What have I done this time? Kaine watched helplessly with his supernaturally increased awareness as Amanda drew nearer and nearer to confronting Lord Robert. He’d done the only thing he could with the time allotted, but the truth was, Kaine wouldn’t be surprised if Amanda died and Crystal renounced her destiny. Teenagers could be so capricious and just plain moody. Another fear was that Crystal would die trying to save Amanda and the others, but that would be the same as if she gave up the fight.
Kaine fought the urge to shift his attention to his own anguish about fighting with Crystal. What mattered now was who survived this conflict. And Kaine knew it was going to be an intense one. Astrea herself might even show up, if she really was still alive. That was why Kaine had tried to prevent Crystal from joining the fray. There was no telling what Astrea’s reaction to her niece would be. He remembered how adamant she had been about the mere concept of a niece or nephew. Astrea might even go far enough to kill the girl, if she got in the way.
She would certainly kill Lord Robert if given the chance. That was one of the unknown factors. Astrea may have been powerful enough to kill Lord Robert back when the rebellion rose to overthrow the dynasty, but now…Kaine was not so sure. Power was eternal, but a fractured Power? Did that survive the test of time? And Astrea certainly wasn’t the most stable of all people even at full Power, but…neither were a bunch of hormone bearing adolescence. And they seemed to be getting along just fine.
Crystal stared up at the foreboding building. Well, maybe in daylight, it wouldn’t have seemed foreboding, but Austin had gotten stuck in five o’clock traffic and the nights came early in October. And for a city that was reputed to be one of the warmest in the world, it was pretty damn cold, right now. Crystal folded her arms across her chest as her teeth chattered.
“Well,” she said, “Let’s go in.”
“What?” Austin asked, “That’s crazy.”
“Wmmrringthrr,” Daniel said, his voice muffled by the bust of the mannequin.
“I told you, we’re not speaking to you until you let go of the mannequin,” Crystal said.
Daniel jerked his head up, “I’d love to Crystal, darling, but my fingers have frozen together and I can’t pry them loose.”
Crystal came around to the back of the mannequin and studied Daniel’s tightly clasped fingers. They had turned purple from a lack of blood and tiny ice crystals lined the edges.
“Ice?” Crystal asked.
“Whatever we’re going to do, we’d better do it soon,” Austin said, pointing at the building.
Crystal followed his gaze and was alarmed to see the building becoming encased with icicles on the outside. Feather patterns of frost crept across the windows and doors and the stone surfaces began to glisten with frozen moisture. The wind picked up outside just then and Crystal caught the sense of discord coming off the iced building. A heavier, thicker coating of ice began to creep down from the top of the building, covering air vents, windows and anything else that led to the outside. In a few minutes, there might not even be a door to go through.
“Hurry,” Crystal said, and began to make her way up the stairs leading to the main doors. Austin tried to follow, but slipped on the ice. Daniel could make the mannequin hop, but that did little good to prevent him from slipping on the ice, too.
Crystal watched the two men a minute longer and then sighed. She focused all her energy on a space between her hands and pictured her black scepter sliding into her hands. A second later she felt its solid weight and cool onyx finish. She tapped the scepter on the ice and immediately, a sizzling noise like electricity hissed at Crystal and nothing but a pool of water was left where Crystal had been tapping.
Experimentally she pointed the scepter at a patch of ice forming on a window. She tried to picture a beam of light coming from the end of her scepter and burning away the ice. At first, nothing happened, but when Crystal closed her eyes, she felt the cool scepter grow warm and tingle slightly in her grasp. Something tickled the edge of her mind.
This scepter had its own power and its own kind of will, so Crystal would have to ask, not use. She listened to the soft song of her scepter inside her head. Really, it wasn’t anything she could hear rather a silent form of communication. The scepter showed her different ways it could be used and Crystal decided on the only option available; tap the ice with the scepter. She was a little disappointed that she couldn’t just point a shoot, but she realized that neither her, nor the scepter was that powerful. Yet.
Crystal tapped the scepter on the ice of the steps. Instantly, the sizzling noise again and some vapor peeled away, leaving nothing but water in its wake. So while that did stop Austin and Daniel from slipping and sliding it didn’t stop them from falling.
“Thanks,” Austin growled, “Now I’m sore and wet, instead of sore and cold.”
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“Either way, dear, you’re humiliated,” Crystal said.
“And that’s good enough for me!” Daniel yelled before Austin tripped his mannequin in the water. His fingers released their death grip and he fell hard on his backside.
“Hey, man, don’t be trippin’ on my mannequin!”
“I’ll be trippin’ on your head in a minute….”
“Quiet, I hear something!” Crystal said. She pressed her ear to the main doors, which were sliding glass. The ice that had formed on the inside made it impossible to see through to the first floor and Crystal was sure that the doors were broken, because the sensors would’ve picked her up by now. The glass was so cold that Crystal wasn’t sure why it hadn't cracked. Inside, she heard a few muffled thumps and the sound of rushing water.
“Stand aside, woman,” Austin said, shoving her out of the way. He cracked his knuckles with great ceremony and set his hands against the glass. “OPEN CARAWAY!”
There was a long pause.
“Its ‘Opens Sesame’ and I don’t think that’s going to work,” Crystal said tapping her foot impatiently on the ground.
“Allow me,” Daniel said, stepping up to the doors. He sucked a tremendous amount of air into his skinny lungs and puffed very gently on the seam between the sliding glass plates.
Nothing happened.
Crystal sighed and rolled her eyes. They were going to wind up breaking the glass, anyway. Why not get it over with now? She raised her scepter to the glass, intent on using it like a club. Austin grabbed her arm, “What do you think you’re doing? Do you want to let all of the demons know we’re here?”
“We must use the element of surprise,” Daniel said as distinguished as he could manage.
“Thank you, Sherlock Holmes,” Crystal said, “Look, there’s no other way. Every second we waste-”
“I don’t want to face an army of demons right when we walk in-”
“We need to get in, now, I don’t think-”
“That’s the problem; you don’t think, you-”
“Don’t tell me what to do-”
“Uh, guys?” Daniel said.
“Be quiet, woman, leave this to the people who know what they’re doing.”
“You mean the men who couldn’t make it to the door.”
“Listen, if women were all-powerful, you’d think they’d be running the show. Am I right?”
“We do run the show,”
“You run the home-”
“Guys?”
“Oh, that tears it!”
“Shouldn’t you be baking something right about now!”
“Guys!”
“Ow! Ow! Hey, no fair! You can’t use that scepter thingy!”
“Watch me, you chauvinist pig!”
“Sorry guys, hope you can swim,” Daniel said, leaping away from the doors as they shattered.
Massive amounts of water spilled out, like waves, washing the combatants back down the steps and out into the parking lot. Out with the water, spilled many broken husks of what had once been little ice demons, but the water melted them and made them dissipate. The ones that still had enough of their body left to move were in no condition to fight. Standing in their wake was a very soaked, very angry Troy.
“I-want-a-cigarette,” He said, very slowly.
Crystal sat up, dripping from head to toe. Austin did the same. Daniel climbed out from his hiding place behind a bush and walked up to Troy.
“That certainly was a flushing entrance,” said Daniel.
Troy slowly turned his head a full ninety degrees to face Daniel.
Daniel, not knowing when he had gone too far said, “You know, Troy, it is customary to wave, when saying hello.”
Crystal could feel the intense dislike radiating off of Troy.
“I hope that’s not your tidal wave,”
Now, he had gone too far. Troy gripped Daniel’s tiny throat and jerked him off the ground, with one hand.
“I WANT A CIGARETTE,” Troy said in such a tone that Crystal waited for his head to spin around a pea soup to fly out.
“He’ll kill him!” Austin yelled, running at Troy. “THE POWER OF CHRIST COMPELS YOU!” he screamed, form tackling Troy. Inside the building, there was still ice on the floor, so with Austin clutching Troy, and Troy holding on to Daniel, the three boys went sliding into the darkened building.
“Men,” Crystal said. She trotted into the building behind them, knowing that if she didn’t find Amanda soon, they were going to get her killed or she would kill one of them. It would probably be the latter.
The demons came at her in packs that ranged from three to ten, in all different shapes and sizes. Some were fast and ripped tiny rivulets in her skin, others were large and swung their limbs like clubs. All were there to prevent Amanda from ascending one flight of stairs after another, but Amanda slowly pushed through them. Occasionally they fell back, retreating to upper flights of stairs and Amanda was able to ascend to the next flight. They always came back, though, in greater numbers.
It was during one of these pauses that Amanda came out of the mindless haze that spread over her as she fought. She began to feel the pains from her wounds; demon blood squelched between her fingers as her senses pushed back the fog on her brain. Blood dripped down her face and into her eyes. She stopped; tried to wipe the blood away with the sleeve of the big sweater she’d been wearing, only to realize that the sweater had more blood on it than on her face. She sighed, pulled the sweater off, and studied its shredded and soiled material. A little bit of blood had seeped through the cotton and smeared onto her school polo that she’d had on since six O’clock that morning.
A week ago, these things would’ve killed her. A month ago she never would’ve dreamed that she could fight so many. She had always known that her secret powers could defend her, but not… slaughter the things. Amanda had never considered herself a violent person, but when she go going with her quest to get to the top floor, the haze settled over and Amanda felt like it was someone else doing the killing while she just sat back and watched. The fact that Amanda seemed to have no control over he actions rattled her; the fact that killing demons en masse made no difference worried her. And the fact that she felt like someone else terrified her.
The original plan of stopping to search each floor did not exist, nor did the presence of Troy on the lower floors or the idea that she had come here to save Sam. Again, the presence of something bigger and greater than her body could hold came to her, driving Amanda to reach the top floor. She didn’t know what she’d find up there; she just had to get there. So she’d pushed on, not even glancing at the exit signs on every other landing. The top floor was all that mattered. Even when the ice formed and each step yielded the threat of slipping, Amanda had kept climbing the stairs to the top floor. Something was waiting for her up there, something that called to her and needed to be answered.