Disclaimer: I do not own any of Darren Shan's working, including Demonata or Zom-B. I do, however, own any original concepts which can be found within this story and therefor own them. TheMortition, my beloved long time reviewer and friend, can lay claim to the amazing Alec and Alex Sparrow featured/mentioned within this chapter, so please, let all the love go to him for inventing them in all of their amazingness! I wouldn't ever dream of stealing someone else's work, so give him all the love for them!
A/N: Jesus! I am so sorry you would not be able to believe how bad I've been feeling about this! It's the end of my summer holidays and I was so certain at the beginning I would be turning out at least two chapters for this over the summer-famous last thoughts. My writers block was crippling, and upon recollecting, I think it's because of the fact I chose to write in the POV of an OC of mine I've never attempted to do so before-Andrew 'Andy' Flame, son of Meera Flame. Getting in Andy's head was really hard, because although I know him like the back of my own hand, I found putting things in his way and not Esther's or Linzer's or Violet's was a lot harder than I'd assumed. I even had a go at third person, but that was even worse, so I resumed first. Chapter 17 will hopefully be up soon because I've got some ideas, and again, I am so fucking sorry about my lateness! Usually when I have time off school my mind is all fanfiction good, but this summer-probably because I was getting science GCSE results-the inspiration was sucked dry out of my skull! Huge thanks to all of the people who've rated, reviewed and just read this story, and a big thanks to nobody for shoving me into action last night with their review! It's your support which keeps me going!
Seeing the blonde necromancer girl faint was surprisingly not the most screwed up thing I'd witnessed that day, but considering the situation, such a thought was semi-acceptable. I didn't approach the so far silent, tall, red headed boy whose ears meant he probably couldn't pass through a metal detector; or the small, pudgy, black haired boy with a lazy left eye who were frantically talking to the Commander about her condition. I tried to offer my help as much as possible, but intruding on strangers never seemed polite or necessary, especially seeing as the biggest concern I had at the moment was making sure the blitzed brains of the guy Tia Bellari had created a psychic bond with, weren't stood on. I'd been given a job and I'd been in so much deep shit for not doing it properly.
Oh yeah…I forgot, you don't know me. I'm Andy, Andy Flame. As in, the son of Meera Flame-neighbourhood Disciple and let-down parent, but the less I delve into our relationship the better. It hurts to think of her, but it hurt seven more to talk about my father, so I usually avoid that topic; it wasn't like I had any coherent memories of him, but all I remember is that he used to promise me even if he left this world, his spirit would always remain, watching over me. To some extent I've always felt like he's lived up to that promise, but then some horrible voice reminds me: don't all parents make that promise to their children? But I guess I'm different in that class because I can literally sense the spirits of the afterlife; I can't see them like Jennifer Love Hewitt in that TV show, Ghost Whisperer, but I can sense them in the general atmosphere. Little impressions on the earth which the average person can't sense; but mediumship varies depending on the user and their extra abilities.
"Andy?" A hand gently tapped my shoulder and I turned away from the scene playing in front of me, to finally face someone whose face was recognisable in the long run to me. "You gonna stop staring at the unconscious voodoo chick and do your job?" A smirk crossed the pale face I'd been so used to since my childhood, and I could never place whether it suited him or not. That same strand of silky black hair fell across his face across his nose, opposite to the actual person who owned the body. Pale grey eyes stared upwards at me from behind the silver rimmed glasses; and the long sleeves of his dark grey top, his tight black jeans and white sneakers made his slender, 5'7" figure look even skinnier and somewhat smaller than normal. The whiteness of his skin was leaning towards sickroom pallor, but whenever Alec was in control of the shared body which actually belonged to his twin brother, Alex, it looked a little sickly. "Don't tell me-"
"She's more interesting than you." I cut him off, uttering the same line he'd been using for what felt like decades now. "Yeah, yeah, yeah; quit the insecure teenage girl route, it won't score you extra brownie points their dead boy." I moved to brush the wisp of hair lying across his nose, but he slapped my hand away automatically and folded his arms across his chest. "Someone's touchy this morning-noon." 'Morning-noon' was the abbreviation me, Alec and Alex used when we weren't sure of the time of day and were just guessing at whatever the nearest clock read.
"I'm always touchy," he grinned at me, running his fingers over the tattoo I'd got on my shoulder-which his twin brother had designed, with his help-and I was pretty proud of it. A large red rose, with a white, somewhat faded looking skull in the centre-opened mouthed, with black mamba snakes slithering out the open mouth of the skull. You could argue melodramatic, but when you're fighting demons, ghosts and whatever crawls out the crapper, you're used to melodrama and odd tattoos coming into your peripheral vision. He tugged the edge of my black, fading t-shirt then, picking at the loose seems which were beginning to show at the ends; I'd need to get Aunt Sofia to sew that for me when I next met up with her, but the time when that meeting actually came about could vary. My aunt always seemed busy. Then again, so did I. So did everyone once I thought about it.
Deciding standing there and staring wasn't doing much, I turned away from the scene of the unconscious blonde girl, and walked towards one of the onsite medics that Life Trust had hired especially for the occasion. I'm not an actual worker bee at Life Trust, I'm a pay per mission mercenary type who specialises in dealing with demons. My employers commonly range from big organisations specialising in demonic hunting and fighting, to families' looking for vengeance or answers regarding the death of a family member. The only thing they ever had in common was they were usually well-off. Being self-employed sadly meant the services of magically capable people such as Sparrow and I didn't come cheap, and we often charged higher depending on the context of the job. The more personal and the longer the investigations, as well as putting our lives on the line, were, the higher the price often was; but Life Trust had more than enough money to hire numerous people working for demon fighting based chains such as ourselves, so Sparrow and I knew many of the people in the room due to us all working for the same firm: Steed and Co. The medics, however, I barely knew or recollected any of their names or faces.
So, playing it safe, I approached one of the only medics I actually knew, and for good reason too, she was my maternal half-sister, Daffodil.
Mum had produced several children in her lifetime, due to her beautiful appearance and promiscuous behaviour, but it was by the determination of my Aunt Sofia, who wanted me to have a family-albeit it makeshift and messily glued together-that had led to me meeting my half-sisters, Daffodil 'Dilly' Davenport and Mayflower 'May' Davenport, alongside their father, Neal. The meetings had originally been awkward and clumsy; me aged five and unsure of the surroundings I was in, May six and somewhat hostile to the idea of sharing her 'mummy' with someone else, whilst Dilly was eight and seemed to understand and accept me much more openly. It took about two years for us to begin acting like genuine siblings, but once the relationship had cemented, we became closer than some full blooded siblings I'd met. It'd been eleven years since that meeting. I was now sixteen and working as a demon fighter, May seventeen and working for a firm similar to mine, and Dilly was nineteen and currently functioning as a supernatural based medic, but I was aware she was also working as a nurse in Scotland, where her paternal family was.
Dilly, unlike May and I, hadn't inherited the tall gene mum had provided; instead being small at just 5'3", but her figure was slender and trim, unlike May's curvaceous build or my wiry frame, and her skin wasn't weathered and battered like ours had become, retaining a pale, smoothness about it which reminded me of the porcelain doll collection my aunt had formed during her childhood, and which still had a proud place in the spare room of the house I sometimes lived in with her, when neither of us were working. Her slender, thin face was mainly made up of her large, captivating grey-blue eyes which didn't lean more towards one colour, making them look pale blue with deep flecks of silver in them. They were outlined with golden coloured lashes, a couple shades darker than her silvery blonde hair, which was so long it reached her waist in a long straight way, being so pale it almost made her skin look a little less alabaster. There was something that always seemed quite petite, elfin and mysterious about Dilly, even at that moment in time when she was wearing her white doctors coat and blue scrubs.
"Hey Dill," I announced, slinging one of my long, tanned, slightly scarred arms around her shoulder and pulling her much smaller form closer to mine. "How's work?"
"All a bit depressing really," Dilly's voice was deeper than you'd imagine someone of her appearance. "I've found several people, but none of them are able of saving." She sighed. "This place is a huge, yet there's so little signs of life, you'd be surprised medics were even called in."
"Well we're a hopeful society who live for the belief that everything's gonna be okay if we slap a plaster on something." I sighed, looking outwards across the overwhelming carnage which surrounded us. Zombies didn't eat cleanly, that was the automatic idea I'd picked up after spending a short about of time in their world. Body parts, internal organs and what seemed to be hundreds of gallons of bodily fluids were splashed across the floor, the walls, the small amount of remaining people who were alive, and everything else in sight. Dilly had two plastic bags over her shoes, and a pair of heavily stained surgical cloves which covered up to her elbows, yet the white colour of her coat had already begun to become stained with the blood which covered the entire of the gymnasium. "But you're doing a good job." I patted her on the shoulder and grinned at her, forcing her to smile back, making her look twice as beautiful.
"And you're doing a good job too Andy," she reassured me, running a hand through my own hair, which was a darker golden colour than Dilly's but still long. And when I say long, my hair comes down to my shoulders. I guess I'm what most people call a hippy, and I understand why they'd call me that. I've got long, golden blonde hair past my shoulders, despite being a guy. I generally dress in relaxed, simple clothing although I enjoy a good bit of tie dye now and then, but I've still got my old, incredibly faded motorcycle jacket which I embroided myself when I was fourteen that makes me look a little more like a stereotypical teenage boy I guess. I've got green eyes, like my dad and aunt, a pale green colour which sparkles somewhat in the light, but they turn cold and steely, usually when the situation calls for it. That or when I'm pissed. Like mum, I'm good looking, but unlike her, I don't flaunt it as much or try and shag everything vaguely attractive. I've gotta admit, I have killer cheekbones, thin lips which complement my strong jaw, and a "perfect" nose according to May, meaning it isn't too big, too small, too fat, too thin, too pointed, too upturned or anything else you can imagine. But it doesn't help I've smoked marijuana on more than one occasion and I regularly drink cider, so I can understand by my numerous ex-boyfriends' parents have assumed me to be a stoner.
Oh yeah, forgot to mention that detail. I'm gay. Turns the women away like a headache, but I don't mind for obvious reasons. I prefer being friends with the opposite gender than having sex with them, or even snogging. It doesn't nothing for me sexually, and I can't say I've ever been romantically attracted towards a woman either, so it's not like I've been missing out. Then again, I've never had sex with a girl either, so I could be. I don't know. All I know is I just want to find someone. Anyone. Just someone I can be with until I die. Gender, age, race, appearance, personality, whatever; they don't matter, I guess all that matters is the love in the end.
"Hey, Flamethrower, you okay?" An all too familiar voice asked from behind me and I raised my eyebrows when I came face to face with Alec once again. Flamethrower was the nickname he'd given me when we were about eight, when I'd accidentally set fire to my pillow when he was sleeping over at my house, and he'd nicknamed me that ever since. Alex had called the nickname cruel and demeaning, but I didn't mind it too much really, I found it kind of endearing. Alec had half of a Mars Bar hanging out of his mouth, meaning his speech was muffled, but I didn't ask. Table manners had never been his style too much.
"Maybe I was deep in philosophical thought before you interrupted?" I challenged, causing him to snigger.
"Andrew Flame deep in philosophical contemplation?" He laughed properly then, shaking his head and biting another bit of the Mars Bar, chewing thoroughly as he looked at me. "Got any fags?" He gestured to my faded denim jeans and I slipped my hand into my pocket, pulling out a near empty packet of cigarettes, before loosely holding it in his direction. Alex hated smoking, and only put up with my habit because of how much he loved me; but Alec openly smoked. Sometimes I wondered whether he did it more to impress or me or because he genuinely wanted to, be the only time I'd asked he'd gotten incredibly cagey and hadn't spoken to me for weeks. "Ta, mush." He nodded and I took the packet bag, shoving it into my pocket again.
"Dilly hates those things." I told him, raising an eyebrow.
"Well I don't care what Dilly thinks."
"Bull-shit." I deliberately separated the two different parts of the word to emphasise my disbelief. "Everyone cares what Dilly thinks."
Alec scowled in defeat and sighed. "Fine. I admit. Like everyone else in the damn world, even I, King of the Grumpy Dickheads, admits Dilly's opinion matters. Because Dilly is so painstakingly kind, sweet and helpful, even the douchemonkey's of this world value her opinion of them."
Dilly laughed then, her laugh tinkling like a beautiful wind chime and smiled at Alec, peeling her blood-soaked medical gloves off her arms, exposing her pale, soft skinned hands with short-trimmed nails painted a bright pink colour, and gently tickled the underside of Alec's whiskerless chin with her index finger. "Don't you worry," she cooed teasingly. "I will always have an outstanding opinion of both you and your twin brother." Alec scowled and slapped her hand away, but we could all tell he wasn't really pissed about Dilly's harmless teasing; Dilly seemed to have a naturally good aura which seeped outwards and made those around her automatically relax and be happier.
"Well thankya ma'am," Alec grinned, bowing politely and kissing her hand, which only added to the Southern drawl he'd made the statement come out in. Dilly just smiled and shook her head.
"Why it was no trouble at all good sir." She smiled politely at him and winked, before turning back towards the chaotic scene playing out in front of us, with both Alec and I's gazes following her's. People were beginning to be stretchered in, with various degrees of injuries, and the second that happened, Dilly sprung to life. She briskly walked away from Alec and I, back towards the sickbay where those gravely injured and potentially dying where held, becoming a professional, calm contrast to her usual simpering, gentile self. Dilly was a strong contrast to May, who was sharp talking and sarcastic; as well as myself, as I often came across as uninterested and possibly even a little stoned. My aunt often commented she was surprised Dilly was such an efficient, hardworking nurse due to the fact Dilly had been afraid of the dark until she was fourteen, and still has a deep-seated problem with snakes and spiders; but keeping people safe was something Dilly excelled in, and in a much more personal way than May and I's careers.
"Come on," Alec slapped my arm. "We have work to be doing Andrew." He grinned up at me before walking back towards where Tia stood, over the still pretty mushed up body of Anthony 'Kray' Kraven.
When we both arrived there, Tia looked up at us with her honeycomb brown eyes, and I swore I even saw shining flecks of gold in them when we made eye contact. "You okay?" I asked her and she nodded.
"Hopefully the mess will be cleaned up soon," Tia said in her usual matter of fact way, her voice lacking any traces of humour or joking like it might've been if someone else were addressing the situation. I'd learned pretty quickly that Tia Bellari lacked an active sense of humour, which diminished that natural outer beauty she possessed. "Esther's been taken back to her own universe to recover. Not to sound rude, but she and her friends have served their purpose here, I'm sure we can take over now and there'll be no disturbances."
"Famous last words…" Alec muttered but I elbowed him and he stopped.
"Want us to give the perimeter a quick once over?" I offered, a strange feeling building up in my gut, signalling something wasn't right.
"If it wouldn't be too much trouble." Tia nodded politely and I smiled and shook my head.
"It wouldn't be any trouble." I told her, looking at Sparrow. "Would it?"
"Nope!" Alec grinned, saluting Tia whilst grinning cheerfully, but instead of laughing she merely nodded, allowing us to continue walking out of the blood splattered gym and into the empty, deathly quiet hallways of the school. It was like descending into a maze of corridors, and I was soon going to realise that just because the school looked fairly small and average from the outside, it didn't mean the inside was going to be similarly as normal looking inside. Most schools had a habit of not living up to their outside appearance, and judging a book by its cover was something I'd always been taught to ignore. That motto was going to be proven correct.
Alec and I had been walking in silence as we strolled down the hallways; it wasn't awkward or uncomfortable, it was just standard protocol. Chatting amongst ourselves and losing focus could subsequently get us both brutally killed, and in this line of work, the idea of being brutally murdered by a creature of any species wasn't too far a stretch of the imagination. But it didn't help the way our footsteps seemed to echo and every sound rebounded loudly off the silent corridors. In fact it just put me more on edge. And trust me, if my powers randomly sparked and I began shooting off magic in a small, slightly cramped corridor could end up with both Sparrow and I ending up lying dead on the floor.
"You okay?" Alec finally broke the silence with a gruff whisper. He was tugging at the ends of his long, dark grey sweatshirt nervously and chewing his lip; but he would've rather had his throat slit than admit he was displaying nervous traits.
I shrugged, unsure of how I really felt. I wasn't daring to relax fully yet, but being uptight and stiff would lead to teasing later from my colleagues; I sort of had to tread in between the lines of either one, never letting the balance shift in one emotions favour. "You never really can be sure in these situations, can you?" I sighed, but even if Alec had decided to respond, it would've been pointless. He would've made a snarky comment or turned on the sarcasm he seemed to drink up like water. It was times like this when I truly wished Alex was by my side instead. He'd try and provide some form of supportive comfort, tell me he understood what I was going through, and I'd know he was being genuine; if Alec tried to do the same thing, I'd know he was just faking to spare my emotions. I couldn't really blame Alec though; I figured he naturally had to be embittered, grumpy and somewhat callous to balance out Alex's simpering, empathic, sometimes paranoid nature. It was somewhat like a situation of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde-only I was presented with brothers, instead of my childhood friend drinking a potion and turning himself into a completely different person, minus the homicidal tendencies. As far as I knew.
"Don't you think this is all a little too cosy?" Alec's voice tore through my thoughts like a bullet being fired from a gun; tearing through the formerly tranquil quality of the air and distilling tiny shockwaves of kinetic energy…or maybe I was going too far into thinking about quantum physics. It felt odd to have such a normal thought process-albeit something I didn't truly understand or enjoy, simply thinking about the information various mercenaries had told me relating to bullet physics.
Regardless of my thoughts though, I had to agree with Alec's thought process. The mission had been going far too well; not enough zombies, bloodshed, or mindless violence for a day's work in either of our books. It was like the shark in Jaws, slowly creeping up on an unsuspecting victim until they were at their most relaxed, only to strike just then. Everything seemed far too clean and tidy for a zombie attack based on what I'd seen of them. Usually there would be brain matter painting the walls, large clumps of half chewed bone marrow scattered about the floor, even the odd zombie nibbling on an internal organ huddled in a corner, holding the lung, kidney or whatever close to its chest like a child refusing to share his or her's favorite toy. But none of that was happening today. It felt like someone else had shown up before we did; to get rid of a majority of the mess, then they'd scarpered off just as we'd arrived to hand things over to the professionals. Or maybe they were the professionals and we were actually the armatures. The further into the maze of the school we got, the more and more surreal the cleanliness seemed.
"Wait!" Alec hissed again, just as I'd opened my mouth to make a dry remark about him using a word like 'cosy'. His small, bony arm was extended in front of me, acting like a pale, narrow shield and clearly indicating he'd heard or noticed something I hadn't. Both Alex and Alec seemed to have much more refined observational skills than I did, so I just didn't ask about what he'd noticed, simply allowing him to take control. "I think I heard something…" He muttered, and we both looked towards the end of the corridor.
The traces of blood were thinning the closer the open end of the hallway got, and it presented us with two potential entrances for whatever Alec might have heard, as well as two possible escape routes. The only question was which way would the possible threat come, and if so, were we dealing with zombies, demons, or something much worse? Depending on what was potentially coming would decide Alec and I's response. If it were a zombie or a demon, we'd stay and fight, but something more powerful, like a vampoari or a fellow spell caster, we might be forced to retreat in case they were more than the two of us could handle. Although both Alec and I had our own arrogant points, we weren't afraid to retreat from a fight if the enemy possessed more power than we did, and knew how to use it. Usually you turned and ran if you encountered a vampoari over three hundred, or a specified witch, warlock, magician or mage; but sometimes you just met ordinary people with a large armoury of weapons, who knew how to use them. And they, when compared to beings like us who relied specifically on magic, were the most potent threats of all.
So, seeing as we were focusing on the end of the hallway for our threat area, the danger naturally came from behind us instead.
A/N: I'm gonna have to end this chapter on a cliff-hanger simply because whenever I tried writing in the upcoming events, the suspense and tension seemed to be sucked dry from the situation. The next chapter won't be a direct follow on from this, but Chapter 18 will definitely give Andy a resolution to the mysterious threat he's facing, and I can assure you, the people he's about to face have already been encountered, but not by Esther herself.