Here we go, the prologue to The Hallow'd Ones MWAHAHAAHAA!! Sorry. Was meant to be a Halloween spoof, but it got a little more serious and I loved the ideas!! The rating might get bumped up to M later in the story... if you get my meaning xD
Disclaimer – Valentine, Gerald and Kiera are all my own creations but Kiera is a mix between both Kurtis Trent and Lara Croft, and shares some of their major personality traits.
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Prologue
Ω Back Then Ω
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The whole sky was black, as black as the gaping abyss he was staring into. The familiar was at his side, leathery wings mostly folded against its concave backbone, but every now and again they flicked out anxiously, while its talons gripped onto the corpse of a felled and rotted tree. The man raised an eyebrow.
"So... this is the last on-land portal?" He asked the creature. It looked up to him with its huge black eyes and gave a funny sort of squeak to which the man answered with a small chuckle. He dug in his bag for a few moments and brought out a slightly curved piece of blood-red metal which held a glistening ruby, set into the slightly more pointed of the angular corners. He stared at it for a few moments before he turned his back on the gaping hole. "Fill it."
The ground began to tremble as he walked away from the portal but as he raised his eyes from the slither of precious metal, he found himself staring at another man, tall with greying brown hair and large brown eyes.
"Evening." There was a loud rumble as the familiar filled in the portal, yet he hardly noticed. "How nice to see you again." The newcomer grinned as he spoke.
"I wish I could say the same, Richard." He quickly pushed the metal back into his satchel but Richard's shrewd eyes caught the movement.
"So. You found the last piece." He said. "The Shield of Athena. I'd say congratulations, but you do realise that it's going to be far more trouble than it's worth." The familiar fluttered from the edge of the new mound and landed easily on his master's outstretched arm. "That creature of yours... it'll turn to stone the moment all the pieces are assembled. You'll be like a musician without his flute."
The creature chirped and looked at its master, managing to look, oddly, quite worried. It looked like a bat, but scaled and with huge black eyes that reflected everything around it. There was also something vaguely ape-like in the way that it 'spoke'. Familiars were notoriously smart, and Richard knew that this one was definitely no exception.
"That will not happen unless I add the crystal." The master said stiffly and the familiar visibly relaxed. Their minds were linked, but the master was obviously very careful not to think about the shield when he as near his familiar.
Richard frowned a little. Something was not right here. The crystal was what gave the shield its power. It was a powerful binding tool. Anything magical within thirty miles of it ceased to function and that included creatures. If it was a werewolf, it would ignore its cycles, if it was a familiar, it would simply turn to stone. Magical weapons would lose their magical effects and demons... would be banished or have bad luck fall upon them for as long as they stayed in the vicinity. Richard knew of this. He had been spending the last six months tracking down all six metal plates that made up the shield and the crystal that both gave it power and restricted it.
Without the crystal...
"You idiot." Richard hissed. "Do you have any idea what would happen if you used the shield without the crystal?!"
The master wrinkled his nose and the familiar rubbed up against him, purring oddly. "I do." He said finally. He gave Richard a terrible, terrible grin. "And to be honest, I really don't give a damn."
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"Kiera?"
She heard the call but blatantly ignored it. She had found a new room. In this blasted house they were using as home for now the only thing left to entertain her was the abundance of rooms that she had never ever entered before. This room was one of them. The door had been locked, which, of course, had caught her interest and she had, after weeks in the planning, had picked the lock and was ready to see what lay inside.
"There you are!"
Shoot.
Valentine rounded the corner and saw Kiera, who was just easing the door open and he approached her with a grin. "You snooping?"
"No." She shook her head with an embarrassed grin as he reached her, but then her nose wrinkled. "Oh Valentine! You smell of baby-puke." She gagged and grasped her nose, backing away into the door. Valentine had been staying with them for two weeks now, and he was planning on going back to Turkey in November, but when he wasn't sure. Lara had said that he was welcome to stay as long as he wanted. Kurtis said otherwise. With a vocabulary Kiera wouldn't expect even from a drunken hobo.
He sniffed his shirt self-consciously; his blonde hair was pulled up in an uncharacteristic ponytail. He only did that to keep it out of the hands of... the brat. He'd obviously been on nursery duty.
"Your mom wants your help with her dress." He told her after finding the source of the puke smell. Aurora had definitely thrown up on his shirt. Why didn't he see that?
"Again?" Kiera groaned. Since her little outburst in the hospital a month ago Lara and Kurtis had been trying their best to involve Kiera in the upcoming wedding. She didn't even want to prance around the aisle in a frilly dress but somehow her mum and dad were determined to make her happy, deaf to her protests that this wasn't the way to do it. She hadn't even seen the dress she was going to wear. Aurora had one too, though hers was frilly. She dreaded to think that her mother was psychotic enough to pick out matching outfits. She may as well hang herself now.
Her panic must've shown on her face because Valentine quickly closed the distance between him and Kiera and he pressed her against the door she had just succeeded in breaking into. Suddenly, all thoughts of dresses and weddings were wiped away as Valentine pressed his lips to hers.
His lips caressed hers gently at first, but then after a moment, he pulled her body closer to his, opening his mouth and feeling her do the same. As they kissed, her hands ran up his chest, her fingers seeking his collar to pull him closer, even though she was pressed against him so tightly she could barely even breathe. Finally, he pulled away.
"Calm down," He muttered gently, tracing her jaw with two fingers. She didn't know whether he was speaking of the panic she had felt at her mother's insane visions of Kiera with flowers in her hair or the strange fire that was now uncoiling in Kiera's gut. He smirked and kissed her again, once and very quickly, before he took two safe steps backwards. "Go on, I'll still be here when she finishes with you." And he grinned.
She smiled as he did so and unsteadily passed him to head to her mother's room that she was using as a base of sorts for the wedding. She couldn't help looking back at Valentine, who was still smirking back at her. The Nephilim that she loved.