The Guardian's, Book One, Cahpter Four

                                            Chapter Four



         The next day, Michael was the last to make it to the library, since he had had to hunt down some food before going out. He knew he would need the energy, since the fire drained him of so much when he fought.

         The library was a huge, two story circular room with a spiraling staircase at the back and books lining the walls from floor to ceiling on each level. A couple of tables were scattered around the first level for research and in the center of the room sat two white alabaster pedestals. On the first was the thick leather bound book of demons and prophecies and on the other was a clear glass globe which sat in a short, golden, claw-foot stand. The globe was enchanted and could take them anywhere they wanted to go with a simple thought. Both were gifted to Gareth by Gabriel to aid in what he called the Guardian’s destiny, though he had yet to elaborate on what exactly that was.

         Scanning the other five people in the room, he found that everyone was decked out in their usual battle gear. Gaden was hiding her nervousness behind her determination as her fist clutched and unclenched around the purple hilt of the twin Sai daggers that gleamed against her leather pants. He silently gave her props for her courage and loyalty to a brother she didn’t even know. If she felt anything like he did for Gareth, he knew she would stop at nothing to rescue him. Both Gareth and Raj had long swords strapped across their backs, and Michael knew that they wielded the blades with deadly accuracy and skill, but Raj also had twin SIG’s strapped at the waist of his slacks.

         His eyes fell on Sarris last. He couldn’t stop the surge of desire, but he shrugged it off as best as he could for now and crossed over to her. He wanted to say something, but he couldn’t seem to find the right words. When he reached her side, she looked over and smiled at him; seeming to read his thoughts as well as Gareth could read his feelings.

         “You have no need to worry, as I told you last night. Just because I’m a woman doesn’t mean I can’t handle myself,” she said in a stubborn and slightly offended voice.

         “No,” Michael replied, ‘you’re right, it doesn’t. I know plenty of women who are very skilled in fighting.”

         “Then why do you question my abilities?” she asked him with a look that said he wasn’t making much sense.

         “I was just wondering how well you’re going to fight in that dress and those heels,” he informed her, running his eyes over her in a way that made her blush. She wore a teal summer-style dress today that hugged her torso and breast, but fanned out loosely around her knees. None of her legs were visible, though, since she wore a pair of heeled black, leather, knee-high boots. She had no weapon, he noticed, and asked her what she planned to fight with.

         “You just wait and see,” she replied with a knowing smile and a shrug, and then she walked away, blonde curls bouncing, to talk to Gareth, who was looking at the maps in the book one last time with Gaden.

         Gareth looked at him and nodded that he was ready and Michael spoke to everyone,

         “Alright, its time to go. We stay as much together as possible, we go in, do what we have to do as quickly as possible, and then we leave. We get him out of there if we can, if not, we leave him,” as Michael said this, he looked straight into Gaden’s eyes, and she nodded her understanding to him. He added one last thing, as he always did before they went out,

         “We leave none of us behind. Be careful, be smart, but be quick.”

         Then he laid his hand on the glass globe and thought of the Shadows and the place Gaden had pin pointed the cellar to be on the map. The room around him began to shimmer. It was like looking at rocks in the bottom of a shallow river as the water ran over them, distorting and rippling the image. There was a rushing sound in his ears, like fast wind, and his stomach lurched as the room and everyone in it faded slowly, as if he were moving further away from it, until it was all a black mass twisting in front of him. Then he felt like he was floating through space, peacefully, till all the color came bleeding back in a rush and his body once again felt whole, as if he had been poured back into himself.



                                                    …………………..



When he opened his eyes, he just knew he had landed in the real hell by mistake. Surely, this was darkness only capable of hell. Feeling suffocated and disorientated by the thick blanket of black, Michael called the fire into this hand with a thought and it lit up like a torch.

The patch of ground he stood on was black, packed dirt. All around him rose naked trees, their bare branches reaching out like a hanger for the dead, shadow moss beards that hung from them. Michael half expected to see lost souls roaming through the dead forest, like ghost. But this wasn’t really hell, just its likeness as a demon safe house on earth here in L.A., so no sinner’s souls would be living out their eternal punishments here.

Within seconds, the others were there with him. Gaden brushed by him, motioning him to follow her. She led them out of the trees, behind what he could barely make out as a rickety, two story house. They crossed the open space between the trees, all of them scanning the area, but it was too dark to make out much of anything. Luckily, Gaden knew where she was going.

The cellar door propped up out of the ground that she led them to quickly was locked up with a padlock. Michael gripped it in his flaming hand, letting the heat melt the metal enough the break it off. Before it had even hit the ground, Raj’s voice rang out in the quite,

“Something’s coming,”

Before the words were even fully out, the quite was replaced with a pounding. They had figured the door would be rigged. Two Crawler’s were rounding the side of the house, their misshapen forms unmistakable. Weapons were drawn in the blink of an eye, a metallic battle cry, and the red glow of Michael’s fire intensified as they all prepared for the fight.

Pounding from the other side caused Michael to turn. Four more were heading at them from the other side.

“We’re evenly matched,” Michael said, “Take one. We do this quickly and cleanly. Go,” he hissed out, and met the closest beast head on, making sure to keep Sarris in his sights.

He molded the fire in his hand into a whip and lashed it out at the beast, cutting a burning gash into its scaly, oozing flesh before it was near enough to him to strike. He danced just outside of its strike zone and kept the flaming whip snapping at the demon. It’s huge, deformed lizard-like, bulging body shuddered and it leaned back on its hunches and roared, throwing its head back. Dumb move, he thought, and took advantage of it without hesitation. With a flick of his wrist, the whip wrapped around the ugly beast’s neck, searing its flesh. Michael gave the fiery leash a strong tug. The Crawler’s spasming body crumpled to the ground with a thud; its head rolled and its soul less eyes were left wide open and empty.

Michael turned to find Gaden quickly pulling open the cellar doors, already having finished her opponents. Sarris was at his side with a smug smile on her face and he glanced over to see that the Crawler she’d taken on was on the ground with it’s throat slit, bleeding out to its death quickly. She had killed it in the minute or so his attention had been on his own fight. He noticed a single dagger had appeared in her hand. At least she hadn’t come completely unarmed, as he’s though at first.

He motioned for her to follow him, and she did so without question. She had apparently picked up on the impression the others had; that Michael was like the teams general. He didn’t know whether it was his battle readiness or his ability to stay calm in a tight spot and keep control, but the other’s seemed to trust him to make the calls in the midst of the fight.

Gaden was already heading down the stairs when they got to the door. He glanced at Gareth and Raj, who were fighting off the last two back to back, then lowered himself in, finding the stairs. Sarris came down right after him, and he was glad for the darkness, because she was wearing that dress and it was to tempting to look up. But he kept his mind on his mission and remained the gentlemen, helping her down when she reached the bottom. He called the fire back to his hand and lit up the room.

The cellar was completely empty except for a single wooden chair in the middle. The man strapped to the chair was bone thin and pale, as Gaden had been near death the day before. He was shirtless, his ribs sticking out sickly, pushed forward because his arms were stretched behind the chair and chained. He had a thin, sickly face and a head full of jet blue black hair that stuck out crazily like he’d recently been pulling at it in mad fits.  When he looked up, the light showed that his eyes were black, as black as the collar that was strapped around his neck, as if he were an animal. His face began contorting in pure agony, and he looked down at Gaden, saying in a hoarse voice,

“I was wrong. You shouldn’t have come back. Leave now, please. She’ll kill you.” He begged and pleaded as she freed him. He fell forward out of the chair weakly, onto the dirt floor, shaking his head from side to side. Then he looked up, grinning at them with all the hate and evil in the world, and a voice shot from his mouth, but it wasn’t the same voice that had begged Gaden to leave. This was a high pitched female voice that sent shivers up and down Michael’s spine.

“He’s right, foolish girl. You came back to your own death. By the hand of your own blood, nonetheless. How wonderful this has turned out to be,” she said through him with a cruel and cold laugh. Suddenly, the man lunged up off the dirt and straight at Michael, the biggest in the room.

They both crashed to the ground. Michael was shocked by the bony man’s strength as he struggled to keep the man hands from around his neck. Michael had to keep reminding himself that it wasn’t the man, but whatever was controlling him, so he didn’t call his fire up and end the struggle there.

Amazingly, he got his hand around the black collar on the man’s neck. He called upon all his strength, instead, and ripped the collar off. Pain shot up his arm, spreading out through his whole body. He suddenly felt colder than he had his entire life. His head pounded, or was it his heart that was pounding, and he could hear it in his head. Waves of pain caused him to gasp for breath, then he lost total control, the pain sending his body into seizures. He couldn’t see anything past the agonizing pain that was freezing inside his body, icy fingers that wrapped around his heart and clenched mercilessly.