Lehi stood between the two creatures who were flapping their great wings and glaring at him.
As if they had rehearsed it, the two creatures swooped in on Lehi at the same time.
But Lehi was not an abyssal vampire for nothing.
He used his magic to create an invisible wall between him and he creatures. They slammed into it and staggered back. The creatures snarled and hit themselves against the wall in an attempt to break it. Lehi felt the wall weakening with every impact. He thought of using his magic to kill them from within, you know, to make them bleed from their eyes and all other openings, but he decided against that. How was he sure that the creatures even had blood?
Lehi opted for a wind spell instead, the wind pushed the creatures back and slammed them against brick walls. They immediately turned back to normal humans again. Lehi stood for a moment, looking at them but when he saw a woman walking towards the men, he sped off, he did not want to be noticed.
Tony stood over Nella, Theo and Kenneth who were lying on the floor of Kenneth’s basement.
He looked from one to another and then started in a sober voice:
“The journey you’re about to take will be a…”
“Listen, there’s an impending global crisis,” Kenneth said, cutting him short, “so if you could cut the speech, I’d be grateful.”
Tony looked angry.
“I hate to agree with Kenneth, but he’s right Tony, we don’t have a lot of time.” Nella said.
“Fine,” Tony replied, slightly offended, “but note that it is your spirits that are travelling to the abyssal realm, so be careful. If you get killed over there, you have automatically died in this realm, forever. It doesn’t matter if you’re a vampire or not.”
“Sounds dangerous.” Theo said, quite concerned.
“I believe Kenneth said something about everything being dangerous nowadays,” Tony said, walking around the three of them, “so this should be nothing.”
Kenneth noticed the sarcasm in his voice.
“All this drama for one lousy speech.” Kenneth said and rolled his eyes.
Tony stopped walking around them and looked at Kenneth. What could one do with such a vampire? Well he had to endure it, they both needed each other to set things straight.
Tony continued walking around them, chanting some words to himself.
Kenneth had made sure that the door was locked and well secured, he had a feeling they would be in the abyssal realm for a long time.
Tony asked them to hold hands. As they did so, he tied a cord first on Kenneth’s leg, and then joined the cord to Nella’s leg and finally on Theo’s leg.
“You sure Upir won’t notice this?” Theo asked.
Tony scoffed.
“Just let her try to stop me.” He said and then went on to say in the abyssal language, unprintable things that he would do if she dared to interfere.
“Well he seems pissed.” Kenneth observed.
Tony continued chanting, he was standing in front of them.
“Don’t fight it, don’t resist the urge to sleep if you feel it.” He told them.
As he continued chanting, Nella started feeling quite sleepy. She was aware that it was not a normal sleep, considering the fact that their souls were going to leave their bodies, it was more like a death- sleep. Nella wondered how she would fullfil the prophecy. What if she just wasn’t powerful enough to do so? What if she got lost in the abyssal realm?
Then one thought hit her like a blow, what if one of them didn’t come back alive?
Nella struggled to push the thought out of her head, but she found that in so doing she was trying to fight the sleepiness she was feeling. So Nella simply let her mind be tortured by the unhappy thought, as her eyes closed slowly and she drifted into a world of nothingness…
“Can you describe what you say attacked you?” Upir asked Lehi, alarmed.
“It was a man,” Lehi described, “two men actually. They had two great wings and long fangs, and they had…”
“Bright, green eyes and silver coloured skin?” Upir completed.
“Yes! How did you know?” Lehi asked.
Upir looked troubled, she had not anticipated this.
“Ah’Lehi, that was a perylymph,” she said gravely.
“A what?”
“A perylymph Ah’Lehi, a creature from the abyssal realm.” Upir explained, “perylymphs always come in twos. They were identical right? (Lehi nodded) They always come in pairs – as twins that is.”
“Wait a minute, if they’re from the abyssal realm then how did they get here?”
“They must have escaped from the abyss when we tore the veil.” Upir said thoughtfully.
“Oh no.” Lehi said.
He knew that tearing the veil was a bad idea. Now that they had let creatures from hell itself into their world what were they going to do? He was sure that they were more of those perylymphs out there.
“Perylymphs are the only abyssal creatures right?” He asked Upir.
“Of course not,” Upir replied, “we have cordons, farmins, sapons, celins and others that I don’t even know thier names.”
“So if you knew all these creatures would escape them why did you tear the veil?!” Lehi yelled.
“How was I supposed to know that they would leave the abyss?!” Upir yelled in return.
“You are over two thousand years Upir, you should know!” Lehi shouted back.
“I was a prisoner in the abyss for a good part of those two thousand years, I could not possibly know everything about the place!” Upir’s black eyes were wild with anger and, probably, fear.
“So what are we going to do?” Lehi asked. He was going to say ‘what are you going to do’, but he thought better of it.
Upir sat silently. From he little she knew about them, the creatures of the abyssal realm were not just animals, they had minds that could reason well. They could speak, reason and act like any human. And what was more, she had heard that all the abyssal creatures could take on the appearance of humans if they did not want to show their true form. Upir told all this to Lehi.
“That was not what I asked Upir,” he said cautiously, “I asked you how we were going to handle these creatures.”
“Well can you handle what you do not know?” Upir asked.
“I’m still repeating my question: what are we going to do about them?” Lehi insisted.
Upir thought for a while.
“Do we have do anything about them?” She asked.
“Well it would be hard to rule if abyssal creatures that you cannot control are running wild in your domain,” Lehi replied, “besides, they attacked me. Who’s to say they won’t attack you, being an ex-convict of the abyss?”
Lehi did not say the last sentence out loud.
“The abyssal creatures are not to be meddled with, they can be very dangerous.” Upir said thoughtfully.
“Isn’t there a spell you can use to keep them under your control? Like the type you used for the werewolves and the witches?” Lehi asked.
“These creatures are different Ah’Lehi, what worked for werewolves may not work for them.” Upir mused.
They stayed silent for a while.
“I’ll find a way around it,” Upir said, “I always do.”
“And I hope for both our sakes that you do find a way.” Lehi replied.
“A certain witch is flaunting my orders.” Upir said suddenly.
“How?”
“She’s trying to use her magic secretly,” Upir explained, “she and her group are trying to use an old form of magic to kill me.”
“And are we familiar with the form of magic they want to use?” Lehi asked.
Upir chuckled.
“Their ‘old’ form of magic was the first form of magic I ever learnt,” she replied, “I know it like the back of my hand.”
“So what are you going to do about them?”
“Watch and see Ah’Lehi,” she replied, smiling wickedly, “watch and see.”