Daeva: Black Diamond Chrysalis - Danielle Bolger (essential reading txt) 📗

have never fought in the first place. A loser is a dead man walking."

With a meek smirk I nodded before reaching into my pocket and pulling out another gold coin.

A few minutes later Kieran was laughing beside me. "Haha! Told you you were no match for me!"

"Damn it, those were cheap moves, using that stupid pull move and stunning me! I was totally blocking them!" I roared.

"Well I guess you weren't blocking well enough."

"I so was! This game is stupid!"

"You're just a sore loser."

"I thought you said that as long as I fought I couldn't be a loser?" I quipped.

Kieran shrugged. "I wanted to verse you, had to give you some false sense of comfort."

"Classy." I muttered.

"Fine, if you're going to be such a sook I'll buy you lunch. Want nachos?"

"You serious, you're actually going to buy me lunch?"

"Nachos have lots of cheese on them so I can't 'em all alone. You know what they say, as long as you're getting fat with someone else it doesn't count!" Kieran bore a cheeky grin.

"You're an idiot, as if you care about getting fat. Whose words are you repeating there?"

As he answered the smile faded. "My mum. Ever since dad left she became so paranoid about putting on weight. She still eats crap, pizza and stuff, but just not much of it, her special pills stop her from being hungry, apparently."

After a stiff pause I quickly rattled, "You know, nachos sound great! Corn chips dripping in cheese, sounds like heaven!"

Moving to the adjacent food court Kieran made short work of ordering our meal and met me at a table I had selected.  "Hope you like guacamole!" He declared as he placed down the dish drowning in pastel green goup.

Kieran dove in straight away as my own bite came from the centre of my chest.

"I wonder what's going to happen tomorrow." I mused monotonically. "Will the school do another memorial day like they have for the past three years?"

"Huh? Memorial day?" Kieran repeated before the mess in his mouth was displayed for the whole room to see. "No way! You don't mean the curse has happened again? Another student has died!?"

"But then they might not even realise it yet." I continued as if Kieran never interjected. "There's no body after all. She just, disappeared..."

"Who? Beth, did someone seriously die!?"

"She was in year twelve, final year of school, almost out of there. But she ran out of time and that thing took all that she had left. I wonder if that's why they did it. Maybe the only way to escape it is to turn dark-side. And if that's the case then who can really blame them? They all could have been just like me, Ariel could have been just like me. Scared... to die."

"Who and what the hell are you talking about!?" Kieran yelled still exposing his mouth's sloppy contents.

"Never mind, my rambles don't actually make any sense." Coming out of my reverie I leaned across and selecting my first chip placed it whole into my mouth. "Oh, yum! This tastes great!"

"Wait just a sec, Beth! What's going on here? Explain all that crazy you just said! Did some Ariel chick - die?"

"Huh?" I exclaimed. "No, not Ariel, she's in our grade."

"So she doesn't go Golden Heights then? Well that's not part of the curse." Kieran rolled his eyes drowsily.

"No... ah, what are you talking about? I was talking about a twelfth grader. Her name was... Pearl."

"Pearl now?" Kieran's head kept bobbing up and down as he struggled to keep his eyes open and when he spoke it came out in a slur. "Haven't heard of her either..."

"Kieran?" I asked. "Are you okay?"

"I..." His arms flung limply onto the table as his head lowered even closer to its surface. "I'm really tired..."

I heard a thud behind, then another and another. Spinning my head around there I saw patrons in the food court collapsing to the ground. With clatters trays of food fell with them and back at the fast food booth where Kieran ordered the nachos a teller girl slumped forwards and knocked the microphone there with a screech. Then I noticed how dark everything became, like during my time there the aura was being slowly sucked away.

Kieran's colour had faded too. It was still shimmery, still brighter than that of the walls and floors, but far from its true lustre. Slowly it was turning grey, just as his breathing slowed right before his head collapsed forwards onto his arms.

"Kieran!" I cried as I reached across and jostled his arms. "Wake up! Quick, you need to get out of here. Kieran!" But it was useless, the boy was completely unconscious just as everybody in the room had become.

The crystals on my chest and neck started to feel very cold.

Suddenly I leapt from the table and fell into a shoulder roll just as my chair was cut in two. The metal chimed as it collided on the ground and over the top rose a figure of darkness that flew straight towards me.

Finding my feet I ran out of the way of tables and chairs and finding myself up on the vacant centre stage I stopped. Right where the shade crossed on the raised platform I turned and with a passionate roar barraged my sword down upon it. The claymore sliced deep into the wooden floor as black crystals graced the air around it. Beyond the shimmering hail nine more shades stood in wait.

That leaves ten each, easy. My mind remembered some of Pearl's last words and though the battle against the shades was won simple enough, the circumstances were very different. There the shades were disorientated and slow and I had the backing of three much more powerful daevas, but even with success gained in the early stages in the end the final phantom got away.

And Pearl had lost her life.

In the greying scene another black body rose onto the stage and drove a speared arm straight to where I was standing. Moving left I dodged this and countered with a heavy swing to the right. The shade evaded it and flowed towards my rear. My sword fell down, cutting another deep groove into the wood as a long skinny limb stabbed towards me.

Pulling up the hilt I blocked the attack before driving my sword back up and sliced the air where it had just been standing.

I didn't have time to curse the silhouette's crafty evasion before another shade made a swipe from my right. With no time to draw my blade back I had only the option of dodging and so, dropping my sword, I dove towards the stage floor to my left. Landing on my shoulder atop the hard surface I felt a breeze in the windowless plaza push my hair forwards, obscuring my face. Through my blonde veil I did receive some sight however and that displayed the remainder seven shades as they rose above the stage's edge and struck out hungry spears towards me.

Chapter 24

 

Abigail

On Sunday I decided it was time to get a good start on my art major but the trouble was that all my sketches were too plain as they were restricted by the limited detail that my mind was capable of conjuring. That was why I decided to go to the park and take some photos that would inspire brilliance within my artwork. Well, that was the hope, anyhow.

With my backpack slung over my shoulders I sung out through the household. "I'm going now, I'll be back in a few hours or so!"

"Wait, Abigail! Do you have your umbrella!? It might rain again today!"

"Yes, Mum!" I called to the voice emitted from the lounge room. "I have my umbrella!"

"Well give us a call if you need us to pick you up, I don't want you getting drenched and catching a cold!"

"I won't catch a cold!" I argued optimistically as I tied my shoelaces by the front door. "I took vitamin C this morning!"

"What about the fish-oil!?" My mother's voice carried through the hall. "Have you been taking that!? It's full of good-fats you know - that's important for brain development!"

I groaned before shouting back. "They taste yucky! I'll be fine without them!"

"Christ!" My father emerged in the hallway by the study door. "Do you two realise how much of a ruckus you are making? Some of us have to work here."

Finishing with my shoelaces I rose to my feet and skirted back down the hall and kissed my father on the cheek. "Sorry, Dad! I didn't mean to disturb you while you were working!"

As I pulled away I saw my father's frustration melt into a smile. "That's okay, princess, but if you and your mother are having a conversation try being in the same room. We don't need the neighbours hearing our prattle."

"There's no way they could hear!" I argued. "The trees block all the noise! That's what you've always said you loved about living on the mountain, right? That it's so quiet here because between every neighbour there's so much nature to keep it private and peaceful!"

My father smirked. "The trees are good for that but... when you place a fog-horn up to someone's ear no amount of forest is gonna stop that deafening sound."

"Oh, I'm sorry, Dad!" I exclaimed but as I realised my continued heightened volume I turned it down. "You're always working very hard for the business, I didn't mean to annoy you like this."

Then as my father pulled me forward to place a comforting kiss on my forehead my mother's voice recommenced through the hall.

"Abigail, if you haven't left yet do you mind picking up some milk while you're out!? We'll pay you back!"

My father chuckled quietly. "I guess that no matter where I am I can't change destiny. A noisy wife means a noisy family which all the insulation in the world wouldn't be able to solve. Oh well, better too loud than too quiet."

I gave a toothy smile to my father. "It's because you have so many girls in your life, Dad! It doesn't matter who but so long as there's women in your life your ears will never get lonely!" Then after pulling away from my father I shouted back down the hall. "Okay, Mum, I'll drop by the supermarket on the way home!"

"Thanks, Abigail!" Her voice responded.

Smiling, my father rolled his eyes. "Go on then, just keep your phone handy, right?"

"Sure will, Dad!" I responded as I cantered back down the hall. With a final wave I closed the door behind me and embarked down the street towards my scenic destination.

It took the better part of the hour to get to the park, one that was furtherer than I was sure my parents thought I was heading to, but the perfect one to feature as the stage to my art piece.

This location was lower down the mountain adjacent to a river that fed into Skyfall Valley. There were no playgrounds here but that was because there didn't need to be for the entertainment laid with the water. Kids splashed about in the gentle flow as parents tended to barbeques with beers in hand. There was a fair amount of fixed seating but this place was so popular that they commonly filled up