Kasadya Hellhound Twisted (28 page)

“You knocked us out!” Max fired at me at once.

“Just returned the favour, Max, you guys started to attack us,” I replied, not a bit troubled by it. My dad always said if you throw a punch you better be ready to receive one back.

“Did you destroy them?” Chax asked, watching me with interest. Interest I sure as hell did not want.

“No, they shifted out when we fought,” I lied.

His eyes narrowed at me. “I see,” he replied. Yeah like he’d just believed a word I said. He knew something had happened. Crap, we are going to be caught.

“Who
knocked me out?” Max asked, looking between Nanini and me.

“Me of course, dumdum,” Nanini quickly replied, her smile spreading over that sick little face of hers. I looked at Max and I swear he was about to pop a vein, his entire face was red with anger, and then Nanini had to blow him a kiss. I jumped in before he could reach her.

“Maybe it would be best if we retire for the night,” Caim said while I held Max away from the snickering Nanini. Girl, you just don’t know when to quit.

“Agreed,” Chax said and force shifted us all on the spot. We landed outside the house, me still holding Max off Nanini. “We will retire for the day,” Chax casually said vanishing in the dark as he made his way into the woods next to his house, or what was left of them.

The gang split up and went in their own direction, Lada winking at me as she turned into the doorway. I was left with a fuming Max. “I am going to lose it with that girl,” Max complained. I laughed at that, because he was so right, they were going to kill each other before this was over.

“Come on, let’s go for a walk,” I said, pushing him to the other side of the estate. He pressed forward, storming into the direction I wanted him to go. I stopped and looked at him. Well, here goes nothing. I needed to get more power, right?

C
hapter 18

We walked a long way, Max trying to release the adrenalin trapped in his body. We reached a small river running along the estate. The moon was beautiful tonight, a full moon. I stopped and admired it, the stars dancing around it to make the picture look even more spectacular.

“I know that look you have, like you are about to do something stupid,” Max said next to me. I smiled
, but my eyes remained on the sky.

“I need your help, Max,” I started the impossible mission. I knew he was going to go ballistic when he found out, but I would rather have him by my side than any other. He might be a pain in the ass, but he was a great warrior.

“What did you do this time?” he whined and I heard him walk off. Looking over, I saw he was sitting down beneath an oak tree, resting his back against it.

Good, he needs to be relaxed for this one, and if he wanted to kick my butt I had the upper hand. “Nothing yet, but if I don’t do this Kali will die.” Let’s start with the worst part in my eyes, and move over to the detail around it.

“What do you mean?” he asked, confusion on his face.

“The night Gluttire took her he placed a charm on her. A death charm,” I explained, leaning against another tree.

“Death charm? What is that?” he asked, his eyes roaming over me.

“It is a charm that can only be removed by a demon prince. In time, this charm will eat away at her power and strength, until finally within six months it would take her head. She is already sick and weaker. If it stays on, she won’t be able to do anything soon,” I tried to tell him the importance of this.

He considered me for a while, and I waited patiently for him to work through the detail. “How are you going to remove it then?” he finally asked.

“The demon wants something that’s locked away in Exsilium. If I retrieve it and bring it to him he will remove the charm. But these objects he wants, they are very well protected. And when we open it apparently we are going to face the baddest of the bad. I need you by my side when this happens, I need my wingman,” I explained, taking a seat next to him. He was calm and collected, which meant there wouldn’t be any surprises.

“How sure are you that he would keep his word?” Max asked, looking at me. I smiled; that’s my Max.

“I don’t, but I would still try,” I replied, giving him a small kiss.

“I won’t let you go alone, you know that. And I would be by your side no matter what.” He gave me a great kiss. We kissed for a long while, our hearts finally mending from the last fight. We broke away and held on to each other, a deep sigh escaping me.

Laughing a little, he rubbed my back. “Keeping secrets can be exhausting, if you learn to share then at least the weight won’t be that much,” he teased, nudging me.

“Yeah, but if everyone around you is wired for war, it makes it difficult to know how they will react to a secret. But since we are sharing, mind sharing with me what happened that night between you and Chax?” I flipped the coin on him.

This time it was his turn to release a deep breath. “We came to an understanding, you might say,” he replied. Oh hell no, I just gave him a juicy secret and that’s all he has to share!

“Oh no, that so doesn’t count for a secret,” I complained, pushing myself away from him. He laughed harder and reinforced his embrace.

“I think it more curiosity than disappointment,” he stated.

“No, I shared a huge secret and all you give me is that crap. Come on, confess,” I pushed again.

“We agreed to agree when it comes to you. We will both protect you no matter what, even from each other. He feels obligated to protect you, and I feel a need, too. So when we meet in the middle we can both protect you without having to kill each other. And I did remind him that you are not a little girl anymore, which might have helped,” he confessed.

“I don’t need protection,” I complained, totally pissed with that secret.

“Oh, Kas, if only you knew how much protection you need. You’re like the ultimate bomb walking around waiting to be detonated, and that scares both of us. But I am glad that you chose wisely this time by getting some backup. That’s another thing Chax and I agree on,” he rambled on.

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Thing they agree on? When did I become their daily topic?

With a
sigh, he looked away. “You’re always going in alone, Kas. You never try the backup thing, and that doesn’t work out very well,” he explained. I sat there silent, like a corpse. I go in alone? I was thinking real hard about that. Okay, so I went in alone and killed Ira, but I can’t remember another episode like that. “Come on, stop over thinking it. Let’s for once see the sun come up without blood on us,” Max joked with me.

I sat back against the tree and watched the sun peak over the horizon. It was actually very beautiful. I tried to think when last I watched the sun come up and couldn’t really remember one. Yeah, I saw the sun a lot but sitting still and watching it come up, nope couldn’t remember one occasion. The birds started flying around, bugs started buzzing, and a fish jumped out of the water near us. This is pretty awesome. Relaxing, I slumped down and enjoyed it. Don’t know if this would be the last time I see the sun, so I better have great memories about it.

“Kas, are you ready to go?” Lada suddenly asked to my left and I jumped from the shock. I looked around and found everyone, except for Chax and Abby, still in their fighting gear. My heart leapt from the sight, Max and Chax were so wrong about that thing they agree about. I always have a gang with me to kick butt. And today I have more than just a gang, I have great friends.

“Chax?” I asked to make sure he was out of the picture.

“Went to his room about half an hour ago, we all slipped out unnoticed,” Caim replied with a devilish smile.

Wow, this sneaking out business might be really good for him. “Okay, let’s get Seth and blow that baby,” I said, getting up.

“Seth?” Nanini asked, sounding very excited.

“He was helping me and Kas find the cave and a way to get into it,” Kali explained, rubbing her charm.

“We’ll have that off before tomorrow morning,” I assured her, and she replied with a small smile. She didn’t think we could do it; I just love to prove her wrong.

“Come on, we have a date, guys,” Nanini laughed and force shifted us to Seth’s house.

We landed in his lounge, scaring the crap out of him and Arianna. Oh crap, was my thought when I saw her, this is not good. “Salve,” Seth greeted us and then rested his eyes on me. “Arianna wants to help, I have explained the details and sensitivity of it to her,” Seth explained. I looked at her and saw only a small smile. Why didn’t he just say she caught him and he had to spill everything.

“Yeah, all right. Let’s get this over with,” I replied, my eyes catching Kali’s furious face.

Seth grabbed the bag with explosives and shifted us to the cave. We started immediately and walked to the entrance we knew was there but invisible. “Where is this cave you were talking about?” Max asked. “And is that our C4?” He came over to stand next to me.

“The cave entrance is charmed and invisible, and we borrowed some of Amon’s stuff,” I replied not even looking at him.

“Borrowed?” he questioned me.

I just wasn’t in the mood for explanations. “Are you helping or criticizing?” I asked. He bent down and grabbed the block thing out of my hands.

“You have no idea what you’re
doing. Move back, I’ll rig it up,” he bombarded me. Not disagreeing with that, I got up and moved to stand in the back with the others.

“It’s not Amon’s,” Ben whispered to me. I looked at him questioningly. “It’s Max’s secret stash, he loves blowing up things,” he continued.

Wow, now that’s something I didn’t know. Talk about secrets, this one was somewhat nice and disturbing at the same time. “That’s it, now get back about a hundred yards,” Max instructed us. We did what he said and turned to look at the show. He stood only about fifty yards from it, a small device in his hands. We watched in silence, not moving a muscle, and then boom it went off and the sound echoed around us. Dust was everywhere, I couldn’t even see Max.

After a few minutes the dust started to settle and Max also came into view.  Looking at the mountain, a huge cave entrance was now visible. This is it, time for action. “Have your weapons ready, whatever comes out of there is going to be mean in a really bad way,” I informed the others. Swords blinked in the sun as everyone drew their weapons and started walking with me to the entrance. Max was already there waiting for us.

I stopped and looked into the cave, it was pitch black. I could see well, but I was not sure about the others. “Nanini, Ben, can you give us some light inside?” I asked, looking at them. They nodded and transformed to fallen form, small light bombs were floating in their hands. Taking a deep breath, I took the first step, leading everyone into the cave. We walked in silence, almost tip toeing. We still hadn’t found this great creature Lada spoke of. Maybe it was just a fairytale?

A soft growl came from the front, and we all stopped dead. A loud growl came this time and I heard steps coming towards us. “Back now,” I growled transforming into my hellhound and securing the rear as everyone retreated back the way we came. Just as I was about to step outside into the sun, my eyes caught a pair of red eyes in the dark. Crap, here we go. Outside the others had already taken formation, and transformed to fallen, ready to take on whatever stepped out of that cave. I joined them in the middle, edgy for the fight that was about to start. A few seconds ticked by and then the creature stepped out of the cave.