Time - Chapter 20
Nolan rushed toward the curio cabinet on the far side of the room and ripped it open,
This is a portal fantasy series with mythological roots and action-adventure tendencies. You can search through all my work on my website.
In the ashes of her past, she will rise up, and her death will save us all.
Lizzie ran from her past for ten years, zigzagging across the United States every few months, trying to outlast the prophesy that an oracle gave to her when she was just sixteen years old.
But nobody can run from their destiny forever.
After watching her friend brutally gunned down by a group of ruthless demons, she had no choice but to protect the woman’s child, and there was only one place where Lizzie knew the girl would be safe.
Bronard, Missouri.
Home.
She stayed away to protect her parents, but the girl needed mystical protection.
Her parents had taken in magical strays their whole lives, including Lizzie. If anyone could save the poor child’s life, it would be her mother and father.
But will returning to her home doom Lizzie even as she works to save the child she has vowed to defend?
Nolan rushed toward the curio cabinet on the far side of the room and ripped it open, but before he could reach inside one of the demons punched clean through his sternum and out his back on the other side, splattering his blood across the wall behind us. Veronica screamed.
“NOLAN!” Zachary shouted, red fire filling his eyes. “That’s it!”
He slammed his hands down on the table and wailed in pain. The muscles on his back and arms bulged and grew until he was so big that the top of his hairy, elongated head touched the ceiling. Great claws protruded where his hands had been, and they flung the heavy oak table toward the demons. He howled as he charged forward, having transformed from a kindly, little man to a monstrous werewolf.
“Let go—” Kimberly started, but before she could finish, a fireball exploded at her feet and shot her into the kitchen, slamming her against the wall.
“Glacies fracta!” I screamed. I scooped Veronica up into my arms with one arm, with the other, I shot a ball of ice toward the center of the room. When I opened my palm, the ice ball shattered, blasting the demons and sending them flying. I sprinted toward the hole in the front door and leaped down the stairs out into the front lawn.
“Glacies murum!” An ice wall rose from the ground and covered the porch with a thick layer of ice.
“Where are we going?” Veronica asked.
I covered her head and brought it close to my chest. She was heavier than she looked. Come on, Lizzie, dig deep.
We weren’t halfway down the street before the ice shattered behind us. A demon flew through the air and slammed into a white truck parked across the street, causing its alarm to blare loudly into the still, night air.
Zachary leaped out after him and drilled the demon deeper into the dented side of the car. Lights began to flick on all over the street, and I turned down one of the driveways, rushing into the backyard.
Two red flashes popped behind me. Instinctively, I ducked into the darkness of the tree line behind the house, desperate to lose myself in the canopy. The dead leaves crunched under my feet, giving me away, and soon enough, the demons had rushed into the woods after me.
I zig-zagged through the woods as long as I could, but I wasn’t a strong woman, and I had no experience carrying children, only trays of food. It wasn’t long before my arms began to shake and gave out under me. I toppled to the ground, and Veronica fell to the earth next to me.
“Are you okay?” I said, huffing and puffing.
She held her knee. “I think so.”
“Let me see,” I said quietly. I pushed up her dinosaur pajamas to reveal a shallow cut on her leg. “You’ll live.”
“It hurts.”
“I know, kid,” I replied. “I need you to be brave, though. And quiet.”
I tried to keep my breathing shallow and slow, but I was gassed and couldn’t help sucking wind hard. It didn’t take long for the demons to track me to the gnarled tree doing its best to hide us.
“Aqua effusorium!” I screamed, shooting a geyser of water from my outstretched arms. They were ready for it this time and countered my attack with a fire spell of their own, resulting in a fog of steam between us. They had inadvertently given me a perfect distraction to escape.
I grabbed Veronica’s hand and pulled her through the steam toward the edge of the woods, where we came upon a road. We didn’t have time to beg for help. I needed drastic action, so I ran into the road as a car approached, hoping it would slow for me.
It skidded to a stop right in front of me, and I ran around to the passenger’s side. “Please, please. Help us.” I slammed against the window. “Somebody is chasing us!”
The door unlatched, and I slid into the passenger’s seat and slammed the door. A young woman with wild hair and a vacant expression looked at me with glassy eyes. “Who are you?”
“Does that matter?” I screamed. “Just drive!”
The girl put the car in gear and drove off. “Whatever, man. I’m Rhel, by the way. I was just trying to be polite. Who is chasing you?”
“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” I replied, buckling Veronica and myself into the seat. “Thank you for stopping.”
“I mean, you gotta help people, right? Isn’t that what it’s all about?” Rhel said as she shifted gear. “That’s what I say.”
She turned the corner, and two flashes of red light appeared in front of the car. Rhel didn’t brake in time, and she slammed into the demons, sending them flying backward while we lurched forward into the dashboard.
“Are you—?” I turned to Rhel, only to see her head slumped against the steering wheel, bleeding and unconscious.
I tried to help her, but another demon appeared on the side of the car and ripped off the passenger door. They reached inside and yanked a bleeding Veronica from my hands.
“No, please. Stop,” I croaked. I could barely see straight for the world spinning around me, and I certainly couldn’t fight the demon that threw me aside like a ragdoll.
This was the end. I didn’t die for some great cause. I didn’t save the world. If anything, I helped end it. I closed my eyes and waited for death, but it didn’t come. Instead, I heard a yell, and when I opened my eyes, Kimberly stood in front of the car, the demon’s outstretched arm lying on the ground, seeping green ooze into the dirt. It was standing in the car’s high beams, holding Veronica in its remaining arm.
The demon screeched as it stumbled backward. Kimberly took a step closer. For a moment, the demon looked like it was going to attack, but it must have thought better of the situation. Instead, it screamed to its friends, who gathered closer. All three of them vanished from sight with Veronica in tow.
And then, everything went fuzzy as I collapsed onto the dashboard.
This is a portal fantasy series with mythological roots and action-adventure tendencies. You can search through all my work on my website.