“This way!” Luci whispered over her shoulder.

Upon reaching the forked end of the cherry tree path, we took a left and headed for the wooden bridge. It was a short bridge, not more than a hundred feet long, slightly arching as it went over the pond. A bunch of ropes braided together was tied on both posts of the entrance. It looked like the rope was supposed to tell everyone passing by to stay out and keep walking.

So much for security.

Luci carefully untied one end, the brightly colored crystals on the ends of its tassels clinking against each other as she did.

“Come,” she said, looking around to check if anyone had seen us.

So far, the coast was clear. Everybody was out farming, fishing or whatever else the people in Halja do. Vincent stepped onto the bridge without thinking twice. Groaning, I followed him.

I had a strange feeling as if we shouldn’t be here. “Did we just sneak into an Authorized Personnel Only zone or are we going to get ourselves in a lot of trouble?”

Luci made a sound that sounded something between grunting and clearing her throat. “Err… One of those things.”

Before I could object, Vincent was already at the other end, not bothering to wait for us. Luci watchfully went behind him.

As I crossed the bridge, I couldn’t help but pause and admire the pond under it. The water was crystal clear, reflecting the white cherry blossoms branches tilted over it. Lily pads took over the banks, showing off their light purple flowers. Every now and then, a small group of speckled fish would swim by in a circular motion, creating a swirl of orange, red and white in the water.

“If we got caught, it was all her idea,” I said, catching up with them.

Vincent grabbed my hand and ran, towing me with him.

“Yeah, well, I don’t plan on getting caught,” he grinned over his shoulder.

The open road was overrun with sharp grass and spiky weeds. There weren’t many trees around so our chances of getting caught just went from slim to likely. The pavement was wide as though it was made to let a large crowd pass all at the same time.

Walking on the stone ledges at the side of the road, we managed to avoid the vegetation. We ended up in front of a colossal building. It looked like some kind of tower that had only been finished halfway so it didn’t have a roof and was only a couple of hundred feet tall. The only way in was a huge wooden door in front of the building. A small triangle was engraved where its doorknob should be. Like back in the bridge, all that prevented us from getting in was a bunch of braided red strings.

After removing the braided charms, Luci closed her eyes and pressed a hand over the triangle, muttering something under her breath. In no time the door swung in with barely a sound.

We stepped in, our feet echoing as they landed on the shiny marble floor. It was just like an arena only slightly smaller. Marble bleachers were carved into the walls of the circular space. In the middle of the arena was a lodestone similar to the one Bel had in her farm.

It didn’t have a roof so I could clearly see the vertex of the Triangle above us, directly on top of the lodestone. There was a rustic hole where the three cliffs touched each other and I was sure that by some point of the day, the sun would be directly aligned with it.

“What exactly are we looking for?” I asked, still marveling at the view.

“There,” Luci pointed a finger at the hole at the tip of the Triangle. “That’s our Point Zero. We are able to crossover to earth using that portal.”

“Nice,” Vincent muttered under his breath while admiring the Triangle. “Can we go to Halo too?”

Luci flinched at the mention of the place. There are worse places than hell, I guess.

“I’m… not sure,” she hesitated. “As far as I know, Eldest had only allowed us to come to earth to perform our duties. We don’t even come there often. It’s already too… chaotic even without us meddling with humans, what with wraiths slowly growing in numbers. Likewise, the Triangle’s awakening is not within our control. It awakens whenever astral phenomena occur. Only then can we choose among our people who should visit earth.”

“Astral phenomena?” I muttered absently, my forehead wrinkling.

It was Vincent who answered impatiently. “Planetary alignment, solar flares, meteor showers—astral phenomena, Aramis. It’s elementary science.”

“Oh… I’m so sorry, Master,” I muttered ironically. “I must’ve ditched school when they covered that. Good thing you’re not sleeping that day.”

He looked like he wanted to hit me but was trying hard not to. Instead, he just fixed his eyes on the hole at the tip of the Triangle.

With a closer look, I noticed that the hole was pitch-black, pulsing infinitesimally. That was when I remembered Millie and that day we got stuck in Point Zero after using the Door to Halo.

“The void between all the realms,” I repeated Millie’s explanation, astounded as I stepped closer to the center of the arena to get a better view. My head whipped automatically to Luci. “If it’s a Point Zero, it can lead us to Halo. At least that’s what I’ve been told. We just need a really good hacker. And then—”

A hand closed on my shoulder, stopping me. It was Vincent’s.

“How’d you know about Point Zero?” he demanded.

I went on, staring up, ignoring him. “When I was trying to get to Halo, Millie and I got stuck in Point Zero while we waited for your father’s protective enchantments to break.”

Abruptly, he grabbed my other shoulder and rotated me so I was forced to face him.

“You got stuck in Point Zero?” His eyes were wide again with something between fear and rage. “D-d’you have any idea how dangerous that is for someone with a mortal soul inside them?”

“Oh… you mean me,” I shrugged his hands away and our gazes locked for a few seconds.

“No. I was talking about my other familiar. Who doesn’t exist. Of course, I mean you.” He shook me again, this time so hard that my forehead almost bumped on his chin. “You’re supposed to be expired, but you’re still alive. Nirvana and earth would try to claim you because you’re something in between. They’d both pull your original soul at the same time until it gets ripped to pieces.”

The silver in his eyes seemed to liquefy, looking infinite as if they themselves were Doors that led to a whole new realm. But before I could forget what we were talking about, I blinked myself back to the matter at hand.

“Stop overreacting, Vincent,” I managed to answer without showing any hint of worry on my face. To be honest, I was shaken. “I’m a hundred percent okay. You’re starting to sound like my mother.”

Awkwardly, he let me go, staring at his hands. He pocketed them, looking away. “Who’s this Millie?”

“Remember Apple?”

“Yeah,” he answered, furtively throwing a glance at Luci. He would have to be an idiot not to notice the resemblance between her and Apple. “Hector’s… familiar.”

I nodded, my eyes involuntarily shifting to Luci’s direction. “Millie too. And she looks exactly like Apple, but a lot… weirder.”

“Uhm…” Luci looked unsure whether to join the conversation or not. “Why are you both staring at me like that?”

“Nothing,” Vincent and I said at the same time.

He grabbed my arm and forcefully dragged me to a corner where Luci couldn’t hear us.

“You let Hector help you?” he said through his teeth. “What the hell were you thinking, Aramis? You know the guy’s a complete maniac. All he wants is to make you one of his lab rats—”

“I know! Okay? I was… desperate.” I sounded pathetic. “Seriously, are we going to argue about this now?”

I didn’t want to remember that I had almost become Hector’s specimen. I tried to push Vincent away but he just held my hands instead. He didn’t say anything for a while. He just stared at the cuts on my palms as if all the answers to his questions were written there.

“I… I’m sorry…” That was all he could say, finally meeting my gaze.

I felt my mouth gaping a little. I didn’t know what was more unexpected, the fact that he said he was sorry or the smallest possibility that he cared. Knowing how conceited he was, he must’ve hurt himself putting the words ‘I’ and ‘sorry’ in the same sentence. I knew he wasn’t just apologizing for the cuts and scratches or for yelling at me, but for everything.

Before I knew it, my hand was already on his forehead trying to feel if he was still running a fever. “You sure you’re feeling okay?”

Without tearing his eyes off me, he slapped my hand away. “Damn it, Aramis. I’m being serious here. What I did back in Halo… it was the biggest mistake I’d done.”

Why was it that every time he cursed, my name always had to follow?

“Bummer,” I sighed. “I was going to punch you, you know?”

A dubious-surprised look painted on his face. “Really?”

“Yeah. In the face,” I answered, turning around to head closer to the lodestone.

A smile made the corner of my lips pull up and I was glad he couldn’t see it. Without knowing it, I had forgiven him all along. Absolutely unfair but definitely bearable—surprisingly. Perhaps, I couldn’t really be mad at my master no matter how a big jerk he had been.

One of the several mysteries of being a familiar.

“Now, how do we start this thing?” I asked Luci.

For a second, she looked at me and Vincent, seemingly startled. “Y-you mean… now?”

“Yeah,” Vincent and I chorused again.

Luci shook her head, appearing scared.

“It is not so simple. Even if we succeed awakening the Triangle with the stored energy in the lodestones, it will not be sufficient to open a Gate to wherever you wanted to go. We have to wait for the heavenly bodies to be in position—an eclipse, the solstice— to harness enough energy. And the next solstice in not until two weeks from now,” she rambled nervously.

That didn’t seem to discourage Vincent. His Stubbornness and I were thinking the same thing—that we could somehow get to Vlad and the others.

“Is there any other way?” he asked Luci with his pale eyes fixed on hers like he was doing a mind control thing on her. “Please, Luci. I beg you. I need to help my brother.”

As much I hated (with a passion) seeing my master grovel, whatever he was doing, it must have worked because Luci looked like she was thinking about it. Mechanically, she started to the lodestone in the middle of the arena.

“It’s forbidden,” she mumbled in a papery voice. “Father shall punish me for doing this, considering that I am still alive once I am done.”

She lifted a hand and pressed it against the surface of the lodestone. The part she touched glowed softly, revealing a set of strange glyphs that went on and on, covering the whole lodestone. Then the light grew intense, swallowing the lodestone in a blinding flash.

I shielded my eyes with my hands, unable to look at it. A few seconds later, the light died out, leaving the lodestone glowing with energy. Now, it looked more like a bunch of huge chunks of diamonds rather than dead rocks.

The sunlight bounced off the lodestone, showering the walls of the arena with a rainbow of colors. When I stepped closer, I could see my distorted reflection on the surface.

“I-it’s beautiful,” I gasped in awe.

Vincent stepped right behind me so that I could see his reflection too. For a moment, his gaze lingered on my reflection before he muttered “Couldn’t agree more,” under his breath.

For some reason, I felt embarrassed.

“Are you ready?” Luci asked, her hand still pressed on the lodestone.

Both of us nodded our heads. Of course, I wasn’t ready but I wasn’t going to say that out loud.

Luci nodded back. “I’ll be opening a Gate to Pennsylvania. When I say go, you go. I don’t know how long I can keep it open so please be quick about it.”

I gulped. “So how do we know how much time we have before the Gate closes?”

“You don’t,” she replied gravely.

In full concentration, Luci closed her eyes, chanting incomprehensibly in a low tone. A strong wind suddenly lashed at us, spiraling up like what happened back in the market. Dark clouds gathered up above as if a storm was brewing.

Some sort of green light radiated from Luci’s whole body, travelling to her hand, then to the lodestone. It appeared as if she was infusing it with her own power. Soon a beam of light shot from the tip of the lodestone to the vertex of the Triangle. It didn’t take longer than two seconds before the light had engulfed the Triangle and transformed it into three gigantic glowing diamonds.

“Got any plan?” I turned to Vincent.

He took in a deep breath. “Get back to the house, use the Door to Halo, grab my brother, get back here, A.S.A.P.,” he breathed out.

I cringed. “So what’s plan B?”

“I’d tell you but it’s pretty complicated. There are a lot of diagrams and drawings and stuff.”

“There’s no plan B, is there?”

“No,” he grunted. “Not really.”

A scream made its way out of Luci’s mouth as if she was in a great deal of pain. Her head twitched upwards, her glowing green eyes wide-opened. Awakening the Triangle seemed too much for her.

“G-go!” she managed to choke out. “Now!”

Vincent snatched my hand, pulling me as he headed closer to the lodestone. The raging wind pushed us back, throwing debris and fallen leaves at us. We forged on until Vincent was able to grab a hold of one of the lodestone’s tips.

In one swift motion, he swept my feet off the floor and placed my hand around the lodestone’s tip, making sure that I was able to hold on firmly. I climbed up quickly, turning around to help him up. To my surprise, he was already climbing up the higher parts of the lodestone.

“Here,” he offered me a hand.

Reluctantly, I took it, my eyes automatically searching for a groove to set my foot on. Once I was able to get a solid foothold, I let go of his hand. If I could help it, I would rather not depend on anyone but me.

I made a good head start up the middle rock of the lodestone while he thoughtfully looked at his hand as if there was something wrong with it. In a couple of seconds, he was right behind me. He gestured for me to look up. Only then did I notice that I was almost on top of the lodestone. The shaft of light temporarily connecting it to the Triangle was almost within my reach.

Before I could touch it, I felt Vincent’s arm wrap around my waist. He kicked off the lodestone, taking me with him. He stretched his free arm, reaching for the light as we were about to fall.

Just when I thought we wouldn’t make it, Vincent’s hand pierced through the cylindrical wall of light. It sucked us in forcefully, spinning us in circles as we moved upwards. From the inside, it looked like a glowing tube-shaped elevator. The downside, it didn’t have a floor. The Triangle’s force pulled and pushed at the same time, throwing us to every available direction.

That moment, I knew exactly how laundry must feel like inside a tumble dryer.

Vincent’s arm slipped from my waist as he was hurled against the wall of light. He bounced off it before getting spun again.

I stretched my arms as far as I could but he was still out of reach. We were almost at the top of the Triangle and the turbulence was getting stronger as we did.

“Hold on!” I yelled at him through the whooshing noise.

Grunting loudly, he pushed himself off the walls and did a mid-air somersault to get to me. Before he could get sucked away again, he grabbed me by the arms. Together, we spiraled into the Triangle. At first look, the Point Zero seemed too small to fit us. Now that we were just about at its mouth, I found out that it was so overwhelmingly large and endless, making me want to swim back down to the lodestone.

Tightly, I closed my eyes as the darkness slowly devoured us.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hey there.  Okay. I didn't beat my deadlines. I was trying to. I swear. I'm still making changes with reapers 1. But even as I am such a crappy, crappy updater, I do hope you like this chapter. *thraows free jawbreakers*

Love and spice and everything nice ~shim