“I can’t. No, I won’t,” said Jake as he stumbles away from the shadowy figure.
The figure was hiding in a dark alley in San Diego when he caught Jake and now he was trying to convince that Tyra was a traitor and that he should kill her. He and Tyra were part of a group of teens who’s objective was to save the world from any and nearly all evil. But in a teen’s life having school is hard enough. Now add another task as big as saving the world and that becomes nearly impossible for a teenager. That is at least a normal teenager that is.
“Leave me alone,” Jake screamed as he pushed the burly figure away.
Jake was short for his age and often got picked on for it. But despite his height he was extremely strong and fast and was also clever and witty. He had short dark brown hair and a slightly tan complexion, and almost always had a smile on his face. He was good at sports and had many friends often due to the fact that he could make anyone laugh by smiling or telling a funny joke. He wasn’t laughing now.
“She is a traitor and must die!” said the shadowy figure with much conviction.
“That’s impossible and a complete lie,” Jake argued.
“Let him go.” Said the voice of a woman. It was Aria.
Aria was a close friend of Jake’s every since she found him in an old abandoned house. She had brown eyes and a warm smile. She had a dark tan complexion and almost black hair with a pink strip that went down to her back. Aria was very stubborn and never backed down from a fight.
“No. You have a traitor in your midst.”
“Then that would be our problem to deal with”
Then her hands started to glow a golden color. The glow kept getting stronger until it was very bright. She flung her hand up and some light shot out of her hand and toward the shadowy figure. Halfway to the figure the glow became a raging inferno-like ball of fire that hit the Shadow Man on the shoulder that was holding Jake. The Shadow Man screamed out in pain as his arm vanished. And then in a blink of an eye she shot another fire bolt and it missed the Shadow Man by a hair.
“You wait. You will realize that there is a traitor among you and you will be sorry you turned away my help,” the Shadow Man said.
Then he vanished in a cloud of black smoke. Aria ran to who was laying on the ground unconscious. Her hands were still glowing as she knelt down beside him. She put a hand on his chest and a wave of golden light emanated through his body until he was glowing. He regained consciousness and looked at Aria.
“What happened?” he asked.
“Well not much. Do you remember anything?”
“No, not really.”
“Well let me fill you in on the way to the safe house.”
They walked back to the safe house as Aria filled him in on the events that transpired on Jake’s scouting mission.
As they arrived at the door, a girl who looked as if she had been crying her eyes out met them with the best smile she could seem to manage. The girl’s name was Tyra Lee. She had the most hypnotic blue eyes and blond hair. Her skin was a little pale but free of blemishes. She was very energetic and also empathetic.
“Oh, Jake. I thought something happened to you so I sent Aria to see if you were ok. What happened,” she said as she took a rather disgusted look at Jake’s clothes.
Jake’s clothes had mud and dirt and a little bit of blood smeared on them. His shirt had a big rip in the front and his jeans were not much better.
“Oh, you know, the usual.” He said casually trying to get inside to rest on the couch.
“Well whatever happened, why didn’t you use your powers to defend yourself?” Tyra asked.
“Because I didn’t have a chance the guy came up behind me and grabbed me.”
“Your telling me that some bum off the street came and did this to you?”
“Well no, not exactly. You see I didn’t really know what to call it because it wasn’t a man. He was cloaked in shadow or made of shadow or something. I can’t really remember. But he definitely wasn’t human, I can tell you that much. Whatever it is we need to deal with it fast.”
“He’s right.” Said a voice behind them.
Standing in the doorway of the living room was a thin figure named Kyle Demorose with a bowl of cereal in his hand. He had short blond hair and green eyes. He had a very short temper and he was a little bit antisocial.
“You say that the thing seemed to be made of shadow? Well I think that I’ve seen these things before.”
“How? You’re always cooped up in that little room of yours in the attic.” Aria said angrily.
Aria always thought that Kyle was a wannabe know-it-all that always had to have the spotlight and wanted to be looked up to after all she couldn’t blame the idiot when she took into account the fact that he was… well…him.
“Because in case you didn’t notice I’m a seer and I don’t have to socialize with the outside world to get information. “
“But sure as hell would literally do you a world of good if you actually tried to be normal and make friends and deal with snobs like the us. You’re not above the rest of us in this house you know. You might actually make a friend or five if you treated us like human beings.”
“Settle down there is no need to fight right now. We just need to figure out what that thing is so we can try to stop it.” Jake said, hoping to mellow the situation out. I didn’t seem to be working. There was still a lot of tension in the room, but at least the verbal fighting died down enough to work out a plan.
Kyle told them everything he knew about the creatures. He called them Shadow Walkers and told them that they used the shadows of anything to get around but they couldn’t enter people’s homes with out an invitation.
“So what they’re vamps now oh that shouldn’t be too hard I mean after all they only kill people at the drop of a hat and they are only one of the hardest creatures to kill on the face of the planet. No worries or anything.” Tyra rambled as if she were about to explode if she didn’t let it out of her right then.
Kyle reassured her that they were definitely not vampires. “They are much easier to find and kill.” He said.
He told them enough information to let them formulate a plan. They would lure them to a good looking ally that was full of really dark shadows and then they would trap it with a fire cage that was to be made by Aria and it was supposed to be impenetrable. Then Tyra was to use her control of mass consolidation power to consolidate the air to make the cage float. They were then to take the cage to a room with a lot of light lamps. They were to interrogate it creature and find out where the nest was and if it refuses to talk then Tyra would make the cage smaller until it did talk and tell them everything it know. Then they would use that information to find the nest and exterminate as many of the Shadow Walkers as they could. Aria was to put some golden light in power sealing vials that could be thrown at the Walkers. This plan went great. At least until the interrogation part of the plan.
“Where is the nest?” Jake demanded.
“You will never get that information from me.” The creature resisted all demands make by all four teenagers.
“Tyra, make the cage smaller. About a foot.” Jake asked. Everyone could clearly see Jake getting angry. He wanted revenge. Tyra did as he asked as soon as the words left his mouth.
“Noooooo! The bars are burning. Why are they burning.”
“Because they are made of fire you big dolt. Fire tends to burn sometimes.” Kyle said. He was starting to get aggravated as well. They had been at the interrogation for many hours already. They were getting sleepy but they knew that if they went to sleep then they would risk letting the creature free and it killing them all. So they started taking shifts while letting Tyra sleep in between shifts of watching the creature. She was getting very weary form using her powers for a long time. She couldn’t use them much longer without rest or she would use too much energy and would start to decay from the inside out. So they let her rest for a few hours while she regained her energy. Morning was coming on fast and it was almost time to eat breakfast. They went through the house groggily getting ready for another grueling day of interrogation. After they had eaten breakfast they went to the interrogation room where they were holding the Walker to find Kyle unconscious and the walker… you guessed it, still in its cage.
“How did you do this?” Jake questioned not meaning to say it out loud.
“He tried to use me to see where the nest was so I sent some magic back through the line that he was trying to use. I really did try to kill him but he shut the line too soon.” The Walker replied casually as if he did this to people every day and there was almost a certainty among the teens that he did.
“Uuhhhnnn. Where am I? What happened?” Kyle groaned as he got up.
“Did you find anything out about the nest?” Jake asked before Kyle got the chance to stand up straight.
“Let him have time to recover, Jake. He needs to collect his thoughts.” Aria said trying to help Kyle up from the musty smelling floor.
“It’s fine Aria, really. Anyway I did in fact find the rough location of the main nest and that many would only nest at the source of the shadow.”
“And where would that be, exactly?” Tyra asked.
“Somewhere above San Francisco.” Kyle said after thinking back to his exploration in the Walker’s memories gone haywire.
“Then it looks like we are going to San Fran. Ladies and gentlemen, start packing.” Jake said.




To Be Continued in my next story


The Chase