20: Patriarch
Elone took a few steps back from the crazy couple and, for once in her life, wished she was back in the company of Joel Gibson. Even emotionally unstable Ravens were better than this! And to think a few moments ago she’d been enjoying Yokai’s company…
“I assume you will be making a dramatic entrance?” said the spider/boy, his attention returned to Yokai. She nodded.
“I’m a Fire faerie, so naturally,”
“I hope not to be disappointed,”
“It’ll be a blast,”
“Naturally,”
The spider/boy dissolved into the wind like a bad dream, leaving Elone alone with Yokai. Yokai the ‘fire faerie’. Those words kept repeating themselves over in Elone’s head: Fire. Faerie. The fire part made sense, sure, but faerie? It had to be a code name, right? Loads of people had code names and nicknames – especially the vagrants, idols, freedom fighters and criminals – Elone had even tried coming up with one of her own, for when she was famous!
“Oh, you didn’t know Yokai was a faerie?” asked Yokai, who must have somehow noticed the confusion etched into Elone’s face.
Elone shook her head. “What’s a faerie?” she asked, “Is it, like, some kind of rank or job or something?”
“No, silly!” Yokai grinned, and for the first time Elone noticed she had fangs. “A faerie is a faerie! You know, from the centre of the planet?”
Elone took a few more steps away. Maybe Yokai was just delusional?
“There’s no time to explain the details,” she said with a frown, “Yokai can’t let you follow her any more. Yokai has to go deal with someone,”
Elone was lost for words. What else could she say that didn’t sound stupid? If Vincent or, worse, Sir Leonardo ever found out she went to save Shelley, invaded Godhand’s base with Joel Gibson, and hung around with a pyromaniac schizophrenic who called herself a ‘faerie’, she’d never be allowed to call herself a Hawk again! Yokai giggled.
“Yokai can feel your heart,” she said, “You’re filled with anxiety.” She raised a hand and clicked her fingers. Once again, the zigzag pattern began to spread across a wall. “I’ll make you a tunnel to the outside.”
Then she clicked her fingers again and, instead of an explosion, the wall melted, as did the one behind it, and the one behind that. It was as if a blast of energy were sweeping across the building, disintegrating everything in its path and only stopping once it had carved a hole in the brick wall surrounding the manor.
Yokai looked at her and she was serious once again. “Run, Elone Kent. Run far away. This place will fall soon,”
***
Even in the inhospitable atmosphere of the manor, where her senses were dimmed by the undercurrents of darkness, Phantasia could sense the new arrival. The leylines had a habit off distorting around powerful forces, like rubber under a heavy weight. This aura in particular was a thoroughly unpleasant one Phantasia wished she could shut out, and she hoped it wouldn’t be a permanent addition to the town: something like this would drag in darkness and demons like a light would moths.
