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

atop Skyward Mountain."

"No way!" Vanessa cried. "You gotta be bluffing. Two hundred? No tear can allow so many to come through so fast!"

"Not a normal tear," Rebecca groaned as she pulled herself up into a sitting position. "They're only large enough to allow one shade through every few minutes, but if it was stretched to the size of a house then it wouldn't even take an hour to allow so many through."

"Damn it!" Lara shouted angrily. "So that's what your plan was, Raziel, to distract us from the mountain so you could allow your horde of minions time to orientate before sucking the souls from people!"

"You got me!" The young man smiled as if caught in the midst of some small prank. "Yeah, I invited the asura first in order to give you girls something to play with whilst my other friends wriggled their way inside. And now the Noes have had more than enough time to orientate themselves to this new world and are sucking the life from it as we speak. And I tell you, they like the flavour Gaia has to offer."

"Bastard!" Lara exclaimed.

I gasped. "Does that mean... that aura is being stolen?"

Vanessa was shaking next to me. "And it won't just be any kind of aura, it'll be the richest stuff, won't it, Raziel!? And I bet your little lap-dogs will be feasting with the dark scum!"

"The richest stuff...?" I murmured. "But that's... that's people, right? That's their souls!"

Raziel merely chuckled to our emotional display.

"Damn it!" Lara growled. "Why do you do it? Why do you keep focusing on stealing aura from Skyward Mountain?"

But before he could answer Rebecca asked something herself. "I think the real question is, why are you telling us this when you know we'll only run back up there to destroy those shades?"

Raziel grinned as if impressed. "Well that true, but considering their numbers I believe even if you do manage to kill most of my Noes that they'll still be able to draw on plenty of aura. Actually, they may draw on a little too much too quickly. If you have a look at the sky up there," he indicated back up towards the mountain, "then you'll notice the storm clouds brewing. When aura is drained rapidly Gaia shifts the surrounding aura to replace the lost portion as you can see by the low pressure system developing."

"You're warning us about a storm?" Lara asked with disbelief. "Since when did you start caring about this world's environment?"

"Oh, I don't. Trust me, by the time I'm done the environment will have a very appearance. But the Noes, the storm, it's all gone a little too strong too fast and it has put one being that I care about in great risk."

"What?" Vanessa scoffed. "One of your china dolls are scared of a little thunder and lightning?"

"One of my dolls," he smirked, "is about to die."

"And why should we care?"

Silver locked onto me. "Because this doll is called Abigail Darling."

"No..." I murmured.

Rebecca asked, "Again, why tell us this? Why do you care about her fate so much?"

"I care about all my daeva girls, no matter their light and dark affiliations."

"Liar!" Lara yelled, impassioned. "You don't care! You don't, not when so many of have disappeared, not when so many of us have suffered! You let that asura into our world that killed Pearl. You don't care, you're nothing but a monster!"

Raziel's smile never once dropped from his pale face. "Abigail is special, she has a role to play, just like all of you and I can't have her disappearing just yet."

Vanessa snarled, "And what makes Polly Pocket so special, huh!?"

Again silver eyes locked into my own. "Because her existence will lead to the blossoming of the fourth daeva-nox. Because through her the world's recreation may begin, but in order for that to occur she must be saved from her fated death."

Chapter 30

 

Abigail

 

Black cracked right before the scene shattered and fell to colours that had recently become normal to me. Bright auras of the world were revealed, greens, browns, yellows, ambers and purples, all incredibly chromatic once more. I gasped as I recognised the scene ahead of my hands that were firmly clenched around a horizontal metallic bar. On the side of the barrier rose the Serene Coast, its towers now lit up in front of the night sky.

"Abigail, what is it? Who are you calling out to?"

I turned across and found Eric grasping my shoulders, his deep brown eyes full of concern.

I panned around to the road behind, the opposite park and the ominous forest I had just been in. Though the blue painted scene and threatening shades seemed to have disappeared I could not shake the terrible consternation in my heart.

"How...?" I asked, my voice trembling. "How did we get back here?"

His eyes widened. "You don't know?"

Meekly I shook my head.

Eric took a deep breath. "You did seem like you could have been sleep walking... After a few minutes you became really upset all of a sudden and ran off. I followed you but you were so fast that I lost sight of you. Finally I found you here, you seemed like you were talking to someone ahead of you but I couldn't hear what you were saying. It wasn't until I grabbed your shoulders that you came to. Abigail..."

"And the shades!" I interrupted quickly. "I mean... the dark patches. They just went away!?"

"Dark patches? Yeah I guess it was kind of dark back there..."

"That blackness that stood out in front of all that light, you were able to see them!"

Eric merely shook his head. "It was dark but... there was nothing strange about it. There was just a girl who was singing..."

"You don't remember the monsters chasing us!?"

"Abigail, I think this may have all been part of your sleep-walking."

"Oh," I responded slowly. "I understand now..."

It was just like Lara told us, if regular people saw anything that linked to Noein they would forget it almost instantly. People without potential weren't incapable of seeing the light and dark, they just wouldn't be able to retain memory of it, just as Eric had forgotten now.

"Good." He smiled. "Well then, don't you think it's time we get you home now? I don't want to get in trouble from your parents for having you out after dark."

I started to smile but failed as soon as Dorothy's message returned to my thoughts. Looking around I saw no immediate sign of danger, no way could I imagine any threat to either Eric or myself so then I wondered whether she really was telling the truth. I didn't know Dorothy for too long but I knew enough that she seemed to enjoy playing with people's minds so maybe this was just another game to her, a cruel one where her lies watch me writhe with apprehension. But truth or not the chance of peril was there and I was not about to take her omen lightly.

I nodded. "Yes, home is a good idea. I think as soon as we're under shelter then we'll be safe. Actually, we should get there right away! It is way too dark! Let's call my Mum to come pick us up!" Quickly I rounded the back of Eric and tore into my bag on his shoulder.

"Hey, what...?"

"Ah-huh!" I cried as I pulled out my mobile phone and put the speed dial onto my mother but received only a rude beep.

"No service, hey?" Eric analysed my frustration. "Well there usually isn't all the way up here. It's not like there's any homes nearby, but don't stress, I guarantee that after ten minutes down the mountain we'll pick up a signal. I get that you feel a bit awkward out so late with me..." He grasped my hand with a weak grin as he drew me down the road.

"Eric, it's not that. It's just I'm scared that something bad might happen..."

"You don't trust me to protect you, I get it."

"No, of course I do but what if something comes and you can't fight it all alone, then what!?"

Amusement flashed in his eyes. "Well, I guess I'll have to rely on my adorable sidekick to come kick some arse!"

Gasping I realised that he was right, in a very good way. Maybe I did have to sacrifice myself to save him but that didn't necessarily mean I would be gone, just that a part of me had to die - my human part. Then maybe we both could live, only I would be as a fully-fledged daeva. I considered then the value to Dorothy's words, that they may not have been the omen I perceived them as but a clue. A clue that she was never given that could have led towards the path of saving the one I loved.

Or else could she have been lying the whole time, just like her silver-haired companion, Ariel had been to us from the start.

"Abigail?" Eric prodded after my thoughtful pause.

Turning to him I was finally able to enact a real smile. "You're absolutely right, Eric! If anything comes to threaten you all I have to do is pull out my supernatural potential!"

The boy smirked back. "I feel safer already, but I'd feel even safer if we switched spots. I don't like you being so close to the edge of the road."

I looked to the side where past my feet the road ended and the steep slope began. It wasn't a sheer drop or anything, but steep enough to permit a rough tumble if someone became too distracted during their walk. The real danger with the edge however, was not so much for pedestrians as it was for vehicles. The bitumen continuously curved like any mountain road and since there was no barrier that gave rise to the possibility of taking the turn too sharp and a dangerous fall down. I hadn't heard of it happening here fortunately, but it was still a risk.

I allowed Eric to switch places with me so that whilst my feet trod along the edge of the road his fell atop dirt and leaves.

I smiled as I stared up at the veiled night sky that, to me, was far from black in appearance for the world's energy ran over the top as excited water molecules held up there in stasis, obscuring the stars beyond. I noticed then the deep purples and blues in the clouds' aura to be moving fairly quickly, just as the air was beginning to create a breeze against us.

"You're always looking out for me, aren't you, Eric?" I stated. "You might call me your sidekick but it's you who always protects me and it's you who has never failed."

His fingers interlocked with mine with a warm tingle. "It's not that I don't think you're tough, I think you're very tough, but even so the hero has to look out for his sidekick, it's just the rules."

"You really do? Think I'm tough, I mean?"

"Of course I do, it's not easy taking on other people's problems along with your own. Me, I'm tough, I take on mine and my brother's both but that's all. But you, you don't stop at one or two, or even just at your family, you take on all the emotional burden of