Alysia in Wonderland (5 page)

“What are you anyway?” the man asked suddenly, and it took a second for Alysia to understand his meaning.

“A human being. What exactly are you supposed to be?”

Ariel made a look of astonishment as if she had called him the worst thing ever. He pushed past her and opened the door, then slammed it behind him with a thud. “Go away, human girl!” he shouted from behind the door, and Alysia made a face and pressed on. When she had walked a dozen paces or so, she looked back at the door and was surprised to see him peeking out to watch her go.

The sun was still brightening and more people began to show up on the perfectly cobbled road. Shops began to open, and vendors were wheeling their goods out to sell. One or two people waved to Alysia when she passed them, but most were as grumpy and stand-offish as Ariel. It reminded her of New York, but it was hard to make the comparison with the missing skyscrapers and noisy traffic of the city.

She walked on, keeping to herself mostly, but stopping to look at the exotic fruits and vegetables that the vendors hocked. One vendor sold weapons, but when she tried a bastard sword, it was so heavy and poorly made that she wondered who he expected to sell it to. She pressed on through the town until she got to the front gates. It had been a good distance, but it felt short to Alysia, who debated whether to start back towards Lenorela’s mansion or to talk to the guards and make her way out to explore the forest.

But then the wind picked up, as if a storm was coming, and the villagers began to quickly retire to their homes.

“What's going on?” Alysia shouted, but no one answered—no one had time to answer—as they cleared the road and wheeled their carts away from the gate.

Alysia glanced around, confused, wondering what would frighten them into such immediate flight. She backed away from the gate, running despite her questions. If there was anything she’d learned growing up where she grew up, it was that when people started running, you better join them or run the risk of becoming a victim.

She was almost back to Ariel's house when a loud crash brought her around. The wind was gone, along with the gate, and in its place stood a giant 15-ft demon.

Several smaller demons rushed into the village and began to hack at doors and pull at windows. They seemed determined to find something or someone as they began to pull people out towards the center of the village.

They ignored Alysia for the most part, except for one that appeared to be their leader. This massive brute had the face of a pit bull and his armor appeared to be made out of bone. He walked up to her, calm and collected, and stood in front of her, eyeing her up and down.

“Whose robe is that?” he asked her gruffly and reached out as if to touch her shoulder.

Shifting slightly, Alysia slapped his hand away, and then looked up at him as if he made the biggest mistake of his life. “It is mine. Who are you, and why are you harassing these people?”

“A stranger!” the beast exclaimed, and his eyes widened. “How is it a stranger is in a backwater like this?”

Alysia made to answer but something behind him stunned her into muted silence. Two of the invaders had a man on all fours while a third lifted a giant axe and chopped off his head. Screams followed, and a woman was punched in the mouth, which was the start of even more violence against the villagers.

“I believe Horka asked you a question, wretch,” a demon said as he walked up to stand next to his master, pole arm behind his neck, and facing Alysia.

“What is it that you all want from these people?” Alysia asked, and the demons exchanged impatient glances before the leader kicked her in the chest.

To Alysia it seemed as if she blinked and blacked out to find herself staring up at the sky. Wincing, she made to kip-up but decided against it due to the pain in her chest. The demon’s large hoof, cloven and hairy, lifted up to stomp her, but it came down harmlessly next to her as he pulled two swords and dropped back in a stance.

A knife flew over her and was knocked away by one of the leader’s blades. Then he stomped, shaking the earth while bellowing a battle cry, loud and frightening. A group of villagers had decided to fight back, and they came at the raiders with swords and spears, giving little concern to the leader’s advantage.

Alysia bit down and rolled to her hands and knees, then was back to her feet with Euphoria ready. She immediately recognized Bamba and his posse, who had given her a hard time on the first day. Bamba was on the defensive as the big leader swung his swords. One blade touched another demon—the big one that had been the most hostile to her—and he crumpled into bones and ashes as if the blade had drained all the fluids from his body.

The sight of this frightened most of the defenders, and they backed away from the leader who was still swinging wildly. More villagers poured out into the main road to fight, and it became an all-out melee between invaders and invaded.

Lenorela's ring wrapped Alysia in armor, and upon seeing this the demon leader screamed. “It's her, she has it! One of the rings of
Alujuan
! Capture her. Bring her to me. She is in league with the witch!”

After the command, the leader doubled his efforts to kill Bamba, and Alysia was surprised that he hadn't turned on her. The ring had set him off, and he mentioned a witch. She wondered if they had come for Lenorela, and whether or not her friend’s seclusion was one of hiding instead of privacy.

Several demons ran at her now, their swords and shields dripping with blood. Alysia turned and ran between two houses, then spun to face the first fool who dared to follow.

The proximity of the houses disallowed more than one demon to come at her, and she killed him quickly by stepping into his downward slash and ramming her sword under his chin and out through the back of his head. When she withdrew it she kicked him into the second, then cut him quickly in the top of his head before they both hit the ground, dead.

More clambered through and some from the other side, so Alysia jumped, planted a foot in the wall of one house, and sprung up to catch the edge of the neighboring roof.

She pulled herself up and ran along the rooftop, then sprang and jumped to an adjoining house. After running and jumping across several more, she was near the entrance of the village where the giant demon sat, quietly munching on the innards of the poor soul that was once the town's cobbler.

The demons who followed her were still a few houses away, so she jumped, somersaulted, and landed on the giant’s shoulders with Euphoria buried in the crook of his neck. The creature bellowed and Alysia hoped that she hit his heart, but she knew this wasn't the case when he reached up, grabbed her by the arm, and slammed her into the ground.

~ * ~ * ~

She moved like water. No, more like a flood that had been released onto the village from her mansion, a dark blur of fabric that was too quick for anyone to make out what it was. Her hair, normally pinned up into an elaborate nest of pins and jewels, was free and flowing. Hair the length of her body, hair that seemed to defy physics, as if it had a life of its own.

For anyone that could make out the form of Lenorela Isora, they would have said that her skin appeared as oily, black sludge. She slid through them all at tremendous speed, her hair like thin silver swords, shredding every invader that she came across.

By the time she made it to the leader, the perfectly cobbled road was black from the demon’s blood. She didn’t wait to make an introduction, or to threaten him; she merely jumped, twisted, and dove into the ground as if the rocks and gravel were a deep pool of water. A second later she came up from beneath him, her fist raised above her head, and her arm reinforced by the bladed tentacles of her hair.

The large demon stopped his swinging and his face became a mask of worry. All of the villagers stopped to watch him as he stood frozen with his swords out. His eyes scanned them all and his body shivered, but he dared not move a single muscle.

Lenorela twisted mid-air and landed to his side. She was armored in skintight black armor, and her hands were outstretched to her sides, her fingers in the form of claws. She ignored him and approached the giant that hovered over Alysia. The remaining demons took off running through the entrance, but the giant regarded her and scoffed as if she was a mere nuisance.

He lifted his fist to finish off Alysia, but as he thrust it down, nothing happened since Lenorela had removed his arm from the shoulder. The rapid slashes continued as she removed his other arm, then a leg, and finally his head. The crowd roared with applause until she spun to look at them.

The leader, who was still frozen, turned to look, and instantly regretted it when he realized that he had been split in two. His body fell in two separate directions, and his large blades clattered loudly on the road. A few screams went up from the unsuspecting villagers, but this was only for a few seconds before they resumed applauding Lenorela’s victory.

“How did you allow them to get in like this, Bamba?” she shouted at the boy, and he looked away with shame. “Rally your men, and fix what they have destroyed! Burn the dead, and secure their phylacteries. It must be done before I return,” Lenorela said.

Before he could answer, she was gone to exact her wrath on the fleeing demons. Bamba barked orders at the surviving members of his group, and they began to collect bodies and body parts to take to the rear of the village.

Lenorela drifted out of the village, weakened and barely conscious. The magic was taking its toll and she hadn’t stopped to replenish. She wondered about Alysia, what she would think when she learned that blood was the source of their miracles. It was a conversation she wasn’t looking forward to having, but she hoped that with time the human girl would become accepting of everything.

It was high noon now, the time of the central sun, and the tall grass became an emerald ocean that was only broken up by their running legs. Ten escaped, but she only needed one. She had marked him right before she removed the arm of the giant Mee’ir. Her mark was slower than the rest. He was wounded by the dagger of a villager, trying to fight his pain as he ran across the plain.

Though her head was swimming, Lenorela slipped forward and bore him down beneath her weight. She rode him down like a surfer mounting a wave. Pulling free the knife she carried at the small of her back, she jabbed it in and out of his neck quickly. Blood shot out like a miniature geyser, and he tried to bellow out but her left hand found his mouth to silence him. Next, her powerful legs slipped below him to pin her to his back tightly. Then her mouth was on the wound in his neck, drinking out his life force as he grew weaker and weaker.

When Lenorela stood up, she knelt on the corpse and vomited violently as her body rejected the vile demon’s blood. The life was what she needed and her magic felt strong, stronger than it had felt for days, which made the vomiting worth it. She had considered capturing a few of these invaders and holding them captive inside her dungeon.
Nothing sinister
, she reasoned,
just magical food. For replenishing whenever I am too drained to go out hunting
.

Her armor retracted, leaving her naked, her wonderful body exposed like a nymph that had risen from out of the grass. She reached down and rolled the dead demon, then stripped him out of his clothes. The pants would never fit but his tunic was long. She put it on and used his corded belt to secure it around her waist.

Just like every other time when she had replenished her magic, she felt a little tipsy. She stood up, giggled a bit, and sauntered back in the direction of the village.
I hope that you’re okay, my pretty girl
, she thought, and smiled at the warmth within her belly, a warmth that made her feel invincible.

Read on for an excerpt from

Dragon And The Ruby

Episode Seven of Knights and Demons

Available for purchase here

She didn't know who it was that pulled up to the house. It could have been her mother, or maybe just the maintenance man. All Lenorela knew was that she was not supposed to be home, and if any of them were to catch her there, she would be in for a world of hurt.

When she heard the click of the front door’s lock, she did what instinct bade her to do and hid beneath her bed. The silence went on too long for her poor beating heart. It got to the point where she thought that perhaps the sound from the door had come from her imagination. Maybe it was the fear of being caught, playing hooky from school? But then as she made to investigate, there was a loud noise. It sounded as if someone’s heel smashed down into the wooden floor followed by the sound of breaking glass, as things began to fall from what sounded like the kitchen.

There was a thumping noise, a bit of struggling, and then a horrible scream from someone who was not her mother. It was a man’s voice, and unlike anything she’d heard before. The scream was not just one loud noise and then nothing; it went on for a long time, and it seemed to be getting louder with every passing second.

Lenorela watched the open doorway from beneath her bed, and the dark hallway that gave access to the other rooms. She could see the tall, decorative china cabinet that her mother prized above anything else, its contents vibrating from whatever was happening inside the kitchen. Within seconds the cabinet was a wreck, glass flying everywhere, as a large man flew face-first into it.

Her mother walked out from the kitchen, slowly, and grabbed the man by the nape of his neck. She began dragging him towards Lenorela’s bedroom, and her high-heeled shoes clicked loudly on the linoleum. She was dragging a man who should have been way too heavy for her small frame to manage. This surprised the young girl hiding, since she had never thought of her mother as being physically strong.

There was more struggling once they were in the room, but all Lenorela could see were high heels and the man fighting as he was pulled up off the ground. His feet dangled and there was a horrible sound, like bones crunching, and then blood splattered on the floor in front of her.

It took everything within Lenorela not to scream, and she clasped her hands over her mouth as she watched the large pool of blood grow bigger and bigger. There was another noise and the man was on the ground again. This time he was looking at her through lifeless eyes, his blue pupils were getting darker. She could tell that her mother was on top of him with her arms pinning him to the floor. Her face dipped down within view then, and to Lenorela’s horror she watched her mother drink blood from the gaping wound on his neck.

Mandu demons were nothing new to the citizens of Jorn, a tiny city in the country of Rus. Everyone knew they loved blood, but it was understood that they had other means of feeding. Unlike the world known as Earth, these “vampires” of Jorn were not undead creatures that were cursed to feed upon the living.

Mandus were merely a different race—an ancient race—thought to be wiped out with the exception of a few. They were seen as aristocrats who liked their steaks raw, loved their wine—red—and had a high sense of fashion. So, the sight of her mother biting into someone’s neck was not as shocking to Lenorela as it would have been for someone of another world. What was shocking, however, was that it was her own mother.

There had been no signs or signals in all of Lenorela’s young years for her to believe that she was born of the Mandu race. She was child to this woman and a father she never knew, and they had lived mundane lives eating regular food and drinking of regular drinks.

When it came to the subject of Mandu demons, they had always talked about them in third person. Lenorela began to wonder if this bloodsucking creature was truly her mother, or if somehow her body had been taken over.

The awful gulping sound drowned out all other noises and was quite the horror to listen to. She watched the man’s color fade as blood leapt from his body and up into her mother’s injection-like fangs. When it was all over, she rose up off the corpse and then dragged him back towards the kitchen where more noises ensued.

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