Chapter 3

The air around them shimmered. Danyun used his hunter’s gift to transitioned their bodies from solid to translucent.

The witch screamed as she reached out to grab him, locking her arms tight around him. “Oh, my God. We’re going to die!” “Calm yourself, witch. We’re not going to die.”

The woman peeked through her lowered eyelashes and she looked down. Her grasp around him tightened. “OH. SHIT. WE’RE FLOATING.” With her eyes wide, she screeched each word.

“Of course, we are. I’m a Ganigarian.”

“A what?”

“A Ganigarian. A demon hunter.”

He floated them to the ground, landing with a light tap on the ground.

She whimpered as her nails dug into his shoulder.

“Why is this happening to me?” she whispered to herself. “I pay my taxes on time. I give to charity…”

Danyun closed his mind to the rest of what she said. Incessant chatter was an annoying habit of witches. Listening to such prater could drive a male mad. So Danyun did what any sane person would do, he ignored her and followed the demon’s scent.

Darkness covered the path. Along the way, he and the witch didn’t encounter any humans. He smelled them inside the tall dwellings, heard sounds of footsteps beyond the vertical structures, yet he walked on a deserted road.

He found this scene strange. Where he lived people roamed at leisure on the road and the golden street.

Several yards later, he located the demon’s mark, a green fluorescent excretion smeared on the ground and the tall dwellings. He scanned the area and found more signs of the glowing mark that left a trail for him to follow. He stalked the prints until they led him behind an area where he saw metal boxes. They smelled of decay and rotten foods, but not of the demon.

“For the love of the gods, the Gauldor evaded me again.”

“Owww. You’re hurting me,” the witch snapped.

Startled, he turned to her. To his surprise, he found her forearm in his hand. His fingerprints left of faint shadows on her skin.

He released her. “You must perform a locator spell.”

“Okay, let’s say that,” she pointed in the direction of her apartment window, “just happened, and it’s real.” She shook her head and she took a trembling step back as she continued. “I’m not a witch, and I don’t know any spells.”

“There is one way to prove to you that you are a witch.”

She crossed her arms and laid them on her stomach as she continued to edge away from him.

Determination filled him with purpose. He would prove to her the existence of her powers. “I’m no conjurer, but this is a spell that everyone from our world is taught to do. I have no magical powers, so it will not work for me. Only a conjurer can perform it.”

She shrugged. Doubt blanketed her features.

“If you are not a witch like you claim, then the spell won’t work.” He hoped, as he suspected, that she was indeed a Freydian. “Repeat exactly what I say.”

She glanced several times toward the path behind her. After a moment’s pause, she nodded.

“Asperat. Peradu. Mesta. Perami.” Danyun spoke the words slowly.

She repeated what he said.

For someone not raised to say the words, she pronounced them like a native. For Danyun, her flawless accent provided proof of her origin.

“Benderah. Traspa. Manadu. Manara.”

As she whispered the final note of the chant, colorful orbs surrounded them. Blue, red, and yellow lights hummed around her. He breathed a sigh of relief, but the witch reacted in a different manner.

Her lips parted. Before she released a sound, his large hand covered her mouth, muffling her soft cry. “Calm yourself.”

After a few seconds, her whimpers ceased. She tugged at his fingers, but he kept his hand in place.

“I’ll release you if you promise not to scream. Do you understand?”

She bobbed her head up and down.

He let her go.

She stared at the floating orbs. “What are they?”

“They are your guides.”

Her brows rose as she glanced at him.

He shut his eyes and prayed to the gods for the patience to deal with this ignorant witch. “Every conjurer has their own guides, and some have familiars.” He gazed at the multicolor lights and nodded in their directions. “The guides are entities from our world that see into the future and the past. They will help you to develop your powers. The stronger you are, the more they will tell you about the past, the future, and the present. Not all guides are the same.”

The orbs played three different pitches at once, bouncing in an orbit around her. One of them touched her.

Her eyes rounded, then a twinkle entered them. She laughed. “They say that you are very grouchy.” Her lips pulled short into a smirk. “I have to agree with them.”

“We don’t have time for this,” he snapped. “Tell them to tell you how to say the locator spell.”

The lights circled around him, buzzing in his ears.

“Now, you did it. You’ve made them mad.” The witch’s voice sounded gleeful. “They say that they won’t help until you apologize.”

Danyun exhaled a breath through gritted teeth. “This is ridiculous. You are their master. They have to do what you tell them.”

Her lips protrude as her brows lowered. “I agree with them. You were quite rude to me and to them. I’m not telling them to do anything until you apologize.”

He closed the distance between them, leaving mere inches to separate them. “Listen, witch. I’m not your familiar. You do not give me orders.” His fingers burned to wrap around her waist, to shake her until she acquiesced to focus all her attention on helping him find the demon.

“Chandra.”

At the sound of her voice, he blinked. “What?”

She straightened her shoulder and a determined gleamed appeared in her brown eyes. “My name is Chandra.”

He stumbled backward.

The Chandra? This couldn’t be.

A powerful seer told him several years ago, he would find the Chandra. In his world, the Chandra was a compass that connected the different dimensions together. It was one of the greatest forces in the universe.

No. This powerless witch can’t be the compass. The seer had said the Chandra would become the most important thing in his life. He had never believed the psychic’s prediction.

He still didn’t.

Until this witch showed him more signs of her magical abilities, he would regard her as just another novice witch.

“If we don’t find the demon, many innocent humans will get killed. Do you want that to happen?”

Her fixed expression disappeared, replacing it with stricken and fearful glace. “I don’t want anyone to get hurt.” She looked at her guides. “I’m sorry if he hurt your feelings. Please tell me how to do the locator spell,” she said in a soft pleading voice.

The orbs merged together. They dove for the hard, grey ground to form several ancient characters. “They want us to copy these symbols on the pavement.”

Danyun walked a few steps away. Energy shot out his fingers into his sword. He rotated his wrist, drawing an exact replicate of the figures on the road, flames illuminating each line. Before he finished drawing the last character, she chanted words that were unknown to him.

She repeated the spell faster and faster.

As the tempo of her words increased, the figures on the ground moved, then leapt into the air. They swirled and whipped into the shape of a twister.

Chandra stopped chanting; her gaze fixed on the funnel. “What’s happening?”

Danyun rubbed the hilt of his sword until it vanished. He extended his hand to her. “Hold on to me. The spell has found the demon.”

She grabbed it. And just in time too because the wind whipped around them. It swept them up into the clouds. Dust flew within the strong gust, hitting his face, entering his nose and eyes. He turned Chandra’s face toward his chest with one hand and gripped her hips with the other. The surroundings area became a blur of images. Danyun dug his fingers tighter around Chandra as the wind transported them across the sky.

As they flew to their unknown destination, he prayed to the gods that they would find demon before the creature fed.