Evie
I land with a roll when I fall out of the portal, and bump into someone, knocking myself onto my side. I sit up, seeing Connor on the floor, shaking his head as he gets up. Nix and Trex are slowly standing up, looking a bit dazed, but at least they didn’t break anything on the floor. I stand up quickly, loading my arrow into my bow and looking around while they aren’t focused. Travelling great distances in portals can make you feel a little drunk sometimes, and I’ve travelled so many it doesn’t bother me anymore. I doubt it will bother Azi, either, when he gets his ass down here. I look around, not seeing anyone or anything near us. It’s just snow, and the mountains behind us. I turn around when I hear a loud bang, to see Azi land, kneeling down, and he rises up with a grin.
“Where to next?” Connor asks, walking over to me. He wipes snow out of his hair as the others come over.
“See the mountains there,” I point to them as I speak. “They have the entrance to the next layer. It’s not going to be easy to get to them, but once we are inside it’s only demons we have to deal with,” I tell them, and they give me a confused look.
“The souls here are the worst of any souls. They are stuck here for their actions in their lives, and the demons usually feed off them until they fade away. They aren’t like souls on earth, who have to put a lot of energy into just moving a flower pot or something,” I explain.
“And the good souls? What happens to them? Are they here?” Nix asks.
“Truly good souls never come to hell. Souls that are neutral are taken to the second layer, and reborn,” Azi explains for me, and Nix nods, looking away sharply. What was that about?
“Let’s go, it’s going to take us at least seven hours on foot to reach the mountains. And that’s only if we don’t find any trouble,” I say, putting my bow back on my back and walking ahead. We walk in silence for about an hour, and I’m impressed how the Protectors keep up with me. They don’t complain about the climbing in the snow, or the fact the temperature is dropping every hour, making it freeze. The snow is beginning to freeze over and become hard to walk on. Nix catches up to me, while the others are closer together just behind us.
“Can I ask you something, love?” Nix asks, grabbing my arm when I nearly slip on some ice. I pull my arm away, meeting his light-green eyes that don’t seem to have a motive.
“I might answer, so you might as well ask,” I reply eventually.
“How old were you when you killed someone for the first time?” he asks.
“Why? Do you want to know how long I’ve been a monster for?” I snap out in reply, and he shakes his head, his black hair moving with him and getting some of the snow out of it.
“If killing as a child, when you had no choice, makes you a monster . . . well that makes me one, too,” he admits, making me pause for second, and look at him.
“How old were you?” I ask.
“Five. I killed my father,” he responds in a cold tone. I knew there was something dark about him, this kind of explains some things.
“Why?” I reply.
“For beating up and killing my mother. He was about to kill Trex, holding a dagger dripping with my mother’s blood to his throat. I picked up one of his daggers off the floor, where he had dropped it, and slammed it into his cold, dead heart,” he tells me the story like it isn’t something that happened to him. Like there is no emotion other than shock he can have for the story. That must be his way of coping, pretending that his past happened to someone else. I don’t blame him.
“You don’t seem to regret it,” I reply.
“I don’t,” he says firmly.
“You shouldn’t, and I am sorry,” I tell him honestly.
“I told you. Now, shouldn’t you tell me your story in return, love?” he asks. I want to ignore him, but something makes me speak instead.
“I was eight, older than you,” I start off.
“Who was it?” he asks.
“A Protector. I had left the demon compound, ignoring my friend’s advice, and thinking I knew better. Thinking I was safe . . . but I wasn’t. He was waiting for me,” I say, trying to forget the fear I felt when the Protector caught me, slammed me onto the floor, holding a dagger to my neck. I wasn’t a fighter back then, just a scared child.
“How did an eight-year-old beat an adult Protector?” he enquires.
“My friend was a witch, and a smart one. She was older than me, eighteen at the time I was attacked. She just got her power and followed me to make sure I was safe for the night. She used her gifts to hold the Protector down, and I killed him with the dagger he tried to kill me with,” I tell him, trying to keep any emotion out of my voice. She also suggested leaving my rune name on him as a way of scaring the other Protectors away. It became a thing I just did after a while.
“Where is your friend now?” Nix asks.
“She died,” I reply simply, still missing her with every single part of me, and I can’t even say her name now. It hurts too much. I stop dead in my tracks, hearing a slight sound, seconds before over twenty souls rush at us from all directions. We walked straight into a soul trap. The souls look almost see through, but any weapon with silver on it will kill them. Luckily all my weapons have silver, but this is a lot of them, and not enough of us.
“Weapons, now!” I shout, pulling my bow off and grabbing an arrow. Nix does the same, and we start firing instantly. I hit three souls before they get too close and whack the nearest one with the end of my bow when it runs for me. I grab a dagger out of my belt, slamming it into the soul of what looks like a burnt body as it runs at me. I turn around, just in time to see Trex slam his axe over the head of a soul.
“Shit, there are too many. It’s like they have gathered up to find us and trap us,” I mutter, grabbing the hand of the soul that grabs for me, and flipping it over my shoulder, slamming my dagger into it as it lands. I jump up, looking around, and seeing nothing but souls. More and more are running towards us, far more than the twenty we started with. Crap a doodle.
“Azi!” I shout at him, seeing him holding two souls in his hands, and he is burning them. He quickly kills them, looking over at me, and then to the army surrounding us.
“Alright,” he shouts. “Cover me!”
“Everyone cover Azi, and jump into the flame portal he makes!” I tell them, neglecting to mention that it hurts like hell to go through a demon portal. It will likely knock us all out, including Azi for holding it open so long. The guys do as I ask, and I pull another arrow out, shooting soul after soul as I back up. I get to Azi’s side just as he opens the fire portal, which looks just like a wall of flames. Connor gives me a wide-eyed look, and I don’t have time to look at the others as a soul runs at Nix, catching him off guard, and biting his arm. He swears, pulling the soul off of him, and I shoot the soul with an arrow. He holds his arm as he backs towards the portal and jumps in with a nod at me.
“Jump in Connor, Trex! Azi can’t hold it for long!” I say, knowing I’m close to leaving their asses here. Connor jumps in, and Trex kills two more souls with his axe before jumping.
“Now, Vi!” Azi says, sweat pouring down his forehead, and his red eyes blazing. I put my finger to my blue rune, calling my holy fire and make a wall of it in front of us, seeing the souls run towards the holy fire, and burning themselves. I turn around, and run into the portal, feeling like every part of me is burning before I land somewhere cold, then black out.