"Oh, come on! Again?!" Evan yelled. The cats scattered deeper into her home and the siblings took to their feet, Mercy still grasped tightly in Evan's hand. The lykos-haya kept hauling themselves at her door, their awful shrieks making the hairs on her nape stand on end. She could still smell their putrid breath of death, could very well taste the malice in the air.
Barbara sighed wearily and raised her finger to draw the Summoning rune. A blue glow started at the tip of her finger and she wrote in midair the twisting rune in a practised stroke and spoke the incant, "Lavo."
The air shimmered for a moment and then her starlight-woven bow and arrows appeared. She grabbed it and threw it over her shoulder, ignoring the shocked looks of her charges' faces. She rushed to the door and began weaving a crude ward from her aura, speaking quickly under her breath the words that would activate the magic, "Kyrios, ego lesheme'ol stegei, amin."
The ward glowed in response, forming bright vertical bars over the door and windows. The demons kept at it and more and more of them kept coming. Already their own dark magic corrupted the ward, it would not hold for long.
Haniel's hail. The fight with the Nephilim Vlad had nearly robbed her of her magic, she couldn't protect the children here or anywhere if the leech spoke the truth and a whole legion had made it past her wards and into Glendale. There was nothing for it.
She turned to the children and took in their fearful expressions, there was still so much they didn't understand, "Come children, it's time I took you to the Sanctum."
She briskly led them through the door beside the hearth and down the hallway behind the stairs. She stopped in front of an old dusty tapestry of a cottage before a field of flowers in the middle of nowhere. She pulled it back and revealed what looked like a fire pole going down a sizable hole in the ground though it looked old and rusty and was leaning slightly.
Barbara glanced at them, "Down you go."
Evan gave her an incredulous look, "Ahhhahaha. No."
"Is that even safe?" Wynter asked while eying the pole with contempt, "It doesn't look safe."
"Of course it's safe," she said in exasperated tone, "Now go!" She shoved Wynter hard and she fell with a long startled yell and a moment later, they heard a loud thump and an annoyed, "OW!"
"Now you."
Evan took a step back, "Oh, no thanks. I'm good. Don't you have a back way?"
"This is the back way!" She shoved him hard then slid down after him.
The fall was quick and frankly unsteady. The pole creaked loudly under their weight and when Evan landed at the ground with Barbara landing afterwards, it completely gave up. The pole snapped in half and fell, nearly whacking Wynter in the head. With a loud hollow clank, it rolled away.
Barbara could feel the children's judgy gazes on her in the darkness and shrugged, "It's served its purpose. Now," she raised her finger again and drew in the air another glowing rune, this one simple like a backward letter s with a cross in the middle.
"Pyr-et!"
The rune exploded into a small blue flame that hovered above her hand.
"Woah! Okay seriously, how are you doing that?" Wynter asked in awed tone, the both of them stared at the little flame mesmerized.
"True Magic. I mentioned this. Now come on," she raised the flame high and it floated above their heads and grew bigger and brighter, illuminating the entire dusty space.
"We must hurry."
o0o
The place appeared at first glance to be a crammed up basement until they noticed the closed garage door behind them. Along the three walls were more boxes of old books along with other rather unnerving assortment of weapons. Guns, swords of all types and sizes, shields, spears, axes, spare bows and arrows. She had enough to arm a legion...it was kinda freaking them out.
"Um, Miss Green, what's with all the weapons?" Evan asked, eyeing a particularly wicked looking morning star club, its spiked ball reflected his pale face.
"Insurance, my boy. You never know when an apocalypse is at your doorstep."
Wynter glanced at him and made a circular motion over her ear. Evan nodded. This is getting more unhinged by the second.
What took up most of the space in the garage was what was clearly a car hidden under a black dusty cover. Barbara gestured to them to remove it and when they did a thick cloud of dust rose into their faces.
Wynter sneezed violently, "Seriously, Miss G?! Ever heard of a bit of spring cleaning? It's a thing, you know."
Barbara ignored her, her gaze remained fixed, admiring the ugliest car Evan had ever seen. It was this squat, rusty little four seater car with most of its once brilliant yellow paint peeled off from age. One of the headlights completely totalled with most of the glass covered in duct tape, three of its windows were either cracked, covered in mold or gone completely. Inside, Evan could seen that most of the seats were severely water damaged or moth eaten.
"What is this piece of junk?" Wynter uttered and earned a hard nudge in the ribs.
"Excuse me?! Junk?! This is a classic Beetle," Barbara asserted, her cheeks reddening in indignation.
''It's a hippy's treasure, that's what it is," Wynter mumbled and earned another hard nudge in the ribs.
"Kids these days. Completely unappreciative of anything! Ugh, if your mother knew how hard headed you two have become..."
Evan frowned, "I'm sorry, what? Our mother?"
Barbara paled and for a moment a look of utter panic crossed her face, "Forget I said anything."
An ear-splitting shriek sounded above followed by glass breaking and what sounded an horde thundering down through the bookstore.
"Hurry! In! Now!" Barbara yelled. They rushed in and slammed the doors. As Barbara tried furiously to ignite the car, the sounds were getting louder by the second.
"Um, what's the hold up?" Evan asked anxiously, trying not to sound panicked.
"I can't find the stupid..oh, here it is!" Barbara announced with clear relief, the car keys in her hands and a moment later the engine revved loudly.
They could see the demons making their way down the pole and he turned just in time to one shadowy beast fall from above and onto the hood of the car. The thing snarled at them, clawing at the windshield. Everyone screamed and the car lurched forward. Right...through...the...garage...door!
"What the HELL?!"
"Hold on!"
The car quickly picked up speed and suddenly they were on the streets. Evan saw Barbara turn the wheel sharply and they were lurched to the side. Hard. Doing a full on Tokyo drift!
The demon shrieked in rage and fell away.
The car stopped abruptly causing Evan to lift from the seat violently and bumping his head on the ceiling. He groaned in pain. That was sure to leave a bump.
Barbara grinned manically in the driver's seat and glanced at Evan from the rear view mirror, "I always wanted to do that!" Evan scowled. Okay, she's nuts!
"Um, guys? Hate to kill the mood but..." Wynter was glancing out the rear window, pointing to the growing mass of demons coming out of the bookstore garage. Is it just me or are they way more than they were at the graveyard?
There were dozens...no hundreds of demons pilling up in the street, on the roof of the buildings, in the alleys. And more still to come.
"Okay, children. You might want to buckle your seatbelts."
He didn't need to be told twice. He rummaged around in the dark for the seatbelts and clicked them in place and beside him, Wynter quickly did the same. And just in time because not a second later did Barbara step on it.
"Oof!"Evan was thrown back in his seat. Seriously, for a car this rusty and old, it sure was wicked fast. Barbara drove down the street and the horde followed no later. They made their way in what he was certain was the direction out of town, making sharp turns that left his stomach churning angrily.
The demons were either ruthless or freakishly stupid because they kept throwing themselves at the car only to end up missing it by inches. At one point, a demon launched itself from a roof and managed to grab into the only broken window which was fortunately on Wynter's side. Or rather unfortunately because Wynter grabbed Mercy from his hands and with an impressive warrior cry stabbed that bastard right in the eye and it quickly disintegrated into dust with a pained yell.
"Can't this rust bucket go any faster?!" Wynter demanded.
"I'll have you know, young lady, that this rust bucket is going nearly as fast as the speed of light!" Barbara yelled in anger.
It was true, Evan had never seen anything like it but whatever this car ran on, the demons had that times ten.
Evan risked a glance out his cracked and moldy window and noticed a large billboard lit with lights that announced the start of the highway to...Phoenix.
"Miss Green!" he called, "Earlier you said something about going to a sanctuary?"
"Sanctum, dear boy." she corrected.
"Right and that's where we'll be safe?"
"That's the plan. As soon as we make it to the border, the wards will hold them off. They won't be able to follow us."
Evan nodded and sighed in relief. A plan. That's good. Then later he would figure out what to make of this freak show.
12Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZUzqorOCiB
