Undying Love-Chp12

CHAPTER 12: THE FIGHT FOR SURVIVAL

Melissa and Raziel ran ahead of everyone else. Melissa feared the worst. Many questions went through her mind. How did the hunters get here? How did they find out about Judith? How on earth did they find her location? What are they going to do with her if they had caught her? That question needs not to be answered; it was too unimaginable.

The pendulum in Melissa’s hand began to glow really bright and pointed towards the west. Melissa followed. The rest trailed from behind, struggling to keep up with the witch. Raziel could see that when it comes to her friend, especially someone who is of the same fugitive situation as herself, she puts everything behind her. He was curious about what these hunters were all about? Are they the same kind of hunters that used to hunt him when he was a vampire in his time? Or are they the kind that he used to lead when he was Sarafan? Whatever kind of hunters they are, Raziel was sure they were the type that takes no prisoners.

The pendulum took them to an abandoned air force plain. That place has been abandoned after an uneventful accident that took the lives of many pilots and trainees. The whole place was an abomination. It seemed that those people were really leaving in a hurry after the accident and left the place unclean and unguarded. Ruins of the crashed plane were still there, and the site was not a sight for sore eyes at all. As they crept into the plain and went on searching, Raziel signaled them to look at the direction of the warehouse were planes were kept inside.

There, in the warehouse, were the hunters. They all looked really sinister and dark, with their robes as black as night and their hoods across their heads, covering their faces. Judith was barely dressed—she was only draped with a white cloth across her bosoms and a white loincloth at the lower half of her body. Hanson tried to stop Kent from experiencing a serious nosebleed. She was tied onto a pole and below her were a huge stack of cardboard, hay and other flammable materials.

“Oh no!” Karen exclaimed, trying to suppress herself from screaming. “They’re going to burn her alive just like Joan of Arc! What are we going to do?”

“There’s only one way we can do,” Melissa replied. “We’ll have to distract them and free Jude from that pole. Then we’ll try to escape and get her out of there to somewhere secluded.”

“But where will we hide her? We have nowhere else to go!” Tiger was equally worried. Raziel wanted to tell him about shifting to the Spectral Realm, but decided against it. He had no way of going back and even if he had, The Squid would be waiting.

“We’ll think about that later. Let’s break up and act as a distraction. Once they’re out of the way, one of us will have to get to Jude and untie her.”

“I’ll go and untie her,” Kent volunteered immediately.

“Are you suicidal?! What if someone pops out of nowhere and drive a stake through your heart?!” Medusa widened her eyes as big as ping pong balls.

“I’m willing to die for her. Nothing is going to stop me.”

“Alright, you’ve made your choice. Just be careful,” Melissa nodded. “Come on, kids. Let’s arm ourselves and get us some serious nutcase hunters’ butt to kick!”

Everyone spread out. Mickey, Hanson, Tiger and Raziel went for the right and Melissa, Karen and Medusa went for the left. Kent stayed behind in waiting until the coast is clear. They armed themselves with anything they could find (except Melissa and Raziel)—plank wood, iron rods, rusted hammers and the like. All of them crept towards the warehouse and hid behind until Melissa gave the signal. They could hear the hunters chanting certain weird verses that they didn’t understand. Melissa pricked her ears to hear what was going on.

“My fellow members of the hunt,” Melissa heard the bellow of the so-called leader of the hunters booming throughout the whole warehouse. “We are gathered here today to witness the burning of this blasphemous beast that has been terrifying and killing our beloved citizens of the human race! Many people say that every being is the creation of the Almighty. But this beast here,” he spat out the word, “is no creation of Heaven, but of Hell and by the Devil itself! For no creation of holiness would commit such crime as murder and making food supplies out of humans!”

The hunters cheered in agreement. Karen tugged feverishly at Melissa’s sleeve to urge her to start the attack. Melissa laid a finger on her lips and mouthed the words “Not yet”. She continued hearing the rest of the speech.

“So it is time, brothers and sisters of the human race, we, the protectors of all mankind, shall perform the sacred duty of sending this unholy demon back where she belongs!”

The hunters cheered again, and this time, it was the sound for the kill. Melissa could hear the sound of crackling fire on a torch and the sound of those flammable materials crackling and burning, the fire devouring everything in its path. In the midst of the hunters’ cheers of victory, Melissa gave the signal to her side of the group. Raziel saw Melissa swishing her hand down and signal his side of the group to enter. Kent stayed behind in waiting, armed with an iron rod.

Needless to say, there was much havoc going on inside the warehouse. Everyone made so much racket like “Hey! I’m here, catch me!” or “Come and get me, baby!” or “Unhand her, you psychotic hunters!” and etc, and etc. They all led the hunters out of the warehouse so that Kent can sneak in and untie Judith. He used the iron rod to beat his way out of the burning flames and reach to Judith.
“Kent! You’ve come for me!” Judith was both touched and happy to see him.

“No girlfriend of mine is going to become bonfire wood,” Kent winked as he undid the ropes on her wrists. He swept her off her feet and carried her out of the warehouse. But unfortunately, before he was able to step out of the warehouse, one of hunters suddenly appeared out of nowhere (just as Medusa predicted it would) and grabbed his feet. Kent fell down head long to the ground and dropped Judith in the process. Another hunter grabbed hold of Judith and wound an incantation scroll around her forehead before she had the chance to repel him with her force field.

“Let her go, you racism piece of shit!” Kent shouted as he struggled to free himself from the hunter’s grasp.

The other kids spotted the trouble and ran and pounced on the hunter, forcing him to let Judith go. Luck wasn’t on their side forever. After much effort of trying to defeat the hunters and escape from them, the gang was caught. They were simply too outnumbered, even though Raziel have used his famous technique of killing and soul-sucking. Judith and Melissa were right—these hunters were like white hair. The more he killed, the more hunters came to get him. He began to wonder if these hunters were even human at all.

Three hunters have each had Judith, Raziel and Melissa in their grasp, while the children were in the hands of a few more hunters in the background. The trio was led towards the leader of the hunters, who seemed almost as tall as Raziel. He smirked behind his hood.

“Well, well, well. It seems like we have some newcomers to join in the ceremonial bonfire. Our famous witch Melissa Celestial and a new species of vampire. Looks like we are experiencing a ‘Kill two birds with a stone’ situation here—three for the fact!”

“You’ll never get away with this, you hunters! You give no peace for us!” Melissa yelled. “We just want to live normally and peacefully just like everyone else! Why can’t you just leave us alone?!”

“Because we cannot tolerate a potential human-killer in our midst! We are here to wipe out all evil entities off this face of the earth!” the leader bellowed, then turned to the crowd before him, “Brothers and sisters of the hunt! We have done the human race a great deed. We are going to be rid of yet another three of these blasphemous creatures! This leads to another number less of their treacherous existence! If fire doesn’t do it, anything will do! We shall start with the female demon!”

Raziel knew that he meant Judith. He wanted to help but somehow those chains that wrapped around his wrists were somewhat hanging with dozens upon dozens of incantation slips that electrocuted his hands every time he tried to break free. He had to watch helplessly as Judith was led towards the leader. She was forced to kneel in front of him. He took out a dagger from the inside the sleeve of his robe and held it high in the air, chanting something gibberish.

Judith turned towards her friends with tear-filled eyes and said, “Bye, guys. You’re great friends. I’ll never forget you all. Take care of Tiger for me,” and before the leader brought down the dagger onto her chest, for that split second, she whispered, “I love you, Kent.”

The sound of the stab was unbearable to both the kids and Melissa. The leader thrust the dagger deeper into her chest and added pressure onto it, making sure that Judith has received the fatal blow. As he tugged the dagger out, Judith became limp and fell to the floor, the last tears trickling out of her fine purple eyes. The cheers of the hunters drowned the voices of the children screaming and crying for her, especially Kent, who was the most devastated of all the kids. He screamed, shouted, raved and struggled but his voice was no match for the hunters’ cheers. The hunter who held him let him go and he ran towards the dead Judith, wailing and hugging her body close to his chest.

“Take him away,” the leader said coldly. “And take that filthy being to be burned.”

Two of the hunters stepped out, taking Kent and Judith’s body each. Kent protested and struggled, wailing not to take her away from him but they were much stronger. Raziel sighed silently as he watched the hunter dragging Judith’s body away. Suddenly he felt a strong aura. So strong that it almost suffocated him. He turned around and saw Melissa’s eyes were dark and screaming murder. Is this her full power? He never felt this kind of force before.

“And now it’s time for the witch…” the leader’s words trailed off when he saw Melissa’s hair began to float. Raziel was also equally shocked at the sight of her.

“No one is allowed to burn my best friend,” Melissa cracked her knuckles behind her back, “and no one is allowed to kill my best friend AND GETS AWAY WITH IT!!!”

So saying, her whole body began to burn. But it wasn’t fire. It was a certain aura that burning and crackled like fire. The ropes that bind her hands immediately turned to ash. She started chanting spells and incantations and started to release loads and loads of aura balls at everyone, hitting them wildly. She released her fox elves she kept in her pockets and, with her burning body, sped towards the crowd of hunters, throwing more aura balls at them. She materialized a spear from her ‘Peace’ pendant she was wearing and continued attacking the hunters with it.

She was uncontrollable. Her eyes were tear-filled but full of hate and bent on revenge. She didn’t care of the incoming danger—her force field and her fox elves have taken care of that—and she definitely didn’t care whether she was going to die or not if she had overloaded her powers. Raziel had never seen her at this state. He had to go over and help her calm down. He had to. There was no other way. Besides, her reckless killing has wasted all the souls he could suck—they disintegrated as soon as she plunged her spear at them. Luckily she had the right mind not to kill the children.

Then he saw, from the corner of his eye, the leader who was in between the midst of attacking and fleeing crowd of hunters taking out a gun from the other sleeve. A sudden fear went through his mind. He had a feeling that whatever came out of this gun is able to withstand and pierce through Melissa’s force field. He didn’t know how but he knew it would happen. He was about to rush over and butt his head onto the leader’s gut—at least he could take a few bullets—but was hit by a hunter who was flung away by Melissa’s aura. The hunter’s body had a real dead weight on him that Raziel couldn’t get up. He saw the leader aiming the gun towards the raving Melissa who was killing everyone (except the kids, who have escaped into somewhere safe, I hope) in her path. Raziel wanted to yell but he couldn’t be heard—the hunters running away and screaming bloody murder was drowning his voice. He heard the click of the gun’s safety pin being released and…

When Raziel finally got himself off the hunter’s pressing body, he saw Melissa’s body flying in the mid-air, flung backwards by the impact of the bullet hit squarely on the hollow of her throat.