With their relief effectively shattered, they each tried to come up with some explanation as to why he would wake up in a room he didn’t recognize with no less than six girls.
“Ughhh…. Was I sleepwalking again?” He asked groggily, trying to wipe the sleep out of his eyes.
“Oh uh… yeah! You were walking around the hall and fumbling while we were… studying!” Sarah started, jumping on the opportunity for an inconspicuous explanation.
“Yeah we didn’t want to wake you so we led you in here to calm down. Looks like it worked.” Lena added as the boy sat up lethargically, still rubbing his eyes.
“Man I must have really done a number on myself this time, I’ve never woken up and felt so… drunk.” He complained, “Thanks for taking me in though, that was really nice of you all.” He said, trying to get on his feet.
His left knee buckled and he began to fall but Andras’ keen reflexes caught the boy before he could fall very far. “Woah! You’re strong, you must workout a lot. Thanks!” He said dopily.
As the student cautiously rose once again, Andras carefully let go to see if he could stand on his own. Sure enough, his knee held strong as he found his balance. Turning to Andras the student said, “Thanks for the save girl, name’s Chad by the way.”
“Amber.” He replied with a polite smile.
“Well uh… I better be going. Man, my head’s so fuzzy.” He noted as he started heading for the door, Sarah opened it for him and saw him out.
“Thanks again everyone, if you see me around campus I’ll buy ya lunch.” He said before finally walking off down the hall.
As Sarah closed the door behind him they all let out a breath they didn’t know they were holding. “Well, he doesn’t seem to remember anything. That’s good right?” Bianca asked.
“Not necessarily.” Elizabeth replied, “Best case, the hosts don’t remember anything from their experiences or worst case, they do and he’ll start to remember.”
“But even if it’s the best case scenario and we, let’s say, destroy all the demons and their hosts don’t remember anything. All that lost time is going to raise way too many questions, that’s something we haven’t discussed.” Sarah continued as she sat back down.
Sarah’s statement hung over the group for a moment, the idea didn’t sit well in any of their stomachs. After a short while of everything going unsaid, Amber spoke up.
“Hey Andras, would you mind? I’ve got something to say.” She asked softly.
The demon nodded his acknowledgement before turning to Audrey, “Hey, I know you’ve only just found out about all of this but Amber wants me to hop out so I’m just giving you a heads up ok?”
Audrey made eye contact with the demon for what must have been the first time since Lena talked to her at the greenhouse. He didn’t know what was said but it wasn’t until now did he realize that she’s been, understandably, avoiding looking at him.
The latina simply stared at the demon, seemingly looking for something. “You know it’s funny, I can’t discern a single thing that might tell me that there is a demon currently inhabiting your body, Amber.” She said in a surprisingly flat tone, “No sign of what lies beneath.”
Andras took this as her acknowledgement and began to collect himself, as he did he tried to be as graceful as he possibly could with the process to try and put Audrey at ease. His efforts paid off, her body only hitched forward slightly as his form left hers. He landed with only a soft thud on the carpeted floor.
Turning to Audrey he could see she was visibly unnerved as she stared at him with widened eyes and a slightly agape mouth. Andras greeted the girl with as friendly of a smile as he could muster with a small wave before sitting down to listen to Amber. The demon knew that gesture wasn’t going to solve all her issues with him but her expression did shift slightly, her eyes stuck to him like glue.
“Look guys.” Amber started, “I think we all knew the chances of defeating Idsalis and keeping everything under wraps were slim to none.”
“The only thing we need to keep secret is Andras’ presence here. As long as we do that, we should be fine.” She assured them.
“But won’t there be questions? Investigations? Surely anyone who comes snooping is going to wonder how and why another group of demons who tried to take over a school were defeated.” Sarah said with a pessimistic tone, “If and when the trail leads back to us, they’re going to want to know why we didn’t call for help.”
“Simple, we were possessed.” Amber replied.
“What?” Sarah asked, “You can’t think they’ll believe that. How are we going to explain the demon’s defeat?”
“We don’t know, we were possessed.” Amber answered nonchalantly. “As long as we all concoct a memory of being taken, we can pretend to wake up with the rest of the victims and go from there.” She said with confidence, something they were all lacking at the moment.
Audrey finally peeled her eyes away from the purple demon to ask, “Hold on, we still haven’t gotten past the part where I decide to help you all or not.” She said, sounding annoyed, “From my perspective, I should just call the government to come deal with this and risk Andras being discovered.”
That last bit kinda stung the demon, it was rare to hear someone who wasn’t his enemy speak so coldly about him, “Audrey, please.” Lena begged the girl, “If it wasn’t for him the entire world probably would have ended, he risked his neck to save everyone. All we ask is that you let us try and save him.”
With the whole group staring at her, Audrey’s demeanor broke as she looked away from their gazes, a few moments passed by in silence as they waited for the girl.
Sighing she looked back up at the group, “Fine but if things go sideways I’ll-” She began.
“Call the government, join the club.” Elizabeth interrupted her.
Audrey narrowed her eyes at the scientist, “That’s a good point, how did you get roped into this? I know you weren’t on the island with him.” She asked.
Elizabeth’s face lit up in a familiar way, “Oh yes, we did forget to tell you about that part didn’t we? Sarah, Lena and Andras saved me from getting taken by one of those things a few nights ago.” She said almost as if remembering the experience pleasantly.
“Did they use you as bait too?” Audrey asked sarcastically.
“If they did, they were very good at hiding it, that seemed to be their first encounter with the creatures.” Elizabeth explained.
“Ok are we quite finished? Because if we are, we have a plan to make with a lot of details to sort out.” Sarah interjected to which both of the new additions to the group just shrugged.
“So.” Sarah began, “It seems we have most of what we need, Audrey and Liz should be able to sort out a more powerful version of the torch but what kind of delivery system would be possible for the pollen?”
“We’d need a lot more time than we have to turn it into some kind of launcher, the best I could do anytime soon would be a short range spray.” Elizabeth explained.
“Could you make a trap out of it?” Lena asked to their surprise.
“Yeah I guess so, we’d just have run a bit of punctured hose around the area and shoot it through with compressed air. It’s a similar principle to how sprinklers work.” Audrey shrugged.
Andras spoke in his demonic tongue, the reminder of his presence clearly bothering Audrey at least a little, “He said we would have to get them all in one go because there’s no way someone like Idsalis would fall for it more than once.” Lena translated for the demon.
“Did he teach you that or-” Audrey started.
“Another side effect, it comes in handy when he’s unhosted.” Lena interjected. “But yeah, he’s right. We’re going to need to get as many as we possibly can when we spring this trap.”
“How do we do that?” Bianca asked, confused.
“By using the one thing we have that he wants.” Keira answered.
“Are you sure? If we lose then it might just be game over for the whole world.”
“We’ve got no other choice, if we really want to stir the hornet’s nest, we have to risk it.” Amber declared.
“Umm excuse me? What exactly are you all referring to?” Audrey asked, “Yes I would like to know as well.” Elizabeth added.
Amber turned to Andras who shrugged in response. The blonde turned back to the confused pair and answered them, “We told the two of you about the Daemon Ritus but the part we left out is that we brought it back with us.” Amber revealed.
“What!? You guys brought an ancient demonic artifact to a university?” Audrey asked incredulously.
Lena just rolled her eyes, “Oh come on, does this really surprise you? We brought an actual demon back with us to share our bodies. I think a little souvenir is understandable.” She said, tilting her head in Andras’ direction.
“Oh yeah? Well your ‘little souvenir’ is the reason they’re here! Making this actually all of your faults.” Audrey accused them.
“Calm down!” Sarah snapped back with more volume than she intended. In the ensuing silence Sarah took a second to reclaim her composure before speaking again.
“Lena, this is no time for teasing.” She lectured the redhead, her roommate held her hands up defensively, “And you.” She said, turning to the latina.
“Just think about what our alternatives were. Should he have left it there? For the government to find?” She interrogated the girl.
“N-no!” Audrey retorted, “If you wanted to get rid of it then why not destroy it? Or throw it in the ocean?”
“We tried to destroy it, nothing seemed to work. We didn’t throw it away because we wanted to try and find a more permanent solution but it hasn’t been our highest priority during the time we thought no one else knew about it.” Sarah interjected.
“What did you try exactly?” Elizabeth spoke up, suddenly talkative at the mention of any form of experiments.
“Hitting it really hard, hydraulic press, trying to melt it at a thousand degrees, all kinds of acid. Take your pick, we tried it.” Lena rattled off.
“I like a challenge.” Liz’s eyes grew wide in her signature knowledge hungry look, she was practically salivating.
“If we get past this, study it as much as you like.” Lena offered.
“We’re getting off track.” Sarah reminded the group, “So we retrieve it and use it to lure them all into one big trap.”
“You mean you don’t have it?” Audrey asked once more.
“It’s safe, we didn’t want to leave it in any of our rooms on the off chance someone came looking for it.” Keira explained.
Andras chimed in with, “This might actually work to our advantage.” Translated by Lena.
“I’m sorry, this is a little surreal. Is there any way one of you could…” Audrey trailed off, seemingly not feeling comfortable finishing that sentence.
Rolling her eyes for the second time in the same conversation Lena relented, “I suppose we were going to have to sometime soon anyway. Up you get, big guy.” She joked with the demon.
Audrey was a little surprised with how the demon reacted, his expressions had been so forced for her sake before but at Lena’s invitation he seemed to be genuinely overjoyed. Her surprise turned to one of mild amazement as she watched the creature disappear down her friend’s throat with a rather staggering speed.
As soon as Lena’s mouth closed behind the entering demon her head turned to face her, eyes now glowing a soft blue. Andras offered the girl a gentle smile. “Wow, that really was a seamless transition.” Audrey noted.
“It was, wasn’t it!?” Elizabeth said to the latina excitedly, “I really cannot wait to unravel the secrets behind those two.”
Andras raised an eyebrow at the eager girl who shied away pretty quickly, realizing she’d gone a little overboard. “Anyway.” The demon began, enjoying sounding like Lena again, “Like I said, we can use this to our advantage. We needed a subtle way for Idsalis to find out we have it but with almost all of our movements being watched, all we have to do is retrieve it.”
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After making his way across campus, Chad finally managed to stumble back into his room. The first thing that caught his attention was his roommate sitting at their shared desk, he turned around on their swivel chair and tried talking to him. He thought it was strange that his roommate would be up at this time of night, he’s usually fast asleep by now.
Whatever he was saying Chad had no idea as all he heard sounded like mumbled gibberish though even his tired mind registered that it didn’t sound like English. With a wobbling head he only managed to blurt out, “Yeah… goodnight to you too.” before his head collided with his pillow.
Even laying down his head was still swimming, he felt as if his entire body was submerged in cold, slowly flowing water. He really hoped the feeling would let up soon because it was making it difficult to sleep.
That however, was the least of his concerns as a strong hand grabbed ahold of his arm and wrenched him onto his back. “Woah dude what the fu-” Was all he managed before a puff of green mist sent his already dulled senses black.
His roommate, eyes glowing a hideous green, pulled the unconscious boy over his shoulder and carted him out of the room.
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“Andras, are you sure they’ll be alright without either of you there? After last night…” Bianca asked the demon as they made their way along the footpath in hours of the early morning. The sun had just barely made its way above the horizon, the cool air biting at each of them.
“They should be fine during the day. As much as I’d like to have myself or Lena covering them, we can’t risk not using everything we have to safeguard this next bit.” He answered her, doing his best to not betray his inner turmoil.
He sensed the same set of emotions bubbling within Lena, he did his best to send her a sense of comfort but that just grabbed her attention, “Are you sure about this Andras? We’ve already gotten into trouble for keeping one secret, they might not forgive us as easily for a second time.” His other half asked him.
If the demon was completely honest, he wasn’t sure at all. He was essentially taking a calculated risk without their consent but as much as they tried, they weren’t able to come up with an alternative.
Andras took a moment to savor the sensations he was currently experiencing through Lena. The cool breeze and warm morning sun on her skin, the sporadic chirping of birds that went unseen in the treeline, the beautiful sight of the gently moving leaves and flowers. He was afraid of losing these but, the demon turned to glance back at the three girls following him, he was terrified of losing them.
Even though he was pretty sure Lena was able to glean his meaning from his wordless expression, he felt the need to voice them, if only for his own sanity. “We can’t risk this not failing, we might not get another chance like this. As much as it pains me, keeping them in the dark is necessary, I would do anything to protect them.” He explained to his friend.
“Yes, we would.” Lena corrected, sounding a little more confident.
Finally the group left the cobblestone path and made their way across the grass towards one of the oldest trees on campus, allegedly planted by one of the founders of the school well over a hundred years ago and by the size it definitely seemed accurate. As they made their approach, Andras quickly scanned for any eyes on them, there were only a handful of students around at this time but even though they were at the edge of the grounds, Andras definitely managed to catch a few lingering pairs of eyes.
“Gotcha.” He thought to himself.
Upon reaching the tree, they each reached into their bags and produced a blanket each to lay on the ground. Andras sat by the trunk of the tree to use it as a back rest while each of the girls pulled out their books and laptops. In order to really sell this, they’d decided to pretend like they thought they could hide what they were doing. While the others chatted amongst themselves he absent mindedly felt behind him for the familiar root.
Try as he might, he’d begun to think he’d buried it on the other side and was about to turn around and perform a more thorough investigation before his hand latched onto the bendy root he was searching for. Giving a mental sigh of relief, he gently unwound the root from the dirt.
Even with his and Lena’s combined strength it wasn’t the most graceful process, he hadn’t planned on digging it up with one hand behind his back. With an audible snap the branch finally gave way to his tugging, making him cringe slightly at the noise.
He pawed Lena’s hand through the dirt, trying to brush away all the earth that laid between him and what they came to retrieve. After only a few handfuls of dirt were extracted, he felt the tip of Lena’s finger come into contact with a cool metal surface.
Grabbing hold of the object, he wrenched it from the dirt with a little more strength than he intended, he nearly swung it into Lena’s back which probably wouldn’t have been pleasant for either of them.
Andras nodded to the girls as he slipped the Daemon Ritus into Lena’s bag. Now comes the painstaking part, to not seem suspicious, they are going to have to spend at least a little bit of time studying in the open before they can get up and leave.
In the end, they’d actually spent an hour or so genuinely studying, they figured they may as well because it would be more effort to pretend like they were. This brief moment of enjoyment only hardened Andras’ resolve for what would come next.
Glancing at the time, Andras figured this would be as good a time as any so he decided to pull the trigger. Andras shoved Lena’s laptop into her bag and rose to his feet drawing a confused look from the three girls, “I’m just going to go check on the other three, we’ll meet up like we discussed.” He explained to them.
“Are you sure? We can come with you.” Bianca offered eagerly with a hint of confusion.
“Yeah, just head back to Lena’s room.” He said, handing her the key with a reassuring smile.
“Ok, we’ll call you if we need you.” Amber replied with a forced optimism.
As he looked to Kiera his guilt welled up, her eyes were almost imperceptibly narrowed at him. Despite the rest of her demeanor, he knew she could tell something was up.
“I’ll see ya later?” He offered awkwardly before taking a few cautious steps away.
“We’d better.” Was all that she said.
