know. Do you prefer my place, or yours?”
Joshua looked at her. “Have you been anywhere in this place except for your room, my room, and the dining hall?”
Kerri thought about it. “I’ve been in Arik’s old room once when we were moving his stuff to my room, and I’ve also been to the medical centre. Oh, and I’ve been to Drake’s room.”
Joshua raised an eyebrow, one side of his mouth gently tugging upwards. “How about I take you to the garden?”
“Wow, there’s a garden?”
Joshua shrugged. “It’s more like a botanical garden. They keep the plants there for scientific research and all that shoot.”
“Wow,” Kerri thought. “He just swore. Oh well, I guess you learn something new every day.” She followed him, and he led her to a maze—she was hopeless when it came to directions—and finally they came in front of a pair of big, tall, glass door. The glass was shaded so that only people from the inside could see what was outside, but people from the outside couldn’t see in.
“Wow,” Kerri said, looking out the glass. “It’s so beautiful.”
“It gets better,” Joshua said, pushing open the glass door. “Come on.”
***
“This garden has a flipping waterfall?” Kerri exclaimed. “That is amazing.”
“It’s man-made.”
Kerri shot him a look that said duh. “I know. But it looks so real.”
“Come on, I want to show you something.” Joshua led her towards the waterfall. It was beautiful, so big, towering above her, with its water rushing down to a pool which led to a small river that ran all the way around the garden.
Kerri smiled. Joshua had opened up so much more once they were alone and once they were in the garden. It was obvious that he loved this place.
“When this waterfall was finished,” Joshua was saying, “people just kind of thought that that was it. Like, oh, that’s the waterfall in the corner of the garden. However, what they didn’t know was that the people who had built this waterfall actually built something behind it.”
“Oh wow.”
Joshua turned to look at her. “You’ve said ‘wow’ at least three times in the last half hour.”
“Well, I’m sorry, Mr. Observant.” She pushed him playfully on the shoulder. “Come on, I want to see what’s behind this wall of water.”
Joshua led her down to the bottom of the waterfall, where green leaves and vines climbed around the rocks that made up the cliff for the waterfall. He pushed away a couple of vines, and there, between two large rocks, was a gaping black hole.
“Is that a cave?” Kerri asked him.
“No, it’s a tunnel. Come on,” he climbed in, and Kerri hurried after him.
When they had finally walked out of the tunnel, they were greeted with warm sunlight and what was paradise to Kerri. Meadows, trees and flowers were everywhere. There was also a pond with fish and tortoises, and butterflies and birds fluttered about everywhere.
“Oh my God, it’s…beautiful. It’s…paradise. It’s like the perfect place.”
“I come here almost every day,” he replied, sitting down on the grass. Kerri sat down as well.
“Why? Don’t you have training to do?”
“Once humans have been taught how to fight, and they’ve mastered the art of it, they have nothing else to do. Except to practise for an hour or two everyday to make sure you don’t go rusty or to go help out at the factory. Other than that, they can do whatever they want.”
“What do you mean, help out at the factory?”
“Well, our company is a factory, and we need people to work in it to produce...goods. That’s where all the money comes from.”
“Oh, okay. So...you’d come here alone while all the others are training when you don’t have to meld silver or something?”
“Yes.” Joshua paused. “I used to come here with Sitara.”
“Oh.” Kerri racked her brains for something else to say. “Uh, did she not have any training to do?”
“She was never fully trained, because there was a limited amount of werewolves, and only one or two fully trained ones, so she had lessons once every few weeks.”
“So…what did you guys do here?”
Joshua shrugged. “Mostly just lay down on the grass and talked.”
“About what?”
“Anything.”
Wow. Joshua must have been really good friends with Sitara to be able to talk to her about anything. Kerri bit her lip. “Were…were you sad when she left?”
Joshua turned his head to look at her with his piercing blue eyes. “Yes.” He was sitting in front of a tree, and he leant against it now, one leg relaxed and straight in front of him while the other was bent at the knee with his arm resting on top.
“Was she your best friend?”
Joshua paused. “She was the only person I could trust and talk to,” he said carefully.
Kerri paused before she asked the next question. “Am I your friend?”
Joshua looked at her wordlessly. After a while, he shrugged. “If you want to be.”
“Would I be as good a friend to you as Sitara was?”
A shadow passed his face. “I hope not. I don’t think you can be.”
Kerri frowned. The words he had used were insulting, but somehow, they didn’t offend her in the least. In fact, they made her worry about him. What was so…different or special about their friendship that couldn’t be replaced? Then it made sense to her.
“You loved her, didn’t you?” she asked him softly.
His head snapped up from where he was looking at the ground. “What?”
“You heard me.”
He looked away, not say anything.
“Don’t worry,” Kerri reassured him. “I’m not going to tell Arik. I promise.”
“That is…I can’t…” he trailed off. “I can’t talk to you about it right now.” He paused. “Maybe when we get to know each other better.”
Kerri nodded. “I understand.” And she did. Sort of. She lay down on the grass and closed her eyes, bathing in the warmth of the sun. “Now I know why you guys would lie down in the sun,” she murmured. “It’s so…warm.” She yawned. “Sorry, I’m a bit tired.”
“You can sleep here for a while, if you want. I’ll wait.”
Kerri laughed. “You’d wait while I sleep?”
“Yes. I can do some thinking here anyway.”
“Well…if you don’t mind…”
“Sleep.”
And so Kerri did, and it was one of the best naps she had ever had. That is, until Arik woke her with that creepy telepathy thing.
McCarthy!
Kerri gasped and woke up, half dazed. What the hell?! You have got to stop doing that.
He ignored her. Where are you?
I’m out in the gardens with Joshua. She looked around and saw Joshua staring at her. She smiled at him to let him know that everything was okay.
What the hell are you two doing out there?
Well, I was sleeping before a certain someone woke me up extremely rudely.
Did you not hear the alarms?
What alarms?
The alarms telling us that there’s been A frackING INVASION!!
“What?!” Kerri yelled. She turned to Joshua. “Did you not hear the alarms telling us there was an invasion?” she asked him.
He shrugged. “Think of it like this. If the people who’ve actually lived here for more than a hundred years don’t know about this place, then the enemies who haven’t set foot in here for about thirty years wouldn’t know about it either.”
Joshua thinks that nobody would be able to find us, she thought to Arik.
Where exactly are you?
She looked at Joshua. “Should I tell him where exactly we are in the gardens?” she asked him quietly, shutting off the conversation she was having with Arik in her brain so that he wouldn’t hear.
Joshua shook his head.
She switched back to her conversation with Arik. Erm, I don’t know. Just…somewhere in the garden.
Oh, for...The boss will have my head for this if they manage to take you. Arik groaned. Stay put and tell Joshua to stay on his guard, he snapped, and with that, he ended the conversation.
Kerri looked sympathetically over at Joshua. “You’re going to have to stay on your guard.”
Joshua nodded.
“Do you have any kind of weapons at all?” she asked him. “You know, just in case they do find us.”
Joshua nodded again.
“What do you have?”
“Two fully loaded guns, two knives, and a sword.”
Whoa. “And uh, where are they individually?”
“A gun in my back pocket, a gun in the inside of my jacket, two knives in my front pockets, and a sword…well, you can see the sword.” He motioned to the sword, which was encased in the scabbard and hung from his hip.
“So it’s either cut out their hearts, or cut off their heads, right?”
“Yes.” He stopped. “Are you scared?”
“Yes,” Kerri admitted. “Can you die?”
“Yes.”
Kerri thought he was going to ask her a question, because they were onto a pattern, but he didn’t. “But I thought the medicine made you immortal.”
“Not really. It stops me from ageing, but it doesn’t mean that it makes me immune to death.”
Kerri shuddered. “Aren’t you scared that you’ll die?”
“Not particularly. If I die, then I die protecting the company, which means I didn’t die without reason.” He drew out his sword, checked it and blew on it. “I better warm up a little; I haven’t practised in a while.” He looked at her. You may want to take a few steps back.”
Kerri practically flew to the other end of the...what should she call this place? The secret garden? Whatever it is, she flew from one side of it to the other.
Joshua, when he was fighting—or rather, practising—was an amazing sight to see. He was extremely quick, but graceful and elegant at the same time. He did back flips, somersaults and all sorts of other things that Kerri would kill to be able to do, his sword gleaming in the air as he sliced through it. He wasn’t even out of breath when he finished.
Kerri gave a low whistle. “That’s…something.”
Joshua smiled. He actually smiled. Kerri thought she would faint, because he looked so flipping hot when he smiled. But he didn’t look nearly as hot as Arik. Kerri was still dazed over Joshua’s smile when he flicked the tip of his sword towards her with his wrist, and suddenly a flower landed in her lap. “A flower to thank the lady for her compliment.”
Kerri frowned. “I thought you couldn’t do magic.”
Joshua tilted his head to one side. “I didn’t know that cutting off a flower’s stem and flicking it towards you was magic.”
“Oh. I didn’t see that. You were…very quick.”
“I have to be.” Joshua was just about to sit down again when suddenly a loud explosion came from the building, and he jumped up to his feet again.
“shoot!” Kerri exclaimed, leaping up next to him. “What was that?”
“The C.E.,” Joshua replied grimly. “Bombing’s their trademark initial attack. They like to start off with a big bang, so as to speak.”
“Why?”
“So that there’s fire, smoke, confusion, and chaos.”
Kerri nodded. “They’re pretty clever.”
“To be able to start an attack against us, they have to be.”
There was another explosion, and immediately after that, shots could be heard. There was also quite a lot of slashing noises, and Kerri assumed that the men were fighting with swords.
“Why don’t the immortals use their powers?” Kerri asked Joshua, who had tilted one side of his head upwards, as if listening for someone.
“These are humans. Humans always have to fight first. We’re the first layer of soldiers, if you know what I mean. The immortals are next. You’ll hear them soon enough.”
Indeed, in about a few minutes, curses and spells could be heard muttered, and water, wind, fire, smoke and all kinds of other things whirled through the sky.
“Wow. That looks...really scary,” Kerri said, staring up at the sky, where a bolt of lightning had just struck.
“Yeah, and it’s going to get worse.”
Suddenly, Kerri could hear men shouting nearby. Next to her, Joshua froze for about a second, and then motioned for her to be quiet. He drew out his sword.
“Check the whole place!” a man yelled. “We need the girl.”
“Yes, sir,” came a chorus.
“Are they looking for me?” Kerri whispered.
Joshua nodded, and Kerri groaned and hid her face in her hands.
There was a lot of rustling and shouting going on, and as the noises got louder and louder, Kerri backed into the furthest corner of the garden so that her body was partially hidden by the rocks that were behind the pond.
“Sir, there’s a hole here,” a man close by shouted.
Kerri froze while Joshua swore under his breath and slipped into a fighting position.
“Sir, can you hear me?” the man was yelling. “Sir? Hello?”
Joshua motioned for Kerri to shut up and stay put, and he disappeared into the tunnel that led into the garden.
Was he out of his mind? “Joshua,” she hissed. “Get back here. Joshua! Joshua?” She received no response.
“Sir,” the man outside was still calling for his commander. “Sir, can you hear—” his call trailed off into a gargled yelp as a sword’s metallic slash could be heard, and after a thud as something heavy fell onto the ground, there was complete silence. Seconds later, Joshua came in dragging a headless body, his sword covered with blood and gore.
Kerri cringed and moved away from it. “Ew.”
Joshua raised an eyebrow at her. “It’s either him looking like that or us looking like that. Take your pick.”
Kerri chose to ignore the jibe. “What do we do with him?”
“I think he’s more of an ‘it’ right now.”
She shuddered and looked away. “Please don’t remind me. My lunch is threatening to come out the wrong way: up.”
“Sorry. Wait here, I have to hide the body.” He disappeared out the garden with the body again, and she heard some rustling as Joshua covered up the headless soldier.
“Where’d you put the head?” Kerri asked him when he came back.
“Once you cut off the head, it disappears. Well, not disappear. It evaporates. Sort of.”
Kerri wrinkled her nose. “That’s just...wrong.”
Joshua shrugged. “It protects the identity of the dead. Sort of like a kind of respect.”
“They have a weird way of showing respect here. You see, back when I was a human, we did funerals,” drawled Kerri sarcastically.
Joshua rolled his eyes. “Keep quiet, we don’t want to them to hear us.”
Kerri was tempted to imitate an opera singer but she remembered that her life—and Joshua’s, for that matter—was in danger, so she thought better of it and shut up.
McCarthy, are you there? Arik’s voice rang in her head.
Kerri muffled a shriek, and then recomposed herself. Did I not tell you to stop doing that? she snapped at him, annoyed.
Just checking to see that you’re still alive.
Are they gone?
No, but I managed to get away from them for a while.
Why?
I’m coming to look for you.
Why?
Because the attackers are a lot more powerful than they were last time this happened and Joshua might not be able to save you when one of them comes to take you.
Kerri looked urgently at Joshua. “Arik says he’s going to come look for us,” she said, blocking out the conversation in her head again.
“Damn it,” he muttered. “Come on, let’s go.”
“What should I tell him?”
“That we’re in the east side of the garden.” He grabbed her arm and led her out the tunnel.
We’re in the east side of the garden, Kerri thought to Arik. Where are you?
Arik groaned. The west side of the garden. Coming. He ended the conversation.
“He’s coming all the way from the other side,” she whispered to Joshua.
“Good, come on.” Crouching slightly, he hurried Kerri over to a bush, where they kneeled down immediately when they heard footsteps approaching.
“Where’s Henderson?” A man barked.
“I don’t know, sir,” one of the men replied. “He strayed off a while ago.”
“The idiot. Spread out and look for him.”
Uh oh. Spreading out was not a good thing, Kerri thought. She looked at Joshua, who had blanched visibly.
“Come on, let’s go, let’s go, let’s go,” he hissed to her, grabbing her by the arm again and bolting towards a big rock.
Kerri had just gotten behind the rock when she accidentally stepped on a twig, cracking it. Joshua winced as a soldier whipped his head around.
“Sir? I think I heard something,” he called out.
“Then go see what it is, moron,” came a gruff reply. “The others, did you not hear me telling you to spread out to look for Henderson?”
“Sorry, sir” chorused the bunch of soldiers. Footsteps faded into the distance until there was only Joshua, Kerri and the soldier in the area.
“Henderson?” the soldier called nervously. “Is that you?”
“No,” came a reply from behind him. “It’s your old friend Channing.” The soldier, Kerri and Joshua turned to see who it was.
Arik emerged from behind a tree, smiling.
The soldier slipped into a fighting position and growled, but Kerri could see that it was trembling. Aw, the poor guy was probably a newbie.
Arik smiled. “Is that all you can do? I hope your bite is worse than your bark.”
The soldier replied with another growl, and suddenly, to Kerri’s astonishment, he began to grow, and he dropped to the ground, his clothes bursting and fur taking its place. He was a werewolf.
Arik hissed and jumped up into the air out of sight. When he landed again, he wasn’t human anymore. He was a dragon, with scales that gleamed and shimmered so that Kerri couldn’t make out what colour he was. Long, slim, elegant, and powerful. He was beautiful. He tossed his head, his eyes sparkling, as if to beckon the werewolf over.
Kerri could almost hear the poor werewolf whimper, but he growled and leapt forward, snapping at Arik, who ducked and dodged, his body whisking and winding gracefully between the trees. Suddenly, he swept up into the air, disappearing into sight and leaving the werewolf looking around bewilderedly.
Kerri squinted from the glare of the sun, putting a hand over her eyes and tried to look for Arik. All she could hear was a sudden whoosh as the dragon plunged down on its prey. She buried her head in Joshua’s shoulder and tried to block out the tearing noises she heard. Joshua seemed surprised at first, but after a while, he put his hand on her back. He stood up as soon as the ripping noise had stopped, pulling Kerri gently up with him.
“Sir,” he said to Arik, who was human again and was wiping his hands on his shirt.
“A new guy,” Arik said, shaking his head. “Shame. I was looking forward to a real fight.” He looked up. “Where were you two hiding?”
“Behind that big rock, sir,” Joshua replied.
Arik frowned. “And that’s where you two thought you wouldn’t be found? Are you crazy?”
Joshua and Kerri shared a look. Oops.
“Erm, that’s where we were hiding when you found us, but we were...moving around constantly,” Kerri hastened to explain.
Arik raised an eyebrow, still frowning and turned away. “Let’s go somewhere safer,” he said, squinting up at the sky. “I don’t like the look of this battle.”
Out of the corner of her eye, Kerri saw Joshua shoot her a grateful look and she smiled quickly before dragging him off to follow Arik deeper into the garden.
He led them to a wall, where he waved his hand over it and a hole drew open and gaped at them. “Get in. Hurry.”
Kerri grimaced. She was going to have to get used to black holes appearing out of seemingly nowhere. She put her foot in and realised there was no solid ground and was about to ask Arik whether he expected her to fly or something when he pushed her in. She shrieked as she fell down and the opening of the hole got further and further away. She hit the bottom with a splash, splattering water everywhere. Ew. There were two quiet sloshes as Arik and Joshua landed lightly next to her, Arik with his magic and Joshua with his graceful form.
Kerri struggled to stand up, the water coming up to her knees. It was so dark she couldn’t see anything. She held her arms out so that she wouldn’t crash into anything.
“McCarthy, stop poking me in the eye,” Arik’s voice snapped at her in the dark, and he grabbed her wrist. He clicked his fingers and a flame erupted from his hand, lighting up the entire room.
Kerri bit back a retort, clenching and unclenching her fists and looked for a topic to distract her from punching him. “Did you just call yourself Channing when you were fighting?” she asked him sceptically.
Arik shot her a look for the randomness of the question. “Yes.”
“You were pretending to be Channing Tatum?” Kerri asked disbelievingly.
“Channing Tatum?” Arik repeated, frowning. “Channing’s my last name. Who’s Channing Tatum?”
Kerri waved away the question. “Nothing. Forget it.”
“At last even you realise the importance of your question.”
“Shut up.” She looked around the blackness. “Are we just going to stand here in this hellhole? It stinks in here.”
“You can sit if you want.”
“Don’t shoot with me. Where is this place?”
“This is the sewer.”
Was he serious? “Are you serious?”
“Do I look like I’m kidding?”
“Well, we all know you have a sick, twisted sense of humour.”
Arik pursed his lips. “This is the only safe place right now. They’d never look for us here.”
“That’s probably because the smell would drive them away.”
“Be grateful, McCarthy. You would get killed up there.”
“At least I’d smell good.”
“You may want to rearrange the priorities that are on your list right now. Somehow, I don’t think smelling good should be on top.”
“Whatever. Can’t you just shift us back into our room or something?”
“The rooms have probably all been broken into.”
“But we can’t just stay here...it stinks!”
“Again, you might want to reconsider whether the smell matters that much—if not at all—when your life is in danger.”
“Whatever. I’m getting out of here.” Kerri closed her eyes and shifted.
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