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

Wanda stared in disbelief at the face of the creature. But it wasn't the structure that caught her attention; it was the eyes.

Something in them controlled her to be quiet.

“What is it?” Sofia shrieked.

“I don't know!” Bathe yelled. “Never seen this in my life.”

The creature paused for a second as its gaze met Wanda's. It studied her with its venomous eyes as if registering some information locked inside it.

“Can demons mind control?” Sofia asked worriedly, her gaze locked on Wanda and the demon.

Bathe did not respond, but he dipped his hand into his pocket and pulled out an object.

The creature roared again, an annoying, involuntary roar, like an unseen force within made it do so. The veins in its neck bulged. The grayish-white hair on its body stood up like a small electric voltage had passed into its body. Wanda woke from her reverie, and she and her mum placed their hands over their ears.

The car came to a halt, hitting a roadside railing. The creature leaped off the hood with ease. Though the car slammed into the railing with force, the creature's leap was adept; like a skillful young child jumping off the last step on a staircase in a playful manner. It landed some feet away behind the car.

Bathe did not wait to answer Sofia's question. He was already up and out of the car. Wanda and her mum immediately followed, forcing the door of the vehicle open using their body weight.

Bathe shielded Wanda as they stood behind the car, facing the creature. A Praying Méndez was now in his hand. The silver part glowed; it was no longer a metallic color but shone as light radiated from the silver. The glow was also apparent on the silver symbols etched in the wooden part. The glow caught Wanda's attention as she stood in bewilderment, looking at it.

Sofia shook her daughter hard. But the glow from the Méndez had put Wanda in a trance. The creature covered its eyes with its huge hands. The supernatural light appeared to be harmless to humans but harmful to demons.

Bathe shouted again and pointed with his other hand. “Run!”

Wanda felt her mum trying to pull her away, but she refused to leave. She watched Bathe making commands and the reaction of the unique creature in front of him.

“You will not go any further; I set a barrier upon you,” Bathe yelled, holding his Praying Méndez tight in his outstretched hand. Wanda could see that even Bathe seemed perplexed by the creature. “I am a Vitrian, and by the power of prayer in this Méndez, I order you bound and not to step beyond here.”

The massive, well-over-ten-foot thing struggled to control itself in front of the glowing Méndez. It stumbled forward, closer to Bathe, dragging its legs as if it had lost control of them. Fright and horror crossed Bathe's face.

“I order you bound! Pinned to this realm, to your current position.” Bathe continued to shout as he held his Praying Méndez high. The glow reflected in the face of the demon almost twice his height.

The demon advanced on Bathe, and Bathe moved backward. The colossal creature crossed the initial point where Bathe had stood beside the car.

“Impossible!” Bathe exclaimed.

He turned to Wanda and Sophia. “Run!”

Wanda understood the horror in his eyes and voice. She sensed Bathe had not faced this creature before and did not know how to deal with the beast. When her mum tugged again, Wanda allowed herself to be dragged away. She wasn't sure where they were going, but she knew they were close to a barrier, and they could be safe. Marcus, her father, had told her about locations in different cities in the world. They only had to get to one of them to be safe from demons.

Suddenly, her mind cast back to Eric, and she remembered how she had left him to die. She yanked her hand out of her mum's, stopped, and turned to look at Bathe.

“Wanda,” Sofia shouted.

Wanda’s eyes were fixed on Bathe and the creature that was four times as wide as him.

“We have to go,” her mum shouted, pleading in her tone, but Wanda, who could see what danger Bathe was in, just stared, oblivious to her mum's plea.

The demon stood directly in front of Bathe. Wanda remembered the horror, exhaustion, and excruciating pain in Eric’s eyes when she came out of the library and saw him on the floor at school. She could imagine what Bathe was going through, standing alone in front of the creature.

“We have to help,” Wanda said. “I'm not leaving Bathe.” She had left Eric to die earlier. She wasn't doing it again.

“We can't!” Sofia cried. There were tears in her eyes. She held her daughter by the shoulder. “Listen to me,” she said, looking directly into Wanda's eyes. Wanda's gaze adjusted from the scene behind her mum to the trepidation in her mother's eyes. “You can't fight a demon with bare hands.”

“What? We are not leaving him alone there,” Wanda insisted. “There must be something—”

“The only thing now is to—”

Something blocked the late bright summer sunlight as it dropped from the sky a few feet above her and her mum. Wanda looked up and screamed. Sofia turned and looked up also.

∞∞∞

The creature's movements quickened, as if it suddenly had more power to overcome the barrier Bathe used to hold it down. Bathe’s lip contorted, his forehead furrowing in shock.

Not only had the creature moved, but it had crossed a barrier point.

“Impossible.” Bather said, unwittingly he spoke the words in his mind out. “Demons are not supposed to do that. What is this and why is it not disintegrating?”

Bathe held his Praying Méndez up at the creature now standing before him, trying not to panic. The only thing holding it back was the light in the Praying Méndez.

The creature took its hand from its face and looked directly at Bathe through the glow of the Praying Méndez.

“How?” Bathe said. The shock on Bathe’s face was intense. No demon had ever looked directly at a brightly shining Praying Méndez.

The creature, with its right hand, took hold of the Praying Méndez. Its hand completely covered the Méndez, and the glow in it died instantly. It then spoke, in an unequivocal and audible voice, further shocking Bathe. He knew demons could speak, but it was in an ancient language. Occasionally they might mutter very unclear, single English words when in their original demon forms.

This demon was doing neither.

“Your prayers are weak. You should do better,” the creature said as it closed its hand on the Praying Méndez. There was no smile or smirk on its face as it looked straight at Bathe.

Before Bathe could make his next move, the creature hit him with its huge left hand. Bathe's feet lifted from the ground as he flew backward. He tried to get back on his feet, but he staggered and fell again.

The demon leaped, covering the distance between it and Wanda.

∞∞∞

Wanda and her mum looked up to see the creature towering over them. They turned to run, but it was much faster than them. It crashed over them, hitting Wanda behind the head as it knocked them both to the ground.

Trepidation swept through Wanda, a severe headache forming the instant the creature fell on her. The impact made her dizzy, but she watched her mum stand up quickly, looking rough and dirty. Her mother blocked the space between her and the creature. Wanda's vision blurred; the sudden collision from the creature made her nauseous.

The creature rose from the ground like a flower opening up very slowly at the sight of the shining morning sunlight. It roared involuntarily again, like something forced it to do so against its own will. The creature's eyes settled on them. Sofia positioned herself in front of Wanda and screamed.

“Leave my daughter alone!” She shook her head. The veins in her head and neck stood out as she shouted.

The creature pulled its body back and looked up at the unexpected noise; it seemed the loud screech had brought it back to reality. Through her impaired vision, Wanda saw the confusion in the creature's eyes.

“Run! Wanda, run!” Sofia yelled without turning to watch.

Wanda turned and began to run in a wobble, slightly unbalanced. Silence followed. She risked a glance behind her and gasped as the creature slapped her mother and sent her flying twenty feet away.

Her mother hit the ground and turned toward her. Her gaze drifted upward, her expression morphing into horror. Wanda followed her mother’s gaze and saw a volley of arrows streaking toward her from the sky. She ducked just as the creature made a loud noise.

In the twinkle of an eye, the creature jumped and covered the space between it and Wanda. It swept Wanda up with its hand and yanked her toward its massive body as the arrows came down. The arrows penetrated deep into the body of the creature, but it was too late; the creature had Wanda pinned beneath its hulk. Its body frame covered Wanda's as she slumped lifelessly in its arms.

∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞

Chapter 6

A torrential downpour fell around them, and tears simultaneously ran down Wanda's face. She stood beside her mum, who was also crying incessantly, looking straight down at the coffin as it was lowered into the grave. Wanda had overheard her mum say the previous day that she wanted no delay in the burial, and it had been organized as soon as the Vitrians could fit it into their schedule. Wanda had wished to see her father once more, even if it were only his body lying there, motionless, but her mother obstructed every opportunity of anyone seeing his body.

Though there were several black umbrellas open against the rain, her mum looked drenched in the graveyard in her winter jacket. She could see her mother was in excruciating pain. Wanda turned to Jason; he looked stern and annoyed, holding onto his little spiderman rubber toy. She knew Jason would miss their father; they all would.

Bathe walked up to a man when the burial procession ended. Wanda couldn't see the man's face, but his six-foot frame revealed a wide chest and broad shoulders. He was taller than Bathe.

Bathe and the man looked her direction several times while they spoke. She stared back at them.

Wanda glanced at her mom, holding tightly to Jason like the little boy was going to vanish like her husband if she released her grip on him. She didn’t seem to notice the men watching her daughter.

After a few more minutes of discussion, Bathe turned around, and he and the man he was talking to walked away.

“Wanda.”

Jason sounded frustrated, as if he had already called his sister several times before getting her attention.

“What?” Wanda snapped back.

Suddenly Wanda noticed a movement behind a tree some distance away in the graveyard, moving stealthily. She focused her gaze and later noticed it was a person. Wanda tilted her head and her little black umbrella in the heavy rain as she tried to focus. She noticed the movement again, and then she