Dark Calling (33 page)

She mulls it over, constantly
looking down at herself.  She’
s unable to wrap her mind around it.  Light is coming from und
er her clothes
so she knows her entire body is alight.  “I’m not positive, but I feel a hu
mming throughout my body, and
something keeps rolling in my stomach.  But not in a bad way.  It feels
almost
normal to me.”

“Do you think you could turn it off if you needed to?”  Lila gives her a panicked look.

Keely shakes her head.  “I don’t know.  I don’t even know how I turned it on.”

“O.k.  We’ll just
deal with that when we get to i
t.  We may need to hide
and darkness is
probably
our only hope here.”

Nodding, Keely bites her lip.  She wants to try turnin
g it off just to make sure she’
s capable of it, but doesn’t want to take the chance of not being able to turn it back on.  As it turns out, she doesn’t need to worry
about this any longer.  A
s they round the next corner,
there’
s a light at the other end.

Keely focuses on switching herself off as they jog toward the light.
  She imagines herself as a lamp and pictures herself flipping a switch.  When that doesn’t work, she thinks of a flashlight
,
like Lila had said.  She envisions pressing the button.  Keely even thinks about removing the batteries.  Still she is glowing.  Looking at Bryon, she bites her lip wondering how to stop the light. 
With several flickers, like the lantern shortly ago, her light
abruptly
burns out.

Lila and Bryon look questioningly at her.  She shru
gs, unable to offer a theory
.
 

They are close enough to discern it
i
s not natural light, but definitely coming from an electric
al
source.  Keely can hear the hum
from the wires above their heads
, mirroring the feeling that had just been throbbing inside of her.

Bryon stares at Lila.
She nods, giving the all right.  They hover around the open doo
r, listening.  There is a sound
and Keely can picture feet anxiously shuffling.  It’s followed by a long sig
h
and her heart thumps hard against her rib cage.  Everything goes very still around Keely for an excruciatingly long second as it registers in every cell of her being that she knows that sigh.  Without any indication she is going to make a movement, Keely rushes through the door, leaving Bryon and Lila in shocked silence.

“Mom?”

In
the half of a heartbeat it takes
Keely’s eyes to find her mother
sitting restlessly in a dark wooden chair, Lila and Bryon are at her side.

Kimberly Kiem stares back at her daughter, her mouth rounding in an O as if bewilderment is the only emotion she is capable of at the
moment.  She stands so quickly
her chair tips over, making her jump as it hits the floor with a loud thud.  “No.”

“Mom?”
  Something seems very wrong to Keely.  Shouldn’t her mom be happy to see her?  Shouldn’t they be embracing in a long overdue hug?  Shouldn’t…  She looks around the room searching for her dad.  “Mom?”

Shaking her head, Kimberly looks at her daughter in horror.  “Why did you come?”

Before she can feel hurt by her mother’s reaction, Bryon is wrenching Keely’s arm.  He pulls her back, shielding her with his body.  Before, when bad things happened to her, everything seemed t
o slow down drastically.  That ha
s not
been the case tonight
.  It all happens so quickly, her eyes don’t even have time to focus.

A dark blur moves through the air at an insane speed.  Keely can almost make out an outstretched leg right before Bryon’s head whips to the side with a spray of
thick blood.  A splatter of red
drops hit her face.  She is still reaching up to wipe them away as Bryon springs after the unknown being.
  Keely hears her mom scream and looks in her direction as Lila fills Bryon
’s
spot guarding her. 

In the past week, Keely has witnessed some miraculous and unbelievable things.  None of it compares to what she sees in front of her
now.  With an athlete’s agility
and a dancer’s finesse, Bryon strikes out at the impossibly fast attacker.  His arms shoot out blocking, then returning blows with matching speed until Keely loses sight of his hands.  Gasping from either shock, or appreciation, Keely takes a step back. 

Lila holds the bar out in front of her defensively.  Her head
turns from side to side, waiting for more danger.  After only seconds more, two dark figures enter the room.  Their frames vibrate slightly and Keely can see the mass of thick, dark, mutated muscle that makes up these Demons.  They only have three fingers on each hand, but they bend into claws with sharp, black talons.  Their eyes are small white voids high on their misshapen heads.  She wonders for the slightest moment if they
can see, realizing quickly
they can as they turn to stare in her direction.  Lila pushes Keely backward until she slams into the wall.  Her back presses into Keely’s chest
so firmly, she feels as if she can’t get enough air.

Bryon kicks at the Demon’s face with a scary amount of strength.  It falls back into the other two before they have a chance to make a move.  Without turning his attention away from the hissing pile of Demons on the floor, Bryon stretches out his arm.  Though nothing is spoken between them, Lila tosses the bar into his waiting hand.  In one solid move, his fingers wrap around the bar so tightly his knuckles whiten, and he brings it d
own, slicing through all three Demons
chest at once.  There is a whooshing soun
d as the air rushes out of them
and shimmering white salt fills the air.  It swirls up around Bryon as if trying to hit him one last time, and then it settles to the floor like tiny pieces of hail in a storm.

Keely and Kimberly Kiem lose their legs at the same time.  Keely slides down the wall while her mom plops
to the floor, crying with relief.

Bryon pivots his body, the bar
in hand.  His eyes find Keely
and he relaxes his stance.  He nods at Lila as she smiles back at him.

“We
kee
ping score?  I’m just asking because that would make it four—z
ero,” he taunts breathlessly.

Standing there smiling as his chest rises and falls quickly, Keely thinks he looks like a super hero.  This isn’t even his job and he kicks serious Demon ass.  She feels her heart fill with hope that Nick is o.k.  After al
l, Nick’s job is Guardian.  He’
s trained especially for protecting against these creatures.  She wonders if he’s making his way through this place keeping a count like Bryon.

Keely allows Lila to pull her
up and she walks
carefully to her mom.  Squatting down beside her, she places her hand gently on her
mom’s
shaking shoulder.  Her mother grab
s Keely
and pulls her into a hug.

“You were not supposed to come.”  She chokes back her tears now that the danger has
momentarily
passed
for
her daughter
.

“I had to.  I couldn’t let him kill you.”

Kimberly strokes Keely’s hair over and over.  She pulls away quickly,
but still keeps a hold of her
.  “Are you hurt?”
Her hand brushes Keely’s bruised cheek.

Keely
shakes her head.  “
It’s not bad.
Where’s Dad?”  From her peripheral, Keely sees Lila stiffen.  This is followed by a scratchy dragging sound that sends a convulsing tingle down her spine.

“Which dad are you referring to
?”

Keely stands, and faster than she knew she was capable, she is in front of Apophis.  Bryon grabs her arm a
nd pulls her back to him.  He’
s noticed something Keely has not in her rage.  Apophis is flanked by about ten Demons.  He also knows that at least two of them are Originals.

“Where’s my dad?”  A calm slides over Keely, blanketing her.  She isn’t frightened at the moment.  In fact, the only emotion she can muster is a cold loathing for her brother.

“Again, which one
?  You need to be a little
clearer as to wh
ich
you are referring to since you do have more than one.”

Keely rips her arm away from Bryon easier than she expected.  She doesn’t know if her anger has given her extra strength or if he just hadn’t been prepared for her to do that.  “I said
my
dad.  Not yours.”

Apophis smiles, liking the anger that is boiling in his sister’s blood.  “You mean,
ours
, of course.”

“I’m guessing you don’t know where
our
father is.
  Or you don’t want to know
,
seeing as how he is royally pissed about what you’ve been doing behind his back.”  Now it’s Keely’s turn to smile because, although it is only for the briefest
moment, she sees
Apophis
’ smile falter before he slams
it back into place.

“Oh
,
yeah, that’s right.  I forgot to mention to you how I learned this neat little trick.  It’s called dream
meeting
.
”

Lila clears her throat.  “Visiting.  Dream visiting,” she corrects quietly.

 
             
“Dream visiting.  Anyway,
I’ve been meeting with
our
father just about ev
ery time I close my eyes.  He i
sn’
t very happy that I keep
getting hurt.  Hope you don’t mind, I mentioned you by name.”
  Keely stands a little straighter, refusing to be intimidated by Apophis’ penetrating glare.

“Why hasn’t he come for you then, my sister?”  He looks around them dramatically.  Spreads his hands out in front of him.  He looks at her sadly, pitying her.  He changes expressions quicker than she can keep up with.  She thinks he must be bi-polar. 

Keely knows why her father isn’t here.  She told him they would be at Pandora, not knowing they would be entering a Demon realm.  Grante
d, she hadn’t known about Demon
realms at the time, but he was probably searching the tunnels under Pandora as they spoke.  She doesn’t share this info with him.  Instead, she just shrugs.  “Doesn’t really matter though.
  Does it?  I
mean, you kill me,
he’ll know it was you.  You can’t hide forever.”

Apophis with his ever changing faces shifts to incredulous.  “I don’t want to kill you.”

Bryon’s body goes rigid beside her.  She ignores him as she laughs.  “You’ve tried to kill me three times.  Twice this week!”

Lips spreading into a friendly smile you would offer to a child, Apophis leans toward her.  “You are mistaken.  I love you, my Keely.  I want you to join me.”  He places his hand over his heart.

She leans forward, matching his stance.  “Because I am able to do something very important?”

Apophis straightens up answering Keely’s question with his action.  She nods as if she knows what she is capable of, but really she is bull s
h
itting her way through this conversation using pieces a
nd parts of information she
received from several different
sources
.

He has tricks up his sleeve as well.  With a motion Keely barely has time to register, the Demons behind him move forward.  “I may want you alive, but I don’t need them.”  He thrusts his finger at her mom and friends.  All the fight goes out of Keely as fast as
it
came to her.  Her mouth drops open,
trying to think of something she can
say to stop him.

Apophis reaches out and pushes her chin up, closing her mouth.  “What are you waiting for?  Grab them.”  He is looking at Keely while he says this, but she knows he isn’t speaking to her.  Bryon shifts the bar
,
holding it defensively
.
A
t the same time
, he grabs the back of Keely’s shirt,
pulling her back so violently she stumbles to the floor.  Three sets of feet move i
n front of her.  P
rotect
ing
her
even
though they haven’t
got
a chance against this many Demons.  One of the sets of feet belongs to her mother.  As Keely looks up in shock, she doesn’t q
uite recognize her mom.  She has
the same
green
eyes, same
shoulder-length light brown
hair, same
business-casual
clothes, but that i
s it.  The
expression on Kimberly’s face i
s one
Keely has
never seen.  The way she
ho
ld
s herself in front of Keely i
s how
the others stand.  As if she has
trained for th
is all her life.  As if she is
ready to fight to the death.  Not exactly
the cheery, mild-mannered realtor Keely has grown up with.  Kimberly kicks the chair up in front of her, grabbing it while it is still in the air.  Gripping one of the legs, she slams it into the face of the first Demon that approaches.  The chair breaks into pieces, leaving her with half the leg as a weapon. 
She kneels, bringing the wooden leg
down into the injured Demons chest as if she were staking a vampire.