The Artifact of Dissium (Demona Book 2) Read online

  “Don’t worry, Demona. If Darius sends a message we will get it to you, as soon as possible,” Ezekiel said. His arm was draped around Gale’s waist, as they watched the younger adults exchange goodbyes.

  “Ezekiel, may I speak to you for a second,” Demona asked. She nudged her head away from the crowd.

  “Of course,” He stepped away from Gale and walked just outside of earshot of the others. “What is it?”

  Demona rubbed her arm. “The Council. Remember that flashback I told you about. The one… the conversation I overheard. My father mentioned the Council. I think he was speaking to someone who worked with them, or something.”

  “That is news. I wonder if your parents were neutral beings...When you get to where you are going. Speak to Madam Elder on this matter. She may be able to give you some indication of what it means, or if they know of your parents. I will pray that Aleph guides you to the answers you seek.” He rested his hand on Demona’s shoulders and they walked back towards the group.

  “I wish I could go with you!” Hannah said. She hugged Demona tightly.

  “Me too…but humans aren’t allowed, remember?” Demona said. “I’ll bring you back a souvenir.”

  Hannah giggled at the thought. She hugged Demona once again. “Be careful!”

  Ileana approached Demona with a bag in hand. “Here are what rations I could find on short notice. Hopefully they will hold you off for awhile.”

  Demona nodded. “Thanks, it gives me a little more peace of mind.”

  Kaleb and Felix did a fist pump. “Safe travels, man.”

  “Where are we going, anyway?” Demona asked. She made her way around the front of Molony’s green sedan.

  “Shotgun!” Felix called. He hopped into the passenger’s seat beside Molony.

  Demona glared at him and took her seat in the back of the car.

  “Virginia,” Molony said.

  Demona was taken aback. “You’re kidding.”

  “Come on Demona, you should be happy. You get to spend eight hours in the car with me.” Felix turned around and gave her one of his overly enthusiastic smiles.

  Demona peered out the back of the sedan as the GLC headquarters grew smaller in the distance. Then, she turned to watch the trees pass by as they drove down the road. They passed a road sign that read Interstate 81. The road ahead of them seemed to stretch on forever only slightly curving in one direction, or another. Demona fidgeted in the back seat. This is going to be a long ride.

  Demona hoped that the ration, which Ileana had obtained, would be enough to hold her off for the entire trip. She hated to think what would happen if she lost control, especially that they were so far from home and she was without a safe place to run to if her hunger took over. She listened to Molony and Felix as they discussed the different self-defense tactics. Demona rested her head against the window and dazed at the autumn scenery that blurred past.

  ****

  The car hit a pot hole. Demona made a grunt as she was startled awake. Her eyes popped open to meet two wide blue eyes as Felix gazed at her. He was staring at her over the headrest. He seemed slightly embarrassed by the glare she directed at him, but his eyes remained firm as he stared.

  “Felix!” Demona searched for something to throw at him.

  “What? I can’t help it that you are beautiful.”

  Demona narrowed her eyes at him and blushed slightly. “Stop staring at me.”

  “Hey, you can only look at trees and asphalt so much before you start to get antsy.” Felix’s smile grew.

  Demona scowled more and refused to show any other emotion. Why does he torment me? She knew that even though Felix was annoying at times, it was still sweet that he had looked back to check on her. Demona readjusted in her seat and looked for a road sign to indicate where they were. She saw a sign for West Virginia.

  “Where exactly in Virginia are we going?” Demona asked.

  “That, I can’t tell you. There are rules I must follow,” Molony said.

  “Well, can you at least tell me how much longer?” Demona asked.

  “We’re about halfway there.”

  Demona glanced at the clock on the dash board. They’d been driving for about four hours. Ugh! Four hours! She slumped in her seat and once more returned her gaze to Felix.

  “So, tell me about this place we are going to see this… Council,” Demona said.

  “It’s called Gleannbroch,” Molony said. “It’s our main headquarters. What we think of as the headquarters back home is really more of like an outpost.”

  “What’s it like?” Demona asked.

  “You’ll have to wait. I don’t want to ruin the surprise.” Molony continued to focus on his driving.

  Felix shrugged. “I’ve only heard some stuff about it. I have a feeling you are going to love it, though.”

  Demona sat there wondering what kind of a surprise Molony would ruin by giving her details. She imagined something along the lines of Terra Hollow with all of its eerie wonder. Probably something underground, secret, and creepy.

  Molony pulled the car off at a rest stop somewhere within the borders of Virginia. They had been traveling that long road, Interstate 81, the entire way. Demona appreciated the break; it had been the first they had taken since she woke. She got out of the car and stretched her legs as Molony and Felix went into the convenience store for some snacks and sodas. Felix came out of the store with a bag full of junk food to find Demona leaning up against the side of the car.

  Felix stood beside her and searched through his bag for a snack. He found one, pulled open a bag of chips and began munching. “Are you ready for this?”

  “Sure, why not?”

  “I don’t know, because you’ll be surrounded by light beings. And be the center of attention…because of who you are.”

  “Yeah, I don’t think that is going to change anytime soon. That is unless I decide to lose myself among the humans, or something. At least then nobody would know me as the Mythos.”

  Felix’s head snapped up at the idea of Demona wanting to disappear. “You wouldn’t do that, would you?” His deep blue eyes searched Demona’s face carefully.

  “No. It’s just sometimes I wish I could go back in time to before I found out about the prophecy, when things were simple.”

  “But that would mean you would have never met me.” Felix pouted. “How could you possibly imagine your life without this guy?” He used his thumb to point at himself.

  Demona shoved him in the side causing him to lose his balance. He almost lost his stockpile of food before catching the tilting bag with his free hand. Demona was surprised at how quickly he had recovered. She wondered if his training was the cause of the change or if it had been something else. They both looked up as Molony made his way towards them.

  “Ready to go?” Molony asked.

  “Yup,” Demona said.

  The three of them slid into the car, but before Molony put the car in gear he turned to Demona. “I’m sorry I have to ask you to do this.” He handed her a bandanna. “I need you to slip this over your eyes. It’s the rules. While you might be the chosen one, you are still a dark being.”

  “Great, the only thing that was keeping me somewhat sane was looking out the window and now I can’t even do that.” She looked at Molony disapprovingly. “But I get it,” Demona said. She slipped the bandanna over her eyes and tied it behind her head.

  “Don’t worry, Mona. I’ll entertain your ears,” Felix said. He sang a round of a silly version of Ninety-nine Bottles of Beer on the Wall, before Demona attempted to blindly try to smack him in order to get him to stop. Then, he went off to more of his cheesy knock knock jokes.

  It brought the memory of their first date back. It was the first time Demona had seen him after she rescued him from the Lilitu demon. She had been too afraid to admit it then, but now she wished she could go back and do it all over again. She would have asked him to stay with her, or at least she would have tried harder to keep in touch with him af
ter he had gone to Florida.

  Suddenly she felt as if the blindfold was slowly disappearing and her eyes took in dim lighting that began to grow brighter. She shielded her eyes.

  ****

  Demona stood on a street corner waiting to cross the road to her bus stop. She was always first to the stop, before any of the other kids. She enjoyed the silence before the teasing and bickering of the other children began. She stood with her back against a tree trunk and listened to a crow caw somewhere in the distance. She toyed with the pleats on her plaid uniform skirt.

  A man walked down the sidewalk, but Demona paid him no mind. That was, until she noticed him staring at her strangely. Then, he abruptly stopped next to her. Demona turned in his direction without making a sound and found the man’s eyes glued to her every movement.

  “Hello, dear,” the man said with a strange accent. He wore an expensive looking suit, had a shaved head, and a goatee.

  “Uhh, hi,” Demona said. She turned away from the creepy man and hoped that he would go away.

  He walked around to stand in front of her.

  Demona attempted to move away from him, but he caught her arm with a cold grip. She struggled to break free from his grasp. “Look, I’m not going to be the only one at this bus stop real soon. You better find someone else to bother,” Demona said. She looked in the direction of her foster home, while hoping to see more of the children making their way for the bus stop.

  “I have just one question to ask of you,” the man said, “and then I will be on my way.”

  His unsettling stare made Demona’s heart thump quicker. The man had seemed familiar somehow. How do I know him? She tried to think of where she had seen him before, but it escaped her. She tried to steady herself and looked the man in the eyes defiantly. “Fine, what’s the question?”

  “Do you know who you are?” he asked.

  As Demona stared into the cold dark eyes she felt a growing discomfort creep over her body. A sensation of ice flowing through her veins traveled from her feet to her head. Suddenly she felt dizzy. She shook the feeling off and ran the words that the man had just spoken through her head. The odd sensation began to dissipate. Her brain felt as if a fog slowly rolled through it and she could once again think clearly.

  The man released his grip and took a step backward. “Are you going to answer me?”

  Demona stared at him in confusion. “Sorry, what?”

  “Your name… What is your name, child?” The man stared at her intently as he waited for an answer.

  It took a moment for Demona to think of the answer. “I-I’m Demona Bower.”

  “Bower, is it? Well then I must have the wrong person,” the man said. He peered at her a moment longer, before turning and walking away.

  ****

  Demona came to slightly disoriented by the bandanna across her eyes. Demona felt around her and discovered the seatbelt across her chest. The car jerked and Demona finally remembered that she was in the car. She heard Felix’s voice call her name.

  “Earth to Demona.”

  “Shut it, Felix! I just had a flashback,” Demona snapped.

  “Oh…” he said. “Sorry. I thought you were just ignoring me.”

  There was a moment of silence in the car.

  “Do you want to talk about it?” Molony asked.

  “I’m not sure...it was pretty quick and didn’t make much sense. I was standing at a bus stop and Darius stopped to talk to me,” Demona said. “He asked my name and for some reason I replied Demona Bower, not Brennan.”

  “Interesting,” Molony said.

  “What’s interesting?” Felix asked.

  “Nothing just that I wonder why you were using a different name,” Molony replied.

  Demona thought aloud. “I have no clue. Maybe I forgot my last name?”

  “How can you forget your name?” Felix asked.

  Demona turned her head towards his voice. She had heard the concern in his voice and imagined it reflected on his face. “The last flashback I had was a conversation between my parents talking about someone following me. I’m starting to think, that Darius was the person they were worried about.” Demona began connecting the fragments in her mind. “In the vision, what the demon priest allowed me to see kind of fits some of the pieces together. Darius had said he was watching me for a long time, because he knew I was the Mythos. I just wish I knew what happened to my parents. Everything seems to point to Darius.”

  “Unfortunately, it’s hard to say until more of your memories come back. It sounds like you are already starting to fit the pieces together in order to understand some things,” Molony said. “By the way, we are almost there.”

  “Good, the blindfold thing is really irritating,” Demona said. She readjusted the bandana on a side that was beginning to slip down her cheek.

  “You can take the blindfold off now,” Molony said. “I think we passed all of the road signs.”

  Demona glanced through the window. She compared the view of the mountains back home to the ones that now consumed her vision. The mountains at home had been very rounded and the valleys were mostly flat, or made of gently rolling hills. Now they passed through a steep mountain range. It looked as if most of the roads had been built in areas where parts of the mountains had to be cut out. The roads wound through the mountains wherever it was possible to place them.

  As they made their way deeper into the southern part of the Appalachian chain the mountains turned into large hills. They were like miniature rounded mountains gently rolling up and down. Black cows grazed in patches of thick grass atop some of the hills and large rolled hay bales sat scattered across a field. It was like nothing Demona had ever seen before.

  They traveled down a gravel road, and it seemed to Demona as if most of the roads that branched off of the one which they traveled on were made of more gravel and dirt. The nice smooth asphalt roads became scarcer the farther they ventured. They continued down the road where cornfields covered several of the hills and forests threatened to take over the land. Demona could not remember the last time she had seen a house.

  The road began to slightly incline. The farther they traveled the steeper it became, with twists and turns every few yards. The terrain made Demona uneasy and she gripped the back of Felix’s seat to keep from yelling at Molony for being too close to the edge. The car continued up the dusty mountain road, which they were now attempting to drive on. The tires spun in place momentarily and Demona could not help, but wonder if they had chosen an appropriate vehicle for the trip.

  Finally, after what seemed an eternity to Demona, they reached the top where the road leveled out. This flat surface only lasted a moment, before they traveled down a different road, one that looked like it had had little to no upkeep. The only way Demona had recognized it as a road was by the two tire tracks where cars had passed through before.

  They traveled over one more incline, before descending into a deep secluded valley. They passed through a dense patch of evergreens that shut out the sun. The thick tree branches screeched over the roof of the car. Demona gritted her teeth at the noise and held her ears.

  It looked as if it had been a while since another vehicle had passed that way as the car pushed through the overgrown brush. They were tossed around inside the car even more as they descended farther into the valley. Demona had trouble making out their surroundings as she bounced in her seat. That was, until they broke through the towering trees and she peered at the valley’s bottom ahead.

  “Welcome to Gleannbroch,” Molony said.

  Chapter 5:

  Gleannbroch

  Molony pulled the car over into a clearing and Demona and Felix immediately hopped out of the car to get a better look at Gleannbroch. They stared down the rest of the incline at an entire town that was literally situated on top of a lake, which filled the bottom of the valley. The entire lake was covered in primitive looking structures that were connected by docking systems. Wooden guard towers sat in the water on either
side of the entrance dock.

  It’s like something out of ancient times. Demona could not help but have a sense of disbelief that something like this place existed in Virginia. She could not make up her mind where to look first.

  After Molony had exited the car, Demona and Felix followed his lead. They neared the lake’s edge where two guard towers stood. Inside each of them stood a man with a crossbow in his hand. Demona wondered why they would need guards at a location this remote, she was certain that nobody would ever stumble upon this hidden town.

  The men shouted to one another as they approached the dock. One of the guards leaned over the railing of the tower.

  “Good to have you back old man!” the guard yelled.