Post by StoryGirl83 on Jun 26, 2011 23:55:09 GMT -5
Chapter Twenty-Four – Map of the Underworld
It was an hour later when Max finished the humungous map spread out on the floor. The spell had worked quite well, but it had Aka bursting into laughter as she looked at one very blank spot surrounded by passages.
“Okay, I have to ask,” Aka had informed the glaring demon. “Do you know what’s in there?”
Max nodded as he stood. “Does that help, Bennett?”
Wyatt and Chris both noticed the collective intake around them as Toby, Brianna, and Aka stared at him.
CT merely raised an eyebrow. “Have you ever called me that before?”
“I’m not in the mood for games right now,” Max informed him.
CT shook his head. “I guess I missed something. This isn’t about, well . . . what is it about?”
Max appeared to consider the question and then he stood and walked over to a coffee table that had been pushed to the side of the room to make room for the map. He picked up a newspaper and handed it to CT.
CT took the newspaper and looked threw down the front page. After a moment he looked up and said one word. “Go.”
Max frowned. “But . . .”
CT shook his head. “Go.”
“What’s going on?” Toby looked between the two worried.
CT ignored him. “Max, go.”
“You’re sure?”
CT nodded.
Max straightened up and in a shimmer of air he was gone.
“What was that about?” Toby asked taking the paper from CT. He scanned it until something made him pause. He looked up and in a questioning voice said, “River?”
“My guess would be no,” CT replied as he looked over the map. “For all his tough act and grant some very evil acts, he’s only seventeen and doesn’t really have the expertise for this. However, I would guess that’s it is one of Max’s siblings since it clearly concerned him and it looks to be the work of a snake demon.”
“Puncture wounds could mean a spider demon, too,” Toby reminded him.
“Spider demons wouldn’t get him so concerned,” CT reminded him.
Chris looked at Wyatt. “Do you have any idea what they are talking about?”
“I’m beginning to,” Wyatt admitted. “Get that scrying crystal. I’ve never tried with a map this big, but I rather doubt they’re going to be much help right now and if they are right and these demons are trouble, then I don’t really want to waste time.”
Chris nodded and headed out of the room. He was careful not to step on any more of the map then was absolutely necessary. Unfortunately as big as it was, it was impossible not to step on some of it.
Aka plopped down on the couch next to Wyatt. “Sorry about all this.”
Wyatt glanced at her, not sure how to respond.
“I’d say we don’t usually have this much drama going on, but . . .” she shrugged. “It would be a lie. Yet another good reason for us to avoid the magical mainstream.”
“Can you answer a question?” Wyatt requested.
She wiggled her lips around, though it was clear she was actually trying to move her nose. “Maybe,” she hedged finally. “What’s the question?”
“Max is a demon, full demon unlike you and Toby,” he glanced at CT, “and CT, I believe. So any siblings he has are demonic. Yet, he’s going after something that he thinks is caused by them. Does he think he can redeem them?”
She sighed. “I don’t know. Daemon is certainly redeemable, but then Daemon is half human and he lives with a witch couple, so he’s kind of in a good position to start with. River . . . I don’t know. Both of them are still rather young, but then Max is only twenty-six and he’s older than any of his father’s other children. Max’s father is a rather new ascender to the throne of the snake demons. He killed his father about seven years ago.”
“His father killed . . .” Wyatt stared at her.
She nodded. “Whatever you think is a messed up childhood, try Max’s. I don’t even think I have a bad one in comparison.”
He raised an eyebrow at her.
She shrugged. “I was about four days old when my mother apparently decided I was too dangerous to live.”
Wyatt’s eyes widened. He saw his brother reenter the room and waved him away. He wanted to know what she had to say.
Chris acknowledged Wyatt with a nod and decided to take his own hand at the scrying. He stared down at the gigantic map and sighed. There was no easy way to do this.
“It was a long time ago,” she informed him as she looked at a lamp next to her, a frown on her face. “I’m told that I dark orbed just as I was about to die and landed in front of Toby and CT.” She smiled at a memory she clearly had only been told about. “B . . They tell me that I just appeared on the couch as they were walking toward it. Toby was all of three. CT was the grand old age of four. They were visiting a place that had belonged to CT’s grandparents years ago when his dad was a child. It’s been empty for years, so sometimes he goes there to think. Sometimes he takes Toby with him. I followed them once.” She rolled her eyes as she looked at the two friends who were at that moment looking through a stack of newspapers for the rest of the article that had caught Max’s attention. “They were playing chess. Most of the time, though, he goes alone. We’re not really sure who owns it, but it sure isn’t CT, so it’s trespassing I guess, but no one seems to care.” She smiled. “I guess for the most part I had a normal childhood. CT’s dad raised Toby and me with CT like we were his own. He’s the only really parent I have. Anya Wilkinson sure wasn’t a parent to me and if she saw me, again, she’d kill me given the chance. Drayin, my father, is long gone. I found that he was vanquished shortly before magic stopped, several months before I was born.” She stopped and looked at him. “But I’ve been talking for quite some time. Tell me about you.”
Wyatt opened his mouth to reply, but a voice from the other side of the room stopped him.
“Anyone want to fill in the blanks?” Chris called from across the room.
Everyone stopped what they were doing to look at him. He was sitting on the map with the crystal firmly in the middle of nothing.