A Darker Shade of Sorcery - - (leveled readers .txt) 📗

her heart. The need to see him had gone, she’d come to her senses, and all of them screamed at her to run and never look back. She turned to do exactly that, when she saw two more guys blocking her way.

Trap, was the only thought clawing at her brain.

Brooke screamed as loud as possible and bolted, crashing straight into the strangers. The bigger of the two wrapped his arms around her as she lunged, catching her around the waist and pulling her close. She continued to scream, but he clapped his hand over her mouth.

I need to get away. I don’t want to die!

She bit him savagely and he took his hand away with a yelp, almost losing his grip around her. Brooke tried to escape his iron clasp feverishly, kicking and screaming, her long nails scraping at his hands and gouging his arms.

He held on tight, but she refused to give up, sure someone should have heard her screaming by now. Someone will come to save me?

34

She heard laughter and thought it was the pale skinned leader until she saw him glaring at the blond boy. The blond stopped laughing and shrugged. “Sorry, Arantay.”

Arantay ignored him and placed a hand on Brooke's shoulder. At his delicate, icy touch she felt calm wash over her.

The sense of danger had left and instead of flailing in her captor’s grasp, she hung limp and exhausted.

“Sssh,” Arantay crooned, “we won’t hurt you.”

His tone was so reassuring Brooke felt convinced he was telling the truth. Though at the back of her mind she had a niggling sensation she was being tricked, that her emotions weren’t her own, Arantay was influencing them somehow.

Now she’d stopped fighting, her burly captor lifted her up and carried her deeper into the alley.

“Why do they always act like that? I swear I didn’t,” the blond remarked. Neither of the other two replied. Brooke recognised the blond from somewhere.

Her kidnapper set her down gently, propping her up so she was sitting against the wall. Emotion flooded back as she realised her predicament, but when she tried to stand Arantay touched her again.

As Arantay knelt before her, Brooke noticed his pupils were vertically slit and his irises were just too red, like clotted blood.

It had to be the alcohol in her system making him so strikingly attractive. Up close, she saw he wasn’t really feminine at all. His slender limbs were corded tight with sculpted muscle. His facial features appeared at once sharp and prominent, but also soft and delicate. His ears were pointed at the top.

35

He smiled at her again, and this time she knew it was to lull her into a false sense of security. Brooke couldn’t ignore the gnawing sensation of danger at the back of her mind.

“It’s okay, we’re not going to hurt you,” he repeated in his velvety voice. She felt her fears melt away and once again became fascinated with the creature kneeling before her.

“Ah, if only I had Arantay’s seduction voodoo,” she heard the blond say. “The possibilities…”

“Who-who are you?” She managed to get out.

“My name is Arantay.”

“We gotta hurry, Tay,” the burly one said. “It won’t be long before her friends notice she’s gone.”

Alarm threatened to take over again.

“Wha-what are you doing?” Brooke mumbled, oddly overcome with weariness.

Why was she outside surrounded by strangers? How did she get here?

The blond sniggered again.

Arantay shot a murderous look at him.

“Shut up, Lok,” said the biggest of the three.

Lok grunted and strode back to the mouth of the alley to make sure no one else was in sight.

“Tyrell,” Arantay urged.

Brooke couldn’t understand. She felt so strange, something was terribly wrong.

The burly boy, Tyrell, nodded and took out a curious object from his belt. As Tyrell raised the object, Lok hissed from the end of the alley.

“Wait! There’s someone coming.”

36

The other two retreated to the back of the alley, where Brooke sat and Arantay crouched.

What the hell is going on?

Arantay placed a hand over her mouth. His hand was so cold it should’ve hurt, but all she felt was a slight tingle.

Brooke vaguely noticed they had swords sheathed at their sides. Arantay’s looked like it was carved out of crystal as red as his hair, whilst Lok’s sword was golden and Tyrell’s blue.

Raucous shouting stabbed into the night. Brooke turned to see a group of teenagers pass by the mouth of the alley. They laughed loudly and most of them ambled about drunk, their feet going one direction, their mind the other. Her thoughts were screaming at her to call for help, but all that came out was a timid shout, stifled by Arantay’s hand.

Her captors waited in silence until the sounds of the teenage mob dwindled away.

She was panting uncontrollably, panic threatening to engulf her. Faintly, Brooke’s mind told her to focus on what her captors looked like. She’d need to inform the police of their descriptions.

Tyrell, the most imposing of the three, looked like he’d just stepped away from a modelling shoot. He was typically tall, dark and handsome. Brown, olive-tinted skin hinted at an Italian heritage. He had a strong square jaw and knife-sharp cheekbones, with long eyelashes that emphasized the azure of his eyes.

Lok, the one who’d laughed at her struggles, was the smallest of them and the complete opposite of Tyrell. His boyish, heart shaped face appeared innocent and his chocolate brown eyes looked like they always sparkled with amusement. He had a nose ring and what looked like a tongue piercing too. His ash-blond hair came down

37

to his eyes, and he was currently staring at Brooke appreciatively through the unruly strands.

Unlike Arantay, the other two wore red jackets with black cuffs, collars and buttons. It reminded Brooke of something someone might wear in medieval times.

“Too many civilians around here,” Lok said as a second swarm of partygoers left the warehouse. “We'll have to move her to a more secure place before we portal.”

Portal! These lunatics must've escaped the asylum.

“There's an abandoned scrapyard nearby,” Lok continued. “I saw it when scouting the area for Dark-Realmers. We won't be seen there.”

“No time like the present.” Arantay slung Brooke across his shoulder without preamble, before jumping inhumanly high in the air. Brooke's scream was muffled by Arantay's hand as they landed on a rooftop, swiftly followed by Tyrell and Lok.

Brooke opened her mouth to shout at them, or maybe scream for her life, but before she could they were racing across the rooftops.

Draped over Arantay's shoulders, Brooke saw only blurred buildings. Seconds later Arantay was leaping through the air again. This time he didn't bother to cover Brooke's scream as they landed in the deserted scrapyard.

“As promised.” She saw Lok smile as Arantay laid her at his feet.

Fear was nipping at her again, but Arantay placed his slender hand once more on her shoulder.

“She’s strong,” he commended.

“And fit,” Lok agreed with a smirk. “We're lucky the Dark-Venators didn't snap her up first. She may turn out to be quite the demon hunter.”

Demon Hunter! These guys really are batcrap crazy.

38

Tyrell must've noticed her eyes widen, as he said, “Lok, stop frightening her.

You're doing it on purpose.”

Lok grinned like the devil. “As if I would.”

“We need to get to Veneseron, now.” Arantay took command once again.

As the three of them assembled, a terrific roar reverberated through the air.

Arantay and Tyrell froze and Lok's face flushed with excitement. Arantay moved to stand over Brooke as figures emerged from the gloom.

Standing on top of the broken shell of a truck crouched five youths, glaring at Brooke with glowing eyes.

Simultaneously, the five leaped from the truck to land in front of them.

“I thought I smelt the stench of Venator,” the closest newcomer growled. “And the reek of something…” he glared at Arantay, “rotten.”

Brooke stared, noticing their hands weren't hands at all, but claws.

“Good evening,” the closest boy addressed her directly. “I am Merak, and I will be taking you from here.”

Merak’s lips skinned back into a snarl, fangs bursting from his gums and forked tongue flickering.

“Leave,” Arantay spoke quietly, “and we'll forget all about it.”

The strangers laughed like a pack of hyenas.

“Hand over the girl,” Merak replied, “and we promise only to maim, not kill you.”

“Uh, crap,” Lok sighed. “Just what we needed; blood lusting Were-Beasts.”

39

Chapter 3- Lair Of The Demon Queen

Evan stared down in confusion and agony as blood spurted from his body.

There was so much of it, spitting out of his stomach in streams. The spider demon wrenched its spiked leg back out of him and Evan fel to his knees, trying desperately to clamp his hands over the hole.

As his hands turned crimson, he saw black mist trailing along the ground.

Stranger stil , the mist appeared to emanate from his body.

Evan staggered to his feet, looking around stupidly, as if expecting to see the hospital he desperately needed. He tried to walk, but fell flat on his face, blood pooling around him as he lost consciousness.

*

Perhaps the severe heat woke him. Perhaps his body wanted to be conscious in its final moments before death. All Evan knew was that he was flying through a tunnel which leaked lava. He realised a second later, he wasn't flying but trapped in the demon's grotesque embrace.

40

He'd no idea how much time had passed since he blacked out. Minutes?

Hours? Evan had hoped this was all some elaborate nightmare.

His stomach felt bizarrely hollow. He looked down to see his white school shirt splashed liberally with red. Is blood supposed to be that dark?

Fragments of memory flashed back, images of the demon taking him into the yawning maw of a floating volcano. He must've been flitting in and out of consciousness for a while. The odour of sulphur and ash was overpowering. He tried furiously to escape the monster’s grasp, but he couldn’t move his body an inch.

Amidst the panic that consumed him, Evan vaguely realised they'd left the tunnels behind and emerged into a gargantuan cavern. The cave was splattered with blue pools of magma and draped in crimson cobwebs. Like lattices of red silk, the cobwebs threaded every inch of the wal s. With rising horror, Evan saw shadowed shapes encased in these webs.

“My Queen,” Evan's captor boomed. “My Queen, I have returned to you.”

Evan was beginning to piece things together. The cavern, the webs; he must be in the lair of whoever this Queen was. But his most vivid nightmares couldn't have prepared him for the creature that appeared.

He heard the ear-splitting chittering first, then the hideous scuttle of multiple legs. She emerged from the top of the cavern, descending from the gloom on a line of thick red web.

Evan screamed as the abomination landed feet away. She made the demon holding him look no more threatening than a kitten.

She was