Summon Part One
Don't forget to read the PROLOGUE first or you may be a bit lost.
The sun rose, flirting with the early morning fog, its rays weaving through the budding flowers and dappling the dew-kissed grass. It traveled slowly through the sky, relishing its ritualistic morning stretch, in no hurry to be where it had been millions of times before. Enjoying the feeling of the fog slipping through its dazzling grasp, the star surveyed its kingdom and gave a start.
It came upon a boy, walking slowly through the dewey lawn to a tall oak tree set solitary in the middle of a green field. His every step left a small imprint in the grass, shadowing the sun's rays in the tiny area felled by his footprint. The sun was surprised...
The boy glowed.
The sun rose a bit higher, its interested piqued. It had been a long time since a human had shown so bright, so radiant. The boy was different somehow today, this sun just knew it.
He reached the tree and stood before it, surveying the sunrise with a seemingly composed purpose. He swung the pack from his back and set it down before kneeling in the wet grass.
Placing his hands on the ground in front of his knees, the boy bowed deeply, touching his forehead to the backs of his fingers. He murmured a few words into the grass before standing, clutching a piece of paper on a string.
He reached high and tied the paper to a tiny branch - the sun saw now the plant seemed full of these offerings - and relaxed. He'd paid his respects in the shadow of the tree.
The enamored sun spread wide its fan of warmth, creeping up and very carefully lighting the boy's clothes, his hands, his face. It shone on his glasses and settled into his skin.
He was so very warm, this glowing boy.
The sun embraced him.
----------------
He touched the tree, brushing the dirt from the rough indentions his sister had carved in its trunk years ago.
"I'm nervous about today. What if I mess up? What if I choke and I can't remember the incantation? What if..."
He sank to the ground and leaned back against the strong tree, closing his eyes against the feeble early-morning sunlight filtering through the tall branches. He removed his thick framed glasses and rubbed his face.
"I didn't sleep at all last night. I kept tossing and turning and I swear I heard something outside my window. Was that you?"
He opened one eye to the lowest branch, close enough he could use it to climb if he'd stood up. His prayer paper fluttered in the soft wind.
"I bet it was you. You're a punk."
A leaf fell on his head. He picked it up and pressed it flat to his cheek.
"Gustav!" A short, plump woman waved from across the field. "Gustav, please help me in the house for a moment, would you?"
"Coming, Mom!" He rose, dusting off the backside of his jeans with his bare hands. He picked up his school bag and slung it over his shoulder, sliding the leaf in his shirt pocket.
"Well... grant me fortune, Wren," he whispered and placed his palm over the small gouges in the bark that spelled her name.
"I'm going to need it."
------------------
Gustav walked in the house to a rising plume of smoke coming from the basement.
"Mom! What the hell did you do?!" He dropped his bag and ran to the cellar door, moving his hands around in a quick blur. At the bottom of the steps, his mother stood with a bucket, trying to douse a fire that was repelling the water as if a bubble had formed around the flame. At the final word under his breath, Gustav shot his hands out at the bunsen burner and the fire flickered out of existence.
She turned to him with a look of pure chagrin. "Well, now that that's settled, I have something for you." She bustled up the stairs before Gustav could pick his jaw up off the floor.
"Are you kidding? What was on fire? What were you doing?" He said all of this very fast as he ran his eyes over the damage on his mother's work table. She was an alchemist - albeit not a very focused alchemist.
Not that she wasn't brilliant, but...
"And what are you going to do if that happens when I'm gone, Mom?" he whined, following her upstairs to the kitchen. "You've got to be more careful!"
She patted him on the cheek and gave him a rare, steady look in his eyes. His chest swelled with affection for his mother. - she loved him, he would give her that. She'd had a hard life and it was difficult for her to stand still long enough to let her past catch up with her. Gustav understood better than most that exact feeling.
"My son, I will be just fine, don't you worry about me - especially today." She grinned at him, the large, bright white teeth he'd inherited gleaming in the kitchen light. "My boy, my son, a summoner! I'm so proud!"
He let out the breath he didn't realize he'd been holding in a long woosh. His mother reached into her lab coat and pulled out a small package, wrapped neatly in silver paper with blue ribbon.
"I should have given this to you a long time ago, Gustav." She had tears in her eyes, and she looked everywhere but at him. "I know it may seem selfish, because I wanted to keep something for myself... but now that I have to let you go... I'm going to let her go too."
He held the package in his hands as if it were a wounded bird - carefully, lightly, cradled in his palms. He was afraid to open it because he knew whatever was inside would make him emotional, and today was not the day for that. He needed to concentrate, to be at the top of his game.
"I'm going to open this later," he kissed his mother on the cheek and picked up his backpack again. "And don't forget - be ready for anything when I get home tonight!"
"You better not get a Fire Imp!" she called after him as he walked out the door. "I dont' think I could handle any more of that!"
______________
The school lawn was packed with the graduating class and some of the envious underclassmen, scores of teenagers milling about under the trees and sitting on the scattered benches before the doors. Excited chatter filled the air and Gustav caught parts of conversations as he walked around.
"...hope I call a Sirehound, if they like you they'll let you ride on their..."
"...brother got a Moon Maiden at his - don't look at me like I'm lying! I swear..."
"...believe I forgot my robes! Damn! Professor is gonna kill..."
"...the hell is she doing, talking to my boyfriend? I'll hit that little..."
"...if you can't do your demon's quest? Will it stay with you forever? I don't..."
"...and she was dead the next week, I heard. Shit can get pretty dangerous..."
"...easiest is the Imp, they usually just want something material. On the other hand..."
"...circumstance, ever insult your demon. Treat them with the utmost..."
"...send me a postcard? I don't want to lose touch once we..."
He walked up to the crowd and took a detour around to the edge of the woods where there weren't so many bodies to push through. As he reached the corner of the school, a strong arm pulled him around into the shadow of the wall and slammed him into the bricks.
"Oh look, if it isn't little Gusti," a tall, blond haired boy sneered down into Gustav's face, grabbing him up by his collar. "Why did you even bother to come today? You'd be lucky to summon a Serpent, much less a full-blood demon!"
A taller, thicker set boy stood to his right, laughing. He had scars down the left side of his face and more than a few teeth missing. It was a wonder they called him Wolf; they ought to call him Worm for all the damage he could do with his choppers, Gustav thought, grinning hysterically. The blond leaned in close and whispered in his ear. "You think this is funny? You don't have your little sister here to protect you now, do ya? Her magick was ten times what yours is, and she's dead in the ground, isn't she? You want me to help you join her?"
"Hey! Leave him alone!" A girl Gustav recognized from his Focus group had come around the corner, carrying a stack of books. She was two years below him, so she wouldn't know how dangerous it was for her to be in that particular place, especially around the Wolf kid - it was well known to the upper classes that he had a taste for young girls. He tried to warn her, but the blond boy's hands were so tight at his throat that nothing came out but a pained grunt. She heaved back one of her heavier books and aimed for the boy's head. "Let him go!"
Wolf stepped behind her to cover her mouth with his left hand and grab her raised arm in his huge right fist, twisting it behind her back; Gustav heard a muffled shriek through his fingers as her wrist snapped, her eyes bulging. He bent over her neck and whispered something in her ear, holding her close to his body as she tried to wrench her arms from his grasp.
Gustav was livid. He pulled on the energy of his anger, preparing to push the boy holding him to the ground and punch his fucking lights out, but someone beat him to it. One moment, he was against the wall, struggling to move - the next, he was free and clutching at his neck, breathing in the fresh air like each was his last.
The blond was on the ground, being beaten senseless by a streak of tanned skin and copper hair. The Wolf had taken off at the first sign of a fight, which made Gustav deliriously happy at his cowardice - he'd recognized this body of massive muscles, each punch making a satisfying smack of which no teenage boy would want to be on the receiving end.
The girl fell to the ground and clutched at her broken wrist, silent tears streaking down her cheeks. Gustav dropped to his knees at her side. He tried to touch her arm but she jerked away from him, her crimson hair falling in her pretty face. "It's okay, I'm okay," she hissed through her teeth and covered her wound, dark blue bruises blooming beneath the skin. "I'm a Medic."
He sat back a bit and watched, interested. He'd never seen a Medic at work before! Her brows drew together as she concentrated, the darkening pools of blood seemed to melt back into their vessels and with another loud crack, her wrist snapped back into place. "Your name is Ame, right?" he asked, pronouncing it Ah-may, and she nodded sweetly up at him. A wet smacking sound broke through his pleasant thoughts and he scrambled up, horrified at the scene he saw before him.
"Georg, stop!" Gustav called, and a blood-covered fist froze in midstrike. "You're gonna kill him!"
Georg looked up from the unconscious blond boy, giving Gustav an enormous Cheshire grin before hitting the boy in the mouth - once more, for good measure. He stood and wiped the crimson mess on his pants. "What were you doing, hanging around Andreas? He's bad news."
"I wasn't hanging around Andreas," Gustav frowned and straightened the collar of his shirt. "He ambushed me."
"Well, good thing that won't last much longer," he clapped Gustav on the back, nearly sending him flying into the underbrush. "I hope you get a Succubus, I hear they're smokin'."
"What the hell are you talking about?" Gustav stumbled and caught himself against a tree on the edge of the woods. "They destroy - "
His breath caught in his throat. There, between the green saplings... what the fuck? What the fuck? He moaned, the low sound reverberating in his chest. A girl was suspended in the shadows, naked except for the vines twirling themselves around her waist and arms. Blazing green eyes, blood flowing from the thorns cutting into her snow-white skin, her lips parted. Her hair was matted and her fingers were clawed, but she was unmistakeable to Gustav. He scrambled through the thick grass and sharp branches, crying out with each stab in his chest.
____________________
The car inched, smoothly and silently, down the dirt road - sleek, black, expensive; everything about it screamed sophistication - it was noticeably out of place as it pulled up to the simple blue house.
A man stepped out of the passenger seat, his pale face framed by a halo of curly platinum hair. He stood in the early sun light with his back to the house and looked around, searching for a marker, a stone or perhaps a cross, anything to signal the grave. Nothing...
He shuffled around, gripping the hilt of a silver broadsword hanging from his back. Maybe this will be fun after all. He could see through the window a short, fair woman washing dishes in the kitchen sink. She hadn't looked up at the approach of the vehicle, and the man could hear a loud symphony issuing from the radio somewhere inside.
How very like a human to let her guard down.
The driver door opened and a heavily strapped boot dug into the dirt with a resounding thud. A tall, transparently thin woman pulled herself from the car and settled a shovel against her shoulder, pulling her long, blonde ringlets back in a low ponytail.
"Let's get this over with, Art," he said to her as he unsheathed his sword. "I am tiring of Earth."
_____________________
She was there, and the next moment...
...she was gone.
Gustav shot through the shadows in the trees and stood in the spot he knew he'd seen her just seconds before, blood pouring from her body, and yet - there was nothing on the ground, no sign of a struggle, no broken branches or even a bent stalk of dry grass. Was he going crazy? He looked around wildly and spun around at the sound of Georg pushing his considerably larger body through the undergrowth behind him.
"What the hell are you doing?" he rumbled, knocking aside a dead bush. Ame trailed behind him, her bottom lip trembling.
Georg reached Gustav and set a light hand on each of his shoulders. At eighteen, Georg Listing was by no means the scrawny kid he'd been when he met his best friend seven years earlier. When faced with selecting a career path, he'd known Gustav would choose summoner the following spring, being a year younger than himself. Georg had never had an interest in magick - his loyalties lay with the hammer and anvil, a blacksmith and warrior, and his body had been sculpted by countless hours of pounding and shaping.
He tried to be careful, but it seemed everything he touched that wasn't metal or rock would break at the slightest nudge.
Everything except Gustav. Even so, he placed his hands on his friend's body as if he were made of glass. "Are you okay?"
Gustav grimaced - Georg hands were still stained with blood, and now his white shirt had nice big crimson handprints on the shoulders. "It's nothing, I just thought I saw something. Must have just been a shadow."
"I saw her too, Gustav," Ame whispered, wrapping her arms around herself as if the summer air had dropped ten degrees.
"Really, it was nothing," he raised a hand to stop Georg's sentence before he spoke. "Sorry man, but I've got to get back to the school before graduation starts. I'll call you as soon as I'm out."
"Awesome!" Georg forgot his protest as soon as his thoughts turned to the ceremony ahead. Seven years he'd been waiting for this day. Seven years since he knew Gustav would become a powerful and awe-inspiring summoner - he had the highest faith in his friend. "I still hope you get a Succubus!"
As they turned and headed out of the woods, Gustav gave Ame a pointed glance when she looked at him questioningly. Andreas was nowhere to be seen, only a blood stain on the grass to show he was ever there, he was happy to notice. He helped Ame gather her books by the wall and he picked up his battered backpack. They parted ways with Georg at the foot of the school and walked in together.
"Listen," he stopped her in the hallway outside of the boys' locker room. "Don't say anything about what just happened to anyone, okay? Especially Georg. He gets upset if he hears her name."
"But... that girl," Ame readjusted her books and tried to peer into Gustav's clouded eyes. "She was your sister, wasn't she? Wren?"
He stared at her face, not seeing, not hearing her. He was back in the woods, watching his twin sister scream silently, bleeding to death. Of course, it hadn't really been her... he'd buried her body himself. Had it been her spirit? Why was she in so much pain?
He stepped into the locker room without a word and shut the door in Ame's face.
____________________________
The man wiped the blood from his sword with a piece of the woman's shirt. His companion stood ready with her shovel by the door - they'd received the information they'd come to collect. He knelt down and pushed the a lock of bloody hair behind her ear, almost lovingly. The smell of gasoline hung heavy in the air.
"You're smart for not resisting; we could have made the pain last so much longer. Now one more thing - just tell us where the boy is and we'll let you alone."
"F-fuck you," she gurgled through the blood flowing from her throat, each breath a new pain in itself as her broken ribs slashed through her lungs. Her left arm lay useless at her side, the first three fingers severed at the knuckle. Her face was unrecognizable from the smashed photo that lay under her head, the glass digging into her swollen eye.
He motioned to his female counterpart and she bent to retrieve the picture. In it, the woman stood with a pair of children, the boy in glasses, the girl in pigtails, matching pajamas. "Touching," he said spat on the picture and ripped it in half, pocketing the part with the boy's image imprinted on it. The other half he held over the lighter in his hand. She struggled to move, to get away, and he laughed at her terror.
He lit the photo and his eyes danced with the fire. She cried, the tears cutting a clean path through the blood on her cheeks, and whispered, "You... demon."
"No, love, not demon," he grinned wickedly, baring a mouth full of razor sharp, triangular teeth. He threw the burning picture on her hair and the room shot up in flames around her screaming visage.
"Angel."
The sun rose, flirting with the early morning fog, its rays weaving through the budding flowers and dappling the dew-kissed grass. It traveled slowly through the sky, relishing its ritualistic morning stretch, in no hurry to be where it had been millions of times before. Enjoying the feeling of the fog slipping through its dazzling grasp, the star surveyed its kingdom and gave a start.
It came upon a boy, walking slowly through the dewey lawn to a tall oak tree set solitary in the middle of a green field. His every step left a small imprint in the grass, shadowing the sun's rays in the tiny area felled by his footprint. The sun was surprised...
The boy glowed.
The sun rose a bit higher, its interested piqued. It had been a long time since a human had shown so bright, so radiant. The boy was different somehow today, this sun just knew it.
He reached the tree and stood before it, surveying the sunrise with a seemingly composed purpose. He swung the pack from his back and set it down before kneeling in the wet grass.
Placing his hands on the ground in front of his knees, the boy bowed deeply, touching his forehead to the backs of his fingers. He murmured a few words into the grass before standing, clutching a piece of paper on a string.
He reached high and tied the paper to a tiny branch - the sun saw now the plant seemed full of these offerings - and relaxed. He'd paid his respects in the shadow of the tree.
The enamored sun spread wide its fan of warmth, creeping up and very carefully lighting the boy's clothes, his hands, his face. It shone on his glasses and settled into his skin.
He was so very warm, this glowing boy.
The sun embraced him.
----------------
He touched the tree, brushing the dirt from the rough indentions his sister had carved in its trunk years ago.
"I'm nervous about today. What if I mess up? What if I choke and I can't remember the incantation? What if..."
He sank to the ground and leaned back against the strong tree, closing his eyes against the feeble early-morning sunlight filtering through the tall branches. He removed his thick framed glasses and rubbed his face.
"I didn't sleep at all last night. I kept tossing and turning and I swear I heard something outside my window. Was that you?"
He opened one eye to the lowest branch, close enough he could use it to climb if he'd stood up. His prayer paper fluttered in the soft wind.
"I bet it was you. You're a punk."
A leaf fell on his head. He picked it up and pressed it flat to his cheek.
"Gustav!" A short, plump woman waved from across the field. "Gustav, please help me in the house for a moment, would you?"
"Coming, Mom!" He rose, dusting off the backside of his jeans with his bare hands. He picked up his school bag and slung it over his shoulder, sliding the leaf in his shirt pocket.
"Well... grant me fortune, Wren," he whispered and placed his palm over the small gouges in the bark that spelled her name.
"I'm going to need it."
------------------
Gustav walked in the house to a rising plume of smoke coming from the basement.
"Mom! What the hell did you do?!" He dropped his bag and ran to the cellar door, moving his hands around in a quick blur. At the bottom of the steps, his mother stood with a bucket, trying to douse a fire that was repelling the water as if a bubble had formed around the flame. At the final word under his breath, Gustav shot his hands out at the bunsen burner and the fire flickered out of existence.
She turned to him with a look of pure chagrin. "Well, now that that's settled, I have something for you." She bustled up the stairs before Gustav could pick his jaw up off the floor.
"Are you kidding? What was on fire? What were you doing?" He said all of this very fast as he ran his eyes over the damage on his mother's work table. She was an alchemist - albeit not a very focused alchemist.
Not that she wasn't brilliant, but...
"And what are you going to do if that happens when I'm gone, Mom?" he whined, following her upstairs to the kitchen. "You've got to be more careful!"
She patted him on the cheek and gave him a rare, steady look in his eyes. His chest swelled with affection for his mother. - she loved him, he would give her that. She'd had a hard life and it was difficult for her to stand still long enough to let her past catch up with her. Gustav understood better than most that exact feeling.
"My son, I will be just fine, don't you worry about me - especially today." She grinned at him, the large, bright white teeth he'd inherited gleaming in the kitchen light. "My boy, my son, a summoner! I'm so proud!"
He let out the breath he didn't realize he'd been holding in a long woosh. His mother reached into her lab coat and pulled out a small package, wrapped neatly in silver paper with blue ribbon.
"I should have given this to you a long time ago, Gustav." She had tears in her eyes, and she looked everywhere but at him. "I know it may seem selfish, because I wanted to keep something for myself... but now that I have to let you go... I'm going to let her go too."
He held the package in his hands as if it were a wounded bird - carefully, lightly, cradled in his palms. He was afraid to open it because he knew whatever was inside would make him emotional, and today was not the day for that. He needed to concentrate, to be at the top of his game.
"I'm going to open this later," he kissed his mother on the cheek and picked up his backpack again. "And don't forget - be ready for anything when I get home tonight!"
"You better not get a Fire Imp!" she called after him as he walked out the door. "I dont' think I could handle any more of that!"
______________
The school lawn was packed with the graduating class and some of the envious underclassmen, scores of teenagers milling about under the trees and sitting on the scattered benches before the doors. Excited chatter filled the air and Gustav caught parts of conversations as he walked around.
"...hope I call a Sirehound, if they like you they'll let you ride on their..."
"...brother got a Moon Maiden at his - don't look at me like I'm lying! I swear..."
"...believe I forgot my robes! Damn! Professor is gonna kill..."
"...the hell is she doing, talking to my boyfriend? I'll hit that little..."
"...if you can't do your demon's quest? Will it stay with you forever? I don't..."
"...and she was dead the next week, I heard. Shit can get pretty dangerous..."
"...easiest is the Imp, they usually just want something material. On the other hand..."
"...circumstance, ever insult your demon. Treat them with the utmost..."
"...send me a postcard? I don't want to lose touch once we..."
He walked up to the crowd and took a detour around to the edge of the woods where there weren't so many bodies to push through. As he reached the corner of the school, a strong arm pulled him around into the shadow of the wall and slammed him into the bricks.
"Oh look, if it isn't little Gusti," a tall, blond haired boy sneered down into Gustav's face, grabbing him up by his collar. "Why did you even bother to come today? You'd be lucky to summon a Serpent, much less a full-blood demon!"
A taller, thicker set boy stood to his right, laughing. He had scars down the left side of his face and more than a few teeth missing. It was a wonder they called him Wolf; they ought to call him Worm for all the damage he could do with his choppers, Gustav thought, grinning hysterically. The blond leaned in close and whispered in his ear. "You think this is funny? You don't have your little sister here to protect you now, do ya? Her magick was ten times what yours is, and she's dead in the ground, isn't she? You want me to help you join her?"
"Hey! Leave him alone!" A girl Gustav recognized from his Focus group had come around the corner, carrying a stack of books. She was two years below him, so she wouldn't know how dangerous it was for her to be in that particular place, especially around the Wolf kid - it was well known to the upper classes that he had a taste for young girls. He tried to warn her, but the blond boy's hands were so tight at his throat that nothing came out but a pained grunt. She heaved back one of her heavier books and aimed for the boy's head. "Let him go!"
Wolf stepped behind her to cover her mouth with his left hand and grab her raised arm in his huge right fist, twisting it behind her back; Gustav heard a muffled shriek through his fingers as her wrist snapped, her eyes bulging. He bent over her neck and whispered something in her ear, holding her close to his body as she tried to wrench her arms from his grasp.
Gustav was livid. He pulled on the energy of his anger, preparing to push the boy holding him to the ground and punch his fucking lights out, but someone beat him to it. One moment, he was against the wall, struggling to move - the next, he was free and clutching at his neck, breathing in the fresh air like each was his last.
The blond was on the ground, being beaten senseless by a streak of tanned skin and copper hair. The Wolf had taken off at the first sign of a fight, which made Gustav deliriously happy at his cowardice - he'd recognized this body of massive muscles, each punch making a satisfying smack of which no teenage boy would want to be on the receiving end.
The girl fell to the ground and clutched at her broken wrist, silent tears streaking down her cheeks. Gustav dropped to his knees at her side. He tried to touch her arm but she jerked away from him, her crimson hair falling in her pretty face. "It's okay, I'm okay," she hissed through her teeth and covered her wound, dark blue bruises blooming beneath the skin. "I'm a Medic."
He sat back a bit and watched, interested. He'd never seen a Medic at work before! Her brows drew together as she concentrated, the darkening pools of blood seemed to melt back into their vessels and with another loud crack, her wrist snapped back into place. "Your name is Ame, right?" he asked, pronouncing it Ah-may, and she nodded sweetly up at him. A wet smacking sound broke through his pleasant thoughts and he scrambled up, horrified at the scene he saw before him.
"Georg, stop!" Gustav called, and a blood-covered fist froze in midstrike. "You're gonna kill him!"
Georg looked up from the unconscious blond boy, giving Gustav an enormous Cheshire grin before hitting the boy in the mouth - once more, for good measure. He stood and wiped the crimson mess on his pants. "What were you doing, hanging around Andreas? He's bad news."
"I wasn't hanging around Andreas," Gustav frowned and straightened the collar of his shirt. "He ambushed me."
"Well, good thing that won't last much longer," he clapped Gustav on the back, nearly sending him flying into the underbrush. "I hope you get a Succubus, I hear they're smokin'."
"What the hell are you talking about?" Gustav stumbled and caught himself against a tree on the edge of the woods. "They destroy - "
His breath caught in his throat. There, between the green saplings... what the fuck? What the fuck? He moaned, the low sound reverberating in his chest. A girl was suspended in the shadows, naked except for the vines twirling themselves around her waist and arms. Blazing green eyes, blood flowing from the thorns cutting into her snow-white skin, her lips parted. Her hair was matted and her fingers were clawed, but she was unmistakeable to Gustav. He scrambled through the thick grass and sharp branches, crying out with each stab in his chest.
____________________
The car inched, smoothly and silently, down the dirt road - sleek, black, expensive; everything about it screamed sophistication - it was noticeably out of place as it pulled up to the simple blue house.
A man stepped out of the passenger seat, his pale face framed by a halo of curly platinum hair. He stood in the early sun light with his back to the house and looked around, searching for a marker, a stone or perhaps a cross, anything to signal the grave. Nothing...
He shuffled around, gripping the hilt of a silver broadsword hanging from his back. Maybe this will be fun after all. He could see through the window a short, fair woman washing dishes in the kitchen sink. She hadn't looked up at the approach of the vehicle, and the man could hear a loud symphony issuing from the radio somewhere inside.
How very like a human to let her guard down.
The driver door opened and a heavily strapped boot dug into the dirt with a resounding thud. A tall, transparently thin woman pulled herself from the car and settled a shovel against her shoulder, pulling her long, blonde ringlets back in a low ponytail.
"Let's get this over with, Art," he said to her as he unsheathed his sword. "I am tiring of Earth."
_____________________
She was there, and the next moment...
...she was gone.
Gustav shot through the shadows in the trees and stood in the spot he knew he'd seen her just seconds before, blood pouring from her body, and yet - there was nothing on the ground, no sign of a struggle, no broken branches or even a bent stalk of dry grass. Was he going crazy? He looked around wildly and spun around at the sound of Georg pushing his considerably larger body through the undergrowth behind him.
"What the hell are you doing?" he rumbled, knocking aside a dead bush. Ame trailed behind him, her bottom lip trembling.
Georg reached Gustav and set a light hand on each of his shoulders. At eighteen, Georg Listing was by no means the scrawny kid he'd been when he met his best friend seven years earlier. When faced with selecting a career path, he'd known Gustav would choose summoner the following spring, being a year younger than himself. Georg had never had an interest in magick - his loyalties lay with the hammer and anvil, a blacksmith and warrior, and his body had been sculpted by countless hours of pounding and shaping.
He tried to be careful, but it seemed everything he touched that wasn't metal or rock would break at the slightest nudge.
Everything except Gustav. Even so, he placed his hands on his friend's body as if he were made of glass. "Are you okay?"
Gustav grimaced - Georg hands were still stained with blood, and now his white shirt had nice big crimson handprints on the shoulders. "It's nothing, I just thought I saw something. Must have just been a shadow."
"I saw her too, Gustav," Ame whispered, wrapping her arms around herself as if the summer air had dropped ten degrees.
"Really, it was nothing," he raised a hand to stop Georg's sentence before he spoke. "Sorry man, but I've got to get back to the school before graduation starts. I'll call you as soon as I'm out."
"Awesome!" Georg forgot his protest as soon as his thoughts turned to the ceremony ahead. Seven years he'd been waiting for this day. Seven years since he knew Gustav would become a powerful and awe-inspiring summoner - he had the highest faith in his friend. "I still hope you get a Succubus!"
As they turned and headed out of the woods, Gustav gave Ame a pointed glance when she looked at him questioningly. Andreas was nowhere to be seen, only a blood stain on the grass to show he was ever there, he was happy to notice. He helped Ame gather her books by the wall and he picked up his battered backpack. They parted ways with Georg at the foot of the school and walked in together.
"Listen," he stopped her in the hallway outside of the boys' locker room. "Don't say anything about what just happened to anyone, okay? Especially Georg. He gets upset if he hears her name."
"But... that girl," Ame readjusted her books and tried to peer into Gustav's clouded eyes. "She was your sister, wasn't she? Wren?"
He stared at her face, not seeing, not hearing her. He was back in the woods, watching his twin sister scream silently, bleeding to death. Of course, it hadn't really been her... he'd buried her body himself. Had it been her spirit? Why was she in so much pain?
He stepped into the locker room without a word and shut the door in Ame's face.
____________________________
The man wiped the blood from his sword with a piece of the woman's shirt. His companion stood ready with her shovel by the door - they'd received the information they'd come to collect. He knelt down and pushed the a lock of bloody hair behind her ear, almost lovingly. The smell of gasoline hung heavy in the air.
"You're smart for not resisting; we could have made the pain last so much longer. Now one more thing - just tell us where the boy is and we'll let you alone."
"F-fuck you," she gurgled through the blood flowing from her throat, each breath a new pain in itself as her broken ribs slashed through her lungs. Her left arm lay useless at her side, the first three fingers severed at the knuckle. Her face was unrecognizable from the smashed photo that lay under her head, the glass digging into her swollen eye.
He motioned to his female counterpart and she bent to retrieve the picture. In it, the woman stood with a pair of children, the boy in glasses, the girl in pigtails, matching pajamas. "Touching," he said spat on the picture and ripped it in half, pocketing the part with the boy's image imprinted on it. The other half he held over the lighter in his hand. She struggled to move, to get away, and he laughed at her terror.
He lit the photo and his eyes danced with the fire. She cried, the tears cutting a clean path through the blood on her cheeks, and whispered, "You... demon."
"No, love, not demon," he grinned wickedly, baring a mouth full of razor sharp, triangular teeth. He threw the burning picture on her hair and the room shot up in flames around her screaming visage.
"Angel."