Chapter 9

Dani and Lauren walked out of the administration office of their school each with a list of assignments for the next couple of weeks. 'That was easier than I thought.' Lauren said as she put up her umbrella. Rain had steadily begun to pour during their visit.

'Yeah but remind me we need to tell Chris to lie if the school calls her.' Dani said.

'Good point.' Lauren agreed. 'We didn't completely make it up though, Chris was injured, and she shouldn't be alone.'

'Exactly, we're just being good sisters.' Dani said as they walked into the school parking structure towards her car. Lauren put her umbrella down as they made it to the concrete building, shaking the rain from it before securing it to her bag.

'I'm worried that lying is becoming too easy for this family.' Lauren said as they stopped at Dani's car.

'It's a skill, why not use it.' Dani grinned and unlocked the car. Before she could pull her door open there was a loud crash. Something smashed into the back window, shattering it and sending glass everywhere. 'Shit!' Dani said, as she knelt for cover and looked behind them. 'Lauren you okay?'

'I'm fine.' Lauren replied. She made her way around to Dani's side of the car and pulled her in front of the hood. 'What the hell was that?'

'Might have something to do with her.' Dani pointed to a tall woman standing in the middle of the parking structure. She was wearing a long red cloak and had tattoos covering her arms and one side of her face. Her eyes were sparkling silver and her hands were balled at her sides.

'What potions do you have?' Lauren asked.

'Two exploding ones and a freezing one.' Dani confirmed.

'Okay, so give them to me but keep an exploding one.' Lauren said as Dani rummaged in her pocket and pulled out the small vials, handing two of them to Lauren. 'Can you disappear and sneak up on her, throw the other one?'

'I can try.' Dani confirmed as she vanished. Lauren looked up from the hood cautiously and saw the woman still standing there. Lauren watched her turn her head, almost as if…..

'Dani! Watch out!' Lauren stood and yelled but it was too late. The demon shot out a hand and sent Dani flying. She appeared mid flight before crashing into the windscreen of a nearby car. The potion fell from her hand and was destroyed as they both hit the ground. Lauren carefully made her way to Dani behind a row of cars. As she got to her, she watched the demon stalk slowly towards them. Dani was pulling some glass from her hair as Lauren knelt beside her. 'Come on, get up.' Lauren said, hauling Dani to her feet.

'That hurt.' Dani said, trying to crack her neck.

'Who are you?' Lauren asked as they slowly backed away from the demon. She followed their steps before answering.

'I want the amulet.' She said.

'Yeah, that didn't answer my question.' Lauren said, still walking backwards slowly with Dani clasping her arm.

'You don't need to know who I am, just give me the amulet and I can leave you alone.' She said.

'We don't have it, sorry.' Dani said as she took the other exploding potion from Lauren's pocket. Lauren felt the movement and looked to Dani who nodded gently.

'The masters dream walked your sister, we know you have it.' She hissed.

'In that case then of course we'll just give it to you.' Dani said patronisingly.

'You're lying.' The demon said, getting more frustrated.

'What makes you say that?' Dani questioned.

'Enough of this!' The demon roared. 'Give me the…..' But before she could finish Dani threw the exploding potion. The demon sent a blast of air from her hands and it blew up in the air. The distraction was enough for Lauren to throw the freezing potion, hitting the demon in the chest and turning her to stone. They both let out a breath.

'I didn't know it would turn her to stone.' Dani said.

'I'm not complaining.' Lauren said. 'Let's get out of here, we can get the car later.' She tugged Dani towards the main road and they quickly made their way down the street in the direction of home.

xxxxxx

Dani and Lauren burst through the door, shocking Katherine who was sitting reading her book in the living room. 'Woah.' She said, turning to face them. 'What's going on?' She asked, getting up and going over to them.

'Demon.' Lauren panted, bending over and leaning on her knees.

'Did you run all the way from school?' Katherine asked. 'Where's your car?'

'Had to leave it, this crazy bitch tried to kill us in the parking lot.' Dani said.

'What?' Lisa asked, catching the end of the conversation as she came down the stairs.

'Get everyone down here now.' Katherine said as Lisa nodded and ran back up the stairs to get Amy and Christina.

They were all sitting in the living room moments later with worried looks on their faces. Christina had brought the book with her and Lauren was flipping through it, trying to find the demon as Dani was telling them what happened. 'She literally told us that her masters dream walked Christina, and that she wanted the amulet.'

'Did she say anything about what they were planning on doing with it?' Lisa asked.

'No, we didn't get that far.' Dani told them. 'At least we know how the freezing potion works now.'

'Anything in the book Laur?' Amy asked.

'No, it's like she doesn't exist.' Lauren confirmed, closing the book.

'Was there anything distinctive about her?' Christina asked.

'Nothing apart from silver eyes and loads of tattoos.' Lauren said.

'Tattoos? What did they look like?' Christina asked.

'They were like vines, and flowers, with some birds I think.' Lauren said.

'She had like tribal patterns on one side of her face too.' Dani added. Christina thought for a moment before getting up and grabbing some paper and a pen. She started to sketch something as the others watched. After a moment she placed the paper in front of her sisters.

'Did any of them look like this?' She asked. They were looking at a circle with the insides of a maze, some sections coloured in, others void of colour.

'Yeah, it was smaller, but I think it was on the side of her neck.' Dani confirmed. 'You've seen it before?'

'When we were fighting Jack in the alley, as his hand opened to form an energy ball I saw it on his palm.'

'So this is some sort of club?' Lisa wondered. 'Join us and get an ugly tattoo.'

'Hang on.' Amy said, as she too got up and ran into the kitchen. She came back with the medical records they had taken from the shoe factory. 'Look.' She said, putting the files down on the table. On the back of every folder was a small stamp, many faded from the fire but others visible enough to make sense of.

'It's the same.' Katherine said. 'Which means she was turned into a demon in the same lab as Jack.'

'It also means there could be more, probably are more.' Christina said. 'And they know things about us, like where we go to school.' She looked at Lauren and Dani.

'We still don't know why they want the amulet so badly.' Amy reminded them.

'It's obviously about power.' Lisa said. 'We saw what it did with Chris, who knows what it'll to in the hands of the Trinity.'

'So what do we do?' Lauren asked.

'Nothing, for now.' Christina said. 'They don't know where it is, just that we have it. And we need to keep it that way until we find the Trinity and destroy them.'

'What about if we destroy the amulet?' Katherine suggested. 'Then no one would have it.'

'Do you really think we could destroy it?' Dani asked.

'Never know until we try.' Katherine said.

'Look, we're not there yet.' Christina said, feeling oddly protective over the amulet. 'Kath, look into it okay, see what we'd need to do if it comes to that.' Katherine nodded.