CHAPTER 4

It was dawn by the time I woke up. Taking a minute to clear my head I stood up and went to find others. My head injury was steadily healing and the vials which we acquired yesterday were with Carla. I hope that they were with her because you never know when you need them, blocking that thought. I called out, “KALEB! CARLA! BRUNO! ANYONE THERE?”

I continued yelling for what felt like a zillion times when I heard a groan from the bushes. I hurried there, weapons ready just in case there was trouble. I relaxed my shoulders when I found Kaleb lying on the cold ground face down. As he helped himself to a seating position he asked, “what happened? Where are the others?”

“It was wind magic, it separated us.”

“Wait, that means there is someone else in this forest other than us.”

“Exactly, we need to find the others and get to the grimoire. Fast. Before they find it.”

It was hard to find them in the forest growth. After two hours of searching, we decided to take a break. All our food and water were gone so we had to sustain ourselves with berries.

While eating, we heard a movement behind us, no time to think we turned around and saw Rafe and his three lackeys from the blue scorpions. Oh boy, why hadn’t I known when the wind separated us; of course, it was a specialty of one of his lackeys.

However powerful, we were no match for the most feared vice-captain of The Blue Scorpions, Rafe.

***

Carla and Bruno were on top of each other by the time they woke up. Shrieking, they split up. Coming to their senses from last night’s attack, Bruno yelped, “where are Susine and Kaleb? We need to find them. Yesterday I saw Rafe in the clearing and before I could warn you the wind separated us.”

“Crap!, if they haven’t already found us that means they are after Susine because he has had a grudge against her forever for god knows what.”

“How did they find us?”

“Must be Gustaff, remember they were near his house when we visited him and he does anything for money including giving our location for double the price we gave him.”

“That traitor, we can’t let them get to the grimoire as they too have a demon bearer in their guild.”

“We need to hurry.”

With that said they rushed to aid their friends. Running they found the clearing where they were the other day. Thirsty and hungry, the only sensible option for them was to drink some water then head out again. Instead of drinking water, Bruno found himself facing a water nymph, and there came another. Stumbling back and getting a good distance between them they were in their positions ready to fight.

In a blink of an eye, Bruno slashed one of the nymphs. But rather than dying, it got angrier. Carla summoned water from the lake and converted it to ice, pouring all of it to the nymph injured by Bruno, therefore killing her. By the time Carla got her attention towards the second nymph, its long and sharp claws were pierced in her friend’s back. With a thud, he fell to the ground and lay there still. Rage filled Carla’s eyes and she and the nymph got into a series of attacks.

Exhausted and injured, she formed a spear of water and thrust it into the heart of the nymph which dissolved it into nothing and delivered it back to hell. Sprinting, Carla went to Bruno’s side placing his head on her lap, his breath ragged and searching for the vials of holy water with her hands trembling. She was thankful when she found the vials intact and unharmed and gave one of them to her comrade. The wound started to heal impressively, improving his breathing and getting the glow back on his charming face.

Bruno opened his eyes and found Carla hugging him tightly, “thank god you are alright, I thought you were gonna die” she sobbed. Instinctively, his hands cupped her cheeks and he said, “ I am alright no need to worry. Let's rest a bit then go find them. ok?”

“Yes fine, you rest, I will get some water.”

They went to the opposite direction from which they emerged which was covered with shrubs and bushes. After walking a while they found them and before Carla could call out to them, Bruno jerked her indicating that they were late because her friends were now faced to face with the enemies.

***

The vice-captain of the blue scorpions was glaring at us as if we were some kind of pests, after a while of the staredown he finally said, “looks like we have some unfinished business Verlak.”

Impersonating his glare I replied, “Sure we do, mate.”

Two against four, we could do it, right? Well, why not!

Kaleb and I moved a few paces back when he whispered, “take the others out first then we will deal with Rafe.”

“Alright, let's do this.”

“The one on the right is a demon bearer and the one on left has wind magic, you know what to do..”

Giving him a nod I attacked the demon bearer with my werewolf claws and intimating him with my glowing eyes. On the other hand, Kaleb had both his pistols out and how can I say this…..well he was shooting air.

My claws met the demon bearer’s chest, but it healed almost immediately and in return, he used his demon powers to throw a pure hellfire dagger at me, too bad I stopped it halfway with my powers. I never use my demon powers until necessary but this guy here thinking that he is ‘ohh all so powerful’ with the demon he bears and can hurt me, the bearer of the great ‘Nightshade’ can succumb to his tactics, I say not.

The power of Nightshade was unleashed and the invisible hand of my demon grasping my opponent’s neck tried to render him unconscious. Not wavering my concentration I glanced sideways to see that Kaleb was panting beside an unconscious scorpion.

Even after trying to break through my power, he was still in the grasp of the invisible hands, and only after a minute of struggle did he give in and Nightshade was able to make him unconscious.

“How did you defeat him? The last time I checked you were shooting air like a maniac.” I sat on the ground.

“First of all, rude. Second of all, I wasn't ‘shooting air like a maniac’ there were magic runes in the air because he was a wind sorcerer, my magic bullets shattered those runes and I was able to catch him and knock him out.”

“Good for you”

“By the way, where the hell is Rafe and the other member of the blue scorpion?”

“We knocked out the third member but no sign of Rafe.” said a sound behind me, I turned to look at none other than Carla and Bruno. I ran towards them and hugged Carla with relief. We were finally together again.

“We need to tie them up,” Bruno said, glancing at the three unconscious bodies on the ground.

“Yes, then using Carla’s magic sends them to the shore so that they don’t interfere with our plans anytime soon.”

***

It took us ten minutes to tie them up and Carla sent them off to the shore while I was on the lookout for Rafe because knowing him, he was waiting for a surprise attack but we needed to take care of him now so that we could continue our hunt without any meddling.

Using my werewolf eyes I scanned the whole area to spot Rafe, but he was not on my radar….yet. We headed ahead in our journey while finding him at the same time. After a while, we found him crouching behind a tree but already injured. Wide-eyed we all looked at him, helplessly trying to stop his blood from his ghastly wound made on his gut.

Not knowing what to do Kaled called out for a team meeting and we all obliged. “I say we leave him here, after all, he has caused us innumerable troubles over the past years.”

“We can’t just leave him here to die!” I shrieked.

“Yes, of course, we need to ask who did this first then leave him for dead,” he said blandly.

“NO! I mean yes of course we need to ask him who did this but we need to heal him as well then send him to the shore.”

“But why?”

“Because he is the vice-captain of the Blue scorpions and they will get suspicious if he suddenly goes missing and we don’t need a bloody war with the guilds.”

“Fine, but don’t heal him completely, he deserves to tolerate and feel some pain considering all the things he has done.”

“Okay,” I said reluctantly.

Carla took out the vials and fed him half a vial. He groaned and said, “more.” Rafe was now going pale and his eyes drooped, ready to slide into unconsciousness. He needed two vials to completely heal but given our prior agreement one had to suffice for now.

Bruno took the vial from Carla and said, “first tell us how you got hurt and who did this, then we might give you the rest.”

He tried to move into a sitting position but failed, but unwillingly started, “ I had laid back for a surprise attack after you had defeated my team members..” Why was I not surprised, classic Rafe.“ when I had gone back…..like a freaking demon…...out of nowhere…..and gone.” he was losing his consciousness and mumbled half of the words we couldn’t hear. He was starting to look like a corpse now.

Bruno fed him the rest of the vial and asked him, “what did you mean, who attacked you?”

Instead of saying anything he pointed towards the right and was out cold. At Least he didn’t look like he was dying now and maybe lived after getting the necessary help. Kaleb being Kaleb pitied him and fed another half vial to our unconscious enemy and started tying him up. When he saw me smirking in his direction he growled, “What? I am not that cruel!”

“Yeah, yeah we get it baby Kaleb.” laughed Carla

“Shut up.”

We were all laughing at this point and sent Rafe on his way to the shore. “So, did he get defeated by a demon?” said Bruno.

“We are almost at the castle and powerful demons are bound to be around such a powerful object,” I replied.

“Let’s check out the direction in which he pointed, then decide.”

Upon going to how Rafe pointed we were starstruck to see what waited ahead of us: the abandoned castle!