43 Chapter 42 ∞ Troubled

I looked ahead and found that, as the flames continued burning, Veils shrouded the sky as though they were just gathering around the bonfire. There really was no concrete way to describe them except that they were formless, nearly transparent shadows. Until now, I could not even begin to imagine where they came from. They didn't dare hover too near the flames, but whenever one would stray far too close, it would get singed and immediately flee.

They were averse to fire but wasn't as vulnerable as one would expect them to be. These things—just what were they after? Why had so many of them appeared all of a sudden?

"What is it, Evyionne?" Kora inquired.

As Kora coaxed an answer from me, a series of commotion erupted from inside the House. I looked over his shoulder to see, just in time, a huge hole being made on the wall. Someone just came crashing through. Kora picked me up in a hurry and backed away, watching with wide eyes as Mistress Veronika rolled so roughly on the ground she was practically bouncing.

"Koreva nul!" she cursed in Ovanol. She hurriedly picked herself up, brushing away the splinters that stuck on the thin fabric of her nightgown. A whip made of lightning appeared from her fingers, snapping at the ground as she lashed it across. It crackled sharply, hitting the grass and leaving it singed as it came singing with a clack of thunder.

She caught Kora and me looking at her in confusion. "Go and take the girl away, Kora. Someone's entered Oblivion," she said.

Her eyes lifted to the top of the roof. Several human shadows clad similarly in black appeared, crouched on top of the House like tigers eyeing their prey. There were several of them. Probably three.

One more guy came out from the hole Mistress Veronika made just now.

"Or some people," she corrected herself with a sneer.

"So it wasn't only one guy?" I intoned softly. I saw the fleet of Veils hovering around each one of these men and grew more shocked the more I stared.

"Evy?" Kora looked down to meet my eyes. "What do you mean?"

I rediverted my gaze to the blown up shed and he immediately understood what I meant. He probably just couldn't imagine what happened just now. Even I still had a bit of trouble believing it myself.

"Come on," he said and placed an arm under my knees effortlessly.

"Mistress Veronika," I protested, gazing at the woman worriedly.

"Go," she said. "I'll handle this here. Wake up the others."

"Where are we going?" I asked, turning to Kora.

"Where it's safe," he told me. "The security around the House have most definitely been compromised."

"Why are they here?"

"For no good," he replied. I watched as Mistress Veronika engaged in battle with the ninja assassins. "Did you see the face of one of theirs, Evy?" he asked.

"No." I shook my head in reply. "But there was this one guy whose eyes looked very strange. Almost not human, really."

"Almost not human," he repeated.

There was only terse silence between us after that. I could feel Kora's heart beating wildly as he rushed through Oblivion's halls. Along the way, Maun had come out and was groggily making his way towards us. Seeing our haste, the silver-haired boy halted and gazed at us with confusion. Kora wordlessly grabbed him by the hand and dragged him with us in a rush. We then stopped by Erenol's door. Kora set me down and burst through without even bothering to knock.

Erenol was burrowed deep under her thick blankets. Kora pulled it all away and was immediately received with a disgruntled face. I walked over hurriedly and slapped her leg. "Get up quickly, dummy."

"What's wrong?"

"Some guys just broke into Oblivion."

My declaration seemed to have buzzed her out of sleep. Her eyes seemed to almost want to close, but she still sat up in alert. "It wasn't Mistress Marga's experiments again?" she asked.

"No. Now hurry," I said, dragging her out of the bed.

"Evy?!" I heard my mother's holler. Her voice was fraught with anxiety and fear. "Evy, where are you?"

"Mama!" I hollered back.

I heard thudding footsteps. We rushed out of Erenol's bedroom to greet my adopted mother. Unexpectedly, however, it wasn't she who came. A guy wielding a pair of hand scythes chained together by the handles rounded the corner, making the four of us back away in shock. Kora pulled all of us behind him. His hazel brown eyes met the reptilian ones of the man across of us and narrowed with disbelief.

"What is this?" he muttered.

The man crossed the hall slowly, the chains on his blade clacking against his clothes. We all backpedaled, regarding the newcomer with horror.

"Dragon's mercy," Kora said. He then herded us away and we all broke into a sprint. As expected, the man wielding the hand scythes began to a run as well, chasing after us. Erenol began screaming in fear while I gritted my teeth and focused on pumping my legs. Maun nearly tripped over his own feet, but he managed to keep himself up with the help of Kora steadying him.

We navigated the halls but was eventually met with a dead end. No matter how wide the House was, it ultimately had limited space. Kora hesitated for a moment but he eventually opened the last door to our right and shoved us inside. He then locked the door, shoved a chair under the knob and backed away to the farthest corner with all of us in his arms.

It was the storage room where all the unused stuff and furniture went. Even my old baby crib was here too.

Nevertheless, he knew this wouldn't be enough to defend us. He went to the chair, kicked it down, broke off its leg, and held up the piece like he would a baseball bat.

As expected, the door began to be bombarded by assaults. The hand scythe of his came crashing through the wood, tearing it apart and reducing it to splinters. The chair that was pushed under was kicked back and the door literally flew off its hinges. Erenol clung tight to me in fear as Maun gripped my other arm tightly, making me wince.

"You two!" I exclaimed, shaking them off lightly. "You're going to end up killing me first before that guy does!"

The tight grips on me loosened a little.

"S-sorry…" Erenol trailed off as she sniffed.

Kora prepared to meet the guy head on, but it was obvious his measly improvised weapon would not be able to stand up to those scythes. At this rate, it was akin to putting one's head under the blade willingly.

I saw the Veils hanging around the man feel excited as he brandished his weapon—as though they knew someone's blood would spill tonight. I looked over to Kora, swallowing heavily as I became fraught with worry.

"You can compel them, you know," I heard a voice say by my ear.

I turned slightly to the side, recognizing who it was that said it.

"You know how."

"How?" I muttered.

"Sing."

Dafuq. This wasn't some Disney movie where confrontations with the enemy turn the scene into a freaking musical performance! If I had to do this every freaking time I had to fight, I would die.

Then again, I would also die if I didn't.

Speaking of death, what would happen to me if I died? I recall Amber saying something along me already dead.

Just as I made up my resolve to finally open my mouth, the ninja guy dove in for the kill. He swung one scythe at Kora and easily sliced apart the broken foot of the chair. Kora, on the other hand, evaded the next swing and hauled the rest of the chair he'd broken earlier at the man.

"You think I care if you broke the foot? Fine. Just have a go at the whole thing!"

Nevertheless, it was still futile. The man easily cut through the whole chair as well, leaving Kora with two big chunks. Nevertheless, Kora wasn't quite the man to give up as well. He used that moment when the intruder was blinded to get a kick in, foot pumping on the stomach of the enemy squarely and shoving him back and out the entryway.

He smashed against the hallway wall. Just as the ninja guy tried to get back up and resume the assault, a steel rack came smashing at his skull. I saw my mother bravely swinging the pole with every strength she could muster. He was stunned for a few moments, but it didn't work in the end and it was the pole that ended up suffering instead—bent out of shape, almost taking on the silhouette of his head.

My mother backed away in horror as the man raised the scythe with an intent to kill. My mouth dropped to let out a scream.

Just as the blade lashed forward, someone else came into the scene. What looked like gold cloth caught the blade. A part of me expected it would deter the weapon for a bit before it was sliced through, but there was none of that at all. Instead, that forward swinging motion was manipulated and redirected to another direction, the golden cloth twisting neatly around the head of the scythe as a figure gracefully weaved under the man's arms. I saw, to my surprise, Mistress Neilly stringing the smothered scythe along with her and twisting the man by the elbow so harshly that he came flying off his feet, briefly spinning in the air before landing on his back.

My jaw dropped and what sound should have come out of my throat just then was stifled by the surprise I felt.

"Now, Hellen!" Mistress Neilly exclaimed.

My mother tearfully brought down the metal pole repeatedly at the man's face until it bled and broke and, finally, he was out. I didn't know if he was dead, but the Veils around him weren't too interested in him yet which meant he was still probably alive.

Seriously. What kind of heads did they have? Were their skulls made of metal?

My mother then dropped the pole, which was now broken and unusable, and looked over to where I was. She came over and took me into her arms, tears streaming down her face. She looked at both Maun and Erneol as well, planting kisses on their foreheads in utter relief.

"Oh, children," she whispered.

Mistress Neilly came in next. She wrapped something around my shoulders. "Here," she said. "This should come in handy at the moment."

I looked at what she made me wear and found the golden cloth that she'd used earlier as an improvised weapon draped on me. It was my swaddle, made from those mighty spider silk things that she'd told me about. No wonder it was able to very efficiently catch that weapon without being torn.

I slipped my hand through one of the large, hanging sleeve and patted for the one on the other side—but found none.

I ran a hand on the other end of the jacket in confusion. There was actually only one sleeve on this one. The other side wasn't quite done and was just hanging around my waist like some sort of cape. Was I seeing things right?

"I wasn't done with the other end," she told me sheepishly. "I was doing it. I only just got to finish one half just now and I had this in my hand when all these crazy things happened. I didn't know what else to do."

"We have to go," Mistress Kora said. He herded us all out of the room.

The three of the adults exchanged glances as we moved, and they all seemed to come to silent agreement on what to do next.

We ran, but I didn't know where exactly we were going, so I just followed everyone else. Eventually, we rounded into one of the pristine corners of Oblivion. It was a plain sitting area where I would find the mistresses reading books or just plain…sitting. I usually found nobody here mainly because there was nothing to do around these parts except, well, sit.

Kora knelt on the floor. He began tapping on the tiles while anxiously muttering to himself, "Where is it? Where is it?"

"It's over here," my adoptive mother said. She fingered one of the planks. "Anyone has a knife or something?"

Mistress Neilly whipped out scissors which I raised a brow to. "You never know when you need to cut something," she said.

My mother said nothing, taking the scissors off of Mistress Neilly's hands and wedging its blade into the gap between the planks. With a jut, she lifted it, revealing a handle beneath—a lever of some sort.

Maun, Erenol, and I gazed on with wonder as my mother pulled on the hidden lever. She didn't have enough strength, however, so Kora swooped in and helped her pull. There was a small groan. A small but thick partition hatched, and a set of stairs were revealed underneath.

"You two, take the children and hide," Kora said, coaxing us inside.

"What about you?" Mistress Neilly asked, grasping at Kora's sleeves worriedly.

"I'll go get the others," he said. "I don't think Veronika is faring well with all those men coming at her either. Stay here and be quiet. I'll try to be back as soon as I can."

Both Mistress Neilly and my adoptive mother were hesitant, but they agreed with him in the end and descended into the darkness of the underground hideout with us. Kora then retracted the lever and had the partition rolling back into place once more, sealing the entrance. There were sounds on top that seemed to me as though he was placing back the floor board over the hidden lever. The footsteps that faded into the distance told me that he finally left.

The silence and the darkness that caped over us helped ease some of the tension. I calmed down significantly. Nevertheless, it didn't numb the presence of the Veils. With all the commotion fading, I began unwillingly focusing on that uncomfortable coldness that they emitted. I realized they grew even thicker.

I was worried for my other mistresses. There was something ominous in the horizon.