It was late in the afternoon when we reached Belial’s farm. The ride was bumpy as expected. But between Luci’s ceaseless attempts to get us into a conversation, I would pick the butt-sore anytime. Seriously, she sounded like a tour guide. She made it sound like every rock and pothole in the road had a special meaning to the people in Halja. Maybe that’s what happens when you’re stuck in one place for that many centuries.

I didn’t make an effort to keep up. Happily, I jumped down from the wagon the second it stopped.

“So where do we start?” I asked, stretching my legs.

Luci pointed past the enclosed grazing lands. Just behind the long series of barns were countless of trees strewn all over the face of a hill that made it look like a giant green afro.

“The orchard’s that way,” Luci replied, talking mostly to Vincent.

“Let’s get this over with,” he grunted, looking like he was bored out of his mind.

We took a crumbling narrow path uphill. The steps were almost indistinguishable from the eroded hillside. It made the trek a bit challenging. One slip could be the end of me. At the very top of it was a weathered stone archway. It was so old, moss grew on it.

I could see a lot of fruit-bearing trees. There were apples and pears to my right. There were blood oranges and grapefruits. I didn’t know the rest. There was this bright pink fruit the size of a football with soft yellowish spikes and strawberry-like dots. Frankly, it looked like an alien spawn or something.

“Harvest season’s almost at hand,” Luci mentioned as we entered the orchard. “We will need every pair of hands available.”

A handful of people moved about, each with a task. Men were on top of the trees, fixing some sort of contraption on the branches. Women, and occasionally, little girls carried watering cans and sprinklers for the saplings. Some were on ladders, picking fruits that had ripened a little too early.

Everyone was so intent with their work, no one paid attention to us.

We kept walking until we saw a big stone formation. A gnarly sword-shaped rock about fifteen feet tall centered the formation, pointing directly at the sky. It was surrounded by six more rocks that stuck in different directions, like petals of a flower that turned into stone.

Belial was sitting on top of one of the tilted rocks. The one she was sitting on looked particularly similar to a long narrow boat with its hind sinking into the ground. With a sigh, she swigged from her metal flask, carefully setting it beside her before staring distantly at nothing.

“Hey, Bel!” Luci shouted, waving at her. “They’re here!”

With the enthusiasm of a sloth, Belial waved us off with an expression that said, “Yeah, well. Do whatever you want.”

Sighing, Luci pouted. “Wait for me here. I’ll just have a word with her.”

After removing her sandals, the blond girl began climbing the base of the protruding rocks. She was able to lift herself over a ridge then walked with her arms spread out to keep her balance. She must’ve done this a lot of times because she reached Belial without her skull being crushed.

“You shouldn’t have given in to Sathariel’s condition.” Vincent’s voice was a low rumble from behind me. “We can’t stay here, Aramis.”

Resignedly, I faced him. “Are we still going to argue about this? Seriously?”

He just averted his gaze.

“Come on, Vincent,” I sighed. “All we have to do is help out in the farm. How hard can that be? We’ll just have to do what he wants for a while, make him happy enough to not kill us. In exchange, he’ll let us stay here. It’s a win-win deal.”

His eyes were steely, his jaws clenching one after the other. “We’ll just forget all about Vlad and Rosario and the others? And then, what? We’d live happily ever after with these—these Hellions? Just like that?”

I couldn’t answer right away. Actually, that possibility had touched my mind once or twice. It was selfish of me. And there was this matter about Rosario. Until now, I couldn’t wrap my head around how Vincent was going to accept her death.

“And then… we’ll convince Mr. S to let them crossover here.” My voice was small, sounding indecisive.

“Damn, Aramis! He may not look it, but he’s still Satan. If you still haven’t realized it yet, he’s a bad guy. Just like my father. They’re both traitors. We can’t trust people like them.” His tone raised a little, though he was trying not to draw attention to ourselves. “What made you think he’ll help us?”

“Because he likes you that much,” I answered, stepping closer to him. I had this feeling that I had a strong point and was near to closing this conversation.

With an incredulous sigh, he furrowed his brows. He grabbed my arm and pulled me closer just as a group of middle-age women passed by. I didn’t try to fight back. It would just make him angrier.

He lowered his head so that we were about face to face. “What the hell are you talking about?” he hissed.

“Well, for starters, he didn’t smolder you to ashes while you were being so rude talking back to him,” I pointed out, trying not to smile. “If that was me, I’m sure I would get barbecued in a flash.”

“That’s total bull.” He scoffed at me, shaking his head.

I gave him my most threatening glare, my brow raising as I looked at him from head to toe. “Yeah, well, he even let you wear his own clothes. And it doesn’t look like someone just forgot it in a toga party.”

“Shut up. I don’t want to hear it, okay?” he mumbled, losing his patience.

“And he especially got Luci—his only daughter—to supervise you,” I carried on, ignoring him.

Vincent’s eyes were like molten steel, his fingers strangling my arm. “I said, give it a rest!”

“Isn’t that rad? Maybe he’ll love it if you become his son-in-law. Then you can be like, the prince of hell.” Sarcasm accidentally leaked out of my voice.

“Shut. Up!” he growled ominously, his face just an inch shy of mine. His glare slowly moved down to my chin. “Or I’ll make you.”

Some time ago, he didn’t scare me much. But now, I thought maybe he did because my heart was pounding so loud, I thought it would jump out of my chest. Plus, I had this feeling that he was about to do something utterly stupid. And I didn’t want to go there.

Wordlessly, I pressed my lips together into a thin line and dropped my stare.

“Bel’s having one of her moods again,” Luci panted as she hurried toward us. “Let’s go. I’ll give you a tour—“

She slowed down after seeing us, suddenly turning speechless.

Still with his eyes fixed on me, Vincent dropped my arm. His shoulders were shaking as if he was trying to restrain himself from destroying something… Or someone. And I knew well who that lucky person would be if ever he lost control. But for now, all he could do was shove his hands in his pockets.

All I ever did was infuriate him. I couldn’t help myself. I couldn’t do my promise after all.

“Am I… interrupting something?” Luci asked, unable to look at us.

Both of us couldn’t answer. My cheeks strangely grew warm.

I pretended to clear my throat. “Uh… How about that tour?”

Luci led us to a winding dirt stairway between two rock faces. It was dark and we had to make a beeline because only one person could pass at a time. Mud and chunks of rock had almost obscured the steps, making it hard to keep my footing. There was nothing else to hold on to but the vines crawling all over the rock faces. Though I doubted they would be able to hold my weight without being uprooted.

After nearly half an hour of trekking, we reached what appeared to me as a cliff. A small clearing was near the edge of the three hundred foot-drop. Several boulders were arranged like seats around an unevenly smoothed table.

The sun was already halfway to the horizon, its rays intense. It touched my skin and that was the only time I realized I was sweating. I wasn’t too tired though. The hike was enough distraction to keep my mind off things.

Beckoning us, Luci sat on one of the rocks. Her fair hair was gold with the sunlight, it looked as if she was almost glowing. Yeah, she was beautiful even by angel standards and that was saying a lot.

With a hand, she shielded her face and looked ahead. “Belial’s farm goes as far as your eyes can see,” she said.

The farm was about as big as ten football fields. I only realized that when we got to the highest point of the farm. Most part of it was leveled patches of land in between the hills. There, vegetables and grains were planted. While on the sides of the hills, herds of animals freely foraged.

I sighed. I was both amazed and overwhelmed. “Then, I guess we better start now.”

Luci shook her head. “Don’t worry. The harvest isn’t until two weeks from now. We can still… take it easy.”

A soft breeze blew against us, flicking my hair in several different directions. I was desperately trying to hold it in place when I saw the three gigantic peaks. They were leaning against each other and the point where the tips of each met was directly over the town. It stood there looking like the framework of an unfinished pyramid.

It wasn’t the first time I had seen it, but from this point, it looked more beautiful. Breathtaking, really. I couldn’t help but wonder if it was manmade and if it was placed there for a purpose.

“We call that the Triangle,” Luci said. She must have seen me looking.

“You don’t say,” I mumbled, my eyes still fixed on the peaks.

“Those rocks are actually lodestones,” she gladly went on as Vincent started to show the slightest interest at the Triangle. “As of this moment, the Triangle appears as a strange rock formation but they actually serve Halja a very vital purpose.”

Vincent squinted through the sun’s rays. “That’s a pretty big lodestone for such a small island.”

“Indeed. Eldest gave it to us, so that we could fulfill our mission—the reason why she sent us here,” Luci nodded approvingly. “Look at those.” She pointed at the group of spiky rocks Belial was sitting on.

From here, it looked very small. I noticed there were two others strewn way across Belial’s spot and each of them was directly in between the bases of the Triangle’s peaks. They weren’t normal rock formations after all.

Hunkering down, Luci picked up a twig from the ground and smoothed the dirt with her dainty hand. She used the twig to draw three large dots in a triangular formation, then three smaller ones in the same triangular pattern but inversely.

With her stick, she pointed at the larger dots. “The larger rocks compose the Triangle while the smaller lodestones”—she pointed at the smaller ones—“collect the energy.” After briefly glancing up at Vincent, she connected the dots to make two opposite triangles overlapping each other. “All the energy is then diverted to the center, creating a portal.”

For a moment, Vincent was deep in thought. He stood up on the rock so he could get a better view of the Triangle. “Does it work?”

“Of course,” Luci replied more than eagerly. “Do you wish to see the Point Zero?”

Before I knew it, we were already heading back to the town on two horses Luci stole from the barn. She used the term ‘stole’ but she actually yelled a ton of apologies to Belial as we rode past her rock.

I was riding with Vincent while they engaged in an absolutely exciting conversation about Point Zero’s and lodestones and stuff I couldn’t possibly understand even if I tried. Although, I thought I heard the term ‘Point Zero’ before. I just couldn’t remember what it was. The constant bouncing of the horse’s rear end was making me dizzy.

I felt a terrible headache coming.

“It’s dormant now,” Luci shouted over the clip-clop sounds of hooves against the rocky trail. “But it becomes charged during solstices and eclipses. We keep a backup power resource in cases of emergency but it’s just sufficient to wake the Triangle, not to make it fully-operational.”

In a matter of ten minutes, we reached the town. The market was full of life as it was when I first came here. The roads were crowded with shoppers, the sidewalks blocked with stalls and vendors.

The horses frantically stopped before they could trample on the market-goers, neighing as they stood on their hind legs. If I hadn’t reacted quickly and looped my arms around Vincent’s waist, I would have fallen flat on my butt.

“Can we like, slow down a bit?” I said with my eyes still closed, my face buried on Vincent’s back. Bile was creeping up to my throat. “The Triangle’s not going anywhere, is it?”

“Then you better hold on tighter,” Vincent answered.

Was it him laughing?

I didn’t realize I was sort of hugging him. Swallowing my dread, I withdrew my arms and tried to compose myself.

“Look at that.” I motioned toward the crowd just to change the topic. “We’ll hurt someone if we don’t slow down. Sheesh! That’s why speeding is a law offense on earth.”

All the while, Luci’s red mare was tapping its hoof on the ground like it was doing Morse code. It forwarded and stepped back a few times. Luci looked unsure how to get past the market road.

“Uhm… Excuse me?” she called out, her voice getting drowned by the flurry of noises. “P-please give way. We’ll just have to pass.”

No one seemed to have heard her. That, or she was deliberately being ignored. She repeated her pleas, her voice just getting weaker and weaker. People just went on with their business. It was hopeless.

“It is urgent!” she carried on. “Please… uhm.”

I saw a couple of older boys riding bicycles—those with big, thin wheels used in mountains. They easily swerved and weaved through the crowd. I would bet that was way better than riding on a horse.

“Why don’t we just… walk?” I suggested.

A steely look suddenly appeared on Luci’s face. The hesitation was gone now and all I could see was how irritated she was.

“Please… let us pass,” she said through her teeth, her voice still small but with an unmistakable edge.

When no one paid any attention to her, she closed her eyes, her brows twitching as if she was forcing her face, herself to remain in composure. A strong wind blew from behind us. Just as I was thinking how strange that was, I saw Luci looking up at the sky. Her long hair billowed upward as though she was being possessed by some demonic spirit. And her eyes… the whites of her eyes had disappeared and were now entirely green like big gooseberries were shoved into her eye sockets.

The wind blew harder. Everybody paused from what they were doing and froze at the sight of Luci. Women dropped their baskets, children bawled. Vendors shut up, their mouths still gaping as they tried to scurry and salvage what was left of their goods. Vases shattered on the ground. Pieces of paper, clothes and debris flitted about, circling up and up as if we were inside a tornado.

“Give way!” Luci yelled threateningly. “Or I’ll dispatch everyone in my path!”

Cautiously, the people stumbled to the sidewalk, creating a path for us. Two seconds later, the road was entirely deserted, all to ourselves. They squeezed against each other, hugging the walls, all of them wide-eyed and terrified and gnashing their teeth at the same time.

Shaking her head, Luci closed her eyes. Her hands clenched the reigns so tight, her knuckles turned white. It took her a moment to collect herself and when she did, her expression was all but apologetic.

“Breathe through the nose, not through the mouth,” she chanted under her breath.

The next time she opened her eyes, they were back to normal. Her face was a mask of stillness.

The horses moved forward, taking their time. No one spoke or made a sound. A lady pressed her hand over the mouth of her crying child. It was so silent all I could hear were the horses’ hooves beating on the ground.

All pairs of eyes were on us, on Luci. It gave me a feeling that we were secretly being cursed. That years and years of grudges were being hurled toward Luci. Or maybe, to me and my master. Or both.

Struggling to put up a rueful smile, Luci kept looking around and saying, “Sorry. My deepest apologies. I’ll pay for all the damages. I am really sorry for your trouble. We shall take our leave right away,” and more.

And I thought I knew anger issues.

I glanced at Vincent, suppressing a smirk. “Now why don’t you learn a thing or two from that girl?” I whispered to his ear.

With an annoyed grunt, he grabbed both my arms and secured them around his waist. He flicked the reigns and tapped his heel on the side of our black stallion. The horse thrashed wildly before galloping as fast as it could.

I wanted to scream but all I could let out was a tiny “Eeep!”

“Thought I told you to hold on tight?” he sneered. Obviously, he found this very funny.

It didn’t take long before Luci caught up with us. Her mare was fast because it only had one passenger.

She could barely maintain her smile as she lifted her gaze at us. “Sorry about—you know—what happened back there.”

“S’okay. Not like it’s the first time I’ve seen someone lose their temper. In fact, I had seen worse,” I said when I realized Vincent had no intention whatsoever of answering her. “Those people looked… scared stiff.”

“Yes… they do. And they have every reason to be.”

“Why?” I asked.

For a long minute, she stared at the nape of her mare like she was deliberating if she should continue or not. “In the past, I so loathed humans. It was because of Eldest’s love for them that we were thrown into this place. And because of that, I did something very horrible… So horrible that even the people of Halja—my own people—loathes me.”

Again, she fell into a vague silence.

With an indifferent shrug, Vincent bluntly said, “Whatever that is, I’m sure it’s not half as bad as what my father did.”

“Your father…” she murmured, her eyes wistful when she threw a questioning look at Vincent. “Oh… you mean Azrael. I thought you meant—”

She cut herself in midsentence and dropped her gaze. For some reason, she suddenly turned uneasy. She licked her lips. She couldn’t look at us. She fidgeted with the seams of her sleeves until the threads were loose. Right as she stopped talking, she was just about to tell us something; something we were not supposed to hear.

“Not proud of it but, yeah… him,” Vincent replied unsuspectingly. “Who else?”

Luci didn’t answer right away. She kept her lips pursed while she tried to think of the correct words to put together. “P-perhaps you are right…”

“I’m always right,” he grinned.

I thought Luci had turned paler. When she noticed me watching her, she managed a well-rehearsed smile, clicked her heels against her horse’s side then playfully shouted, “Race you to the hill!”

~~~~~~~

And cyclothimia strikes again. Sorry if I'm not manic enough to write. May not be able to beat my self-imposed deadlines but it's not like I have the will to care these days. Guess I'll just have to wait for my less-depressive days so I could write again. Again, sorry.

Hate me, it's fine :)

Shim