Demon Vampire (The Redgold Series) (40 page)

“I didn't feel that like I should of. What's wrong with this place?” Zack didn't have the need to rub his back or even adjust for it. There was no pain.

“It's the dream, Zack.” Kyli informed him.

“What?” Zack asked.

“Here, let me explain it for you.” Kyli thrust her fist into Zack's chest without a reaction of pain from him. “See, you barely notice it, right?”

“Yeah, it's weird. It almost tingles.” Zack saw no blood as Kyli removed her hand. The wound closed up and he was fine. There wasn't even a mark in the fabric anymore where her fist sunk in. “What happened exactly? Does it have something to do with the fact that this is my world?”

“Bingo.” Kyli stepped back a few feet from Zack. “You see this is all in your head. That means that anything done to you from an outsider is met with an automatic level of skepticism. Your mind doesn't believe it can be harmed here. However.”

Kyli raised her arms up to shoulder level. With her palms out facing Zack, she closed her right hand and brought them together. There was a light coming out of her fist. She slowly pulled them apart and it started a silver line. A glimmer that was more of a shape than a point of light. It developed into a long, thick rod with Kyli's arms stretched out past her shoulders. The silver line solidified, forming a five foot Japanese katana. Just as Kyli flipped the blade upwards, her eyes met Zack's just above the top edge of the blade.

“The more intense the emotion used to harm you, the less that initial barrier can defend you.” Kyli took in a deep breath. She held the katana with her right hand and the tip aimed at the sky.

“Hey, wait a minute. Don't do anything I'll regret here.” Zack stepped back slowly.

“Not far enough. Sorry, this'll be quick.” The reach of Kyli's katana was too great for Zack to avoid. With one thrust, Kyli had gouged into Zack's left shoulder. The sword was more than four inches into him by the moment he actually moved to avoid it. The injury was deep and it was bleeding heavily.

Zack felt the pain with this attack. The warm blood running down the front and back of his shirt was making his stomach churn and his heart race. This was different, there was an injury here, a cause for alarm. A realization of physical pain that made Zack want to pass out. However, nothing happened beyond that. The signs were there, the vertigo, the flush in his skin, the lightheaded flooding of his thoughts. Zack just didn't pass out.

“Nothing
will
happen. There is nowhere else to go Zack. You're already asleep, completely unconscious. There is no happier place to escape to, we're here. The mind is only a retreat for those not currently enveloped in it. We are. For those residing, it is a damning prison without end or limit.” Kyli pushed the blade deeper into Zack's shoulder.

Zack winced at the sensation of the blade tearing into his shoulder and into the socket of the joint itself. “Okay, you can stop this. You've proven your point. Now please stop, you're really hurting me.” Zack was giving up and honestly wanting to quit.

“Malio won't stop.” Kyli pushed again.

Zack felt it.

Kyli stared deeply at the now gaping wound the word was creating.

The writhing Zack was experiencing was proof enough that there was more to the pain than just the weapon pressing into his shoulder.

“The more intense the emotion.” Kyli's eyes flared at the injury she was inflicting on Zack. The pain increased. “The stronger it's received.”

“Yeah, I get that. Now stop already!” Zack pleaded.

“As you have witnessed, one can feel pain here without physical limitation. Your body can be torn in two, your entrails slew across the floor, and your heart impaled. You will not die here. There is no death inside the mind. Only in the body once the mind has given up from the torture within. If you want to die here, your body will allow you to in the real world.” Kyli's grim assessment of the reality in the dream world was sobering.

“So there is no release here?” Zack was getting it now. His grasp over the pain was taking hold of its meaning. Zack was having an epiphany.

“Not unless you will it. That is the only rule here, thought is power and power is will. The one with the greater will of thought is immortal, invincible, in here.” Kyli drug the blade through and away from Zack's shoulder, removing it from him. She swung the sword in a whip like fashion to shed the blood down onto the dirt. Kyli rested the weapon by stabbing it upside down into the ground before her. “You've completed lesson one. Emotion causes pain here. Good. Now for lesson two.” Kyli smiled and took a deep breath. She stared at Zack and remained still in a relaxed pose. Her arms parted slightly away from her body, hands open.

“What? What's lesson two? Am I supposed to meditate?” Zack laughed. The bleeding hole in his shoulder didn't think it was funny. It drew too much attention for Zack to ignore. “By the way, how am I going to take care of this?” Zack pointed to his left shoulder.

Kyli raised her left arm towards Zack. A green cloud enveloped her hand, then the entire arm. It was a flowing fluid, a thick mist of tangible formlessness. Suddenly and without warning the white cloud pushed forward, it pushed hard. The small cloud shoved Zack more than forty feet away, onto his back. His body bore a path that shown in the field as a tilling gone wrong. Blood strewn through bits of dirt and newly created mud was scattered everywhere. The mist had done the damage of a wrecking ball in half the time, with twice the energy.

Zack lay prostrated, breathing shallow at the end of the unearthed soil. Kyli relaxed, the mist disappeared into the palm of her hand. She leisurely walked over to Zack with a glaring smile on her lips. Kyli reached bent over with her arms crossed behind her back. Kyli's eyes were squinting in her devilish smirk. “That was your introduction to lesson two.”

“Killing me?” Zack was screaming at Kyli, half buried under a pile of dirt. “This is what you call teaching?” Zack held his shoulder, trying to ease the pain. “What the hell was that for?”

“Applied dynamic thought formed into a practical manifestation of energy.” Kyli helped Zack up with both hands and dusted the mud off of him.

“English.” Zack stared at Kyli.

“Okay, time to edify. Basically, I blew your ass away with my mind. But it's not all bad. Look.” Kyli pointed to the injury she had caused. The gaping wound was now gone. The fabric was still cut, but there wasn't any sign of other damage. No laceration, no blood.

“Red is offensive energy and green is restorative.” Kyli explained.

“But you used green!” Zack argued.

“Yeah, I know I did. Otherwise I would have killed you.” Kyli laughed.

In the distance, over the beach, the weather changed. The clouds stirred, a surge of rain fell from the sky, raining blood from the black folds above the ocean of red.

“What's that?” Zack asked.

“I don't think he likes me.” Kyli replied.

“Who?” Zack wanted to know.

“Never mind.” Kyli said to herself.

Zack decided to get things back on track. “Are there any other colors I should know about before you use them on me?” Zack rubbed his shoulder.

“White absolves destruction and stimulates creation. Black is the essence of carnage, it destroys. And blue, it's the protective color. You can use it to defend yourself.” Kyli playfully walked a few feet from Zack. She was balancing one of the ridges of dirt that had formed from Zack's wake.

“But how do I use it?” Zack was worried he might be able to figure out this part of Kyli's training.

“Think green.” Kyli suggested.

Zack thought the color green. Nothing happened.

“Okay. Think white.”

Zack did the same with white. Nothing happened.

“Blue?” Kyli was getting worried herself. There was something in the back of her mind that was leading her to believe Zack's color was more sinister.

Nothing happened.

“Okay. Let's stop there.” Kyli wanted to think about what the results meant to her and what it meant for Zack.

“But what about black?” The moment Zack said the color aloud, a thick cloud of black mist solidified around Zack's arms. Unlike what happened with Kyli, this mist wasn't fluid and hard. It formed a type of armor around Zack's hands and forearms with black thorns coming off of the multiple plates. “Kyli, what is this?”

The lightning crashed in the distance. The smell of the blood rain on the beach pervaded the field. It was sweeping inward, coming closer to Zack.

Kyli panicked. She didn't know what to do. The demon was reacting to Zack, even at the distance he was from the shore. It was acting through him, forming a weapon for him to use. Hoping he would use it against her. Kyli had to do something, quick.

Kyli rushed in towards Zack. Without warning she began to passionately kiss Zack. Coming to him in full embrace, expressing as much sexual feeling to him as she could manage.

The storm distilled, almost instantly vanishing back to the shoreline. The back gauntlets of thorny armor that were on Zack's arms disappeared when Kyli's lips touched his. Zack could feel Kyli's chest against his skin, her flesh against his body. Zack relaxed. Kyli kept kissing him. She was beginning to enjoy the act. She sighed, letting Zack exchange the physical passion she was exuding towards him.

Kyli peered over Zack's shoulder. Everything had subsided, the danger was done. It had been for a few moments.

“Kyli.” Zack pulled away to speak.

Kyli was still lightly kissing Zack's neck. “What?”

“Not to argue, but why are you doing this?” Zack was confused.

Kyli stopped kissing Zack's neck. There was a moment of awkward silence as she cleared her throat and stepped back from Zack.

Zack had done something wrong and he knew it. He should have let it happen. Zack had blown it. He decided to get on with the conversation. “You were saying.”

Kyli was breathing heavy. She had been turned on and she knew it. What was once just an act to stop Zack from using the gifts of the demon inside him, had become something else entirely. She just didn't want to accept it. Kyli stared at Zack. Slowly she calmed down enough to talk again as she regained her composure. “A person's nature determines what color they are and what they can use.”

“And which color are you?” Zack asked gingerly.

“Green.” Kyli said lightly. She was still in a haze from what had happened.

“Is that why you have an angel wing on your back?” Zack wondered. “Does it have something to do with the healing energy you use?”

Kyli hesitated. “Yes, something like that.” Kyli snapped out of her daze. “Lets' stick to the lesson. There's so much I have to teach you. So many things you need to know to get through this alive.” Kyli explained.

“How do you know all this? Aren't you only a year or two older than me? Who taught you to do all this? And how long have you been at this? This stuff doesn't seem like a talent that can be perfected over night, and you look very good at this.” Zack wanted answers.

“I'm precocious.” Kyli lightly explained.

“That's not what I'm asking. You look too good at this.” Zack asked again.

“Well thank you. I aim to look good at everything I do.” Kyli bragged.

“That's not what I meant and you know it. Tell me who you really are and how you can do all of this.” Zack walked to Kyli with purpose. He reached for her arm and pulled her closer to him forcefully. “Are you really here for me?”

Kyli gazed deep into Zack's eyes with a longing, a yearning. It was tempting to answer his question bluntly, directly and without fear of what it might mean to those she had already secretly promised to. “I am
here
, for you.”

Zack leaned in to embrace Kyli. In a flash, she disappeared.

Kyli was behind Zack, they're backs now touching. She leaned against him. “That will have to be enough for you, for now. To believe me that I want to help you. Trust me, please, and leave it at that.”

Zack settled his thoughts, allowing himself to feel the motion of Kyli's breathing on his back. The slide of her spandex-like half shirt pressed to Zack's skin was overtaking his mind, melting away any questions that were still troubling him. He wanted to accept the fact Kyli wanted to help him, that she was there for him. Zack wanted to accept her as she was. Zack drew a large breath and sighed. Kyli chuckled, breaking the tension between them.

“Is this the part where you tell me it's not air I'm breathing in this place?” Zack smiled softly with his face still turned away from her.

“No, it's not.” Kyli put her weight into Zack's back, letting him support her completely. “It's the part where you say the words I need to hear in order for this to keep on going. The phrase that makes me, that makes
us
, able to trust each other again. The sentence you need to declare that assures me you'll take me for what I am to you and not what you might find later.”

There was silence. The sky moved, the wind blew, and the wheat shifted as the two stood. Zack knew what he had to say. The words were difficult, it meant that he had to accept something beyond his control. An idea Zack didn't enjoy. It meant that there were things that he
was
going to find out concerning Kyli, things he wouldn't like. That whatever she was hiding, she was hiding. Kyli wasn't going to tell Zack sooner, but later. There was something dark about her past that Zack actually felt in his chest. He was immersed in it as she laid against him. It was deep in her heart. Zack sensed it was shielded from him.