Chapter 21

Four New Amigos

Kassidy couldn't believe it… there really were giant bats in the city. Her mind was racing with so many thoughts and questions that she had to steady herself by putting her hand on the side of the hole. She tried to stay quiet because she didn't want any of the giant bats to hear her. This whole time, Grace and Hegland were telling the truth.

Holden was holding his hands to his mouth as he was looking at the gruesome scene while Shade and Marina had the same look of disgust but shock on their faces. Kassidy could see the flesh and blood flying all over the place as the giant bats were enjoying their owls and already she could see the owls' ribcages. This proved that they looked dangerous.

"It… can't be," Marina whispered.

Kassidy looked at her friends. "We need to get out of here," she whispered.

"We can't leave without thanking them," Shade whispered. "They saved us."

"Whether they did it to save us or not we need to-" before Kassidy could finish, Holden turned around and he started to vomit inside the tree and the three of them cried out disgusted. Holden then started to cough from the vomit he threw up after he did it for a few seconds.

The three of them looked back at the giant bats and Kassidy and Marina's eyes widened when they saw that the giant bats were looking up at them.

"Oh, god I think my breakfast is coming up," Holden shouted and he started to puke again and Kassidy, Shade, and Marina made a disgusted face again but didn't look back at Holden and his vomit.

Even though the giant bats couldn't see what was going on, Kassidy could tell that they knew what was going on. She looked at each of the bats and they were different in some way. Really different. But she couldn't take her eyes off of one of them and it was the one that had the snakes on him. Not only did he have one on his back but like Grace said there were three of them and the other two were on his arms but not only that he looked very muscular-even though he looked to be around his middle ages. He had blackish-grayish hair, with a beard, a hazelwood mane, along with steel gray fur, and sangria red wings. What disturbed Kassidy though were his eyes. They were two different colors with one of them being green and the other being brown. Those eyes looked nothing like a bat's but rather they looked more like snake eyes like he had a parent that was actually a snake.

Holden then came back next to Kassidy, Shade, and Marina and he was wiping the vomit from his mouth. He then looked back at the giant bats but Kassidy could tell he was trying not to look at the carcasses. She swore that if Holden puked once again she was going to make him clean it all up with his mouth. Now the inside of the tree smelled of vomit and Kassidy didn't know if the smell of blood was worse or if the smell of vomit was.

She then noticed that one of the giant bats-which she could tell was very fat-was trying to eat the carcass again but a male bat that was eating the same owl as him (and was much more fit than him) stopped him using his hand and the fat bat grumbled. The two of them then looked back at the four friends. The four bats then started to smile at the four friends and their smiles brought so many alarms in Kassidy's head as if it were a red alert. Especially the one with the snakes on him, he had four pointy teeth that looked like snake teeth. This felt really uneasy for her.

The giant bat with snakes on him was wiping the blood off his mouth and then he cleared his throat. "Are you kids alright?"

The four friends looked at each other. Shade then looked back at the giant bat with the snakes on him. "Y-Yeah, thank you."

"You're very much welcome, boy," the giant bat with snakes on him said. "I'm Martin." He then wrapped his wing around the other giant bat which was a female. "This is my lovely wife, Dianna."

The bat named Dianna looked to be around her middle ages but even though she was she looked very pretty. She had raven black hair, very intense green eyes, sacramento green wings, a turkish blue mane, and sepia tan fur. What really caught Kassidy's attention was Dianna's claws. Her claws were really long and they looked like Freddy Krueger's clawed hand in Nightmare on Elm Street.

Martin then gestured to the two other giant bats. "And over there is our partners." Martin pointed at the muscular bat. "That's Prince Goth of the Vampyrum Spectrum." The bat named Goth slightly nodded his head at them while Martin then pointed at the other one next to Goth, "and that's his… brother-in-law, Throbb." Martin said as if Throbb repulsed him.

Kassidy noticed that Holden looked like he was about to laugh when Martin said that Goth and Throbb were brothers-in-law but she then saw that Holden was biting on his bottom lip. She looked back at the brothers and started to observe them. Goth had crimson red hair, a beard, a beige mane, grey-brown fur, purple wings, and green eyes. He was then wiping the blood off his mouth like Dianna was. He certainly looked like he knew how to present himself properly. For a Prince, Kassidy thought with a roll of her eyes.

Throbb, on the other hand, was the opposite of Goth. He had dark purple hair along with a goatee, a dark green mane, dark blue wings, teal fur, and green eyes. He was also much shorter than the rest of the giant bats which kind of made him look like a dwarf. He still had blood on his mouth and didn't bother using his hand or arm to wipe it off. Instead, he used his tongue to lick it off. Goth was looking at his brother annoyed but he looked away while shaking his head.

Kassidy couldn't help but scowl at the four giant bats while Marina was looking at them unsure. The boys, on the other hand, were looking at them curiously. "H-Hi," Shade said. "Um…" He then cleared his throat. "I-I'm Shade" He then gestured to the girls. "T-That's Kassidy and Marina, but Kassidy goes for Kass for short." He then gestured to Holden, "and this is Holden."

The girls looked at Shade shocked and Kassidy couldn't believe he said their names. Kassidy then scowled at Shade and Shade noticed it and he shrugged his shoulders.

"Tell me I'm dreaming," Holden said. "Am I actually looking at giant bats right now?"

Martin chuckled. "What else would you be looking at, boy?"

Holden then started to slowly smile and he looked at Kassidy, Shade, and Marina. "This is awesome," Holden whispered. Kassidy then scowled at Holden and Holden looked at her as if to say "What?"

"Why don't you four come on down here?" Martin said. "We won't bite you."

Martin's companions chuckled at what he said.

"Not a chance," Kassidy said and this made everyone look at her. "What makes you so sure that'd we would want to fly on down there after what you did to those owls?"

"We just saved your lives," Dianna said. "Are you not thankful for what we did?"

Kassidy looked at Dianna. "That's not what I was trying to say."

"Then join us on the ground, after all, there can't be anything wrong with four giant bats getting acquainted with you and your friends can it?"

The four friends looked at each other and then Holden and Shade smiled at the girls and made their way down to the ground and when they did they landed. Everyone looked up at Kassidy and Marina and waited for them to do something. Kassidy kept scowling but she then sighed and she rubbed her temples and she couldn't believe she was about to go down there. She took off and Marina hesitated but she then followed Kassidy. They then landed next to the boys and when they did Kassidy crossed her arms.

"Satisfied?" Kassidy asked.

"Very much so," Martin said.

Goth and Throbb flew over to their partners and landed next to them. "We are new to these lands," Goth said in a smooth Spanish accent. "Torn away from our own."

Shade smiled at Goth. "Us too!"

Holden then started to laugh. "Huh, who knew right?"

"We have much in common," Goth then smiled at the boys.

"Pft," Kassidy said. Goth's smile went down when he saw that Kassidy was still scowling. Kassidy's eyebrows went up. "What?"

Goth then smiled again. "I see you're having doubts about us, señorita. I can assure you that we don't mean any harm."

Kassidy gave Goth a fake smile. "I'm sure you don't, Fancy Wings."

Her friends looked at her while Goth's smile went down.

Martin then cleared his throat. "Anyways, all we want to do is get back home in the south." Martin then indicated to the stars. "But we cannot read these uh… northern stars."

As Martin's hand was extended towards the stars, Kassidy then saw something on his hand that made her eyes widen. On the palm of Martin's hand was the mark of the pentagram. She then pointed at Martin. "You have the mark!"

"Huh?" Martin looked at Kassidy. Martin then looked at the mark on the palm of his hand and he then smiled at Kassidy. "Oh, you mean this?" Martin then showed the palm of his hand towards the four friends and Holden, Shade, and Marina gasped. Kassidy looked at her hand with the pentagram mark on it and she compared it to Martin's and there was no doubt about it. He had magic like her. "I see you have the mark as well."

Dianna walked up to Kassidy and when Kassidy saw her doing that she snarled at her. Dianna put her hands up. "Easy there, I just want to look at your mark." She then extended her hand towards Kassidy. "May I?"

Kassidy then felt a hand on her shoulder and she looked to see that Shade had his hand on her shoulder. "Kass, it's okay. I think we can trust them."

Kassidy looked at Dianna and she was smiling at her. She didn't like it the way these guys were smiling at them. Something about them just didn't seem right. But when she looked at the boys she could see that they wanted her to trust Dianna and let her look at her mark. When she looked at Marina she was looking at her as if to say "Don't do it." Kassidy then looked at Dianna and she sighed. She then extended her marked hand towards Dianna and she gently grabbed it and started to look at it and as she did she hummed to herself.

Dianna then lifted her other hand and then she extended one of her claws and as she did, Marina gasped. Dianna then slowly traced the mark on Kassidy with her claw and she didn't make her palm bleed. If she even tried to hurt her, Kassidy was going to rip her pretty little claws off.

Dianna then looked back at Kassidy. "So much like Martin's."

Kassidy then snatched her hand away from Dianna. Dianna then shrugged her shoulders like it wasn't a big deal and she got back next to Martin.

Kassidy then saw that Shade looked like he had an idea. "You guys can travel with us!" The girls gasped at what Shade said. "We're headed south to find my-"

"Uh, Shade?" Kassidy said and everyone looked at her. "I think it would only be fair if we discussed this rather than actually allowing them to come with us." Kassidy looked at the four giant bats. "'Scuse us for a sec."

Kassidy grabbed Shade's arm and she pulled him to behind a very far tree and Marina did the same thing with Holden. When they got behind the tree, the boys looked at them confused. "Hey, what gives?" Shade asked.

Kassidy crossed her arms and scowled at Shade. "Are you for real?"

"What?"

"We can't trust them. We don't know anything about them and they come out of nowhere like they're assassins working for a society."

"Kass, I think you're overreacting," Holden said with his brow furrowed. "They just saved us back there and without them, we would've been dead meat."

"Kass is right," Marina said. "We don't know anything about them. They're so uncomfortable to be next to. Dianna even looked like she wanted to bite Kassidy's hand off."

"She was looking at her mark, Marina," Shade said. "Look, I know you two don't trust them but could you at least give them a chance? We do after all owe them."

Kassidy and Marina looked at each other. They then looked back at the boys and they sighed, knowing Shade was right. "Fine, they can come with us," Kassidy said. "But if they do anything out of the ordinary they're gone, you understand?"

Shade sighed but then nodded. "Fine."

"Also I don't want them to know that Holden and I are humans."

Holden looked at her confused. "Why? I don't see what the-"

"Holden, please," Kassidy said as she looked at Holden. "I don't want them to know. Until I think they can be trusted, they can't know about our secret. I'm asking you as a friend to just trust me on this."

Holden was about to protest but then he closed his mouth. He then sighed. "Alright, that's fine."

"Alright," Shade said. "Then it's settled then." The four of them flew back over to the four giant bats. Shade then smiled at them. "After our discussion, we've decided that you could come with us."

The four giant bats smiled, satisfied with their answer. "Thank you," Martin said, "and in return, we'd like to offer you our protection." Martin then extended his hand out towards Shade.

Shade looked at Martin's hand for a second and then he shook Martin's hand. "It's a deal."

Mournful hoots all the sudden filled the night sky and the four friends looked up alarmed. The four giant bats looked up as well. "What was that?" Goth asked, his crest bristling.

"More owls," Shade then looked at the two dead owls and his eyes widened as if realizing something and he looked at everyone. "I think they're calling for these two… We should get moving."

Martin hummed to himself and then he looked at the owl corpses. He then smiled mischievously and Kassidy could tell that he was concentrating on the carcasses for some reason. Then with the flick of his wrist, the carcasses then disappeared in thin air. Everyone except Dianna had their eyes widened.

Martin then crossed his arms and he looked at Shade still smiling. "I think we should be good to go."

She just wasn't sure about them. They seemed like they were friendly but in a way, it seemed wrong. Very wrong.

Kassidy and Marina were flying next to each other as they were way in the back following the others. The boys seemed like they were getting well acquainted with the giant bats. They were talking with them but they were mostly talking to Martin and Goth and they were asking them some questions like they were celebrities and as they did the boys were looking astonished as their questions were being answered.

Kassidy rolled her eyes. "Kill me now."

Marina looked at Kassidy. "Still don't trust them?"

Kassidy looked at Marina. "Not the slightest. I still don't think they should've came with us."

"I don't blame you. I don't like them nor trust them."

The girls then heard the boys laughing at something Martin said. This made Kassidy look at Martin and there was something about him that Kassidy didn't like. Almost everything about him looked so unnatural, the eyes, the four pointy teeth, and the snakes on him. This however made her question something. How did he get those snakes on him?

Whatever the case was, Kassidy had a feeling that Martin and his other giant bat companions were hiding something.

Kassidy then looked back at Marina. "I think we should spy on them."

Marina looked dumbfounded for a moment. "What?"

"Look, we can both agree that these guys look like they're untrustworthy. If we're wrong or not we should watch them to see if they might be hiding something."

"Should we tell Shade and Holden about this?"

Kassidy thought about what would happen if they told the boys and looking at them now they seemed like they were enjoying the giant bats' company. She then shook her head. "No, we shouldn't tell them. If we even told them what do you think they would've said about it?"

Marina looked at the boys and she thought for a few seconds. She then sighed and nodded her head. "You're right, we shouldn't tell them. They probably would've said that there's 'nothing to worry about'."

"Exactly, and if we even find anything suspicious about them we need to tell Shade and Holden."

"Evening ladies," Kassidy and Marina's eyes widened and Marina gasped when she saw that Dianna was flying near them.

Kassidy didn't look at Dianna and she shut her eyes and she bared her teeth. She hoped that Dianna didn't hear their conversation. Kassidy looked at Dianna and she acted as though everything was alright as Dianna was smiling at them. "Evening… Dianna. What brings you over here?"

Dianna shrugged her shoulders. "Just wanted to see how you two were doing. Plus I wanted to get away from the boys' conversation if you can catch my drift." Kassidy and Marina looked at each other. "You know it's been a while since I've had a conversation with females, I've mostly been having conversations with my husband and my partners. I love talking with my husband, don't get me wrong, but talking with Goth and Throbb is like talking to monkeys."

Marina looked at Dianna confused. "Monkeys?"

"They're kind of like humans but they're very hairy, pretty athletic, and unlike humans, they have tails."

Kassidy looked at Goth and Throbb and then she looked back at Dianna. "You seem like you get along with them."

Dianna snorted. "Trust me, if you saw me near them and talking to them you can tell that they can get under my skin a lot of times."

Kassidy looked at Dianna confused. "How so?"

"Let's just say I can lose my patience with them." Dianna was then looking at something and she looked intrigued at what she was looking at. Kassidy then understood that she was looking at her tattoos and her choker. Dianna then smiled back at Kassidy. "I like those drawings on you, were you born with them like Martin was born with his?"

He was born with them? Kassidy thought.

To her, that didn't make any sense. How could Martin be born with snakes on him? Kassidy somehow didn't want to believe that Martin was born with those snakes on him or for that matter even looking like a snake. She thought that he had to use some sort of magic trick to have what he had on him.

However, this did give her an idea. If Dianna says that Martin was born with those snakes on him she could lie about her tattoos. She really didn't want Dianna nor her companions to find out about her nor Holden being humans. She, after all, didn't know what they would do if they knew she and Holden were humans.

"Yeah, I was born with them," Kassidy said.

"Interesting," Dianna said as she looked back at Kassidy's tattoos. "If you actually had put them on you I would've said you had some great taste." Dianna then looked at Kassidy's choker. "What's that on your neck?"

Kassidy tried to think hard about what she could say. "Um… it's something I made. It's a trinket."

"Very nice, you might have to teach me how to make one of those." Kassidy cursed inside her head because she didn't know how to make a choker. Maybe it couldn't be hard to make one, but she hoped that Dianna wouldn't bring it up again. "You know, my husband has a fascination for snakes. He says that they can be very sly and cunning and he's pretty much right. He also says because of his fascination for them he was born to act like one."

To Kassidy, it sounded stupid that he even had things on him that looked like a snake. If he was like that one of his parents would've been a snake. Plus there was no way a bat and a snake could make an offspring.

However, she could understand Martin having a fascination with snakes. She had a fascination for wolves for as long as she could remember. She even remembered one time when she was five she was awake at night and when there was a full moon she howled at it like she was a wolf herself and her parents had to drag her in the house because the neighbors were waking up and they were pretty scared because they thought there was an actual wolf in the neighborhood. Kassidy was forced to apologize to the neighbors and she was embarrassed.

She then looked at Dianna's claws and boy were they something. Kassidy then looked at Dianna. "Were you born with claws those long?

Dianna chuckled. "If I was actually born with these bad boys I probably would've cut the inside of my mom while she was giving birth to me. However, my claws grew longer than the other Vampyrum bats' as I grew older but it gave me a big advantage for my hunting. You could say that I was different. Martin was different as well and that's how we became friends and as time went on we then became mates. You two can relate to being different can't you?"

Kassidy and Marina looked at each other. Even though Kassidy didn't trust Dianna or her companions she could see where Dianna was going with this. Because of her difference a lot of animals have judged her. Because of Marina's band, her colony banished her.

Kassidy then noticed that Marina was looking at something surprised. When Kassidy looked to where Marina was looking she felt like she wanted to her smack her own face. Dianna had on a bronze band. How could she have not seen that? When she looked at Dianna's companions she saw they had the same bands as her.

"Looks like we acquired the same band, Marina," Dianna said when she noticed the girls looking at her band. "Well, sort of. It's quaint though."

"Yeah… I guess it is," Marina said as she looked at her own band.

Kassidy then saw that Martin was flying towards them and he was then flying next to Dianna. Kassidy then noticed that Marina got a little nervous but she looked like she was trying to stay brave. Kassidy wouldn't let Martin get to her and she just stared at Martin with a blank expression.

Martin was smiling at them. "Evening ladies, did I miss anything?"

"No, just discussing some things with them, darling," Dianna said.

Martin then looked at Kassidy and Marina. "I see you two are already getting acquainted with my wife. Did she tell you any secrets?"

Dianna slapped Martin on the shoulder in a playful way as she was smiling at him. "Shut up, you nosy bat."

Martin chuckled at Dianna. "Can you blame me, love?"

Kassidy and Marina looked at each other and at this moment, Kassidy didn't know what to do right now. She found love to be way too cliché sometimes, whether it'd be books, movies, or real life it was way too cliché to her. She knew though that this is what happens when people are in love or married.

She and Marina looked back at the two spouses and Martin then cleared his throat as he and Dianna looked back at Kassidy and Marina. "Sorry to break your girl time, but I need to speak with my wife." Martin looked at Dianna as she looked at him confused. "It's important."

Dianna nodded and she looked at the girls. "It was nice talking to you girls; we can continue this on another time."

Martin and Dianna glided far back behind the others and started to whisper to each other. Kassidy couldn't help but scowl at Martin about what he said but she sighed annoyed. "This wasn't even close to girl talk."

"Is it bad that Martin gives me the creeps?" Marina asked.

Kassidy looked at Marina. "Let's just try to get through with this and see where it leads us to. Remember the plan though."

Marina nodded. "Right."

Then the girls saw Holden and Shade fly next to them and they looked like they were in a good mood. Kassidy looked at Shade confused when she noticed that Goth and Throbb were flying up front whispering to each other in Spanish. Kassidy knew a few languages but she tried not to translate in her head in English what the brothers were saying because she knew that the boys would tell her to lay off. She looked at Shade. "Aren't you supposed to be leading the way?"

"It's fine, I just told them to keep going straight," Shade said. "Plus they needed to discuss something."

"Those guys are great," Holden said. "I don't know what you two were so worried about but they seemed pretty cool. You should get to know them better."

Kassidy looked at Holden annoyed. "I'm not buying it."

"Kass, lighten up, besides I feel safe around them."

"So it doesn't bother you that these guys eat meat?" Marina asked.

"So what? Kassidy and I are omnivores while you guys are insectivores."

"You literally puked all over the inside of a tree when you saw them eating owls," Kassidy said.

"No!" Holden said fast as soon as Kassidy finished her sentence. "The reason why I threw up was that I was flying too much."

Kassidy knew Holden was lying but she didn't continue any further about it.

"Guys, trust us," Shade said. "You won't regret having them traveling us."

Kassidy looked from Martin and Dianna to the brothers and she hoped that the boys were right because those four giant bats were the reasons why the owls were hunting down not only them but the Silverwings as well.

A/N- Well that takes care of this chapter. I was hoping to write more in this chapter but I figured that this would be enough. Not how I wanted this chapter to be but it looks fine. Things are about to get crazy though for these four friends as they keep traveling with their new so-called 'amigos'. That's all I wanted to say and next chapter will be out soon, later.