Wind Rider: Book One ~Part Two~

[BondedByBlood]

5
The Truth​

Shane untied the girl and tried to keep her still as he attempted to take of the cloth around her face and mouth. He threw the pile of cloths and rope in the corner and casually waltzed back to the corner of the room and into the shadows. He watched her from the corner, both of them staying so very silent, silent as the grave.

Xavier signalled to him and Shane nodded, opened the window leading to the inky blackness outside, and leaped through. There was no reaction on Abi’s face; Xavier was not surprised, consid-ering what she had already seen.
She opened her mouth to speak, but then closed it again. Xavier decided that he should be the one to speak.

‘Will anyone come home soon?’ he asked.

‘My…mum…and my sister…’ Abi’s voice shook as she spoke.

‘Take out your phone and call them. Tell them that you’ve got a delayed surprise for them here or something. Just keep them occupied for a while. I’ve got something I want to tell you.’

Abi did as she was told and as she did it, her eyes constantly drifted from the floor to Xavier, then back to the floor. This cycle continued for about seven minutes. When she had finished, Xavier came over and sat down next to her. Abi had calmed down, but still stayed silent.

‘What do you need to break into my house to tell me?’ Abi said.

‘As you may have figured out by now, neither Shane nor I are normal, and we have come to say that neither are you.’ Xavier had responded.

‘I am normal. You are not normal. You can teleport. Shane is a freaky vampire animal thing. But what can I do? Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

‘We met a psychic back in my village and she saw you and she said that you could save this world so we set out to find you.’

She scoffed, ‘You’re bluffing,’

He raised an eyebrow, ‘Am I?’ He reached out to the bedside table, grabbed a safety pin and put it in his coat pocket, ‘You’re not safe here. Others want to kill you,’ he reached out his hand, ‘Come with me and both Shane and I will protect you.’

Abi pulled a face. ‘Protect me? You’ve got to be joking. I don’t need protecting, especially if some stranger comes and tells me that I will save the world from danger. Who would believe some rubbish like that?’ She was beginning to feel irritated and could not help but lecture him about her and her life.

‘Fine then. If that’s how you want it.’ Xavier grabbed her top once more and once again, they were in a completely different place. They were surrounded by lush trees and about a hundred people as everyone bowed down to her.

Xavier grinned and said, ‘Do you believe me now?’

‘You can’t be serious,’ she whispered.

6
Illusions​

Xavier then clapped his hands and the figures disappeared. He looked at her then raised a golden eyebrow, ‘So I see that you’re gullible.’

Abi hit him so hard on the back of his head that it seemed as if it was about to fall off. ‘What do you think you’re playing at?’

Xavier rubbed his head where Abi had hit him, ‘It’s a test. I wanted to see if you would be able to easily recognise danger that I am about to put you in. By the way, I was kidding about the physic nonsense. I only brought you here because I did not want you telling mortals like yourself about this dimension.’

‘Can’t you just, like, erase my memory or something because I really don’t want to put up with you for the rest of my life. No offence or anything.’

They walked through the forest until they came to an opening. It felt nice to feel the warm sun on her face. Xavier took out what seemed to be a sharp golden piece of plastic. ‘None taken,’ He saw the curiosity on her face when he held the shiny object in his hand, ‘It’s a golden lizard’s scale - used for time travel and teleportation.’

‘Uh huh…,’ Abi stopped to think for a moment and then she spoke, ‘Won’t my parents and my sister realise that I’m missing when they come home? They would get the police involved, and you never know, they might find us trying to set dummies on fire without touching them - not that I would be able to do it.’

Xavier laughed and threw the scale onto the floor. It started to glow even brighter than before until that is was so bright that you could not see the scale anymore. A strange sound started to come from it, and Abi stared at it, still amazed at what happens in this new world she would be going into. An oval was materialising slowly inside a swirl that appeared and when it had fully grown, Xavier stepped through and into what seemed like the confined space of random colours. He put out a hand to her and she took it and stepped in the portal. All of a sudden she felt as though she had been gulped down and thrown about, and then, they landed in a soft patch of grass. Xavier was standing, while she was face down in the dirt. He chuckled and helped her up, and Abi mumbled something too quiet to hear.

She looked around. To her left there were tents put up with ‘Do not disturb’ signs on them – not very magic but still unusual. To her right there were samurai swords for sale, but nobody seemed to be buying them. ‘Probably because they’ve already got cool weapons,’ she said under her breath. She looked ahead of her just in time to swerve out of the way of a colossal, twelve foot dragon, looking glossy, grand and green. Her mouth gaped open as she watched it stomp past her. It’s definitely cooler than stroking a shark. She thought.

‘One day you’re going to learn how to ride one of those,’ Xavier coolly said, like it was nothing.

Abi shook the thought of riding a dragon out of her head and put her hands in her pockets. ‘You still haven’t answered my question,’ Xavier turned to her, his ruby eyes gleaming, ‘What will you do about my sister and parents? They’d obviously notice that I’m missing.’

Xavier thought for a moment, and then said, ‘We’ll just let fate do whatever fate does,’ he paused for a moment, ‘Come on. We have to go and get Shane.’

7
Endora’s Book​

They paced along the path for a while, about ten minutes, before they broke off and journeyed through a field with unbelievably long grass, as tall as Xavier himself, and a little cottage was on the other side.

Abi struggled through the grass; she was finding it hard to breathe as each strand of grass kept sticking up her nose and mouth. She held her breath and dashed through the grass until she reached the other side. Gasping for air, Abi sat down against a wall of the cottage and waited for Xavier to appear out of the grass. He brought out a key from his jacket of many pockets. He unlocked the ancient-looking door and opened it. It groaned as it opened, the noise reminding Abi of her door back home, where she belonged, not out here with witches and warlocks and whatnot. Behind the door was just one room; a kitchen. Even though she had not set foot inside the house yet, she felt warm and welcomed; at least until she saw the vampire sitting at the table in the centre.

Shane looked up from the table and looked directly at Abi with his deep purple eyes. She nearly fell to the floor when she stared into them. As if Xavier was reading her mind, he held her arm to support her. Purple always made her dizzy.

‘Hi, Xavier,’ Shane said tiredly, and then turned to Abi, ‘Who’s this?’ She thought that she saw Shane blush when he looked at her. She decided to ignore it and dwell on it later.

‘This is Abi Maroon’ Xavier found it amusing how Shane would not take his eyes off her. ‘Anyway, we need to do some research.’ Xavier waltzed over to the corner of the room and opened a cupboard. He put his hand in and took something out. Abi assumed that it would be a box of cereal, but instead he brought out a book. ‘We need to get some information,’ Xavier said, opening it to the first page. ‘The sole reason that we came was to kill Endora.’

Abi raised an eyebrow. ‘Who is this Endora? She sounds pretty creepy if you ask me.’ She shivered as she said the name over and over again in her head.

‘She’s known as the Death Angel, an evil necromancer with the power to kill anything and everything in her wake.’

‘Really?’ Abi seemed to be interested in all this, ‘Do you have a laptop with you? I want to show you something really funny.’

Xavier shot her a look, ‘Look, Abi. We can’t keep delaying like this. The sooner she dies the better. Trust me.’

Abi sighed and sat down next to Shane, who stayed silent the whole time. Xavier walked out of the door saying to read the book until he got back. She completely ignored what he said and threw the book onto the floor to make room for her feet to go on the table. Shane whimpered before he lashed out on Abi, ‘What are you doing? That’s one Xavier’s most prised possessions. Do you know what he would do to us if he found out that his book has been thrown on the floor? We have to read it just like he said to.’ Abi rolled her eyes and watched Shane pick the book up and dust it off. It had a slight rip at the spine but she didn’t think Shane had noticed. ‘For a guy who doesn’t speak much unless his master tells him to, you just spoke a lot,’ she pointed out, ‘and why are you so loyal to Xavier anyway? He’s just a magical kidnapper if you ask me. Nothing more than a red cloaked criminal.’

She thought she saw fangs grow on Shane when she told him. Then next thing she knew she was lying beside Endora’s book in pain, being pinned down by the monster inside of him.

‘Don’t you dare talk about Xavier like that or I’ll rip your throat out.’ He growled and Abi, wide eyed and mouthed, stared at him in terror.

‘I’m-I’m sorry, alright? Jeez if I knew you were going to get this worked up about it I would’ve been halfway through the book by now.’ She tried to sound strong and fearless even though she was shrivelling up inside.

Shane got off of her and helped her up. Abi opened the book and looked at the first page. There were hundreds of pages of information left remaining, and Abi soon grew tired of letters and numbers, eventually falling into a peaceful sleep.

8
Secrets of Abi​

Both Shane and Abi woke to the sound if jangling keys as Xavier opened the door. They had been reading the book of Endora for hours and hours and hours. The book lay on the table open on its last page. Xavier looked at them with a smile on his face. He very well knew that Shane would do it, but not Abi as well. ‘I wonder what happened while I was gone,’ he said to himself. He took off his coat and put it on the table. He went over to Shane and whispered into his ear. ‘Wake up.
We’ve got things to do and places to go.’ Shane sluggishly raised his head and yawned.

Once he realised that it was Xavier who was speaking to him he leaped up off his chair and stood ready, waiting for orders. ‘We’ve read the book. Every single page.’

‘And did Abi look through all of it with you?’ Xavier was longing to know what Shane must have done to make her read Endora’s book.

‘Well, she didn’t want to at first, but when I told her how special it was to you she just picked up the book and started reading.’ He thought for a moment, ‘Now that I think about it, she seemed pretty interested in it; she was hogging the book most of the time.’

Xavier chuckled and asked Shane to wake Abi up. Once she was up, they took the book and left. She seemed a bit distraught and distant. ‘Abi, what’s wrong?’ Shane asked worriedly.

‘Nothing,’ Abi said almost immediately, ‘I’m fine.’ She tried to hide the anxiety growing inside of her. Xavier turned to her, a newly found look of concern on his face. ‘Abi, if you don’t tell us I will have to read your mind, and that will be extremely painful for the both of us.’

‘If it’s going to be so painful then why try?’ Abi retorted. The next thing she knew she was crying out in agony, holding her head in pain. From what she was hearing Xavier was experiencing the same painful effect. Gasping for air, Abi lay on the grass, watching Shane run over to her in a blur. She closed her eyes and dazed into a melodic trance. The next thing she knew she saw black and emptiness. I must be dreaming or something. She thought. She was in so much discomfort that she thought that it would be the last dream she would ever have.

Abi woke up. She sat up to find Shane by her side, looking as anxious as ever. Abi thought that a tear was about to fall from his eye. She did not know what to do to make him stop looking sad so she shuffled over closer to him and whispered into his ear, ‘I’m fine, Shane. No need to worry about me.’ She smiled and looked at him.

His purple eyes widened, revealing two purple glowing moons. ‘Erm…good. That’s really good to know, but I’m also really worried about Xavier. The second he passed out, he teleported. I have no idea where he went and it’s really worrying me,’ He paused for a moment to think, then carried on, ‘Wait. That thing that you were thinking about earlier, it could help us find out where Xavier might be.’

Abi hesitated, then finally spoke after some serious thinking, ‘I know I say that I’ve only got one sibling, but when I was little I remember having a little brother,’

‘Wow, really?’ Shane looked fascinated before Abi told him the rest.

Abi took a deep breath and carried on, ‘His name definitely began with an E, I'm sure of that. There was a fire in our old house and I can remember huddling in a corner with him, watching about four or five men tear the house apart looking for something. One of them looked straight into my eyes and walked over to us,’

‘Abi…,’ he was speechless.

Abi started shaking, ‘He was so frightening, tears wouldn’t stop pouring out of my eyes. He walked up close and crouched down beside us. I couldn’t bear to look at him. I closed my eyes and hoped that it would be all over. When I opened them, he and my brother were gone. My mum and sister found me before I passed out from the smoke and took me out of the house. The fire department got there minutes later.’

‘How old were you?’ Shane was taken aback by the series of events Abi had described.

‘About seven or eight – I remember my brother being around the same age.’ She closed her eyes as she smiled nostalgically.

‘I’m sorry,’ Shane sighed and looked up at the sky. Where are you, Xavier? We need you.