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Miss Emily put the pedal to the metal and zoomed down a nearly empty highway in her van. She would bob and weave around any stationary cars still in the road and continue her race toward our objective. She joked about being a reckless driver, but I’m starting to think that wasn’t a fib. Despite my worry for our lives, she seemed to know what she was doing.

"So, your friend Yamin was hired by an actor?" Emily asked, keeping her eyes on the road.

"Yeah! Well, no… More like kidnapped," I answered from a booster seat in the back. "His name was literally The Actor, and he had a funny theater mask that changed with his emotions. He was working for an evil organization that wants to blot out the sun!"

"Do tell," Emily said with a nod. "And he took her to Verrenville. Why?"

"We know that a demon is there, and we think they’re in cahoots with each other."

“Are you sure there’s a demon there?” Emily asked.

“Just look at that storm,” Indena, who was sitting to my right, commented.

The storm clouds that were rising in the south had gotten much bigger and covered the whole sky. We were well under them by this point. We could see a funnel cloud churning not far away. Verrenville was at the center of it.

“I thought that was just a bad autumn storm,” she commented. “But you’re saying this has something to do with demons?”

“Yeah!” I nodded. “A bad one too. I think his name is Belphegor or something.”

Her finger was tapping against the wheel, and she looked really frustrated.

“How many more people know about this?”

That was a good question. The demon storm was really big, hard to miss from a distance, but it didn’t seem like anyone really cared. They were all just sleeping. The best thing we’d gotten was her taking notice after we told her about it.

“Not many besides us, I think,” I replied. “The Army almost didn’t care either, since they were all sleeping on the job.”

“Yalda…” Uncle scowled at me from the front passenger seat.

What did I do? Why was he upset at me?

“It’s alright, handsome,” Miss Emily assured. “Her father is paying me, so I’m more in the know than you think.”

“Now, why would Master Asamo choose you of all people?”

“I guess I’m just special,” she smirked. “I’m not going to screw you guys over, if that’s what you're worried about. This job’s got some good money in it. And maybe I don’t like demons either. You don’t have to trust me, but at least let me work for you.”

“Wouldn't that require trust?” Uncle asked.

“Guess so,” she replied.

Miss Emily definitely had secrets, but she was trustworthy enough to help us out. I trusted her if dad did too.

“Trust her or not,” Indena started, “she’s driving us into Hell. The least we can do is say thank you.”

“I don’t want to go to Hell,” Marek whined from the seat to my left, longingly looking out his side window. “I already work in the capital…”

“Too bad,” Indena barked. “You know the song. Drop feet first into Hell before you get to see Heaven...or something like that.”

What song goes like that? It sounds very terrifying…

~☆☆☆~

We weren’t very far from Verrenville now, coming right under the big eye of the storm. Light snow started falling all around the van. further down we could see a blizzard blanketing the land.

Something just as odd was happening on the highway here too. Any normal traffic that would have been in our way was already pulled over, leaving a very long stretch of empty road.

These cars weren’t abandoned. There were people sleeping in them. That was freaky.

"That’s not a good place to sleep," I said, at least thankful that they were mostly pulled over.

“How long have they been here for?” Marek asked.

“No doubt they’re being affected by the demon's power,” Uncle said.

With how cold it was getting, those people wouldn’t last long in a car. I was still detecting vital signs, but I worried that wouldn’t be for much longer.

“Uncle, we have to help them,” I said, rubbing his shoulder.

He had some bad news, because we didn’t intend to save them right now. He said we had to leave the people like this. If we stopped to help them all, it would take forever.

“No!” I kicked both the front seats. “They’ll freeze out here!”

“Stop kicking,” Uncle ordered me. “I understand that we need to help them, but using our energy to stop the demon would save everyone, not just a few drivers on the side of the road.”

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He was making me so mad! I had to help every human, and letting these people slide felt like I was neglecting my duties as a hero angel.

I unbuckled my seat belt, then tried to climb over Indena to get out the door.

“Yalda, sit back down!” Uncle yelled.

“Yeah!” Indena tried to push me back into my booster seat. “You’re stepping on me, Shrimp!

If I didn’t get out of this car, those people might freeze to death.

“My Commandments won’t let me leave them.”

“I understand,” Uncle began to reason. “I feel that way too. But we need to look at the bigger threat.”

Guys…” Emily tried to get our attention, but we were too busy bickering.

“How can I look at the bigger threat and ignore the smaller ones? They’ll add up, you know?”

“Guys!” Emily shouted, pointing out toward the frightening silhouette of some massive fortress-like castle. “We're here.”

“That’s not a town, that’s a castle!” I commented.

It was huge! The spooky castle sat at the top of a big hill and stood as the tallest thing in the area. It had one really tall tower at its center with many smaller towers scattered around it.

A long stone brick wall surrounded the perimeter of the castle. It had to have been at least ten meters high, and that was just the first layer. It looked like there was an even taller wall behind it.

“So this is what happened when we left…” Marek uttered.

No doubt this was the demons doing. He must have changed the entire place to look like this. I can’t even imagine what kind of power went into literally warping a human town into a demon fortress. We’d need to be ready for any threats it could throw at us.

Judging by Emily’s face, she was just as rightfully dumbfounded as we were. She stopped the car to pull out a tiny camera.

"They'll want to hear about this…" she breathed to herself, snapping a few pictures of the fortress wall.

We needed to find a way past those walls, but they had to have stretched for a few kilometers. It took time, but we did find a big door that looked promising.

We couldn’t trust that there would be a safe place to park the car near the first layer of wall, so we parked a bit off the road and approached with caution.

“You’re coming too?” Uncle asked Emily.

“You want me to stay in a car by myself with this stuff going on?” She shook her head, showing a hint of fear in her eyes. “Besides, a gal like me might want to stay with a big man like you, eh?” She sounded sarcastic and flirty at the same time.

But she had a good point. Staying behind might be trouble. I didn’t want to leave those other people in their cars, but…we did need to get inside this fortress before things got worse.

“I guess the first people to go in horror movies are the ones who stay behind,” I said.

Uncle gave me a stink eye.

“N-not that I watch those movies!”

“Good save, Shrimp…” Indena facepalmed.

Truth is, I did experience a few horror movies and games when Uncle wasn’t around. I’m glad I did, because the stuff I learned might actually be important to surviving a land of evil.

As we walked right up to the front gates of the wall, I detected movement on the other side. With the interference from the demon fog of war that the snow fall created, I couldn’t gauge how many enemies were there.

“I’ve got movement,” I plainly said.

The movement stopped, as if suddenly realizing we were aware of it. Then it scattered away like roaches.

That was weird, but it meant we'd have company once we got in.

I spawned the Spear of Destiny, then held it at the ready. I would have put on my Nazalian Battle Armour, but it was in bad shape since I fired the mana cannon. I just equipped my Eighth Star Battle Dress instead.

"Shrimp's got the right idea." Indena’s fists lit up with fire. "Let’s be ready for a fight."

Uncle spawned his longsword.

Miss Emily pulled out a small hidden pistol from under her jacket. I was a little surprised she had a gun, especially since she seemed to be clinging close to Uncle for safety.

"A girl's got to be prepared," she said to me, noticing my funny looks. "It's not nearly as strange as a little girl materializing a spear out of thin air. Trust me."

Point taken.

And finally, Marek drew up the pistol we found in the shipwreck. Now everyone was armed with something.

The road led right up to the front gates, and there was a small glass box with a person sitting inside of it. He looked like he was sleeping.

When we tried to interact with him, he didn’t budge.

“This is the guard who usually sits at the south entrance,” Marek deduced.

He wasn’t doing a good job watching the front gates. Indena swiped his key card and used it to unlock the big doors of the wall without as much as a peep from him.

Two large wooden doors began to part, revealing an inner path between the big walls.

"Hey, handsome," Emily said to Uncle, "this has ‘ambush’ written all over it."

"My thoughts exactly."

They’d probably try to funnel us in and hit us from above. That’s an easy strategy to bottleneck invaders.

While cautiously entering, we all kept our eyes peeled on the walls above, staying right in the middle.

“Uncle, wouldn’t it be safer to stick to one side? Then the enemy wouldn’t be able to attack from both.”

“Do you see those slots under the crenels?” He pointed to openings under the wall battlement. “If we walk under them, they’ll likely drop hot liquid on us.”

That sounded like a good point…we stuck to the middle.

Indena eyes darted to movement above. She lit up a fire ball and threw it in that direction.

BOOM!

"Reee!"

She hit something! Or, someone?

A burning crossbow fell from the wall battlement.

"Everyone, to me!" Uncle shouted.

*Dawwweee!*

He summoned a bubble shield around us!

Tink tink tink!

Splash!

Arrow like bolts and hot oil pelted down like rain! The bubble shield held strong against the assault, but we were stuck in here.

"Quick thinking…but how are we getting out of this?" Emily asked.

"I can't move while this large shield is up," Uncle said. “So my options are a bit limited.”

"I got an idea," Indena said, kneeling down and placing her hands on the dirt. "I've been dying to burn stuff up."

Her tattoos lit up bright. A pulse of light energy radiated down from her arm and into the ground. The pulse of orange light traveled across the ground and up the walls. Tiny embers were left in its wake.

Fwoosh!

Flame walls erupted across the battlement, causing lots of sudden growls and screams!

"That’ll hold them for a few seconds!" Indena announced.

"Yalda, locate an exit!" Uncle shouted.

My map said we were close to the exit of the wall path. A short sprint would get us there.

Uncle powered down the bubble shield and we all ran quickly.

The opening was right there! But a bolt was heading right at Emily!

TINK!

Uncle batted the projectile away! Good hit!

“I hope you don't mind if I save the swooning for later!” Emily said as she laid down suppressive fire with her gun.

Marek also gave us some cover fire as we entered a big open farmland.

We were home free! Just to be safe, we got as far from those walls as possible, taking cover in a broken down barn.

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