The false act I needed to put up made my stomach churn to the point I couldn't even enjoy the Saturday breakfast a family time that I wanted. Still, the lack of sleep didn't help me keep the bacon down. I had only idle words and talked as I tried and lie through the morning but the gnawing in my mind was only making it more unbearable.
"Tell them you're going to die today." The voice echoed from in my head fulling killing my appetite and turning my stomach just shy of vomiting.
"I'm going out for the day." I say the words to calm my stomach and stop myself from thinking.
"Where are you going? Can I come with?" The excited questioning from James helped me ground myself.
"Sorry James, not this time, I am meeting us with the guys from the internship." I say in a half-truth, causing him to slowly get sad.
"They are working you like a dog aren't they." Jacob said between his bites of bacon so nonchalantly he must have been more tired than me.
"Jacob!" My mom said shocked and angry on my behalf but in all honesty.
"Haaaa haaa ha!" I could bearly hold back the laugh as the last week came flooding back into my mind with the number of crazy and strange things. I could only laugh at the absurdity, the only reason I still believed was because about half of it happened to me.
"Kind-of yeah." I managed to get out with a struggle as I still wanted to laugh.
"But around this time I appreciate the distinction." My words seemingly put a stop to all talk as I enjoy the silence but regret my words. I take that moment to stand up and make my way out of the dining room and towards the entrance.
"Stay safe. Please" Mom said still in the dining room. Though his voice was retention beside me I'm my ear a warmth like a hug filled me but I couldn't stop. Not now.
"Don't worry, I'll be ok." I reply and walk out of the house.
Each step is a struggle not to run a fight not to use my aura and rush down the road to the church but I manage to keep my cool, though the lack of sleep didn't help.
"You disappoint me Joshua why lie to your family?" The voice broke the silence and filled my mind with a heavy anger that I couldn't get rid of so I ran.
Slow it was so painfully slow. Each step I took only moved me a fraction of the way there. A fraction of time that I could now feel even without using my stored aura. Not even halfway there my breath started catching and my lungs started burning. Weak so weak. The burning in my lungs, the burning in my legs they only angered me more. Finally making it to the church I was panting and sweating and no less angry than before but I made my way into the church. Meeting them in the church we Bagan to prepare. Walking into the church I make my way to the back of the church, to the back rooms used for storage to speak in private. The silence was held for a moment before I couldn't handle the silence anymore.
"What can we do?" He was asked by both Mandella and I.
"The only thing we can, do is fight and banish him." Adam and Hannah said in a lost unison saying the only thing she could.
"But how can we find and defeat him?" I asked with genuine confusion and misunderstanding.
"We can't find him, His wards and glamors are top grade I think only ThaThu would be able to break through them." He was so deep in concentration that I didn't want to ask about the new person he was referring to.
"Or he could just come into Paarl when needed, which would be the simplest, but I doubt that. As demons like to stay in a place until they are chased out." I nearly wanted to shout at him as he gave me false hope.
"Now what, if that is the case we can't fix this." I say with bearly held anxiety and anger. The laughing from in my ear pushed me to the edge.
"Who told you that?" Adam's response was curt and direct, putting me in my place.
"He will do what he has been doing, he will send some of his demons for us." Adam said curtly and
"Isn't that too dangerous then" protested Hannah, the first time that she didn't agree with Adam this evening.
"We have been openly hostile since we got here." Mandella complained with a sneer, crossing his arms in an attempt at showing
"Yet he still tried to talk to us first, and he will try again because if he wanted to kill us he would have tried to swarm us in a way we couldn't fight freely."
"How many demons can you fight at one?" I ask with trepidation, having seen them fight on one and three on-one but never the reverse, the demons with the numerical advantage. Knowing there would have to be more than 3 left having seen how the demons fight and work together a new worry begins to grow.
"As many as are needed." Adam's cavalier response only made the curning in my stomach worse, how could he handle more than one at a time if he had struggled with one at a time but I was not given much more time to think.
"But back on topic, all we need to do is present ourselves to him." His tone was not right for what he just said he was calm and reflective.
"You can't be serious, that's stupid! They will try and kill us and take us over, We need more people, more strength..." My rambling quickly lost all meaning but a strong hand on my shoulder pulled me back. As I looked up I saw Adam was the one who was standing there.
"You need to calm down, we need more nothing." Again his calmness was abrupt but this time is but it calmed me much more this time.
"We can handle it. Will it be easy, No. But we Can handle it." His words were as hard as his eyes so I relented under his gaze. He then instructed us to get ready and the other two reacted like a well-oiled machine. Each on casting spells of strengthening and protection, I joined into the broken choir with my voice and own chants, layering about 4 chants; 3 for strengthening and 1 for protection before I was interrupted by a hand on my shoulder.
"You have to leave some room for me to dude." Mandella said as he focused and I felt a short and sharp feeling on my chest, it was his mark, and with it a familiar managed rush of power as the mark took hold
"If there is there is too much interference the mark won't take." he began to explain simply to me but I couldn't understand why.
"Will that be ok you can only make one person." I reply in a bit of shock almost wanting to decline his offer.
"Yeah it will be fine you can't mark yourself and those two wouldn't let me mark them even if I wanted to." He said with a smirk as he pointed to Hannah and Adam with his thumb. Earning a wave to me from Hannah and earned Mandella a finger from Adam. That in turn earned Adam a punch from Hannah. Their actions felt disconnected from the fear I felt would be necessary for what was to come but it helped me to finally calm down.
"I like this one, I've made up my mind." The dark voice echoed in my mind, so I decided to stay as far away from Mandella as I could during the battle. I knew about how much Of The First Blood aura I could use without him taking over but that doesn't mean it didn't have any more tricks.
"Thank you." I said with a smile only half truthful, meant for me just as much as it was for him.
With a last few words from Adam on how we were to form ourselves up during the fight, we left the protection of the church. We began our walk down Abattoir Street each step away only filled me with more and more unease. But each step was important so I put my fear aside and clutched my necklace; now yet in its sword form, as we started on our search.