“All right, I’m going to call you back with a message, and then you call Sam and relay it,” Kaine said to Crystal, over the phone. Since they didn’t have wrist communicators, they were relying on a telephone circle. One would call another, who would call the next and they would all be informed of a danger. Crystal thought it was really childish.
“Okay,” Crystal said, playing with her cat. The cat was thinking that it was some ancient form of torture and if the cat had opposable thumbs, it would be the end of the world for Crystal. She hung up the phone and began to tickle her kitty’s tummy. That cat was ready to tickle the back of Crystal’s throat with her claws.
“Aww, aren’t you the cutest little thing?” Crystal cooed, even as a very sharp set of claws raked at her face. Unperturbed, Crystal stood the kitty up on her back paws and made her parade around while supporting her upper body. The cat was thinking of some logical way that she could end the pain here, but nothing short of hara-kiri came to mind. Needless to say the cat was overjoyed when the phone rang and escape became possible.
“Hello?” Crystal said, cheerfully. No, not just possible, the cat was thinking, imperative.
“Crystal, relay this: The snow is falling on Manhattan,” Kaine said.
“Hee, hee, you’re funny Kaine,” Crystal hung up with him and called Sam as was prearranged.
“Hello,” Sam said.
“Hey Sam, what are you doing?”
“Nothing,” Sam said in his usual sulky way.
“Did you talk to Amanda?” Crystal asked, trying to get a reaction.
“No,” Crystal could detect a little twinge of emotion in his voice, but she couldn’t quite place it.
“Are you going to?” Crystal pressed, trying to see if he liked Amanda so she could tell the other girl.
“I don’t know,” Sam said, flatly.
“Hang on,” Crystal said, “I’m getting another call.” She clicked over, “Hello?”
“Hey, Crystal,” said Amanda, and she was much better company than Sam was.
“Oh, hi! Guess what? I’m talking to Sam.”
“How fun is that?” Amanda asked, sarcastically, and maybe a bit jealous.
“Not very, oh yeah, I’ve got to tell him something then I’ll be right back.” Crystal clicked back over. “Hey, Sam? I’m supposed to tell you something so you can pass it to Troy, okay?”
“Okay,” Now Sam was sounding irritated, like he had better things to be doing.
“Oh shit, I don’t remember it, hang on,” she clicked back over, “Amanda? Could you three-way Kaine on his cell and ask what the message is?”
“What message?”
“I know, that’s what I’m trying to figure out,” Crystal said.
“Okay, hang on,” Amanda clicked over. Amanda and Crystal didn’t need explanations; their though process was almost identical.
Crystal clicked over, too. “Sam, I’ll call you back.” She clicked over at the same time Amanda clicked back over.
“His cell’s busy,” Amanda said.
“Okay-” Crystal’s phone clicked, “Hang on,” she clicked over.
It was Kaine, “Crystal, there’s a demon in Rice Village, come quick.”
“Oh, okay,” He hung up, and Crystal clicked back over, “Amanda that was Kaine, hang on a minute while I three-way Sam.”
“Hello?” Sam said.
“Sam, its Crystal and Amanda. There’s a demon in Central Park, or something, pass it on.”
“…Okay,” Sam said, losing patience. Crystal hung up on Sam.
“Is he always so pissy?” Crystal asked Amanda.
“Maybe you interrupted his masturbation time,” Amanda suggested.
“Oh, ouch, I thought you liked him,” Crystal said.
“I do, but it’s hard to defend someone who doesn’t even say more than five words to you,” Amanda sounded frustrated.
“Well some men in my life talk too much,” Crystal laughed, thinking of Kaine.
“I think he-” Amanda’s phone clicked. “Hang on,” Amanda said. She clicked over and was back shortly, “Hey Crystal? Austin says, yellow moon monkey in the village or something. Pass it on.”
“I did my damn job; I don’t want to play this game anymore,” Crystal said. “Now what were you-” Crystal’s phone clicked.
It was Kaine, “Where the hell are you!”
“I’m talking to Amanda, hang on,” she clicked back over, “Amanda, its Kaine, I’ll call you back.”
She clicked back over and had enough time to hear Kaine yell something and then the phone got cut off. Years of violence on TV had desensitized Crystal to violence and sapped her curiosity, so she dismissed it and hung up the phone. It rang again. She picked it up and said cheerfully, “Hello?”
“What are you doing, lover?” Daniel purred.
“Daniel, go away, I’m in no mood to talk to you,” Crystal said. “Not until you take back what you said about Al Yankovitch.”
“Look, I’m telling you, the man is Jewish, just accept it…” the phone clicked.
“Wait, hang on,” she clicked over, “Hello?”
“Hey Crystal, what did Kaine have to say?” Amanda sounded serious.
“Oh something about a demon attacking and snow falling on Manhattan, why?” Crystal asked, making a mental note to ask for Caller ID for Hanukah.
“I think there’s something going on in Rice Village, not far from my house. I’m going to check it out. Do me a favor and call Austin so he can come too.” Amanda hung up.
Crystal called Austin immediately after the phone connection with Amanda was over; “Hey Austin, go to Rice Village, Amanda needs your help.”
“Okay,” Austin hung up, so Crystal hung up. Then she remembered Daniel and quickly picked the phone back up.
“Daniel?” she asked, afraid that she had accidentally hung up on him.
“Yes, sweet baby?”
“Oh, good,” Crystal said, “Goodbye.” She hung up on him. Crystal turned around and began heading toward where her kitty was hiding under the bed. “Come here you sweet angel.”
Suddenly, Kaine leapt out of Crystal’s full-sized mirror and tackled her to the ground. “WHERE WERE YOU!” he screamed, his robes swirling and forehead blazing.
“I beg your pardon?” Crystal asked. She suddenly noticed just how light he was for someone who seemed so strong. She also noticed that he was just so cute when he was angry. Just like her kitty!
Kaine hauled her to her feet and created a pool of light before him with his staff. “There’s a demon in Rice Village,” he said, “Let’s go.”
“Oh, why didn’t you say so in the first place?” Crystal asked, stepping into the light. Kaine looked about ready to have a conniption, and the cat knew just how he felt.
Amanda jogged through her neighborhood as fast as she could. She wasn’t much of a runner, but Rice Village wasn’t far. It was a small collection of shops that made neighborhood traffic hell about one and a half miles from Amanda’s house. Pedestrian IQ dropped about a hundred points, so anybody who was on foot was branded as a Village Idiot.
Amanda rounded a corner onto a street that ran right through the center of Rice Village and was immediately confronted by a line of honking cars and hundreds of pedestrians running full-tilt down the street towards her, screaming something unintelligible. Amanda didn’t think the prices had go0ne up in Structure or the Gap, so she assumed that there was in fact a demon in Rice Village. She hopped over one of the low fences of someone’s backyard and began making her way down the street via battlefields of barking dogs and hostile neighbors. This was a lot of action to have on a school night and she hadn’t even done her English homework yet.
Troy Dixon was sitting in the Starbucks of Rice Village, on the side farthest from Amanda’s house. He came to the Village, occasionally, to flirt with all of the preppy girls that went Episcopal High School and avoid doing his Geometry homework.
Troy was completely absorbed in flirting with some cute girls sitting next to the window, when he noticed people running by window outside, screaming in panic. A dark shadow passed by the window as well, sending an odd whistling sound through the air. Troy’s eyes widened and he must have made a face, because one of the girls gave him an affronted look and turned her plastic altered nose in the air.
The shadow passed back in front of the window and reared up, like a large, thick snake. It crashed through the glass and landed on top of the girls with a solid thud. Troy stood up, but the monster had no eyes and seemed not to notice him. It looked like a giant, purple slug as its body scrunched up, drawing its catch out into the street and Troy was left alone in the coffee shop. The man behind the counter ran off screaming into the back room.
Troy waited a moment, finished his coffee, and grabbed his car keys. He would go and fight that slug thing…. Later. …It was busy now. Plastic was hard to digest. Maybe Troy would wait for it to come to him. Or he could go for another cup of coffee while he waited. Or smoke a cigarette. Hell, anything to kill time while he waited for someone else to come and deal with this thing.
Troy wasn’t exactly the hero type.
Amanda finally crossed the main intersection that was the border of Rice Village. The streets were completely deserted and there was almost no sound. Then Amanda heard screaming about two blocks away. The sound stopped after a second, but then she heard the breaking of glass and behind Amanda, a telephone poll suddenly fell over. Amanda leapt away from the live wires of electricity and carefully walked over to observe the poll’s base. It looked as though it had been gnawed at by a massive number of squirrels.
As soon as she made that connection, she heard a little chatter behind her. She turned around to see a single squirrel standing in the middle of the road. It blinked innocently at her. Amanda fried it to a crisp with an energy blast from her palm.
She never trusted anything that was too cute.
Immediately, thousands of other squirrels poured out of the surrounding area, all of them rabid and all of them heading for her.
Austin drove an alternate route to the Village when he realized that all of the other ways were packed with cars. He drove through endless streets of suburbanite homes, when something whisked out of the shadows and right in front of Austin’s car. It smacked painfully against his ordinate brush guard and Austin ran it over.
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“Oh my God,” Austin yelped and he backed his car up, running over it again. When he was as a safe distance away he observed that the creature he had run over was a demon. It had that black sheen all over its body and its red, pupil-less eyes stared madly about.
“Oh,” Austin said, relieved. He put his car in drive and ran over the demon once more. A sudden thought occurred to him and he backed up his car again, thus running over the demon yet again. He got out of the car and picked the shinny object he saw on the ground.
“Cool, a dime,” Austin cooed. He got back in his car and ran over the demon one last time on his way to the Village.
Lying, broken and beaten in the middle of the road, the demon thought to himself before he died, I think the back left tire is a little low.
Amanda had to think fast. The squirrels were closing in and they obviously wouldn’t be dissuaded by a bunch of nuts. Their fur had that black tint that Kaine had explained as a dead give away of demon infection. Their eyes were vivid red, and they had no pupils. The little mouths dripped with a poison that gleamed on their teeth.
Amanda didn’t give the squirrels any ground. She observed the downed power lines and came up with a plan. She backed up ten quick steps and then, relying on luck more than ability, vaulted over the mass of squirrels. In mid-air, Amanda concentrated on the fire hydrant on the corner of the shopping plaza. She used her water ability to burst the cover and spray the rabid squirrels. In addition to being knocked over by the water pressure, the squirrels were electrified when the water reached the power lines. The air became thick with the scent of fried squirrel.
Amanda landed on the curb and observed the en masse death of the squirrels with a look of satisfaction before turning to go deeper into the Village. She rounded a corner and headed toward the Japanimation store she always loved to visit, when a glow of light attracted Amanda’s attention. She squeezed down a narrow alley between buildings and found a crushed cell phone where she had thought she saw the light.
Literally seconds after she thought that, the light returned and something fell on top of Amanda.
“Ow--Kaine!”
“Crystal?”
“Amanda?”
“What are you doing here?”
“What am I doing here? What are you doing here?”
“Frying squirrels, how about you?”
“Get up,” Kaine said.
Crystal stood up and said, “What’s the big idea?”
Kaine touched a finger to his lips and pointed out into the streets. Crystal and Amanda watched the light from the end of the alley disappear and then reappear as something large flowed past it with the grace of a snake slithering across concrete.
“Demons,” he mouthed. Amanda and Crystal glanced at each other, when Kaine suddenly cursed and bent down. “Damn it! Do you know how much these things cost?” Kaine half-yelled, picking up his cell-phone.
From down the opposite end alley, Amanda heard the scrape of claw on concrete. She grabbed Crystal’s arm, Crystal grabbed the hem of Kaine’s robe, and the three of them bolted the other way down the alley and out into the open street. Behind them, a massive, wedge shaped head with many rows of jagged teeth snaked out of the alley and snapped at them. The three fell back and then the snake thing that they had seen before whisked by and bit the wedge headed demon’s head off. Contented with its prize, the snake demon slithered away, leaving Kaine, Crystal, and Amanda to stand in the rapidly increasing pool of foul smelling demon blood.
“Well, there’s something you don’t see every day,” Amanda said, trying to see the silver lining. If there was any to be found in a village crawling with incarnations of hell.
“Eww,” said Crystal, “I’ve got blood all over my new shirt.” She grabbed Kaine’s robes, spat on the hem, and began rubbing at the spot in her clothing.
“It was an ugly shirt anyway,” Kaine said, snatching his precious fabric away from her, “These are dry-clean only, damn it!”
From far away, the sound of another demon howling caught their attention.
“I don’t like this,” Kaine said.
“No shit?” said Amanda, “Let’s get out of the open.”
They crowded into the closest store there was: Victoria’s Secret. Amanda looked at the aisles of colorful silk fabrics that were supposedly underwear, though how anyone could wear that stuff under normal circumstances, Amanda couldn’t begin to fathom. The store was still lighted as though for business hours, but some of the panels of the fluorescent lights were shattered, and a few flickered precariously, casting wavering shadows around the store. Panties and nightgowns were strewn across the floor haphazardly amidst the fragments of broken light panels.
“Must’ve been a sale,” Crystal snorted.
“Oh, you’re funny,” Kaine said, sarcastically. Crystal gave him a hurt look, but Kaine’s attention was focused elsewhere. “How can this be? And so fast…”
“Why would the demons attack each other?” Amanda asked, picking up her foot and detaching some static silk.
“Because the Balance is getting out of hand,” Kaine said. “Even Lord Bob-I mean Robert can’t control them anymore.”
“So you’re saying these things could be running all over the city?” Crystal asked.
“All over the world,” Kaine replied. “If the Balance is not restored then everything will collapse.”
“Marvelous,” Crystal said. “So how do we stop it?”
“To be blunt, we must stop the repeating pattern that you set about,” Kaine said.
Crystal balked and made a face at Kaine. She couldn’t even remember what it was that she had done, and she was only fifteen, why should she be held responsible for the fate of the Universe? Crystal wasn’t even reliable enough to turn in her homework on time.
“I’m sorry,” Kaine said, but not really sounding apologetic at all, “But you set the pattern in motion, only you can undo it.”
“With Astrea,” Crystal muttered, angrily.
“With the help of Astrea,” Kaine corrected. “You must undo what you did.”
“But how does that help us with the demons and rabid squirrels?” Amanda asked.
“If we can prevent the collapse of the Balance, I’m sure we can ice a couple of stray oddities,” Kaine replied.
“But what started it?” Amanda pressed. “Plugging up a dripping faucet doesn’t stop the leak, if you know what I’m saying, so what started all of this, and how do we stop it?”
Kaine’s face turned to stone. Amanda had no way of knowing, but she was treading dangerously close to forbidden knowledge. And Kaine didn’t think an idiot teenager was capable of comprehending it anyway.
“Kill Lord Robert,” Kaine commanded, “The pattern of Chaos will stop after that, and you can pursue questions of theology afterward. If you pass the tenth grade.”
“Oh, that should be easy,” Crystal said sarcastically, and she wasn’t talking about killing Lord Robert.
“Who the hell is Astrea?” Amanda asked instead, trying to get her answer through a back door.
“A person…an entity…a hope,” Kaine said, as though he didn’t really know himself. Clearly he saw through Amanda’s back door logic. He had been around a while, after all.
“I told you before; she’s the woman with the other half of my power,” Crystal said, “My aunt.”
“Luck you,” Amanda said, but inside of her, something was clamoring for recognition, something that demanded she give it a name. Her pulse quickened and her spine had a little chill go up it. Amanda quickly got the feeling under control. It was just a stupid name; how could it affect her like the first rising vibes of PMS?
“Perhaps we should…” Kaine broke off as something stirred in the shadows of the store. From the darkened alcove where the dressing rooms were, something lumbered forward.
“AHMYGDDMPHSCRD!” it said.
“Daniel?” Crystal asked incredulously. Although, to Crystal, it did seem entirely plausible for Daniel to be in a Victoria’s Secret to.
Sure enough, the blonde boy pulled an assortment of bras off of his face, “Crystal?”
“What are you doing here?” Crystal demanded.
Daniel turned bright red and Amanda realized that he was wearing one of those God-awful body stockings, the kind most commonly referred to as body jocks. And on top of that, he had several thongs attached to his body, more than one in the right place, and a cone-cup bra on top of his hair.
“Never mind,” Crystal said, quickly, “I don’t want to hear it.”
“Is it safe to come out,” said a muffled voice from underneath a display table. Kaine poke his head out, a hot pink negligee clinging to his scalp.
Crystal scoffed and turned away in disgust.
“What?” Kaine said, confused as to how he had offended.
Amanda ripped the clothing off his head and handed it to him. Kaine turned bright red and dropped it.
Outside, there was a squealing of tires and an inhuman scream followed by a squishing and crunching noise. Seconds later, a blue Tahoe crashed through the front of the store, screeching to a halt. Kaine, Crystal, Amanda, and Daniel all jumped out of the way. Troy jumped out of his Tahoe and, completely ignoring the fact that he had just taken out a lingerie store and almost killed a few people, came around the front to examine a dent in his car.
“Aaahh! Austin, my car! Look what you’ve done to my baby!”
Amanda heard another car door slam and the sound of crunching glass as someone else entered the ravaged lingerie shop. “What the hell were you doing? This is America, Troy; we drive on the right side of the road!” Amanda heard Austin yell.
“Not when there’s demon on the right side!” Troy shouted back, sounding near tears.
“Run it over! It’s not like it has the right-of-way!”
“In my car? I just had it waxed!” Troy was getting huffy, and Amanda knew he would throw a fit if someone didn’t say something soon.
“Will you two shut up!” Kaine said, coming out from behind a mannequin; Daniel still clung tightly to its bust.
“What’s happening out there?” Crystal asked. Amanda climbed to her feet.
“I just ran me over a demon,” Austin said, sounding like a hunter who had just bagged a twelve-point buck.
“And I just got a call from Sam,” Troy said, instantly forgetting about his precious sports utility vehicle, “There’s a demon in Sam’s Dad’s old office building. Its tearing the place apart and Sam needs some help.
By the way, man, could you do some of that priestly tender loving care? That dent is the size of Kansas.”
Kaine paused, taking it all in. Absently, he waved a hand and Amanda heard a metallic thunk as the dent popped out, flaking off some blue paint.
“Uh, the paint job?” Troy quipped.
Kaine waved again and the paint was restored.
“And maybe a wax while you’re at it, because-”
“Troy,” Amanda cut in, “It’s been a long day.”
“Right, sorry, I forgot Vickers chewed him out again for his paper on the benefits of Chinese water torture as compared to the American legal system,” Troy said, apologetically.
“All right,” Kaine said, “Troy, you, and Amanda go check out Sam’s demon. Austin, Daniel, and Crystal will stay with me. We’ll finish up anymore impurities around here, and you guys get started with the other threat.”
“Sam may ask you to get rid of some other ‘impurities,’” Troy said.
“Beg your pardon?” Kaine asked.
“Oh, well, the office is filled with old Macintoshes and Sam-”
“Troy,” Amanda said again.
“Right, sorry,” Troy said.
Too much had happened in the past hour for them to worry about any damn outdated technology giving Sam nightmares. Amanda and Troy carefully extracted Troy’s Tahoe from the Victoria’s Secret and drove off down a street littered with demon corpses.
“And if you look to your right, you’ll see a wild spawn of Satan. Please keep your hands inside the vehicle at all times and do not feed the incarnations of evil. Thank you for taking the Troy Dixon Tour of Hell and enjoy your trip,” Troy said in his best tour guide voice.
Amanda didn’t laugh. She looked out of the window, watching the sunset in the distance. She shivered.
I’ve got a bad feeling about this, she thought. And it didn’t help when Troy began to play Korn as loud as he could on his CD player with an amp vibrating the seat on which Amanda was sitting.
“Why did you send them off alone?” Crystal asked Kaine, while combing through the streets of the Village. They were looking for any stray demons to knock off or return to normal if they could.
“Because, Amanda needs to reach her maximum potential and she needs to do it now,” Kaine said, sounding a little stressed. “We don’t have any more time to waste. If this gets any farther out of hand, then we’re really screwed.”
“What does that have to do with Amanda?” Crystal asked, helping Kaine shine light into the darkest corners, where little demons liked to hide.
“She has the Crystal Sword,” Kaine said, pining a fuzzy demon with the end of his staff. It would have been cute accept for the dripping, poisonous fangs. Crystal used her scepter to shine light on the demon like a flashlight. The dark sheen dissipated and soon a tiny squirrel was free to run out into open streets and have chicken fights with cars once more.
The turned a corner and confronted the massive snake demon who was bloated form its numerous catches. It was fairly easy to deal with since it was too swollen to attack. Unfortunately, Kaine said the evil was too contaminated, and they had to settle for killing it instead and dissolving the body with light.
Kaine’s indigo eyes shone bright with anxiety and exhaustion, “If Amanda can just call the Sword forth, then we will have Astrea. Astrea will have to appear to get the Sword, once it’s out in the open. Then we can defeat Lord Robert and we won’t have to worry about the world collapsing or starting over ever again.”
“Whooptie-doo,” Crystal said. Then she winced, because she realized that Kaine had dealt with this many times before and he had a lot more at stake than Crystal. But she still didn’t think his desperation constituted gambling with another person’s life. “What does that have to do with sending Amanda off to fight a big demon alone?”
“If she reaches her limit, then she will have to call the Sword,” Kaine said, looking left and right down a street before deciding to cross it towards a parking complex.
“So in other words, if she comes close enough to dying, we’ll have the Sword?” Crystal asked in an accusing voice.
“Not exactly,” Kaine said, cutting through some shrubs on his way to the multilevel hostel for demons.
“What then?” Crystal asked. At first Kaine said nothing, while they entered the dark parking complex. “Kaine, answer me,” she demanded.
Kaine hesitated, “If we get the Sword, I’m almost certain Amanda dies in the process.”
Crystal stopped dead in her tracks. The word was wrenched from deep inside her gut, “NO!”
Kaine turned to face her, pleading for her rationale with his eyes.
“Why? Why would she die? She’s good in a fight,” Crystal babbled, completely in denial.
“She will face Lord Robert,” Kaine said. “Not just some demon from the backwaters of hell. And the fact that the Curse of Astrea follows the Crystal Sword…the only way she would survive is if she were Astrea’s offspring. I don’t see how that’s possible,” Kaine said, his eyes turning to stone.
“Maybe she is,” Crystal said, ever in denial.
“I would have known,” Kaine said, turning away from her.
“Maybe she is and she’s hiding it from us,” Crystal insisted, trailing after him.
“And how do you propose she would do that? The girl can barely remember which way is right and left half of the time,” Kaine snapped irritably. He didn’t want to be having this fight now.
“So she’s dyslexic, so what?” Crystal snapped back. “She’s not expendable.”
“We need that sword. We need the power that Astrea has hidden in Amanda’s body,” Kaine said, unyielding to Crystal’s pleas.
“You need!” Crystal yelled. Her voice echoed off of the hollow walls and sent a pack of demons that had been approaching running in fear of the angry adolescent.
Kaine blinked at her, completely indifferent.
“You have no right to send her to her death like that! You can’t; I won’t let you!” Crystal shouted.
“Let me do what?” Kaine asked. “Destiny plays out as it will, I am not a master of Fate, princess.”
“Fuck fate and screw destiny,” Crystal said, spinning around and walking out of the parking complex. “And stop calling me princess!”
Kaine turned to watch her leave. “You cannot walk out on your destiny, Crystal.”
“Watch me,” said Crystal.