The first time she had ever been defeated stung deeply. Losing such a challenging match where she had put her all into it shot rays of darkness into her psyche that the terror incubus could only have dreamt of. Nadia pushed her hair back not only to get air through it, but to prevent herself from fainting. She was ready to cry, but hid it well. A red overheated face and the sweat dripping from her brow hid any tears. Her lip quivered.
“I actually lost!”
“Nadia, right? I suspected you were trying to fool me into complacency, so I decided not to hold back. It’s a good thing I didn’t, you were a superb challenge. I really enjoyed that match, too bad your stamina couldn’t hold. You should practice more, maybe some cardio. Don’t forget our little agreement. See you next week.”
Dew jumped from the bleachers. He wore Nathan’s clothes predating the change, so he didn’t look as strange as he could have. Though he had jumped down unexpectedly from the top bench. He wasted no time in pointing out Darrell.
“Now you will face me.”
“How about next week? I’m tired.”
Dew snatched Nadia’s sword, “Face me, or perish.”
“Do you know this guy?” asked Jody.
Nadia hesitated to answer.
“Relax dude, is she your girlfriend?” Darrell asked.
“I am not!” Nadia yelled.
“I’m going to marry her.”
“Don’t listen, he’s delusional!”
“We have to make this quick,” Darrell said. “To win you have to score a hit in fifteen minutes. If you don’t, I win, I also win if I hit you within the allotted time.”
“Fair enough.”
Once the formalities were over, Dew burst forward with unprecedented speed, knocked Darrell’s sword to the side and scored a hit dead center in the chest. Darrell stepped back in shock.
“You’re deadly! Fine, but your fiancée still has to honor her bet,” Darrell hastily gathered his equipment, “You’re something, A real S class if I ever saw one. I have to step up my game. I never knew there were so many ace fencers in this town. You must be that girl’s trainer I take it?”
“I am her future husband, you’d do well to Remember my name, Dew Nenkyo.”
Nadia fainted. Jody ran forward, but to her astonishment, Dew already caught her and carried her outside to her father’s station wagon. So, this boy didn’t hesitate to hold her like that and he already knew the family? The sound of clashing fencing equipment echoed throughout the gymnasium. Jody glanced back at Darrell as he cleaned up in a certain type of way.
Dew slid in the back after placing Nadia down gently where he could sit next to her. The car pulled away with unrelenting speed. It was on the road before Jody could even close the doors of the gym. She couldn’t wait to tell her friends, though she knew they would never believe it at first. Her father’s car waited in the parking lot as the last vestige of a sinking sun faded below the horizon. All became dark except the stars and the headlights of a few vehicles. She’d apologize to her father for the delay as she hopped in the front passenger seat.
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While they were pulling away, she saw Darrell drop his fencing bag and kick the door shut before he finally locked it.
-----
A leather jacket hung over Josh’s back as he walked along the side of the highway. The summer air buzzed with life. Dragonflies darted past. A bright sun made the temperature cozy, but Josh’s spirits suffered the midst of a deep winter.
He had lost his color. An earthquake rumbled inside him; it made him unsteady. His hands shook. His vision blurred. He kept telling himself to pull it together, that there was nothing wrong, that he should go forward. A feeling that he was losing a battle for his soul kept wrenching his gut. He couldn’t calm down because he was afraid of the chill in his chest.
Icy vibrations spread through his spine until his head felt dark enough to torture him when he tried to suppress his thoughts. At times, a minor paralysis of the arms and legs left him kneeling in frustration. When it overcame him, he pounded the asphalt. A power welling inside of him coiled through his arm; it twisted his flesh before cutting loose with one of his punches to the detriment of the street. Asphalt crumbled and sank into a large pothole. As he stared at his bloody knuckles, he found the strength to stand again, though rather weakly.
Finally, he put out his thumb in another attempt at gaining a ride.
An old sedan stripped of its paint pulled to the side of the road. An unshaven man in a yellow shirt that had once been white, though probably many years ago, drove the vehicle. He wore oversized sun glasses with lenses so dust coated that only by divine miracles could any light pass through them. They served to cover bloodshot eyes. A scented board shaped vaguely similar to maple leaves hung from a broken rearview mirror.
A layer of trash inside the vehicle could have been classified as geological strata. Among the most interesting were the ice tea bottles with dead yellow jackets trapped inside. There were small twirled rolls of burnt paper in an open ash tray. The driver mixed the ashes with his finger for entertainment when he wasn’t poking the holes in the upholstery. He drove with one hand on the faded steering wheel in consequence.
The vehicle reeked of smoke; its driver smelt like bad meat, and the two strong odors mixed in complimentary putrefaction. Josh took the ride only because the vehicle was going his way and the driver would have him; unfortunately, they didn’t get much further than few kilometers when Josh doubled over and pounded the dashboard.
His fist smashed through the glove compartment. Fragments of faded plastic scattered across the seat as Josh screamed. The driver’s jaw dropped and his face quivered as liquid energy streamed forth all at once from Josh’s eyes, ears, nostrils, and mouth; it formed an aura over his body that grew. The driver’s face turned white as his foot hit the brake.
The little sedan burnt its tires as it swerved at a ninety-degree angle in the middle of the road with a screech.
“Dude! Hey dude! You gotta chill now!”
A cylinder of dark energy swirling with velvet hate shot skyward through the vehicle’s roof and downward through its floorboards. Its thickness exploded with equal violence, swallowing the little sedan, and pushing a clump of displaced paving as it grew large enough to block the entire width of the road and high enough to attain the height of a four-story building. Two sets of fingers with long black nails sharpened into points separated the energy pillar’s wall.
A coal demon of immense proportion struggled to free itself. Sharp ivory claws grew in place of the nails as the incubus extended its muscular fingers with a renewed effort to pry itself from the swirling pillar of red and black energy. A gray mane ran the entire length of its back. Its eyes were filled with the velvet hate that swirled much like the energy entrapping it.
Its formidable jaws held gray fangs. As it pushed the wall of energy open further it revealed its abdomen, which featured a cross shaped scar. The deep scar burned like heated steel. The right foot burst forward; it crushed the asphalt and clawed the road. The demon almost tore free when a faint scream heard from inside the cylinder halted its progress. A roar shook the earth, but the cylinder still sucked the demon back. When the last tip of its claw was inside, the cylinder shrunk into the crater and reverted to a liquid form which flowed back into Josh. His only cushion against the jagged, hewn, terrain was an unrecognizable lump of smoldering leather that used to be his jacket.
Josh awoke minutes later to the sounds of sirens and limped into the forest for refuge. The remaining leg of his pants was burnt. Nothing remained of his shirt except for a neck band, a single sleeve, and a few long strands of fabric too stubborn to burn away. He crept through the forest in one sneaker; his other foot bare.