Sorry I havent updated for like ages n ages n ages n ages......but i was bust with college and i was working on my other fan fic 'Blood Ties', but that's finished now so Im updating this now! Hope u all like it, Its the longest chapter iv ever written i think!!!
Lotsa luv

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Prudence Warren

Dodging an energy ball I ducked behind an overturned table. The table shuddered as another energy ball hit it. Risking a glance round the side of the table I saw the six foot several, red-skinned demon advancing, with an energy ball in its hand. The demon snarled as he saw me and I quickly squinted my eyes, using my power of telekinesis to send the energy ball flying back at the demon. It staggered back but unfortunately it wasn't vanquished. The demon was hurt though, enough to make it shimmer away at the sound of the front door opening.

"Prudence?" gasped Alice, surveying the scene in front of her, "Are you ok? What happened?"

"Demon attacked." I explained briefly to my guardian. Alice had taken me in when my mother, Melinda, had been burned at the stake for being a witch. However, unlike most women burned at the stake, my mother had actually been a witch, and had passed that legacy to me. Alice wasn't a witch, but she knew all about magic and she knew that witches weren't evil, as the majority of people in the 1700's thought.

"Is it gone?" Alice asked, helping me to put the room back to rights.

"For now." I replied, "I'll check the book of shadows and see if it's in there."

"Oh, ok."

Smiling at Alice's nerves, I reassured her, "I'll be ok. I mean, I always am aren't I?"

"Yes, I know, it's just that you know demons scare me. I don't want you to get hurt. Your mother gave you to me to keep you safe, look after you. Yet demons attack you almost constantly."

"It's not your fault. I'm a witch, that's why demons attack, and it's my destiny to fight back. There's nothing either of us can do about that."

Alice smiled at me and nodded. We had had this conversation and ones similar to it before. Alice knew what my destiny as a witch was, but it didn't mean she had to like it.

"Ok. I'll check the book." I said walking upstairs to my room.

I closed the door behind me and reached under my bed for my book of shadows. My mother had given it to me before she had been killed - it was one of the only things I had left of her. Most of the entries were in her writing, apart from the few that I had added. My mother had told me that she had started this book for her descendants; a way to pass on knowledge to help defeat evil.

Settling myself down I started to flick through the pages, scanning each page for the demon that had attacked me.

-----

A few hours later I found myself looking at the demon. His name was Axellon and he was an upper level demon. 'Great' I muttered to myself, 'First I need to find him, then cut of a slice of his flesh, then get away from him, then make a vanquishing potion, then find him again, then vanquish him. Why can't thing's ever be easy?'

There was a summoning spell I noticed. I figured it would be better if I summoned the demon here as there was less chance of someone seeing anything magical.

"Alice." I called down the stairs.

"Yes Prudence?" she replied coming out of the kitchen to the bottom of the stairs.

"I need to summon a demon. Is it ok if you go out of the house again?" I asked.

"Yes…I'll go and see Marianne…Will you be ok?" Alice was looking anxious. I didn't want to worry her but I had to vanquish the demon.

"Yes, you know I'll be fine." I smiled brightly. I hoped I would be anyway. You never did know if it would be the next demon that would kill you, or the one after that, but I tried not to let it bother me. I'd probably go insane if I did!

I heard Alice close the door behind her and I grabbed the crystals to make a crystal cage. Walking into the living room I set them out then went into the kitchen to get a knife. I stood in front of the crystals and took a deep breath before chanting the summoning spell.

"A witch's call through the light,
To bring a demon to my sight,
Spirits soar through space and time,
Summon Axellon with this rhyme."

A chill wind picked up and what looked like swirling smoke filled the space within the crystal cage. I saw the familiar red skin of Axellon, his face twisted with an evil smile.

"You summoned me, witch?" he spat, "Your downfall."

He reached out a hand exploding the crystals in a burst of flames, causing the crystal cage to shimmer briefly before disappearing. I reflexively squinted my eyes, slamming Axellon into the wall behind him. He fell back to the ground and I ran quickly forward, the knife held out in front of me. Axellon snarled, pulling himself to his feet as I lashed out with the knife. It made contact and he howled in pain, but unfortunately, unlike last time, he didn't shimmer out now that he was injured. He powered up an energy ball and threw it at me.

Not expecting this, the energy ball hit me before I could avoid it and it was my turn to fly through the air and hit the wall. Dazed, I looked up as Axellon advanced. My brain still not working properly, I looked around desperately for a weapon before the realisation that I still held the knife hit me.

From my position on the ground I threw the knife at Axellon. It plunged into his throat and he made a strangled noise as he reached up with both hands and pulled it out. This time Axellon did shimmer out and I sighed in relief as I got to my feet.

I felt my shoulder cautiously. It was bleeding where the energy ball had hit it but didn't seem to be too bad. I made my way over to the place where I had cut Axellon with the knife and grinned triumphantly as I picked up the slice of flesh laying a pool of what I assumed to be black blood.

Just then I heard the front door slam open. Alice ran in breathless.

"What's going on?" she exclaimed, "Megan, next door, came and told me that there were funny noises coming from here; crashes and screams and….oh my god, you're bleeding!"

"It's nothing." I reassured her, "Minor energy ball, and minor miscalculation with the demon. He got out of the crystal cage." Surveying the mess around me and Alice's face I could see we had different interpretations of minor.

Waving the flesh in front of her face I quickly changed the subject. "Well, I got the flesh that I needed to make the potion. I'd better go and make it now." Walking out the room, I called back over my shoulder, "Tell Megan I fell down the stairs!"

-----

A while later I stood back from the simmering potion and threw the slice of flesh into the potion. There was a small explosion and when the smoke had cleared I filled two potion bottles with the potion. Considering, I changed my mind and filled an extra potion bottle; I had underestimated Axellon once before already.

When I walked back into the living room Alice had just finished clearing up. She looked up questioningly and I shook one of the potion bottles in front of her face.

"All done." I said chirpily, she looked hard at me and I sighed. "Alice, don't worry. Really, everything will be fine." I walked over to the front door and paused, "I'm gonna summon Axellon again to vanquish him but not here in case things don't go as expected like before. I'll go out to the woods and hope no-one's talking a walk."

"Ok." Alice accepted, "but be careful, not just with the demon either. You know what'll happen if anyone sees you."

I knew only too well. I nodded solemnly, my thoughts on my mother. "I'll be careful."

-----

I reached a clearing in the woods and stood still listening. I couldn't hear anyone and I hadn't seen anyone on my way here. I doubted anyone would be around as I was in the middle of a forest in the freezing cold. There was a lazy wind and I pulled my jacket around myself, shivering. 'Might as well get it over with' I thought, 'no point waiting around.'

I hadn't bothered with any crystals as Axellon hadn't had any trouble with them before. So I pulled a piece of paper with the summoning spell on out of my pocket and held the potion in my hand, ready to throw.

"A witch's call through the light,
To bring a demon to my sight,
Spirits soar through space and time,
Summon Axellon with this rhyme."

As before, swirling smoke appeared and I threw the potion as I saw a tall silhouette form within it. The smoke blocked Axellon from my view and when it had died down there was nothing but an empty clearing; empty apart from the smashed potion bottle.

'Did I vanquish him?' Even as the thought entered my head a sixth sense screamed at me to turn round and I ducked as I half turned, the energy ball narrowly missing my head.

Axellon was standing behind me, smirking evilly. He must have shimmered out before my potion hit him. He threw another energy ball and I dropped to the ground to avoid it. Using my telekinesis I sent Axellon flying back into a tree and threw the second potion at him. This time he waved his hand, a ball of flame incinerating the potion bottle.

He jumped to his feet and powered up another energy ball. I prepared myself to duck it but just before he could throw it another figure appeared; a knife leaving its hand and hitting Axellon in the upper arm. He swung round angrily, the energy ball still in his hand, and Alice stood there frozen in terror as he advanced, snarling.

Recovering from this unexpected turn of events, I realised I still had another potion and hurriedly threw it at Axellon.

From my vantage point, the potion bottle flew incredibly slowly through the air as Axellon drew back his hand preparing to throw the energy ball at Alice. A sixth sense akin to the one I had felt, warned Axellon, but he spun around to late to do anything as the potion hit him.

For a moment, frozen in time, Axellon stood there, a shocked expression on his face, before he suddenly burst into flames. He threw his hands out and screamed in pain as the flames swirled up around his body. There was a howling of the wind and then the flames were sucked into themselves and vanished, the only sign of the vanquish a ring of burnt and singed grass.

I looked across the clearing and my eyes met Alice's.

"I'm sorry, I just couldn't sit at home…I was just so worried for some reason. I know that you've fought so many demons before but there was just something different about this time…"

I held up my hands to stop Alice, "Alice! Don't apologize; you probably just saved my life! And this demon was different. He was more powerful than most I have to fight."

"Let's go home." Together we walked back through the woods, back to the house. I briefly looked back over my shoulder at the clearing. One more demon was vanquished. Satisfied with this I caught up with Alice, looking forward to a while with the semblance of a normal life.