Chapter Sixteen
Neith
“Maybe,” I reply. I have always found swords easy to wield, any weapon really. I just like deadly things. “Would it be okay if we wait to do sword practice?”
Reed nods, “Of course.”
“Thanks. I really need to head into town and pick up some more clothes,” I look at Raiden, “if you still want to take me? If not, can someone lend me a vehicle and directions.”
Raiden smirks, “Of course, I still want to take you. Are you ready to go now?”
I nod, “Yeah, l just need to go upstairs and get my card.”
“Okay, I’ll meet you by the front door,” Raiden replies as he gets up.
“I guess the rest of us should get on with our reports,” Griff mutters, not sounding very pleased at the prospect.
I pull out the report that I wrote, folded, and put in my pocket, his words reminding me that I have it on me, “That reminds me, this is my report. Let me know if it's not detailed enough, or if you guys need it written differently, and I will rewrite it.”
Evander takes it off me with a smile, “I’m sure that it will be fine. When you get back, one of us will lend you a laptop, and you can order everything else on that. Get yourself a laptop too.”
“And a phone,” Griff grunts the order, and it is an order and not a request. His voice softens slightly as he adds, “I want you to be able to get hold of us whenever you need to.”
I nod smiling, my heart warming at his concern but I can’t help but point out, “It wouldn’t have helped me on my walk last night. There was no cell service in whatever realm that damn imp dropped me in. But I will get one, I’m hoping that last night’s occurrence was a one off.”
“I fucking hope so,” Ransom mutters. He changes the subject before I can question him on it, “Technically, that happened not last night but the night before. It was morning by the time we went to bed, and then we slept through the following night, waking up this morning.”
I wrinkle my nose, pulling a confused face, and say, “Whatever you say, that just hurt my brain.”
The table chuckles, and I start to walk out to go and get my card. I wasted quite a lot of time with my freakout this morning, and I desperately need to get some stuff. Not just clothes either, I need some more shampoo and conditioner thanks to the number of times that I have had to wash my hair since I arrived here.
As I’m walking out of the room, I hear Raiden say smugly, “It’s not my fault I thought ahead.”
I clearly missed the first part of the conversation, but his words are met with a lot of good-natured name calling that he effortlessly and joyously returns. I head up the stairs with a smile on my face as I listen to their laughter.
As I step into my room, my eyes instantly land on Winston.
“Are you okay?” he asks me immediately.
I have no idea if that question means that he knows about my trip to the realm or not, so I ask him, “Er, I’m good, actually. Do you know where the imps sent me?”
Winston’s eyes widen slightly, and he asks, “The imps sent you somewhere?”
“I thought that’s what you were referring to?”
Winston shakes his head, “No, I was referring to the Choosing.”
“You know about that?” I ask, taking a seat on the bed next to him.
He nods, “Yes, of course I do. I am a spirit guide.”
“So you know all futures then?”
He shakes his head, “No, I am only privy to certain futures. This is more of a knowing when there might be a threat to you, plus your distress called to me and the other spirit guides.”
I frown, “It did? Has it always done that?”
Winston nods, “Yes, but it wasn’t until the bazooka incident that you have had the strength to see us. I imagine that it has something to do with your magic making itself known more.”
I smile, “Got it, that makes sense, I suppose. Do you have any advice for me? Is it likely to happen? Am I worrying about nothing? Do I need to prepare? Am I even going to survive it as a human?”
Winston’s eyes widen slightly at my barrage of questions, but he only takes a moment to gather his thoughts before he starts to answer them.
“I can’t tell you much, not because I don’t want to but because I physically can’t, I don’t know. As you know, there are things at play that even we, as your spirit guides, don’t understand. I can tell you that no matter what happens, whether the Choosing gets triggered or not, that it is the way that it is supposed to happen,” Winston replies. He then adds, “Preparing is always a good idea.”
I nod, “Yeah, you make a good point. I suppose it is better to be over prepared rather than underprepared.”
“Exactly,” Winston replies with warmth in his eyes. “There’s something else that you need to remember, Neith.”
“Yes?” I ask, slightly suspiciously, when he doesn’t immediately carry on the conversation.
“You asked me if you would survive it as a human,” he repeats my own words. He doesn’t give me a chance to say anything else or confirm anything, and he continues, “You aren’t human, Neith. I imagine that if the Choosing were triggered, you would survive it. Perhaps not easily, since it is designed to be difficult and train warriors and also because your supernatural side is only just beginning to reveal itself, but I would be extremely surprised if your destiny were to die in the Choosing and not come back.”
I am unsure whether to be reassured or not by his words. He hasn’t really answered whether the Choosing is going to happen, but then that’s because he doesn’t really know. He seems to be working a lot on assumptions and I’m not sure whether that is a good thing.
“Okay,” I reply simply because I don’t really have much to say to that, and change the subject, “Wallace helped me after the whole dead thing at the clearing in the woods, and I am certain that he gave Raiden some advice on how to save me too because I can feel his magic within me.” I will admit that I am slightly fishing for information, Raiden never did tell me exactly why I can feel his magic, and why my intuition is telling me that he did something big in order to save me. I continue my thought process and ask, “What is the best way to say thank you to him? Wallace, I mean not Raiden. I can thank Raiden the usual way.”
Winston smiles a raccoon kind of smile and says, “You don’t need to do anything to show that you are grateful for his help apart from saying a simple thank you. That is always appreciated. However, if you were interested in doing something, he is partial to cinnamon buns.”
My eyebrows inch up in surprise, “You guys can eat?”
Winston chuckles, “Of course we can.”
I pull a face because in what way is it supposed to be obvious to me that my spirit guides can eat? They are spirit guides, so spirits, so I assumed that they didn’t eat?
“There is clearly a lot that I need to learn about spirit guides,” I mutter.
Winston nods, “Indeed. Now, what was this about the imps and another realm?”
“Oh shit, yeah,” I start. “That happened not last night, but I guess it was the early hours of yesterday morning.” I frown before deciding that it doesn’t really matter and continue, “I went for a walk in the woods to sort through this whole I’m a supe thing and got approached by Flinotive. He started chatting shit about me having to complete a task.”
Winston interrupts me, “You could understand him?” I nod, and he adds, “Interesting.”
I raise my eyebrow but decide not to question him and to continue on with my story.
“He sent me to this other realm and told me that I had three hours to get to the door and get out or I would be stuck there,” I go on to explain everything that happened while I was there, describing it in as much detail as I possibly can since I am hoping that he will recognize something about it and be able to tell me where the fuck Flin sent me since Flin himself seems to be keeping quiet on the subject.
Again, I don’t mention the man that I saw, I don’t know why. I want to keep him to myself, as weird as that is.
The more that I talk and explain about where I was, the wider Winston’s eyes get, and by the time I have finally stopped talking, I am half expecting him to accuse me of making the whole fantastical thing up because even to me, it sounds extremely far fetched and I was fucking there.
“Of all the places that I expected you to describe, that was not one of them,” Winston eventually says.
I sit up straighter, “Do you know where that imp sent me? Because he was irritatingly vague when I asked him and then he fucked off.”
“Luesidious,” Winston replies.
I stare at him blankly because I have absolutely no idea where or what that is, for all I know he could be cursing me out and not naming the realm that I was in.
“Lewee, what?” I ask.
Winston rolls his eyes, and speaks very slowly as he says, “Lew-ee-s-id-u-us.”
“Luesidious?” I repeat back to him, entirely unsure if I am saying it right.
He nods, “Yeah, that’s it. I have no idea why the imp would have sent you there though. Since you are back and managed to complete the task, I am assuming that you could breathe there, you didn’t find a plant or something to help you?”
I frown, “No, I didn’t have time to do anything like that, what with being chased, nearly eaten, and then only just getting to the door on time. I could breathe normally anyway. Was I not supposed to be able to?”
Winston shakes his little furry head, “No, not many supes can breathe there without an enchantment, or using one of the native plants like a mask to breathe through that filters out the poisons.”
“Poisons?” I exclaim, slightly alarmed by the fact that I was there for three hours and breathing in the apparently poisonous air.
Winston waves his little hand shaped paw in the air dismissively and replies, “Don’t panic, you breathed fine there and have continued to do so since you got back, you are fine. It is certainly interesting though.”
“Apparently, I’m just a big bag of weird,” I reply drily.
Winston seems to miss my words completely, as he’s lost in his thoughts. He hums, and says, “Leave it with me, I will try and find some answers for you.”
It’s not until he has disappeared that I realize that when I told the story, I didn’t elaborate on how I killed that creature; I just said I killed it. I didn’t mention the sword or anything. That is a massive oversight on my part, especially since I wanted to talk to him about it, and if he knew of it. Enchanted objects are so rare that they are usually known and can be traced back to their previous owners. I can ask him when he pops back up again.
If we can find some more information, then we will have a wealth of knowledge on the sword and know how it works, things to avoid, and trigger words—that sort of thing. I glance at my sword, where it is still resting next to Betty, it seems to be behaving for now although I will always be cautious when I leave a room without it now that it has tried to impale me. I have no idea how I knew that it was coming for me and caught it, but I’m hoping that it wasn’t a one-off thing and that I will continue to get small blasts of intuition where it is concerned until we can find some solid information on it.
I am half tempted to tell both Betty and the sword to behave while I’m gone, but that seems to be edging slightly more to the really crazy and not just mildly crazy, so I settle instead for giving them a warning look. I admit that is probably just as crazy.
I still need to name the sword, but I kind of want to work with it for a bit, practice with it, and see if a name stands out to me. Chances are that it has a name, and if I can somehow figure out what that name might be, then I imagine that it will make working with the sword a lot easier. Of course, I am assuming that it is meant to be mine. I did find it when I needed it, I can wield it with no problems, I can sort of understand its intention, and it didn’t electrocute me when I touched it, so I imagine that all of that means that it is mine.
I shake my head; I don’t have the time to think about all of this at the moment. Right now, I need to get that little black card and head down to the front door to meet Raiden. I am aware that I have been up here for a while now, and he is probably wondering where on earth I have got to. As I’m rushing to make sure I have what I need, it occurs to me that Winston didn’t respond to my fishing about what Raiden did in order to save me from slipping into the Darkness too soon after already being there. Either he doesn’t know, which I find unlikely, or he just chose not to tell me for whatever reason.
I’m beginning to get a grasp on Winston and his personality, and I am pretty sure that it would be pointless for me to question him about it. I will just have to add it to the list of things that I’m going to let drop for a moment and question at a later date.
I take the stairs quickly, pulling on my leather jacket as I go, and smile at Raiden, who is waiting by the door for me. His worried expression disappears completely as he smiles at me, and my lips automatically lift in response. He has got a gorgeous smile.
He is dressed in dark jeans and a black, tight-fitting t-shirt that leaves just enough to my very vivid imagination, dark brown boots, and has thrown a plaid and a leather jacket similar to mine over the top.
He looks hot, but then again, I pretty much always think that he looks hot.
“Everything okay?” he asks me as I come to stand next to him.
I nod, “Yeah, Winston was in my room.”
“Oh?” Raiden questions with his eyebrow raised, “Did he have anything interesting to say or was he only checking in.”
“Well, he had no idea that the imp had transported me to a different realm, which I thought was interesting. He showed up to make sure that I was okay after my freak out about the Choosing, but he couldn’t really tell me about it, like if it was going to happen or anything,” I explain.
Raiden frowns slightly, “Oh that’s a shame, I thought that we might be able to find out where you were.”
I smile, “He knew where I was from the description of the backward knee creature thing.” I say the name really slowly, so I don’t end up messing it up, “He said that it was a place called Luesidious.”
I chose not to tell Raiden that he also said that I shouldn’t have been able to breathe there. I’m sure that he will figure it out at some point, but I would really like to lessen my weird, just a little bit. With that in mind, I keep my mouth shut.
Raiden’s eyebrows draw together, “I have never heard of it. But it gives us something to look into, and maybe we can figure out why the imp sent you there now that we know where it was that he sent you.”
“Yeah, that’s a good idea. He wouldn’t tell me shit, although I will ask again if I see him again,” I say, a bite in my tone. I am still pissed that he sent me to another realm, even more so now that I know that realm could have killed me just by breathing the air if I wasn’t super weird—no wonder the little shit looked as shocked as he did.
“You can try, but imps are notoriously elusive, which is why it's so strange that he spoke to you in the first place,” Raiden replies.
I wave my hand over myself as I say, “Er, have you met me? Strange is pretty much all I am.”
His eyes follow my hand movement and heat, when they reach my eyes again, he clears his throat and shakes his head, his eyes still alight with stars, “You are so much more than that.”
He doesn’t give me a chance to reply, which is a damn good job because I am pretty sure that all that would come out of my mouth right now is absolute nonsense, and I would most likely end up embarrassing myself.
“Sorry what?” I ask because apparently, I was focusing too hard on not talking nonsense that I completely missed the fact that he is asking me a question and is now staring at me expectantly.