1 year later.
1
"Guess what?" Sabina began, sounding excited. She appeared in the doorway of Alex's room, her eyes bright. Alex, who was looking through the clutter on his desk, paused, glancing up at her expectantly. "We're going to—"
"School?" He supplied, cutting her off mid sentence.
"No. I mean, yes, in about ten minutes, but what I really meant was—"
"Sab, have you seen my chemistry book?"
"Huh?"
"I can't find it anywhere."
"Well, I don't know—" Alex could practically hear Sabina rolling her eyes
"Hey, do you think Jordan has it? Oh, wait, no he couldn't have because the teacher sent him out halfway through class yesterday for standing up and showing everyone his—"
"Butt?" Sabina guessed, sounding unimpressed.
"His scar, actually. He got it from a biking trip he took last weekend," Alex said, looking amused. "He was disrupting everyone's concentration, according to Mrs Nash. It's blue, by the way."
"His scar?" Sabina asked, looking puzzled.
"My chemistry book. Blue with large black writing on it that says—"
"'Chemistry Book'. Yeah, I get the idea. Shut up for a minute."
"I think that was uncalled for," Alex muttered absently, resuming the search for his book.
"Alex. We're going to New York!" Sabina said loudly, at the same time Alex triumphantly said, "There it is!" Wedged between the back of the desk and the wall of his room was his chemistry book, one of it's blue corners peeking out, giving away it's location. Alex tugged it out and turned to face an annoyed Sabina. She was shaking her head at him, her expression torn between exasperation and humor. He opened his mouth to say something, then paused, her earlier words finally sinking in. "Did you say New York?"
Sabina just shook her head some more, her dark hair falling into her eyes. She pushed it back, smiling slightly. "About time you finally heard me. I thought I'd have to dress up as your chemistry book before you'd—"
"Sab," Alex grinned, growing more amused by the second. "Now you're doing it."
"Oh, right." Sabina grinned at him, unabashed. "Well, as I said, we're going to New York." She sat down on his bed. "Exciting, right?"
"I'll say," Alex nodded. He sat down next to her. "When are we leaving?"
"Next week sometime. School ends tomorrow, so it'll be the Summer Holidays anyway."
"That's—" Alex searched for a word. He'd been to New York before, briefly, but he hadn't really seen the city.
"Awesome?" suggested Sabina.
"Yeah," Alex nodded. Although he was looking forward to traveling to NYC, there was a little part of him that was reserved. The CIA was located there… Of course, it made no sense to dread going to New York for that reason alone, because the CIA had gotten in contact with him a few times already, and his location had proved no hinderance to them. In the past year Alex had said no to three missions they had wanted him to take part in.
"Alex?" Sabina's voice snapped him out of his thoughts. "Are you okay?" She was gazing at him, her blue eyes a little worried. It's good news, he told himself firmly. Seeing New York will be fun. He didn't want to let the CIA get to him.
"Yeah, I was just… just thinking about something." Alex shrugged it off.
"All right, well, c'mon, we don't want to be late for school." Sabina stood up.
"You just don't want to miss 'Mr. Handsome's' English class," Alex teased, as he followed her out the door.
Sabina elbowed him. "His name is Mr. Handson," she corrected. "And I only called him handsome once."
~o~
The CIA had asked Alex three times to be recruited for missions. All three times, Alex had declined them. However, because of their manipulative tricks and badgering, Alex had ended up blowing his spy status in front of his best friend, Lucas. Lucas hadn't been mad at him for hiding his being a spy, but unlike Tom he hadn't understood either; he had been avoiding Alex ever since. It had been two months since the whole incident, two months in which Lucas had been making up excuses to stay away from Alex.
It was just another reason Alex despised the spy life. The worst part was that he hadn't told Sabina or her parents about the requests he'd received from the CIA—he'd hidden it from them. They suspected nothing. Alex hadn't meant to hide it from them, he just hadn't wanted them to worry unnecessarily. He felt horribly guilty every time he thought about it. Alex was afraid of becoming like Ian Rider, whom he loved, but didn't want to be. He didn't want to hide parts of his life from his… family. Because that was what the Pleasure's were to him now; they were like family. That was also the reason that despite the fact he really liked Sabina, he wasn't planning on ever asking her out. He couldn't stand to loose her as a friend if things didn't work out.
With all that running through his mind, Alex was surprised to see he was in a deserted part of town. He was walking home from school, just having finished his after school football—or soccer, as it was known here—practice. He must have turned left instead of right on Fifth Street, he realized. Alex sighed. This street would also take him home, but it would take longer. Just as he was internally debating about backtracking and turning right or continuing home this way, he saw Lucas coming towards him. He blinked. The other boy had been avoiding him for so long. What had suddenly changed?
As Lucas drew nearer, Alex noted he was running towards him, constantly glancing behind his shoulder, his expression oddly determined and grim and panicked all at once. Lucas didn't seem to have seen Alex yet. Alex didn't know what was going on. He couldn't see anything or anyone behind Lucas, but if he didn't know any better he would have said Lucas was running away from something.
Lucas looked ahead and met Alex's gaze. His face went blank with shock and Alex saw him mutter something, before his earlier panic returned to his face. "Go away!" Lucas yelled, his voice holding an edge. "Don't follow me!"
Abruptly, he turned into an alleyway down the street. Just like that he was gone. Confused, Alex wondered what was going on.
There was a few second's silence before he heard the strangest noise. It was somewhere in-between a scream and a roar. It was shrill and throaty, not unlike nails scratching on glass. It made Alex want to rip out his ears and crawl into a hole. In that moment he wanted do whatever it took to escape that sound. Instead, he ran towards the alleyway; it wasn't far away. What are you doing? a part of him was saying, run away from the sound, not towards it! Yet Alex was positive that sound had not come from Lucas. Which left the question, what had made it? The noise was certainly not one a human was capable of making.
When he reached the alleyway Alex saw a scene he'd never forget.
It was an insect… or was it? That didn't matter at the moment. What mattered was that it was at least six feet wide, extremely tall and giant-like, it's skin black, oily, pulsating and slightly translucent. It had about eight eyes and a large, curving mouth, bursting with teeth. It's teeth and hands (which consisted of three claws, if you could even call them that, each) were dripping a strange purple liquid, that seemed to burn and fizz whatever it touched—dustbin lids, the concrete, the dumpsters.
It was towering over Lucas, who held a glowing blade in his hand. Another one stuck out of the back of the beast. More of the purple substance seeped out of the wound. For a moment Alex was speechless. Then the questions came—What is this? Why are the blades glowing? Is this a dream? Just how acidic is the purple liquid? This is a joke, right?
"Alex!" Lucas glared at him and despite the situation, he managed to sound angry. "I should've known you wouldn't just leave."
"What the," Alex began, his voice sounding dry, even to his own ears, "hell is going on?"
"I don't suppose you'd believe this is just an out of control dog? No? You want the truth? It's a demon, and a deadly one at that. But, you're a spy, maybe you'll be able to keep yourself alive until I—" At that moment the… demon?… swiped at Lucas with it's claws, snarling, all eight eyes focused on him.
Lucas dodged the blows and was suddenly on the thing's arm—Alex narrowed his eyes, Lucas moved so fast—until he was at the thing's neck, looking like an ant in comparison, sinking his now tiny looking glowing weapon into it's neck. Another piercing howl arose and this time Alex had to step back and cover his ears, his legs shaking. This close up it's scream was unbearable.
"What do you mean demon?" Alex yelled, and like a switch being turned off, the demon-thing suddenly stopped screaming. It rounded on him, emitting a low growling.
Lucas ignored his question, his voice urgent and shouting instructions. "I've stabbed it in the neck, which is a soft spot for demons like this. It's their weakness, their kryptonite so to speak. It should die soon enough, but it's probably got another minute of life left. Don't let the purple stuff get on you—Alex move!"
Alex did move, dodging a swipe from the demon, but not out of the alley like Lucas had been expecting. Alex dived through the demon's legs, so he was where Lucas had been a minute ago. There were two more fiery blades laying on the ground nearby. "Don't touch the glowing blades either—!" Lucas was yelling. Instead of reaching for them, Alex climbed a dumpster, just as the 'demon' spat a whole gunk of purple goo at the spot he'd been in mere seconds before.
It was slowing down, becoming less alert, even Alex could tell that. Alex could also tell Lucas was stuck up on top of the demon, after all, he certainly couldn't just jump down from that height. Alex grabbed the lid of a bin near the dumpster—it was large and cold but not that heavy—and threw it with all his strength. By that time Lucas was climbing down the beast slowly and barely managed to grab ahold of it. "Um, what am I supposed to do with this—?" The demon began to crumble and fall in on itself, more and more purple goo beginning to ooze out of it.
"Try sliding down the thing," Alex shouted, only feeling slightly silly as he suggested it. "On the bin lid. It's large enough for you. Plus, the thing's skin looks pretty smooth."
Alex thought he heard Lucas snort, "Pretty smooth, he says" but he didn't have time to dwell on it as the creature roared again, it's voice getting higher and higher… and then it exploded.
Alex jumped behind the dumpster, into the little gap between it's back and the wall. It stunk badly down there and he'd hit his elbow against something hard in his haste, but he didn't want to get any of the burning purple slime on him. After a few minutes of stifling silence, he poked his head out, eyes wary.
He took in the scene in front of him with bewilderment; the alley looked ramshackled, but there was no trace of the creature or any purple liquid. The air did smell acidic though, as if some chemical had been burning through the alley, though there were no scorch marks to show it. No telltale sign of what had just taken place. Was I … dreaming? Alex thought uncertainly. No. His eyes rested on Lucas, and he had his answer.
Lucas was crouching in the corner, panting, his face and arms a little cut up, his clothes dirty, the lid of the rubbish bin resting beside him, the underside of which was coated in purple and bits of black. "Thanks for the lid," he puffed at Alex, not looking up.
"What was that?"
"I—"
"Did you say demon before?" Alex pressed. "I never took you as the type that believed in that sort of stuff."
"Well I do," Lucas admitted, sounding exhausted, looking at Alex squarely. "And you should too—did you not see that? Yeah, you did. But you're going to pretend you didn't and make up an excuse, no matter how dumb it is, despite the fact you know you'd being lying to yourself," his voice was getting louder and louder, "because you're a mundane and that's all you do."
Alex stared at him. Lucas had never had an outburst before. "Listen, I don't know what you're talking about," Alex said, pushing back some hair which had fallen into his eyes, "so why don't you just explain—" he paused. His hand had come back with sticky purple stuff on it. Alex felt his forehead. It too was sticky and gooey. He hadn't noticed it before, but it seemed he had managed to get some of the liquid on himself.
Lucas was looking at him with wide eyes. "Alex," he said. Then he swore profusely. "Let's go."
"Where? Listen, I don't feel anything. I feel fine," Alex began, but he was cut off.
"Of course you don't feel anything. That's the deal with that particular demon. It's very poisonous and later, rather than sooner, you'll feel it's affects. As in, when it's too late." Lucas started to head out the alleyway and Alex followed, although slowly.
"Luc, you're acting crazy—"
Lucas glared at him. "Fine, you're right, I am. Give me you arm."
"What?"
"Your arm," Lucas repeated firmly. "It's me, okay? You can trust me."
Alex hesitantly held out his arm. He wasn't even sure he knew Lucas anymore. He studied the other boy warily. "What are you—ahh," he gasped, the pain sudden. Lucas had grabbed his arm and Alex had barely seen a flash of silver before he felt the cool sting of metal. And burning. So much burning. But Lucas hadn't stopped. Alex yanked his arm away and Lucas looked at him, his expression guilty.
"I'm sorry," he said, his voice low. "I'm really sorry. I never thought this would happen to you."
Alex didn't know what to think, what to say. His arm was burning furiously, but there was no blood. Lucas hadn't cut him. So what had he done?
Alex opened his mouth but before he could do anything, before he could feel angry, more confused or demand answers, a rush of blackness took over. Alex lost consciousness.
