1. Know Thy Dark Knight
Know Thy Dark Knight
Lynx
‘Ican hear your teeth grinding from here, Doorknob,’ I growl out as I watch Knots sit back down from jumping to Rez’s defense.
His wings and Jillian's body were gone, presumably back in his S.I.N.
box. I can only imagine his wings would have set off more of a disturbance than what we did when we came through the portal from Hell.
She doesn’t want his help, nor does she need it after the way he’s treated her. Plus, look at her, she’s a fucking badass. We just survived the Trail of Worth and lived to brag about that shit. I know I want to go around telling the world we made that trail our bitch.
‘Fuck off, Boots.’ Knots’ clipped reply receives an eye roll from me as I watch Rez reluctantly follow Emer to the stage.
It sucks that I can’t go up there with her, but alas, the Doorknob and I didn’t come here wearing those magical bracelets measuring our magic.
Sliding over into Rez’s chair, I smirk when Knots’ jaw clenches, yet his eyes still scan the area.
He has yet to look at the students sitting around us or me.
He’s either been looking at all the parents standing separately from us or at Rez. What’s going on there?
‘What’s got you all tangled up in knots, Knots?’ I chuckle to myself.
‘Something is going on. See all of the extra guards around here?’ He motions to the parents, completely dismissing my obvious dig at him.
‘No. I see the parents standing around,’ I emphasize, and he sighs with frustration.
‘Take a closer look at them, you damn furball. What parents do you know who wear uniforms to an assembly?’
Grudgingly doing as he suggests, I notice for the first time the difference between the actual parents and the crowd members wearing similar, darker fatigues. Yep, those look like subtle uniforms, while some even have weapons attached to their thighs. How did I miss those?
‘What is Matthew talking about anyway?’ I continue to push his buttons.
‘The Gauntlet.’
‘What?’ I stare at the side of his head, trying to burn a hole through it, wondering what it’s full of. Feathers, since he’s an angel? Nah, maybe wood since he’s dense like the Door Knights. Oh! Maybe it’s air since he broke up with Rez.
‘Do you not know what the significance of the Gauntlet is?’ He shoots me a bored, pompous look before zeroing in back on the stage.
‘Rez mentioned it once when we first arrived, but I don’t remember the significance,’ I admit, before focusing back on the stage where Rez finds her place between Ryker and Emer.
I must admit she’s never looked hotter; her leathers ripped in sections that showcase her seductively bare skin, hair in disarray, and her weapon straps barely hanging on.
And now, watching Rez flick her wrist slightly, causing her glaive to press into Emer’s leg?
I’m a goner. Her lips barely move before she lets her glaive rest against her leather guard.
My Rezzi-bear is all about the violence now, and she’s not afraid to show it.
I need to adjust the tightness in my pants, but I’ll suffer in silence.
Beside me, Knots jerks suddenly, and I give him a concerned look, but he waves it away before a line appears between his eyes, indicating he’s trying to concentrate. It must be a Door Knight thing, Willow, or one of the other DK’s is probably reaching out to him.
A growl slips out of me as I see Angel slipping up to Rez. What is that bitch doing here? Shouldn’t she still be in Hell?
“Ladies and Gentlemen,” Dean Caldron continues.
‘Hey, Copurrnicus, do you feel that? Some type of dark magic building nearby?’ Knots asks.
‘No, but Rezzi-bear isn’t looking too hot,’ I point out, cursing under my breath.
Her normal golden sepia skin is quickly turning a sickly yellow.
Even from here, I can see the beads of sweat along her hairline.
Is she overheating, or is she the source of dark magic Knots was talking about?
Before I can reach out to her, Rez’s knees go out, and she hits the ground hard, causing a chain reaction like an explosion.
First, the guys surround Rez, as Knots and I jump to our feet.
Before we have a chance to move, two red portals crackle to life on either side of our seated congregation, and to our horror, demons appear on their surface.
Five lesser demons run out of each, leading a small horde of demons dressed in battle armor with their focus honed in on the stage.
An alarm blares as Dean Caldron quickly projects his voice, telling everyone to head for safety or the dorms and wait for further instructions.
Chief Cloak shifts into his bear and lumbers off the stage, joining the fray of guards who have ripped off their clothes and shifted into their animal forms, clashing with the demons by the portals.
‘Get us to Rez, Wood Pecker,’ I yell as I shift into my smaller furry marten form and start crawling up Knot's leg.
‘Don’t you think you would be better as a bigger animal?’ Knots growls out, grabbing Rez’s backpack and shoving it in his S.I.N. box before making his way to the stage. My claws rake against his sensitive neck, but I’m unconcerned about it beyond ensuring I don’t nick an artery… too deeply.
‘Suuuure,’ I drawl out. ‘That’s what we need: me, big enough to squash everyone between my toes. That won’t draw the attention of the demons or the guards around here. We might as well ring the dinner bell while wearing lamb chops around our necks.’
I swear he’s not using his brain at all.
Yes, the larger size would help part the crowd, but that would only draw more attention from the enemy and make us targets.
It’s the same reason why he doesn’t have his wings now.
With an annoyed huff, I wrap myself around his neck and grab his hair in a death grip as Knots cuts through the wave of supes running down the stairs.
Peeking out through his strands, I catch sight of a man holding Rez in his arms as he’s following Steinbeck and Dean Caldron off the stage towards the Administration building. The rest of the guys follow and play defense with any stray spells or cocky demons who must think she’s a weak target.
Knots gets shoulder-checked hard enough that it sends me spinning around like a tilt-a-whirl, but I hang on with my death grip to his hair, and I catch a flash of pink. Straightening out, I see Emer and her Harpies pulling someone off to the side of the building amongst the chaos.
‘Am I going blind, or is the Queen Harpy stealing our Robot?’ I point out, giving Knots whiplash as I yank hard on his hair, and causing him to stumble.
‘What? Where?’
I yank again, leaning so I can swivel his head in the right direction while I let the insults fly on how an angel can be so blind. It’s a good thing Rez doesn’t have to worry about this deadwood anymore. I swear, he’s become such a drag.
‘Can you ask him what he’s doing?’ I probe my damn taxi.
‘A change of plans, rodent,’ is the reply I get before he shakes his head and takes off in the harpies' direction.
‘Wait, what about Rez?’ I shriek, not wanting to be separated since I don’t know what’s going on with her.
‘If the guys, her father, and Dr. Steinbeck can’t handle it, what makes you think us being there will help?
’ Oh, so that’s who must be holding her.
‘I think saving Levi would be more beneficial since no one except us has noticed he’s been taken hostage at knife point,’ Knots’ makes his excruciating point clear.
I’d rather cough up a hairball from my rectum than admit he’s right, so I keep my mouth shut as Knots jumps off the stage and lands in front of a couple of demons.
Dodging a blade, he spins and immediately pulls out Alexis to block the second blow from his partner.
These demons are nothing but fodder or a minor distraction for Knots as he spins and takes down demon by demon.
I almost feel useless as I cling to his back until I see a glint and chuckle to myself as I shift.
Knots grunts under my new weight and peers over his shoulder to see my black Manticore tail blocking a Demon’s sword. The whites of the demon’s eyes reflect off of Knot’s sword briefly before its head rolls off its shoulders.
‘Did you see where they went??’ Knots calls out, moving toward the Administration building, but slowly trying to figure out which door to take.
‘Umm. I.. Uhhh. Well... I wasn’t… Shit. I lost track after they looked like they were rounding the building,’ I admit, feeling like a failure.
Knots jolts upright for a second, then laughs manically and pats my body hard.
‘Hold on, Flufflestiltskin, you’re about to see the inner workings of the DKs that I completely forgot about,’ Knots gleefully says before taking off toward the closet door.
‘Um, Knots? Want to give me a hint?’ I ask as he seems to speed up and square himself directly dead center of the double doors in front of him.
‘First hint: only DKs have ever been here. Second hint, even DKs have forgotten that it exists,’ he says with a chuckle, and dread hits me as Knots lowers his head and allows the door to pull us into darkness.
As the blackness clears from my vision, I feel Knots grab me and set me down on a hard surface, where I quickly shift back into my human form.
“Welcome to the Hall of Knowledge,” he says aloud, bringing my attention to our surroundings, and my jaw drops.
“What the fuck?” The words slip from me as I take in the massive room.
We’re standing in a hallway as wide as a four-lane highway, and I can’t see where it ends.
Along the walls are doors or portals. I’m not sure what their purpose is, but they have silver cords that extend from each doorway at the top, running up to a massive disk above us.
There seem to be more disks the further down the hall you go, but the main one above us is a white, round frisbee the size of a house suspended in the air.
While some cords run from door to door, the silver cords light up to a golden hue with no rhyme or reason or even a time limit that I can tell, connecting all the doors.
“What is this place? Nothing makes sense,” I admit, watching one cord light up for a full minute and bounce straight across from it directly to another door instead of going to the central hub.
“It’s the inner workings of us DKs. I was hoping this would work,” Knots admits, running his fingers through his hair.
“You were hoping?” My voice comes out shrill. “You mean you didn’t know for sure? What would have happened if it didn’t?” I yell as the shock of where we are wears off.
All the fucking pine needle does is shrug his shoulders like it isn’t a big deal. I swear I’m looking for an axe when I find a way out of here.
‘Knots? Is that you? Are you back?’ Willow’s sultry voice booms throughout the hall as a suspended, broken golden thread lights up above us.
“How the hell am I hearing her?” I ask Knots.
“I don’t know,” he says, looking up at a severed golden thread above us. “But that’s my thread right there,” he points out.
‘Yes, dear, I’m back,’ Knots tells her, and I watch as his severed thread above us lights up once again.
‘Where in the Horsemen’s ass have you been?’
Following his thread, I notice a door attached to another nearby thread that lights up when Willow begins talking. Following it, I find myself in front of a door that looks familiar.
The door flickers, and in its place is a white film that showcases a beautiful redhead wearing a scandalous outfit, like an old barmaid’s costume. Her image flickers once, and I see the Harpies' inner sanctum before it flashes to our hallway in the dorms.
‘We all thought you died, which of course sent everyone in a panic because we all thought we couldn’t die, then Derrick started looking into the archives that he could manipulate Gage into—’
‘Willow! I’m good. I got pulled to Hell,’ he says as an explanation.
Was that redhead Willow? Is this her door? The image flashes back to the woman, and this time, her hands are on her hips, and her face is one of fury.
‘And that’s better?’ she shrieks. ‘How the hell is going to HELL better than dying?’ she demands as her thread flashes like a disco light above the door.
‘It’s not, but I don’t have time to talk about where I’ve been now. We can catch up another time. I need to find Levi. The Harpies took him, and I need to get to him before it’s too late. Once that’s finished, I promise we will catch up on all that has happened.’
‘The only thing I overheard those evil bitches talking about was needing the space of the Admin building, so try Birchman,’ she suggests.
‘Thanks, Willow.’ Knots walks a little way down the hallway and raises his voice. ‘Birchman, have you seen Emerson and her goonies?’
‘Nope,’ a deep voice replies with a golden flash of a cord and a door.
‘I have. She just passed through here a few moments ago,’ a new feminine voice calls out, and I see a corresponding door lined with flowers and golden light up to the left.
We hurry over to see a flicker on the film over the door, displaying a blonde elf covered in blooming pink flowers over her chest and hips down to her knees.
‘Did you see where they went or anything about their group?’ Knots probes as the scene changes, and I take in the sight.
On our first day here at Purgatory, Moni showed us around, and right after we came to the cafeteria, I took off to explore on my own. Funny enough, this place looks familiar. This is the door next to the portal room in the Admin building.
‘She has Prince Caldron with them by knifepoint, but I think he’s also spelled. There’s a strong pulse around him that I quickly picked up. So there’s a total of six guarding him. All high-profile, so remember that,’ she advises Knots, and he sneers.
‘Thanks, Cherry Blossom. I appreciate your help.’ Knots curses under his breath before calling out again.
‘Who’s got eyes?’ Knots asks no one in particular.
It’s crickets as no one speaks up, so he starts pacing.
‘Pawpaw, did they go through the portal?’ Knots demands an answer.
‘Um..’ someone clears his throat before continuing. ‘Knots, we lost sight of them after they passed Cherry Blossom. They never came through the portal. We don’t know where they went,’ Pawpaw admits warily.
‘How is that possible? They just disappeared?’ Knots stops his pacing and gives me an inquiring look.
‘Sorry, Knots. If we see them again, we’ll let you know. We’re kinda stuck here,’ PawPaw says in a dreary tone.
Knots quirks an eyebrow, and I let out a sigh before shifting back into my Marten form.
‘Come on, Wigglebutt. We don’t have all day,’ Knots growls.
‘My ass is pretty amazing. Good to know you can spot perfection.’ I start climbing up his back and wrap around his neck, clawing a little deeper than I truly have to. ‘There might be hope for you after all.’
‘Touché, pussycat.’
‘Onward, Outhouse.’