Bring Forth the Jury!
*Hauls in leaf blowers and sets it on a rotating stand and presses the 'on' button'
*Watches all the leaves and dust, cobwebs and creepy little monsters that have taken up residence here get blown out of their holes and away*
*Hoses it down with soapy water and scrubs it with a push broom*
*Sets up leaf blower again for spin dry*
Okay! *claps hands and rubs them together*
Title: Road Rash
Author/Penname: Kainasilverbane
Rating: R or M (however you wanna look at it) for later chapters
Chapters: Chapter 1 (WIP)
Pairings: None
Summary: This chapter starts the retelling of Kaho's journey back home.
Warning, Notes: You must read Shards (which is soon going to get a full revision and a name change >_<) and understand that I'm hoping a bit in my time line. There is actually a small story after Shards and before this one that I'm skipping because it has little relevance. They do, however, go to England and bring Ruby back to life. (:D yay!) And Road Rash starts a little after that.
Link to previous chapter http://community.livejournal.com/reviewers_inc/24810.html
Link to previous story http://community.livejournal.com/reviewers_inc/23441.html
Chapter 1
Carpet, no matter how thick, is not a good cushion to land on. My back told me that much as I was thrown to the floor and slid back a bit. I tried to sit up once I’d stopped and look to see how Ruby had faired with the demon’s direct attack, but a backlash wave of power washed over the area. It ate away at my magic, and it burned! I choked back a scream as I peered through the smoke and dust of his attack. I couldn’t see Ruby anywhere, but I did see a pile of shimmering dust on the floor, along with oddly warped burn marks on the wall where Ruby had been previously standing.
He killed her, I thought, then I realized that blast had been meant for me. He’d been trying to kill me!
Eriol floated out the workroom, surrounded by an orb of red magic, his eyes dark and blank, and started towards me. He looked like a monster straight out of a child’s nightmare, complete with me hardly being able to move. I cried out, mostly to scare myself into moving, but indeed in fear for my life. I managed a back roll, then sprang to my feet and darted back the way I had come.
“What’s going on?” Spinel asked as I passed by the main staircase.
“He’s possessed!” I said as I skidded to a halt. I then noticed the guardians color pattern. His normally midnight black fur was now swirling with white stripes, coming from his belly. “He killed Ruby.”
“I know that much,” Spinel said as he perched his large body on the banister. “To keep the balance of power, she sent me her magic before she died.”
I looked back down the hallway, and was fortunate to see the demon having a hard time maneuvering its new host around, even while floating.
“Run, don’t let him see you,” I told him, then I reached up and pulled his head down and hugged him. I had a bad feeling that for a while, we’d meet and not be on the same side. “Just run.”
“I will,” he said as I let him go. He fell from the banister and glided down to try and get to the backdoor to escape, while I continued my hell-bent run down the hallway. I reached my room and locked the door behind me.
“Nice, what sort of protection did you hope to glean from in here you idiot,” I berated myself for allowing a little bit of panic to guide my actions. I’d run to my room like a scared little girl instead of thinking of a smarter way out.
Yep, definitely an idiot.
I heard something crash against my door and I used as much of my small amount of magic as I could to cover my room in a shield. It was pretty pathetic, shielding truly wasn’t my strong point.
“Okay Kaho, you’re cornered in your room with a demon possessed reincarnation of Clow Reed coming after you…” I murmured to myself. “What are you going to do?” I stared at the door as I watched it bulge and crack, “Hope I don’t die…”
The door splintered, then exploded as Spinel rammed through it, shattered my thin shield. He looked up at me, eyes flashing from their normal periwinkle blue to red, then back again. He was obviously fighting for control over his body. The blood drained from my face as I watched him open his mouth and a beam of red energy begin to form.
I’m…so-rry…” he forced out as he tried to keep his mouth closed and turn his head away from me. I watched the muscle bulge in his neck as he lost the battle and his head swayed sickeningly back towards me. Then next thing I knew, there was a red flash, a lot of pain, me flying backwards, then down.
I landed, on every sense of the term, a pincushion. It softened my fall enough that I was practically unscathed by hitting the ground, but what I didn’t get in impact injuries, I received in thorns. I’d landed in the bougainvillea that was in the front garden, outside.
I stared up at the now giant hole in the side of the mansion, the part that used to be my room. For a moment I wondered how I’d gotten through that blast without having a hole blown in me, but I chalked it up to automatic shielding due to getting the shit scared out of me. Right now, all I want to do is get out of this damned thorn bush!
Rolling to my left, I felt myself drop a few feet and hit the ground, a few of the vine like branches still holding on and tear neat little teeth like patterns into my skin. I shook them off as best I could, then ran for the gates.
I usually didn’t mind walking up the long drive to reach the mansion or the gate every time I left or came home. The gardens outside usually made for a calming and peaceful walk, but right now, I damned its whole existence!
Where in hell am I running to? I wondered to myself as I ran down the gravel drive. At that point, I didn’t care, I just wanted to get away. Foot falls echoed my own and I looked back to see Spinel running after me, kicking up gravel as he went.
“Fall into a roll!” He shouted as he leapt at me.
I did as I was told and fell into a forward roll, skidding as I rolled to my back and watch Spinel fly over me, right through the space where I’d been running. He landed in front of me and spun around, about to attack me again. I scooped up a handful of gravel pebbles and threw them at his face, shouting, “I’m sorry!” Little did I know that most of our future fights were going to be apology fests.
He shrieked in pain and surprised and tried to rub his eyes, but it was obviously difficult with paws instead of hands. Part of me desperately wished to turn back and help him, but I knew that this would give me a better advantage in escape, at least for a moment.
The gate was only a meter away when Spinel’s red energy beams lanced downwards at me from the sky, forcing me to dive into some bushes to avoid being hit. I was barely able to figure out which way was up when Spinel was on me again, but this time, truly on top of me, pinning me to the ground with his massive body weight.
It was useless to try and shove him off with my own strength, Spinel greatly outclassed me in that area, but I had one thing that gave me the advantage.
Hands, hands which I used the find a decent stick somewhere around me and whacked him with as hard as I could on his head.
Spinel roared in pain as he dashed off me, then shouted, “You owe me an aspirin for that!”
“Sorry!” I told him, throwing the stick at him to make him for good measures, then I hauled my ass toward the gate, and through it, out into the evening’s waning light. I didn’t know where I was going, I had no direction, no aim or focus, I was just running as fast as I could, to get as far away from Spinel as possible. I ran for about twenty minutes before a cramp in my side forced me to stop, and I slumped against a bench, and I took a look around.
I was in a residential area, where most of the homes were built so close to each other that they nearly touched. It took me a moment, but somehow, I recognized where I was, and while I couldn’t pinpoint my way back to Eriol’s, I knew this place, I’d been here before. I knew there were a few shops only a block away on the other side of the street, and I also knew that if I headed away from those shops, and away from Eriol’s house, I’d be heading towards several airports.
Wait, why was I thinking about airports? Where was I going? What was I even going to do?
“What am I going to do?” I asked to the empty evening. Who could help me? The only person I could think of right off the bat was Sakura, but she was thousands of kilometers away. I couldn’t get to an airport, let alone use it, I didn’t have any money or passports to get out of the UK.
Well…no, only half of that thought thread was true. I could get to a few of the airports, I had the ability to phase myself from place to place by breaking the cells down in my body to their basic molecules, then, what people liked to call ‘teleport’ myself to another location, but really I was just moving faster than any human instrument could measure. I could have done this now, but I’d end up almost completely unconscious because I lacked almost all of my magic, and with the other reason of just not being able to get anywhere, there was really no point.
Besides, if Spinel caught me on a plane or any other mass transit system with a lot of other people on it? They’d all get killed just by being innocent bystanders.
So what was I going to do?
I jumped at a passing shadow, thinking it was Spinel, but found it only to be a low passing bird. I looked around for any sort of out of place movement, or odd noise that might tell me where Spinel was, if he was there at all. I began to jump at every noise, and I felt the cold ache of almost paranoid fear fill me, all at the thought that I might be being stalked, waiting to be killed.
I didn’t want to die!
I began to run again, blindly, panic driving my feet to continue even though my side still ached from my run before.
“Kaho?” A voice came from a few doors back, somehow familiar in my fleeing haze. I skidded to a halt and turned around, squinting in the twilight to see who it was that had spoken my name.
“It is you,” said the female voice, accented not only with the trademark British, but there was also another accent that melded with it, something that was specific to another ethnicity I was familiar with.
One of African decent.
Frantically, I sifted through my memory to see if I really did know someone of African decent. One name appeared in my embarrassingly small memory.
“Karen?” I rasped in the fading light. If it indeed was her, then I’d met her at school, in one of my classes. She was actually apart of my graduating class, and we’d been friendly to each other, more than acquaintances, but in my mind, not quite friends yet either.
“Kaho, what are you doing running around here in the dark?” She asked as she began to walk towards me. “You look terrible!” She said, finally noticing my chewed up and slightly bloody clothes. “What happened? You look like someone threw you in a pen with an angry dog!”
“I can’t explain,” I answered quickly. “I need to get away as fast as possible. Just go back inside and pretend you didn’t see me,” I turned and began to jog away.
“Where ya goin’?” Karen didn’t ask it as if she were oblivious, but to get information. She wasn’t going to be fooled by my vagueness, and I sighed in nervous fear that Spinel was going catch up and hurt her as well as me.
“I’m leaving, I need to get back to Japan,” I answered blandly.
“With nothing?” She looked at me like I was stupid.
“I’ll get through customs faster….” I told her as I began to turn around again.
“Not a chance girl, you’re coming with me,” I felt her hand grasp the back of my collar, and suddenly I found myself being dragged backwards towards her flat.
“No! Karen! Wait! It’s not safe for me to be here!” I protested as she dragged me up the stairs and into the warmth of the indoors.
“Don’t worry, I have a baseball bat in the closet and my husband is napping in the bedroom,” Karen said. “He’s got his nightstick in there if it comes to that.”
I gave her a sympathetic look and shook my head, “Sticks will not be able to fight off what’s chasing me.”
Karen blinked, then gave me a serious look, “Sweetheart, if these people after you have guns, we’ll need to call the police-”
“Guns?!” I almost laughed at the thought. At that point, I’d have almost been happier with that on my tail. “No, no, don’t worry, it’s nothing like that.”
“So who was it that sent their dog on you and has you so scared that you need to run back to Japan without even a carry-on?” Karen asked.
I realized that people not exposed to magic looked at the world very differently than I did, and I was about to ruin Karen’s little world, “I wasn’t attacked by a dog Karen.”
“Then that was one damned big kitty cat,” the woman answered smartly as she led us into her small kitchen and sat me down at the table.
Hey, she said it, I thought, “Yes…yes it was.”
Karen almost dropped the kettle she’d been pulling from a cupboard, “Excuse me?”
“Complete with wings and magic he can spit from his mouth,” I elaborated.
Karen slammed the kettle down on top of the stove and looked at me angrily, “Girl, are you on crack?”
“No,” I answered, remembering that ‘crack’ was slang for cocaine.
“Well you must be, cause there’s no such thing as giant cats with bird wings that shoot at you with magic,” Karen said.
“He doesn’t have bird wings,” I was actually having a little bit of fun messing with her, even if I was lengthening my stay here and putting her and her family in danger, “He has butterfly wings.” I could tell the woman was about ready to fling the kettle at me, so I gave her a small, sad smile and clarified. “Karen, I know this is going to sound crazy, and a bit clichéd, but, do you believe in magic?”
Annoyance and bit a bit of anger left her eyes, and replaced with genuine thought, and a small smile, “I think everyone has a tiny hope that it exists, why?”
I sighed, then, wasting a bit of the precious little magic I had left, lit a small ball of light in my hand. I sent it twirling around Karen for a few seconds before letting it fizzle out in little sparkles of glitter between her and me.
“I think your tiny hope can be recognized,” I answered hoarsely as I began to feel all of my cuts and bruises.
Karen’s mouth was hanging down near her ankles, “Can you do that again?”
“I’d rather not, due to circumstance, I’m left with very little magic, and what little I have, I can be tracked with and attacked by the large cat I was telling you about.” I answered, then tried to stand, “Which is why I can’t stay here, or you’ll be in danger of being attacked too.”
Karen gently shoved me back into my seat, “Sit down, somehow I doubt they’d be able to see you in an empty parking lot if you were standing right in the middle of it, I can almost see right through you, you’re so pale. Stay sitting and I’ll make some tea and let me pull out some of tonight’s leftover’s so you can get some food in you. And you better start explaining this whole thing better. Who exactly is after you, this cat?”
“No, Spinel’s being forced to attack me because of what he is,” I answered, giving up on trying to get away. I was too tired and sore to protest anymore. “The person behind it all is a young magician named Eriol. He was working with some old books in an old work room he’d discovered a few months ago, and somehow uncovered a demon that slowly took over his body.”
“So he’s possessed?” Karen asked as she got the kettle going then walked over the refrigerator.
“Yes,” I answered. “Spinel Sun is one of Eriol’s creations, and black panther with butterfly wings. He had a counter part named Ruby Moon, she…” I hesitated, “She died taking an attack meant for me.”
“So now this Spinel is being forced to pursue you?” Karen asked as she put a plate of something in the microwave.
I nodded, “The demon still seems to be out of practice in its new body, so it’s making Spinel do its dirty work. I dread the day it masters control and comes after me on its own.”
“And how is it that you don’t have a lot of magic left? Did you have a lot before?” Karen asked as she leaned against the counter.
“I can’t say I had an amazing amount, I was average,” I answered. “But in the blast that killed Ruby, there must have been something about it…it took away almost all of my magic with it.”
“Like a backlash burn?” Karen asked.
“I guess,” I answered.
“And why are you dead set on getting back to Japan without any baggage, even passport,” the woman inquired as the timer on the microwave went off.
“There’s someone back home that can help me,” I answered. “She’s got more magic than I do, and more people that can help. But mostly, I just need to tell them what’s happened.”
“Why can’t you just call them?”
My head hit the table, the one thing I was hoping wouldn’t come up had been brought to the forefront, “Because I can’t remember her phone number…”
“What about writing her a letter? Or an email?” Karen asked.
“Don’t remember her address…and last I checked she didn’t have an email address,” I answered. “It’s been a few years, she may now, but I have no idea what it would be.”
“Do you know anyone’s that might know, her address or her phone number?” Karen asked as she grabbed the kettle before it began to whistle too loudly.
“No…my memory kind of sucks,” I answered.
“You don’t have a phone book?”
“Spinel blew my room up,” no, I didn’t have a phonebook with Sakura’s number in it. I’d had her address in one, but it was now probably a smoldering pile of ash along with everything else in my room.
“Well that’s not helpful…” Karen said as she poured tea and brought over the plate of food.
“No…” I answered.
“So what do you plan on doing?” She asked as she set the plate in front of me and the tea she above it.
“I’ve got to get back to Japan,” I answered plainly as I poked at the food on the plate, which I finally recognized to be chicken breast and white rice.
“Eat it or I’ll put it in the blender and then make you drink it,” Karen threatened, and I wrinkled my face at the idea and put a small forkful of rice in my mouth. “And how do you propose you get back to Japan without any baggage. I know you don’t have a wallet shoved anywhere on you, you’d have lost it with all the rips in your clothes. Unless you’ve managed to hide something in your underwear.”
I nearly choked on the food that was in my mouth as I coughed at her forwardness. Then it occurred to me that some women did hide money and such in their cleavage for short trips or periods of time when a wallet wasn’t handy. I didn’t boast a radiant set myself, so hiding things there had never occurred to me, let alone the idea of such things coming up in conversation now. Discreetly, I stole a glance at Karen’s cleavage and did a mental affirmative. Like most women of Karen’s ethnicity, she was very well endowed, and likely used her cleavage as a storage device more often than not.
“No,” I answered as I cleared my throat. “No…nothing there, nor a wallet.”
“So how are you going get yourself on a plane, even a ship?” Karen asked.
“I’m not taking anything that uses mass transportation,” I answered as I poked the fork into the chicken and started pulling it apart, but I forgot to actually eat it. “It’s too dangerous for me to be around a large number of people for a long period of time. It would be only too easy for Spinel to take out both engines on even some of the massive airliners, and though a ship is a little more armored, he, or even he and the demon together would be able to sink it if they worked at it for a while.”
“Well what else is there? Are you going to drive?” Karen asked.
“Don’t have license for the UK,” I answered.
“What’s left girl?” Karen exclaimed. “It’s like the only option you’ve left for yourself is to…” she faded off as she realized my insane intentions.
“I’ll walk,” I answered.
Karen grabbed my chair and shoved until I was facing her, “Are you crazy?! You’ll die!”
“You’re going to wake up your husband,” I murmured.
She glared at me, but lowered her voice, “Seems like it wasn’t just your magic that was burned away, but part of your brain too. How do you plan on walking across two continents?”
“I don’t plan on walking to whole way,” I said. “I have the ability to phase, or move myself from place to place in the blink of an eye. It can cover thousands of miles in an instant if I want it to, but I need to have been to the place I want to arrive at for it to work.”
“Like teleporting?” Karen asked.
“Sure,” I nodded, as that was usually the easiest way to get people to understand it. “Right now my ranges is limited merely because I’ve been learning how do it. I’ve just recently come into mastery, but I’m still only mediocre. And it’s a severe magic drain. I’ll still have to do a fair bit of walking, but once I get enough of my magic restored, I’ll be able to bypass things like high mountains or dangerous cities, and cross oceans.”
“Seems like you’ve got it all figured out,” Karen leaned back in her chair, mildly impressed.
“Hardly, more like flying by the seat of my very ripped pants,” I chuckled, then I realized I finished off everything on the plate Karen had given me, and the tea, which I didn’t remember drinking…or tasting. I gave the plate a confused look, then looked over at the clock that was in the kitchen. I’d been there half an hour, I needed to be moving on. “Thanks for listening Karen, and for the food, but I really need to get going…” I stood up, but was immediately dragged back down by my collar again.
“Stay, I’ll be back,” Karen said as she walked out of the kitchen, then peered back once and warned. “Don’t you dare move.”
“Yes Mommy…” I muttered, and I sat there quietly for about fifteen minutes before I began to fidget and wondered if I should just get up and leave anyways. But Karen reappeared as promised, carrying a faded, tan-ish, drawstring backpack that looked to be about half full.
“Here,” she said as she walked in, then opened the fridge and pulled out four water bottles and threw them in as well. “There’s two changes of clothes, a thermal-water proof blanket, a pocket knife, a little food, the water obviously, some other female necessities, and a phonebook! Call me!”
“Is your number in it?” I asked.
“Naturally,” Karen answered, then handed the pack to me, but I hesitated in taking it.
“Karen…I don’t want to sound rude,” I started. “and I very much appreciate what you’ve done, but, why? We hardly know each other. I can’t even say we were friends during school.”
Karen blushed and gave me a guilty smile, “Seems I’ve been caught red handed. Would completely believe me if I told you I was doing it all out of the goodness of my own heart?”
“I would if it weren’t that guilty look on your face,” I answered, curious as to what other reason she had for helping me.
“Well…” suddenly Karen seemed shy. “I’ve…kinda sorta had a crush on you since I met you in class!” She said quickly, then hid her face behind the pack.
I felt my eyes widen to the size of the plate on the table. What had come out of Karen’s mouth had been the last thing I was expecting. No, wrong, I wasn’t expecting that at all!
“But…but you’re married!” I protested.
“Oh I know, and I still love my husband like the sun shines,” Karen peeked out from behind the pack. “I admit it, I’m bisexual, and yes, my husband knows and doesn’t mind because I’m not going to take them anywhere except for a possible fling now and then.”
“You have a very understanding husband,” I was floored and completely at a loss as to what else to say.
“Yes…he’s wonderful,” Karen said dreamily, then shook her head. “But my husband is not the subject here, you are. And yes, I helped you ‘cause I’ve felt affection for you for a long time now, but I’ve never known how to tell you.”
I was oddly flattered, and a bit ashamed that I hadn’t noticed her attraction sooner, but we never really did have all that much contact during classes. And unfortunately, I was going to have to shoot her down, again. “I hate telling you this…but…my interests don’t lay down that road.”
“Damn! Why are they always straight or taken?!” Karen complained, then giggled. “Ah well, worth a shot. Guess I’ll just have to admire you from afar then, no?”
“From very far, since I won’t be here,” I said as I finally stood and faced her. “But for what you’ve done, and because of what you’ve offered, I’d still like to be your friend Karen.” I peered at her with a bit of a flirt through my bangs, “If you’d have me that way that is.”
“One way’s better than no way!” Karen said, then hugged me tightly.
This surprised me all the more, and it took me a moment to return the hug, then I pulled free, “I really do need to get going.”
“And you’re taking this stuff with you, and I won’t accept it back until you mail it back to me from Japan, or hand deliver it to me some time in the future,” Karen said as she shoved the pack into my hands. “Understood?”
I looked at the pack in my hands, then back up at the woman before me, and I couldn’t help but hug her again, one final time. My mind was reeling from all that had occurred, and from just Karen’s simple kindness, she sent it all into an even bigger storm of wondering, but this time with a positive twist. The incredible kindness of the human heart.
“I will get this back to you,” I told her, then headed back towards the door and stepped out into full night. I looked up at the dim stars in the sky, and envisioned Sakura in my minds eyes. My target, my goal, my destiny. I stepped off the porch as Karen called.
“I hold you too that,” she said. “And you’d best come back! I need to teach you to ride!”
“Ride?” I asked as I spun on my heels and meandered backwards for a moment.
“My husband and I own a stables up in the country,” she said as I made it to the sidewalk, and I grinned.
“And I’ll hold you to that promise!” I called back, then turned back and dashed down the street, for the moment my aches and pains forgotten, in favor of the warm glow of pleasure I found in knowing that someone on this cold, dark night, knew I was out there and cared about me. This knowledge alone fueled me on for half the night.
*Watches all the leaves and dust, cobwebs and creepy little monsters that have taken up residence here get blown out of their holes and away*
*Hoses it down with soapy water and scrubs it with a push broom*
*Sets up leaf blower again for spin dry*
Okay! *claps hands and rubs them together*
Title: Road Rash
Author/Penname: Kainasilverbane
Rating: R or M (however you wanna look at it) for later chapters
Chapters: Chapter 1 (WIP)
Pairings: None
Summary: This chapter starts the retelling of Kaho's journey back home.
Warning, Notes: You must read Shards (which is soon going to get a full revision and a name change >_<) and understand that I'm hoping a bit in my time line. There is actually a small story after Shards and before this one that I'm skipping because it has little relevance. They do, however, go to England and bring Ruby back to life. (:D yay!) And Road Rash starts a little after that.
Link to previous chapter http://community.livejournal.com/reviewers_inc/24810.html
Link to previous story http://community.livejournal.com/reviewers_inc/23441.html
Chapter 1
Carpet, no matter how thick, is not a good cushion to land on. My back told me that much as I was thrown to the floor and slid back a bit. I tried to sit up once I’d stopped and look to see how Ruby had faired with the demon’s direct attack, but a backlash wave of power washed over the area. It ate away at my magic, and it burned! I choked back a scream as I peered through the smoke and dust of his attack. I couldn’t see Ruby anywhere, but I did see a pile of shimmering dust on the floor, along with oddly warped burn marks on the wall where Ruby had been previously standing.
He killed her, I thought, then I realized that blast had been meant for me. He’d been trying to kill me!
Eriol floated out the workroom, surrounded by an orb of red magic, his eyes dark and blank, and started towards me. He looked like a monster straight out of a child’s nightmare, complete with me hardly being able to move. I cried out, mostly to scare myself into moving, but indeed in fear for my life. I managed a back roll, then sprang to my feet and darted back the way I had come.
“What’s going on?” Spinel asked as I passed by the main staircase.
“He’s possessed!” I said as I skidded to a halt. I then noticed the guardians color pattern. His normally midnight black fur was now swirling with white stripes, coming from his belly. “He killed Ruby.”
“I know that much,” Spinel said as he perched his large body on the banister. “To keep the balance of power, she sent me her magic before she died.”
I looked back down the hallway, and was fortunate to see the demon having a hard time maneuvering its new host around, even while floating.
“Run, don’t let him see you,” I told him, then I reached up and pulled his head down and hugged him. I had a bad feeling that for a while, we’d meet and not be on the same side. “Just run.”
“I will,” he said as I let him go. He fell from the banister and glided down to try and get to the backdoor to escape, while I continued my hell-bent run down the hallway. I reached my room and locked the door behind me.
“Nice, what sort of protection did you hope to glean from in here you idiot,” I berated myself for allowing a little bit of panic to guide my actions. I’d run to my room like a scared little girl instead of thinking of a smarter way out.
Yep, definitely an idiot.
I heard something crash against my door and I used as much of my small amount of magic as I could to cover my room in a shield. It was pretty pathetic, shielding truly wasn’t my strong point.
“Okay Kaho, you’re cornered in your room with a demon possessed reincarnation of Clow Reed coming after you…” I murmured to myself. “What are you going to do?” I stared at the door as I watched it bulge and crack, “Hope I don’t die…”
The door splintered, then exploded as Spinel rammed through it, shattered my thin shield. He looked up at me, eyes flashing from their normal periwinkle blue to red, then back again. He was obviously fighting for control over his body. The blood drained from my face as I watched him open his mouth and a beam of red energy begin to form.
I’m…so-rry…” he forced out as he tried to keep his mouth closed and turn his head away from me. I watched the muscle bulge in his neck as he lost the battle and his head swayed sickeningly back towards me. Then next thing I knew, there was a red flash, a lot of pain, me flying backwards, then down.
I landed, on every sense of the term, a pincushion. It softened my fall enough that I was practically unscathed by hitting the ground, but what I didn’t get in impact injuries, I received in thorns. I’d landed in the bougainvillea that was in the front garden, outside.
I stared up at the now giant hole in the side of the mansion, the part that used to be my room. For a moment I wondered how I’d gotten through that blast without having a hole blown in me, but I chalked it up to automatic shielding due to getting the shit scared out of me. Right now, all I want to do is get out of this damned thorn bush!
Rolling to my left, I felt myself drop a few feet and hit the ground, a few of the vine like branches still holding on and tear neat little teeth like patterns into my skin. I shook them off as best I could, then ran for the gates.
I usually didn’t mind walking up the long drive to reach the mansion or the gate every time I left or came home. The gardens outside usually made for a calming and peaceful walk, but right now, I damned its whole existence!
Where in hell am I running to? I wondered to myself as I ran down the gravel drive. At that point, I didn’t care, I just wanted to get away. Foot falls echoed my own and I looked back to see Spinel running after me, kicking up gravel as he went.
“Fall into a roll!” He shouted as he leapt at me.
I did as I was told and fell into a forward roll, skidding as I rolled to my back and watch Spinel fly over me, right through the space where I’d been running. He landed in front of me and spun around, about to attack me again. I scooped up a handful of gravel pebbles and threw them at his face, shouting, “I’m sorry!” Little did I know that most of our future fights were going to be apology fests.
He shrieked in pain and surprised and tried to rub his eyes, but it was obviously difficult with paws instead of hands. Part of me desperately wished to turn back and help him, but I knew that this would give me a better advantage in escape, at least for a moment.
The gate was only a meter away when Spinel’s red energy beams lanced downwards at me from the sky, forcing me to dive into some bushes to avoid being hit. I was barely able to figure out which way was up when Spinel was on me again, but this time, truly on top of me, pinning me to the ground with his massive body weight.
It was useless to try and shove him off with my own strength, Spinel greatly outclassed me in that area, but I had one thing that gave me the advantage.
Hands, hands which I used the find a decent stick somewhere around me and whacked him with as hard as I could on his head.
Spinel roared in pain as he dashed off me, then shouted, “You owe me an aspirin for that!”
“Sorry!” I told him, throwing the stick at him to make him for good measures, then I hauled my ass toward the gate, and through it, out into the evening’s waning light. I didn’t know where I was going, I had no direction, no aim or focus, I was just running as fast as I could, to get as far away from Spinel as possible. I ran for about twenty minutes before a cramp in my side forced me to stop, and I slumped against a bench, and I took a look around.
I was in a residential area, where most of the homes were built so close to each other that they nearly touched. It took me a moment, but somehow, I recognized where I was, and while I couldn’t pinpoint my way back to Eriol’s, I knew this place, I’d been here before. I knew there were a few shops only a block away on the other side of the street, and I also knew that if I headed away from those shops, and away from Eriol’s house, I’d be heading towards several airports.
Wait, why was I thinking about airports? Where was I going? What was I even going to do?
“What am I going to do?” I asked to the empty evening. Who could help me? The only person I could think of right off the bat was Sakura, but she was thousands of kilometers away. I couldn’t get to an airport, let alone use it, I didn’t have any money or passports to get out of the UK.
Well…no, only half of that thought thread was true. I could get to a few of the airports, I had the ability to phase myself from place to place by breaking the cells down in my body to their basic molecules, then, what people liked to call ‘teleport’ myself to another location, but really I was just moving faster than any human instrument could measure. I could have done this now, but I’d end up almost completely unconscious because I lacked almost all of my magic, and with the other reason of just not being able to get anywhere, there was really no point.
Besides, if Spinel caught me on a plane or any other mass transit system with a lot of other people on it? They’d all get killed just by being innocent bystanders.
So what was I going to do?
I jumped at a passing shadow, thinking it was Spinel, but found it only to be a low passing bird. I looked around for any sort of out of place movement, or odd noise that might tell me where Spinel was, if he was there at all. I began to jump at every noise, and I felt the cold ache of almost paranoid fear fill me, all at the thought that I might be being stalked, waiting to be killed.
I didn’t want to die!
I began to run again, blindly, panic driving my feet to continue even though my side still ached from my run before.
“Kaho?” A voice came from a few doors back, somehow familiar in my fleeing haze. I skidded to a halt and turned around, squinting in the twilight to see who it was that had spoken my name.
“It is you,” said the female voice, accented not only with the trademark British, but there was also another accent that melded with it, something that was specific to another ethnicity I was familiar with.
One of African decent.
Frantically, I sifted through my memory to see if I really did know someone of African decent. One name appeared in my embarrassingly small memory.
“Karen?” I rasped in the fading light. If it indeed was her, then I’d met her at school, in one of my classes. She was actually apart of my graduating class, and we’d been friendly to each other, more than acquaintances, but in my mind, not quite friends yet either.
“Kaho, what are you doing running around here in the dark?” She asked as she began to walk towards me. “You look terrible!” She said, finally noticing my chewed up and slightly bloody clothes. “What happened? You look like someone threw you in a pen with an angry dog!”
“I can’t explain,” I answered quickly. “I need to get away as fast as possible. Just go back inside and pretend you didn’t see me,” I turned and began to jog away.
“Where ya goin’?” Karen didn’t ask it as if she were oblivious, but to get information. She wasn’t going to be fooled by my vagueness, and I sighed in nervous fear that Spinel was going catch up and hurt her as well as me.
“I’m leaving, I need to get back to Japan,” I answered blandly.
“With nothing?” She looked at me like I was stupid.
“I’ll get through customs faster….” I told her as I began to turn around again.
“Not a chance girl, you’re coming with me,” I felt her hand grasp the back of my collar, and suddenly I found myself being dragged backwards towards her flat.
“No! Karen! Wait! It’s not safe for me to be here!” I protested as she dragged me up the stairs and into the warmth of the indoors.
“Don’t worry, I have a baseball bat in the closet and my husband is napping in the bedroom,” Karen said. “He’s got his nightstick in there if it comes to that.”
I gave her a sympathetic look and shook my head, “Sticks will not be able to fight off what’s chasing me.”
Karen blinked, then gave me a serious look, “Sweetheart, if these people after you have guns, we’ll need to call the police-”
“Guns?!” I almost laughed at the thought. At that point, I’d have almost been happier with that on my tail. “No, no, don’t worry, it’s nothing like that.”
“So who was it that sent their dog on you and has you so scared that you need to run back to Japan without even a carry-on?” Karen asked.
I realized that people not exposed to magic looked at the world very differently than I did, and I was about to ruin Karen’s little world, “I wasn’t attacked by a dog Karen.”
“Then that was one damned big kitty cat,” the woman answered smartly as she led us into her small kitchen and sat me down at the table.
Hey, she said it, I thought, “Yes…yes it was.”
Karen almost dropped the kettle she’d been pulling from a cupboard, “Excuse me?”
“Complete with wings and magic he can spit from his mouth,” I elaborated.
Karen slammed the kettle down on top of the stove and looked at me angrily, “Girl, are you on crack?”
“No,” I answered, remembering that ‘crack’ was slang for cocaine.
“Well you must be, cause there’s no such thing as giant cats with bird wings that shoot at you with magic,” Karen said.
“He doesn’t have bird wings,” I was actually having a little bit of fun messing with her, even if I was lengthening my stay here and putting her and her family in danger, “He has butterfly wings.” I could tell the woman was about ready to fling the kettle at me, so I gave her a small, sad smile and clarified. “Karen, I know this is going to sound crazy, and a bit clichéd, but, do you believe in magic?”
Annoyance and bit a bit of anger left her eyes, and replaced with genuine thought, and a small smile, “I think everyone has a tiny hope that it exists, why?”
I sighed, then, wasting a bit of the precious little magic I had left, lit a small ball of light in my hand. I sent it twirling around Karen for a few seconds before letting it fizzle out in little sparkles of glitter between her and me.
“I think your tiny hope can be recognized,” I answered hoarsely as I began to feel all of my cuts and bruises.
Karen’s mouth was hanging down near her ankles, “Can you do that again?”
“I’d rather not, due to circumstance, I’m left with very little magic, and what little I have, I can be tracked with and attacked by the large cat I was telling you about.” I answered, then tried to stand, “Which is why I can’t stay here, or you’ll be in danger of being attacked too.”
Karen gently shoved me back into my seat, “Sit down, somehow I doubt they’d be able to see you in an empty parking lot if you were standing right in the middle of it, I can almost see right through you, you’re so pale. Stay sitting and I’ll make some tea and let me pull out some of tonight’s leftover’s so you can get some food in you. And you better start explaining this whole thing better. Who exactly is after you, this cat?”
“No, Spinel’s being forced to attack me because of what he is,” I answered, giving up on trying to get away. I was too tired and sore to protest anymore. “The person behind it all is a young magician named Eriol. He was working with some old books in an old work room he’d discovered a few months ago, and somehow uncovered a demon that slowly took over his body.”
“So he’s possessed?” Karen asked as she got the kettle going then walked over the refrigerator.
“Yes,” I answered. “Spinel Sun is one of Eriol’s creations, and black panther with butterfly wings. He had a counter part named Ruby Moon, she…” I hesitated, “She died taking an attack meant for me.”
“So now this Spinel is being forced to pursue you?” Karen asked as she put a plate of something in the microwave.
I nodded, “The demon still seems to be out of practice in its new body, so it’s making Spinel do its dirty work. I dread the day it masters control and comes after me on its own.”
“And how is it that you don’t have a lot of magic left? Did you have a lot before?” Karen asked as she leaned against the counter.
“I can’t say I had an amazing amount, I was average,” I answered. “But in the blast that killed Ruby, there must have been something about it…it took away almost all of my magic with it.”
“Like a backlash burn?” Karen asked.
“I guess,” I answered.
“And why are you dead set on getting back to Japan without any baggage, even passport,” the woman inquired as the timer on the microwave went off.
“There’s someone back home that can help me,” I answered. “She’s got more magic than I do, and more people that can help. But mostly, I just need to tell them what’s happened.”
“Why can’t you just call them?”
My head hit the table, the one thing I was hoping wouldn’t come up had been brought to the forefront, “Because I can’t remember her phone number…”
“What about writing her a letter? Or an email?” Karen asked.
“Don’t remember her address…and last I checked she didn’t have an email address,” I answered. “It’s been a few years, she may now, but I have no idea what it would be.”
“Do you know anyone’s that might know, her address or her phone number?” Karen asked as she grabbed the kettle before it began to whistle too loudly.
“No…my memory kind of sucks,” I answered.
“You don’t have a phone book?”
“Spinel blew my room up,” no, I didn’t have a phonebook with Sakura’s number in it. I’d had her address in one, but it was now probably a smoldering pile of ash along with everything else in my room.
“Well that’s not helpful…” Karen said as she poured tea and brought over the plate of food.
“No…” I answered.
“So what do you plan on doing?” She asked as she set the plate in front of me and the tea she above it.
“I’ve got to get back to Japan,” I answered plainly as I poked at the food on the plate, which I finally recognized to be chicken breast and white rice.
“Eat it or I’ll put it in the blender and then make you drink it,” Karen threatened, and I wrinkled my face at the idea and put a small forkful of rice in my mouth. “And how do you propose you get back to Japan without any baggage. I know you don’t have a wallet shoved anywhere on you, you’d have lost it with all the rips in your clothes. Unless you’ve managed to hide something in your underwear.”
I nearly choked on the food that was in my mouth as I coughed at her forwardness. Then it occurred to me that some women did hide money and such in their cleavage for short trips or periods of time when a wallet wasn’t handy. I didn’t boast a radiant set myself, so hiding things there had never occurred to me, let alone the idea of such things coming up in conversation now. Discreetly, I stole a glance at Karen’s cleavage and did a mental affirmative. Like most women of Karen’s ethnicity, she was very well endowed, and likely used her cleavage as a storage device more often than not.
“No,” I answered as I cleared my throat. “No…nothing there, nor a wallet.”
“So how are you going get yourself on a plane, even a ship?” Karen asked.
“I’m not taking anything that uses mass transportation,” I answered as I poked the fork into the chicken and started pulling it apart, but I forgot to actually eat it. “It’s too dangerous for me to be around a large number of people for a long period of time. It would be only too easy for Spinel to take out both engines on even some of the massive airliners, and though a ship is a little more armored, he, or even he and the demon together would be able to sink it if they worked at it for a while.”
“Well what else is there? Are you going to drive?” Karen asked.
“Don’t have license for the UK,” I answered.
“What’s left girl?” Karen exclaimed. “It’s like the only option you’ve left for yourself is to…” she faded off as she realized my insane intentions.
“I’ll walk,” I answered.
Karen grabbed my chair and shoved until I was facing her, “Are you crazy?! You’ll die!”
“You’re going to wake up your husband,” I murmured.
She glared at me, but lowered her voice, “Seems like it wasn’t just your magic that was burned away, but part of your brain too. How do you plan on walking across two continents?”
“I don’t plan on walking to whole way,” I said. “I have the ability to phase, or move myself from place to place in the blink of an eye. It can cover thousands of miles in an instant if I want it to, but I need to have been to the place I want to arrive at for it to work.”
“Like teleporting?” Karen asked.
“Sure,” I nodded, as that was usually the easiest way to get people to understand it. “Right now my ranges is limited merely because I’ve been learning how do it. I’ve just recently come into mastery, but I’m still only mediocre. And it’s a severe magic drain. I’ll still have to do a fair bit of walking, but once I get enough of my magic restored, I’ll be able to bypass things like high mountains or dangerous cities, and cross oceans.”
“Seems like you’ve got it all figured out,” Karen leaned back in her chair, mildly impressed.
“Hardly, more like flying by the seat of my very ripped pants,” I chuckled, then I realized I finished off everything on the plate Karen had given me, and the tea, which I didn’t remember drinking…or tasting. I gave the plate a confused look, then looked over at the clock that was in the kitchen. I’d been there half an hour, I needed to be moving on. “Thanks for listening Karen, and for the food, but I really need to get going…” I stood up, but was immediately dragged back down by my collar again.
“Stay, I’ll be back,” Karen said as she walked out of the kitchen, then peered back once and warned. “Don’t you dare move.”
“Yes Mommy…” I muttered, and I sat there quietly for about fifteen minutes before I began to fidget and wondered if I should just get up and leave anyways. But Karen reappeared as promised, carrying a faded, tan-ish, drawstring backpack that looked to be about half full.
“Here,” she said as she walked in, then opened the fridge and pulled out four water bottles and threw them in as well. “There’s two changes of clothes, a thermal-water proof blanket, a pocket knife, a little food, the water obviously, some other female necessities, and a phonebook! Call me!”
“Is your number in it?” I asked.
“Naturally,” Karen answered, then handed the pack to me, but I hesitated in taking it.
“Karen…I don’t want to sound rude,” I started. “and I very much appreciate what you’ve done, but, why? We hardly know each other. I can’t even say we were friends during school.”
Karen blushed and gave me a guilty smile, “Seems I’ve been caught red handed. Would completely believe me if I told you I was doing it all out of the goodness of my own heart?”
“I would if it weren’t that guilty look on your face,” I answered, curious as to what other reason she had for helping me.
“Well…” suddenly Karen seemed shy. “I’ve…kinda sorta had a crush on you since I met you in class!” She said quickly, then hid her face behind the pack.
I felt my eyes widen to the size of the plate on the table. What had come out of Karen’s mouth had been the last thing I was expecting. No, wrong, I wasn’t expecting that at all!
“But…but you’re married!” I protested.
“Oh I know, and I still love my husband like the sun shines,” Karen peeked out from behind the pack. “I admit it, I’m bisexual, and yes, my husband knows and doesn’t mind because I’m not going to take them anywhere except for a possible fling now and then.”
“You have a very understanding husband,” I was floored and completely at a loss as to what else to say.
“Yes…he’s wonderful,” Karen said dreamily, then shook her head. “But my husband is not the subject here, you are. And yes, I helped you ‘cause I’ve felt affection for you for a long time now, but I’ve never known how to tell you.”
I was oddly flattered, and a bit ashamed that I hadn’t noticed her attraction sooner, but we never really did have all that much contact during classes. And unfortunately, I was going to have to shoot her down, again. “I hate telling you this…but…my interests don’t lay down that road.”
“Damn! Why are they always straight or taken?!” Karen complained, then giggled. “Ah well, worth a shot. Guess I’ll just have to admire you from afar then, no?”
“From very far, since I won’t be here,” I said as I finally stood and faced her. “But for what you’ve done, and because of what you’ve offered, I’d still like to be your friend Karen.” I peered at her with a bit of a flirt through my bangs, “If you’d have me that way that is.”
“One way’s better than no way!” Karen said, then hugged me tightly.
This surprised me all the more, and it took me a moment to return the hug, then I pulled free, “I really do need to get going.”
“And you’re taking this stuff with you, and I won’t accept it back until you mail it back to me from Japan, or hand deliver it to me some time in the future,” Karen said as she shoved the pack into my hands. “Understood?”
I looked at the pack in my hands, then back up at the woman before me, and I couldn’t help but hug her again, one final time. My mind was reeling from all that had occurred, and from just Karen’s simple kindness, she sent it all into an even bigger storm of wondering, but this time with a positive twist. The incredible kindness of the human heart.
“I will get this back to you,” I told her, then headed back towards the door and stepped out into full night. I looked up at the dim stars in the sky, and envisioned Sakura in my minds eyes. My target, my goal, my destiny. I stepped off the porch as Karen called.
“I hold you too that,” she said. “And you’d best come back! I need to teach you to ride!”
“Ride?” I asked as I spun on my heels and meandered backwards for a moment.
“My husband and I own a stables up in the country,” she said as I made it to the sidewalk, and I grinned.
“And I’ll hold you to that promise!” I called back, then turned back and dashed down the street, for the moment my aches and pains forgotten, in favor of the warm glow of pleasure I found in knowing that someone on this cold, dark night, knew I was out there and cared about me. This knowledge alone fueled me on for half the night.