They were too late. Even as Austin forced the door open, Crystal felt a jolt go through her bones. Without waiting to see of it was safe, Crystal bolted into the room and looked around. A man or a very tall demon was crouched in the center of the room. It seemed to be in a great amount of pain, and small wonder; one of its hands was torn off. It looked as though it once had been a man, but it seemed unnaturally still, as though it couldn’t think and recognize things by itself. It made no noise, but occasionally it would look across the room and then back to its own arm.
Crystal followed its gaze and drew in a sharp breath. There, in a rapidly increasing pool of blood were the two people who Crystal had been the most concerned for in the last three hours. Sam was stretched out on the ground. There was a dark streak of blood on his stomach that spread across the floor. He lay very still. Amanda stood over him, staring down at his stilled face, even as she swayed unsteadily. Her shirt had been torn open and she had smears of dark demon blood and bright red human blood all over the remnants of her school uniform. Crystal gulped as she realized something else; there was a ragged gash in the center of Amanda’s chest. A fatal ragged gash. How she was still standing, Crystal had no idea.
Amanda’s head suddenly sagged forward and her whole body folded and crumpled towards the floor.
Oh, no, she’s dead, Crystal mind screamed. But something deep within her said, no, wait and see.
Sure enough, Amanda rose up to her feet. But…the movement was unnatural, forced by something invisible. Amanda’s body strained forward, sagging against the invisible force that pulled her body up. Her head hung towards the ground, her hair falling about her face like a curtain, hiding her expression. If Crystal could have seen it, Amanda’s face would have been pure pain.
No, Amanda thought, I’m DEAD I can’t do this. But whatever held her up would not let her go. Let me die, Amanda begged. Her whole body trembled; her weight strained and sagged, fighting to lie back down on the floor beside Sam, to let her life bleed out.
And still, she was denied. Anger boiled inside Amanda’s throat. Let me go! Amanda opened her mouth to scream in rage and pain, but there was no breath left in her lungs. Her heart ceased to beat and she was by all accounts dead. But she wasn’t allowed to die. Not yet, not for a long while yet. Rage stung the hole in her chest.
The force holding her jerked her up violently, snapping her head back and lifting her off of the ground. Amanda hung suspended like that, between life and death and so far away from her friends. Amanda could see them on the other side of the room, staring at her in horror. But at the same time, she couldn’t really see them. A sight unworldly and unbidden let her see what was real at that time, what could have been real, and a possibility of what was to be.
No, Amanda told herself, this isn’t right. I shouldn’t be seeing these things. It’s not my job to do things like this.
And a voice said, quite clearly, “It is now.”
Pain shot through the hole in her chest, forcing a path of searing light through her body. Ice-cold air, like the breath of winter filled her lungs and Amanda screamed. Her voice sounded like the outraged cry of a newborn infant, forced into the cold world. Her limbs tingled and burned; it felt like a thousand hands had gripped her body and was stretching, pulling, trying to make Amanda’s small body accommodate something much larger than her. Amanda’s scream continued, burning her throat like hot steel.
Crystal watched with a detached marvel. So this is what Kaine had been talking about. Part of her knew what this was, expected it, and anticipated it, but that part was far away and had not been within Crystal before. Part of her knew she was watching the reincarnation of something wonderful and something horrible. But that part wasn’t at all affected by the sound of Amanda’s scream.
Austin, unable to stand by while something was happening to his friend that he couldn’t understand, started forward. Crystal’s hand shot out and gripped his arm with cold, small fingers. Austin looked at her, about to voice an objection. But at the unearthly glow in Crystal’s eyes, he just stood with his mouth open.
“The light will burn you,” Crystal said. But the voice wasn’t hers. Austin shifted, looked at Troy, who was busy staring at the beam of light that shot through Amanda’s chest and held her twenty feet off the ground like a string. Austin felt something strange happening and felt like he should object but all Crystal said was, “Wait and see.”
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The light narrowed and vanished, dropping Amanda to the ground like a rag doll. Amanda collapsed to her knees; her head hung low to the ground. Her hand clutched her chest, where the gash had been, but now all that was there was a burning heat. And…some strange fabric that had not been there before. Amanda opened her eyes. Her hair no longer hung about her face, protecting her expression. Dimly, she was aware that it was pulled away from her face, but she could still feel its comforting weight on the back of her head. She was staring at the cold hard floor, smeared with blood and her knees, folded beneath her. But her knees were black…and…. Amanda pulled her head up, with a great effort to stare at the air in front of her.
But before her, floating in the air as if by magic was the most gorgeous sword in existence.
It was a full five feet in length and made of what looked like polished diamond that sent glittering prisms off of the harsh metal walls. At the crosspiece, jagged ends of crystal jutted out in all directions to form a three-dimensional star. The hand guard was made up of two crystalline shards shaped like huge L’s that curled out from the sword and pointed along the blade. But the ends turned inward towards the blade in sharp spikes. The hilt itself was made of the same material as the sword and wrapped in plain leather, but even that couldn’t detract from the radiance of the sword.
The Crystal Sword was the weapon of Astrea, The Damned One.
Amanda stared at it as though transfixed. She drew her feet beneath her and stood, still looking at the cold glitter in the blade. Something inhuman growled. Outside of the radius of light created by the Crystal Sword, the mangled body of her attacker drew itself up and screamed in outrage. It curled its single hand into a claw and tensed as though it would dive forward. Amanda didn’t feel like dying twice.
Her hands reached up reflexively and gripped the sword with one hand on the hilt and one on the razor sharp hand guard. It burned. She gasped and her body writhed in pain. But Amanda held on to the sword. She needed it; she wanted it. She wanted to kill this goddamned thing and teach it never to fuck with her again!
Red light tinged the sword, a red and angry color. But Amanda gripped it harder. The hand guard cut into the flesh of her hand, dripping more blood onto the floor. The light decreased to an irritated peach color as though quailed by Amanda’s blood. The color crept across Amanda’s skin as though it were exploring her body; her face twisted in pain; the red, angry light flared once more; it receded to a hazy white and faded all together, leaving Amanda standing there once more, holding the sword.
Amanda’s chest burned and she couldn’t help but double over again.
Crystal’s trance-like concentration wore off. She saw her friend in pain and stepped forward to help, but Amanda’s head came back up again. Her body ceased to quiver in pain and her whole attention seemed focused straight ahead.
Then Amanda spoke in a voice that Crystal had never heard before, her bloodless lips barely moving; “I am Astrea, the Judge of the Damned. I am sent to protect the Balance between All Things. I, with the blessings of the Crystal Sword, shall see justice done.”
The sword glowed at the edges with a glittering, ravenous light. Amanda, or Astrea, or whoever the hell was holding the sword turned the blade so that the star on the crosspiece faced the body of the man, level with his chest. A hungry light shot from the crosspiece, pierced the impostor’s chest, and then spread its glow over him like a blanket.
Astrea smiled. Amanda never could’ve smiled in such a way.
Astrea lifted the blade higher. The light suddenly withdrew, leaving behind an effect like a vacuum. The man’s body fell to its knees and the skin shriveled up as though it had been sucked dry. Any normal man would’ve screamed, but Crystal understood now that this was not a man. Maybe it had been once, but not now.
Astrea screamed, “DECEIT!”
Her carefully articulate dialect became nothing but a savage, bitter scream; “Possessing is punishable by DEATH! Celeste cannot save you this time!”
Something happened. Amanda, still wearing the black clothes and holding Astrea’s sword began to buckle. The razor sharp tip of the sword dropped to the floor, renting the carpet. She bent her head over her knees and when she looked up, it was obvious that she had no idea where she was or what was going on. Amanda blinked rapidly around.
The demon that had been a man seized its chance. It drove its withered body forward and was going to deliver a swipe to Amanda’s face with its shriveled claw. Amanda looked up, alarmed, and tried to step back.
I don’t want to die, not again today, I’ve got too much bullshit to put up with!
Amanda jerked the Crystal Sword up, angling it at the last second so that the demon impaled itself on the tip. Fortunately, there was no blood left to spill, and that was fine with Amanda. Panting in relief that this nightmare was over, she dropped the blade to the ground and used her foot to dislodge the shriveled corpse.
Her body convulsed and she keeled over again, but Astrea’s voice rang through the room one last time; “I will find you, Robert. I will find you and then I will kill you.”