Vitrian Secrets by Dele Andersen (book club reads txt) 📕

“What about the boy?” he asked.

“She's talking about Petter, her friend,” Sofia said.

"Was it Petter?" Bathe asked, looking into the rearview mirror again.

“No,” Wanda said softly, and the answer caught her mum's curiosity. Sofia turned her head to look at her daughter's face. Wanda saw her mum's eyes were red and filled with tears.

“What's his name?” Sofia asked.

Her mum probably asked because Wanda hardly spoke of other boys from school apart from Petter.

“Eric . . . his name is Eric,” Wanda replied. She kept her face devoid of any indication that the boy meant anything more to her than a name.

Sofia studied Wanda and relaxed her tensed body. Her faint smile faded when Wanda added, “He could see the demon too.”

Bathe stepped hard on the brake pedal. Wanda wasn't sure if it was the boy's name or the fact that the boy saw the demon that made Bathe react so strongly. Her mum's mouth dropped open as she froze.

“How can that be?” Sofia said. “People are not supposed to see demons . . .”

“I don't know,” Wanda said curtly.

“You probably imagined it, Wanda,” Bathe said. “Demons can make you see or do—”

“No, it was not my imagination,” Wanda said. “The boy fought with the demon.”

Bathe gave a weak giggle as his leg went to the brake pedal again. The speed was now down to hundred kilometers per hour.

Bathe’s unusual reaction made the thought that he knew more about the demon flash through Wanda's mind again. She wondered why he appeared so stunned at the news that a boy at school fought the demon that had attacked her. She focused on Bathe, trying to figure out what exactly disturbed him about Eric. She felt she and her mum were in the wrong hands and heading in the wrong direction.

“No one can fight a demon with bare hands, no human,” Bathe said.

“He was equipped with some nail-like objects,” Wanda said, trying to convince Bathe and her mother of what she had witnessed. “I saw him throw the objects—silver in color, and they stuck in the demon's body.”

Bathe and Sofia's eyes made contact briefly, and Wanda immediately knew they understood what she described. She watched their reactions as she continued.

“The objects looked more like pegs, big and long pegs with symbols on them. Just like the ones in this box.” She looked at her father’s box beside her in the car.

“That can’t be a coincidence,” Sofia said, her eyes still on Bathe.

Bathe stared ahead.

“Was someone out there sent to protect Wanda?” Sofia asked, her voice and expression intense as she looked at Bathe, who stayed silent.

That was what Eric was doing, Wanda thought, but she didn't speak up. “He was protecting me, and he died doing it.” Her mind kept on thinking about Eric and how he looked when he lay lifeless on the floor at school.

“Someone sent to protect her?” Bathe repeated. He looked bewildered and disturbed, but something about his reaction made Wanda feel like he knew what was going to happen at school, and Eric was not supposed to be there.

She couldn’t control her thoughts, which kept trailing off and making her feel Bathe was involved in this, and now he was taking them where they should not be going.

∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞

Chapter 5

Wanda shook her head, trying to ward off the thoughts about Bathe. Maybe her feelings were due to her disapproval of him being around her mum; she had never really liked any man getting close to her mum. She wanted her father back, and that was that.

“I would know if anyone was sent to protect her,” Bathe said, breaking Wanda out of her daydream. He shook his head. “If anyone had been sent from the Fortress to protect her, I would have been aware of it. I don't think that’s the case.”

“Why?” Sofia asked. “Why couldn't Alexis or one of the other elders send someone to protect Wanda?”

Bathe turned and spoke slowly. “Wanda was not on the list of those thought to be The Chosen. She never showed any peculiar signs as a child.” A few seconds passed in silence, then Bathe looked at Wanda through his rearview mirror. “I wouldn't get caught up about the boy if I were you. He must have been camouflaged. Probably the same demon camouflaged as a human to confuse Wanda—”

“No, he was with me when the demon appeared by the school library.” Wanda repeated what she had told them before to confirm the demon and Eric were two different beings. “And I saw the demon's talons penetrating his chest and back when they fought.”

“You did?” Sofia turned to her daughter, concern on her face.

“Well, that answers it.” Bathe wore a convinced look. “No one, not even a Vitrian, can have a demon's talon penetrate his chest and survive till morning. So this Eric boy is another demon, and both of them were playing on your mind. Demons can take on the appearance of humans. When they do that, we call them familiar spirits.”

Wanda remembered her own father telling her about this power. She wanted to argue further that Eric was all human when she remembered the way Eric's eyes had changed. Something wasn't right about the entire scene at school, and Wanda couldn't put the pieces together. Eric was protecting her, although she didn't understand why he'd jump in front of her and let the demon strike at him when he knew it was a life-threatening move.

Again, his changing eyes flashed through her memory. Had she really seen the eyes change, or was it just her imagination due to the pandemonium at school?

A motorbike speeding up to their side two lanes away attracted her attention. The cyclist wore jet-black leather clothes, which shone in the sun. Even the palms of the rider were covered in black gloves. Everything was black, including the bike.

She watched the rider pull out a device slightly bulkier and broader than a smartphone. The rider shook the tool hard, like the instrument was damaged and was trying to get it to work. Then the rider suddenly looked up in alertness like a snake that had found its prey. The person sped up and disappeared into the horizon.

“So what happened, Wanda?” Sofia asked, interrupting Wanda’s observation of the biker.

“What happened?” Wanda turned back to her mum. She hadn't been listening to their discussion. “To who?”

“The boy at school.” Bathe raised his head again to the mirror to see Wanda's face. “Eric. What happened to him when he fought the demon?”

“I don't know.” Wanda shrugged. “I ran out of the school.” The heaviest guilt Wanda had ever felt swept through her body. Leaving Eric to die disturbed her.

“I should have stayed.” Wanda let the words out glumly, embarrassed and annoyed at the same time. She buried her face in shame.

“It’s okay, Wanda.” Sofia's voice was tender. “There was nothing you do to help.”

“You did the right thing,” Bathe said. “The day you see what others can't . . . that day, you run.”

Wanda raised her head. For the first time, Bathe sounded exactly like her dad. If her eyes had been covered, she would have sworn it was Marcus speaking. The statement was something her father always said to her, admonishing her to run the day she saw a demon. She stared at Bathe from behind, wondering if the statement was something familiar to Vitrians and Bathe and her dad got it from the same place.

“How much longer?” Wanda’s mother asked, looking at Bathe.

“About ten more minutes,” Bathe answered.

Wanda continued on the Eric discussion. “Eric said the demon was sent to fetch me.”

“You actually spoke to him?” Sofia looked startled.

“Yes, I did, Mum.”

“I wouldn’t count on anything that Eric boy said,” Bathe said. “The rebels will do anything to get a hold of you; most especially now that they know you are The Chosen.”

“What is this chosen thing?” Wanda asked.

“Well, if you don’t know what it is by now, you at least know it has something to do with your new-found ability to see demons.”

The motorbike was on Wanda’s side again, but now it was not a few lanes away on the motorway; it was next to them. The rider tilted her head and looked in Wanda's direction. Wanda felt penetrating eyes behind the helmet as the rider hit the brakes. Bathe’s car roared past the motorbike.

Wanda whipped around. It was dangerous to brake like that on the freeway. The biker turned to stare at her, and Wanda sank back. Who was behind the helmet? She was about to call it Bathe's attention when a loud, ear-shattering noise came from the front of the car. Suddenly, the hood caved in as a massive creature descended on it.

Sofia and Wanda jerked forward, screaming as Bathe held tight to the steering wheel and tapped the brakes of the speeding car. The car swerved and screeched as its speed began to reduce. Bathe clutched the steering wheel, trying to control the vehicle as it swerved from one side to the other.

The creature was huge. Wanda could only see its knee and lower torso as it stood on the hood. The other cars on the road had stopped, and people watched them some distance away. She knew those watching would only see that they had lost control of the car and an accident was imminent; nothing about the creature on the hood would be visible to human eyes.

Wanda looked at her mum and realized her eyes were shut. Her mouth was moving, but Wanda couldn't tell what she was saying. Bathe kept swerving the car from one side to the other.

She is—she is praying, Wanda thought, but she couldn't believe it. She had never seen her mum pray; neither had her mum allowed them to visit a church or any so-called religious gathering. She understood why her mum had kept her and Jason away from everything. Her mother did it to prevent them having any involvement with the Vitrians.

A thunderous bang came from the roof of the car, attracting everyone's attention. They looked up at the same time that Sofia shouted, “Jesus!”

Another loud roar followed as the creature slammed its arm on the roof again, and Wanda shivered. An unusual beastly sound followed; it was a mixture of a lion's roar and a wolf's howl.

“It has a hold on the car; I can't get it off,” Bathe said frantically. Another massive and frightening blow followed, and the creature's fingers penetrated through the roof.

The car shuddered, and Wanda drew herself into her seat like she could disappear into it. She watched as the massive claws of the creature emerged through the roof of the Audi.

The creature pulled the roof open like a child tearing apart a trivial paper airplane. The metal sheet on the car's roof screeched in objection.

Wanda screamed at the sight of the thing. The creature had a human shape; its hands and legs were structured like that of a regular person. The only difference was that it was huge and covered in fur. Its body was muscled from the waist to the top, its chest as broad as anyone could. Its neck was wide and thick, its hands massive, and its arms had huge biceps like the creature regularly spent time in the gym. The