Dancing With Monsters (20 page)

“
Why not just tell us
now?” Malachi stood up and demanded. “You know more than you let on
and many things hang in the balance that can affect you as
well.”

Meena laughed with amusement. “Oh,
little monster, things have “affected” this world and “hung in the
balance” since the beginning of time. It’s up to you to keep
winning.”

“
I know nothing of my
mother; could you please tell me anything about her?” I pushed
Malachi out of the way, and begged without so much as a twitch of
concern or understanding. Meena ignored me.

She raised her hands as her black hair
curled around her face and shoulders like snakes. “Now go little
ones, and seek the answers you need to find!”

White light and flecks of gold glitter
exploded behind Meena, as Malachi and I were jolted off of our feet
and through the now large tent opening. I expected to hit the
ground with a thud, but we didn’t. I felt Malachi slip his hand in
mine as my eyes focused on our surroundings. Just like Meena had
promised, we were back at the night market, and it was still busy.
Except this street wasn’t garbage-lined or filled with questionable
looking people. This looked like a market.

Bright panels of material were draped
over poles, strands of lights crisscrossed the walkway overhead,
and venders displayed dresses, shirts, scarves, and bolts of
material of every color and texture imaginable.

“
What’s at the end of
Textile Street?” I asked standing next to Malachi as he examined
his pockets.

“
I’ve never been down
it—never had the need to.” He pulled out his dagger he had thrown
towards Meena. “Well, at least she gave me back my dagger as
promised.”

“
We should hurry,” I said,
pulling on Malachi’s sleeve.

“
Wait,” he said, grasping
onto my hand. “It could be a trap, and we don’t want to walk into
one of those. Meena might have given us information and,” he
flipped my arm over exposing my hexmark, “she added to your mark,
but we can’t just trot down the street blindly expecting nothing to
happen.” He smiled at me with a raise of his eyebrows. “You’re a
greeny, spell-struck, and too trusting. What if Meena is using us
to pay off a debt to someone or is working for demons? But, I guess
I can’t expect you to know of such things. You are just a mindless
girl monster, and one who doesn’t pay attention to her
surroundings. You—”

That did it. I slapped him across the
face in one quick motion that got the attention of few peddlers.
I’ve never done that to anyone, much less a boy I barely knew. My
expression said otherwise as I squared my shoulders and glared at
Malachi who put his hand to his reddening cheek with a look of
shock.

“
I’ve spend years in
institutions and foster homes.” I stated. “I think I know a few
things about paying attention to my surroundings, and if we are
going to stand here and talk about it, we are only going to draw
attention to us. We might as well shout out our names and let them
know we are here. What we need to do is blend in.”

Malachi slowly released his hand and
glanced around as the on-looking peddlers went back to their
business—the show was over.

“
Fine,” Malachi hissed
grabbing hold of my wrist as he glared at me with his blue eyes now
darkened. “Textile Street is a long winding one filled with
clothes—try not to get distracted, and keep up,” he said with a
tug.

I knew I shouldn’t have slapped
Malachi, but he struck a nerve with me. I didn’t have a childhood—I
survived a childhood and think I know a few things. I didn’t tell
him, but I knew we could trust Meena. I don’t know why I did, and
Malachi was right about going into things blindly, but my insides,
I felt, had always guided me and they told me to trust Meena. This,
of course, I couldn’t expect Malachi to understand. Now I felt bad
for slapping him.

Malachi and I wound our way through
the maze of people. I found this area intriguing and wished I could
explore it under different circumstances. Peddlers walked through
the crowd, some selling gold jewelry, and other with silk scarves
looped over their arms waving them like flags as they cried out in
a language I didn’t understand. Malachi pressed forward and pushed
most of the peddlers out of the way as I tagged behind him like a
dog on a leash.

The pathway suddenly narrowed, and
overhead was a canopy of leaves. Grapevine-like limbs that looked
like they sprouted out of the windows from the buildings that lined
this part of the street, reached upward supporting the airy leaves
overhead. Incense filled the air along with festive music that came
out of several of the buildings.

“
We’re just about there,”
Malachi said, just as something dark covered and wrapped around us
like a big, silky blanket.

Malachi let go of my hand, and then I
heard the sound of violent ripping. Several hands pressed against
us and the sound of laughing surrounded us. Malachi twisted and
turned, and I nearly fell to the ground when he finally sliced
through the material. We were encircled by a few of the peddlers
wearing dark clothing and smiled back at us talking among
themselves in their language. None of them seemed to be threatening
and showed no weapon as Malachi twirled around pointing his dagger
towards them. They laughed even harder with amusement.

“
What do they want with
us?”

“
Let’s not stay to find
out,” he said, charging at them “Move!” Malachi yelled, grabbed my
wrist tightly, and extended his dagger as he did.

They parted with hands in the air and
more laughter as if we were no threat and they were just trying to
capture us for amusement.

“
How fast can you run?” I
asked as I glanced back at the men who didn’t come after us, but
stood and watched.

“
What do you mean? I
thought I was moving fast under these conditions.” Malachi suddenly
stopped and I nearly ran into him as Ayil, a man dressed in dark
clothing and a cape stood beside a younger boy dressed the same
way.

They both had wavy white-blonde hair
with flecks of silver in it and stood on either side of
Ayil.

“
I thought you sealed the
portal,” Malachi said to me as he held out his dagger towards
them.

“
She did, but it wasn’t
very strong, and we easily passed through it,” the man
said.

“
Please, April and
Malachi, we aren’t going to hurt you. It’s really important that
you listen to us.”

They were blocking our passage, and
Malachi started to back up towards the amused group of locals
behind us.

“
This is Isaiah and Edan
Tollwick,” Ayil said, motioning towards them. “They are the angels
I was talking about, and they are here to help us.”

“
This is a dangerous place
and you,” Isaiah fixed his dark, green eyes on me. “You have a lot
of strength in you, and just had your hexmark added onto.” He
raised his eyebrows. “I can smell it and so can others that are not
trying to help you.”

“
You want to help us, but
what does that mean? You angels are the all the same—out for
yourselves.” Malachi tightly grabbed a hold of my wrist. “When I
say run, run,” he muttered at me.

Edan chuckled. “We heard you,
monster.” His bright, green eyes flickered with agitation. “We are
angels and have exceptional hearing, so, be wise little monsters,
and come with us. You are wasting our time, and I’ve a meeting to
attend that’s much more important than your lives.”

Isaiah let out a sigh, and
glared down at him. “They
are
important if not more important than what you
have going on right now.”

Edan crossed his arms and set his eyes
on us with a discerning look.

“
April and Malachi, I mean
no harm and many, many things are at stake now.” Ayil held her eyes
on Malachi as her voice pleaded with reason. “There are bad angels,
Malachi, but they are not.” She motioned to the Isaiah and Edan.
“I’ve known them for years and trust them. We are in a dangerous
place that makes your safety vulnerable. We need to find Seth and
Nessa and get all of you back to my home.”

“
Why didn’t you tell us
about this earlier—you’ve been nothing but secretive.” Malachi kept
stepping backwards as Ayil, Isaiah, and the impatient Edan stood
where they were.

“
Time’s wasting!” Edan
finally stepped towards us. “Go with us or die here!” His eyes were
filled with green flames as he pulled a silver dagger from inside
his cloak pocket.

“
Run!” I yelled pulling
Malachi with me.

I wasn’t sure if he could run as fast
as me so I gave him some of my strength. I let it pass from deep
inside of me, through my arm and out my fingertips to Malachi’s
hand that I held tightly. I’ve never done or thought I could—it
just came to me in a voice instructing me—Ezra’s voice.

I picked up speed as Malachi ran
beside me towards the now shocked, local mob that tried to capture
us earlier.

“
Take the wall—there isn’t
enough room!” I yelled to Malachi as I jumped towards the
wall.

We parted like two speeding airplanes,
and I watched Malachi glide across the brick wall as if he was on
even ground. His eyes were wide, and filled with fear and
disbelief. Even in our dire circumstances, I couldn’t help but to
smile at his reaction.

I too, easily glided on the wall and
to the open walkway, but there was also someone who was equally as
agile as we were. Edan followed behind like an angry dog with his
eyes bearing down on us.

Malachi and I joined hands. “I’ve
never done this before,” Malachi said as we cut through the
crowd.

“
We’ve got company,” I
nodded behind us. “We can’t outrun him all night.”

Malachi’s face paled, and then glanced
at me with a smile. “There’s a place we can go, come
on!”

“
Where?”

“
A portal,” he said, with
glee as if he suddenly remembered.

“
You said you’ve never
been here before.”

“
Yeah, but Ezra has—come
on!”

We took a hard turn to the right, and
I nearly tripped on my own feet at the sudden change in direction.
The walkway had less people, but many panels of colorful material
that hung on sections of rope that looped from building to
building. The long panels filled the walkway, nearly reaching the
tops of the buildings to barely touching the ground. It was like we
had entered a forest.

Malachi ran as if he had done it
before many times, and pushed the panels out of our way followed by
voices that protested us being here in a harsh, foreign language.
He held onto my hand tightly as the sheets slapped against us
splattering watery dye on our clothing and skin. I heard Malachi
laugh and yelp as we darted through the wet sheets like we were
traveling through a rainbow maze.

My outstretched arm barely held onto
Malachi’s dye saturated hand. All I could see were bits and pieces
of Malachi as he twisted and turned through the material that
slapped in my face. The air was filled with chemicals that now
started to burn my eyes along with the colorful water that mixed
into a muddy brown and dripped from our locked hands. I had hoped
we had lost Eden, but we didn’t. Glancing over my shoulder, I
caught glimpses of him and his eyes that were fixated with
determination on us. We were losing ground, Eden was gaining on us,
and if we didn’t find an escape soon, he’d be practically on top of
us.

“
Malachi!” I yelled as we
picked up speed. “My hand—it’s slipping!” I dug my fingers into his
palm.

“
Just about—”

Panels of the bright material twisted
around us like rope. We lurched forward in a fall. Malachi wrapped
his arms around me as we were cocooned in the colorful panels and a
blast of golden glitter. I heard nothing but only my heart beating
practically out of my chest. It felt like we were floating through
water, but I could breathe, and wasn’t wet as the panels entangled
through our legs. The bright material floated around us as if being
carried by water. We had to have fallen into a well or pool
somehow, and didn’t realize it. Whatever I was breathing in was
cool, and the stench of chemicals was gone. Suddenly, my chest
began to hurt—it had to be water. I began to kick my legs as
Malachi tightened his arms around me.

“
It’s ok,”
I heard his voice in my head.

“
We fell in water! We’re
drowning!” I screamed.

“
No, you’re not,”
Malachi’s voice easily overrode my panic, and I gave him a
perplexed look.

“
It’s a portal, and there
you’ll find my love,”
a voice said that
sounded like Malachi’s, but I knew wasn’t his words.

I felt a sudden calmness, and let the
beautiful panels float around us as my eyes met Malachi’s bright
blue ones that nearly matched the sea of material we floated in. I
placed my hands gently on his cheeks. I could still see a faint red
spot where I had slapped him earlier. He pulled closer to me as our
lips barely touched.

Our entwined bodies twisted and turned
through the sea of glitter and material until I heard an explosion
and felt the hard ground underneath us.