• "Noah?" Kyatsu called again. If he was hiding, he still hadn't come out. Inhaling and exhalng deeply, she strode into the middle of his bedroom and looked around. She opened his closet, but he wasn't there. He wasn't under his bed, and he wasn't in the large cupboards that were big enough to fit him. "He's not here..."
    "Maybe he escaped?" Azrael said calmly.
    "He's ten years old. I doubt he could outsmart two humans at once."
    "Maybe he can."
    "This isn't right..."
    She turned out of the bedroom and headed for her parents' room. Just as she was about to touch the doorhandle, Azrael's hand grabbed hers.
    "There's a spell on it. I notice when I first touched it," he said.
    "A spell?"
    "A warding spell. Someone put it on here to keep someone or something safe. As soon as I touched it, it burnt me. The dolts out there didn't notice it, apparently, since they got in..."
    "If it's a warding spell, can't you get rid of it?"
    "No. I'm afraid I can't."
    "Well, we could just do this..."
    She put her foot on the door and judged her distance. She put her foot down, took a breath, and roundhouse-kicked the door open. She heard something shuffling in the room when the door landed on the ground. Azrael slowly followed her in, his hand at his hip. She saw the handle of a dagger clenched in his fist, ready to be drawn should something attack.
    "Noah?" Kyatsu said, pleading with her brother to come out and be alive. "Noah..."
    "Kyatsu... is that you?" said a voice.
    "Noah? Noah, where are you?"
    "The closet... there's another warding spell on the door."
    Kyatsu nodded. She thought something was odd about his voice, and warned Azrael. Calmly, she read the spell on the door. Angrily, she stomped her foot.
    "What? What is it?" Azrael asked, his hand tightening on the dagger handle.
    "The spell can only be undone from the inside," she growled. "I should've known... No doubt my parents put it up to keep anyone from getting in."
    "So he's stuck in the closet?"
    "Only until the spell wears off. Unfortunately, it'll take an hour unless he knows how to undo it."
    "So, what do we do until then?"
    "What can we do until then? We can't get in, he can't get out. If he's hurt, he'll die. If something manages to get in there, he's dead..."
    "It appears we'll just have to wait here then..."
    Kyatsu sat down on her parents' bed, while Azrael chose to stand. She told him several times that he could sit down, but he politely refused. He wanted to be on guard in case something really was posing as Noah. Slowly the minutes dragged by, and Kyatsu had to move about the room to keep from falling asleep. Azrael nudged her, signalling that the hour had passed and the spell was gone.
    Cautiously, she moved towards the closet and slid the door open. When the light didn't penetrate the darkness of the closet, she immediately tried to shut the door again. She couldn't move her body anymore, much less the sliding door that had just released a monster that sent shivers down the spine of even the most powerful Necromancer.
    It was a Shade, a rogue demon borne of a truly hateful soul. Just being within the area of one could freeze a person with fear. Being touched by one cost the soul, catching the gaze of one caused madness, and summoning one caused death. The smell of death hung in the air around it as it slid out of the closet in a smoky form. It had the general shape of a person, with a single red eye in the center of what represented a head.
    "Close your eyes," Azrael whispered. Kyatsu did as she was told, able only to blink and breathe in the company of the Shade.
    She shook as the sounds of a fight surrounded her. She could hear Azrael casting spells to ward off the Shade, and she could hear the Shade whispering countercurses. The thudding of boots rang in the hall and she knew the humans were coming. There was the sound of clashing steel, and she guessed the Shade had drawn a weapon to fight them off. Minutes passed, and she could finally hear the sound of the Shade leaving. The terrible tell-tale hissing scream rang in her ears long after it had ended.
    "You can open your eyes again," Azrael whispered softly. He sounded closer than before, as if right next to her. When she finally unclenched her eyes and loosened her body, she collapsed. He caught her only seconds after her knees gave out and held her tightly. "This is why I took up Necromancy..."
    "Why...?" she whispered, near tears.
    "To destroy things like that. A Shade led a horde of demons on my household when I was about your age, long before I knew what to do about them. They left me for dead, and my friends and family were murdered."
    "Why not become a light mage?"
    "Because my father was a light mage, and the Shade took his soul without being phased by his spells."
    Kyatsu slipped into tears. She cried for her mother, her father, her brother, for Azrael's family, for the other Elementals. She cried for comfort and to release her hate for the Shade that had stolen her brother and the humans that had killed so many others. With a soft sigh, Azrael picked her up and carried her out of the house.
    "If you come with me, we can destroy that Shade," he whispered, his lips brushing against her forehead.
    She said nothing for a few moments, her head pressed gently into his shoulder. Then she looked up at him. "Yes."

    To be continued...