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Estrid, the infamous Val Kyr whom I’d heard so much about, stood in front of me, holding two swords and wearing a daemonite cloak. With the hood pulled back, I could see that she was attractive, with dark hair and appeared to be in her early twenties.

When Estrid shifted positions, the rest of her cloak was knocked back as well, revealing the black armor that covered her body from the neck down. It seemed to be made from a mixture of leather, scales, and chitinous pieces. It took me several seconds of staring to realize that her odd looking armor was actually made from daemon hides, and from what I’d seen, some daemons could have very though hides indeed.

“Estrid,” Lindrell spat out the name from beside me.

“That’s Estrid?” Julie blurted out, staring at the woman in disbelief.

I’d heard stories about the renegade Val Kyr, the convert who’d murdered five other Val Kyr before fleeing into the mists of the Twilight Realm. It was due to this woman that converts had been completely banned for the last three hundred years. It was largely because of her that I’d been met with such hostility and suspicion.

Lindrell put a hand on my shoulder and I suddenly felt jatta energy flowing into me, helping to ease the bullet would in my side as well as my shattered arm. I wouldn’t heal instantly, but this would definitely speed the process up a great deal. Unfortunately, it wouldn’t be nearly fast enough.

“A full triad,” Estrid said, looking over us with a look of hate. “When I saw these two, I knew there would be a third nearby...so I held back until you revealed yourself.”

“When I heard you’d betrayed us to the daemonites, I hadn’t truly believed it,” Lindrell said in voice filled with cold anger. “I’d thought that even you wouldn’t go so far…”

Estrid just sneered at that. “Unlike the Val Kyr, we daemonites are honest in our intentions…”

“Can we just kill them now?” the ripper demanded. “Those fuckers just killed Marcus and Sebastion…”

I stared at the ripper, noticing that she hadn’t done anything to contribute to the fight, but now she seemed eager for revenge. It was the same in Australia, she hadn’t actually done any fighting herself, but seemed more than happy to see others kill for her.

Estrid seemed to ignore the ripper and just continued. “Once, I was foolish enough to sell my soul to a false god, just as every Val Kyr has. For my sins, I was cursed and damned…cast down into Hell. But I am not content to remain there. I will be free… All the denizens of hHell will be freed…”

“That isn’t going to happen,” Lindrell responded firmly. “We won’t allow you to release the daemons onto this world.”

“You have no choice,” Estrid stated with a smirk.

I glanced to Lindrell, who was making no move to attack Estrid, the ripper, or the vulture griffin that was holding back. We had the advantage at the moment, but she wasn’t attacking. Then I realized, she was trying to buy time…probably so everyone else in the mall could escape.

“This many daemonites and daemons,” Lindrell continued. “All for one potential recruit… Why would this recruit be so important to you?”

“She isn’t,” Estrid answered, still smirking, though her eye glared at us with raw hatred in them. “I decided that it was time for us to announce our existence to the world, to make the world fear us…and see what failures the Val Kyr are. As this can be done while slaying Val Kyr, so much the better.”

“You’re fucked up,” Julie blurted out.

“Fuck you, you little cunt,” the ripper spat back.

Again, Estrid didn’t react to those comments. Instead, she watched Lindrell with narrowed eyes. “You have a full triad guarding a single recruit… Why would this recruit be so important to you?”

“All of our potential recruits are important to us,” Lindrell answered. “We’ve decided that you aren’t going to find any of them as easy to get to anymore.”

“Pity,” Estrid mused.

“We’re gonna kick your asses,” the ripper exclaimed.

This time, Estrid smiled in response and it wasn’t a nice smile. “Indeed we are.”

With that, Estrid let out a whistle and the vulture griffin launched itself at us. Lindrell, Julie, and I all dove out of the way as claws and beak came snapping at us. And while we were doing that, the ripper held out her hand and formed a tear in space, an opening to the Twilight Realm.

“They’re gonna get away,” Julie called out.

However, Estrid made no move to go through the portal, and instead, she let out another shrill whistle. A moment later, a daemon came through, followed by a second and then a third. They immediately began to rush towards us, making it very clear that this fight wasn’t over just yet.

“Oh shit,” I blurted out, wincing in pain as I tried to fight a daemon, that would normally be pretty easy to deal with. Unfortunately, being as injured as I was, it slowed me down a great deal. Still, I was able to slam my axe into the daemon’s head, repeating this several more times until it finally collapsed.

Lindrell cut one of the daemons as well, then leapt to the side. In a swift move, she grabbed the gun that the binder had dropped and opened fire on the ripper, obviously remembering that the ripper was actually the greatest threat. However, the ripper quickly jumped behind the portal, keeping it between her and Lindrell and using it like a shield.

Another daemon emerged from the portal, one which was humanoid but definitely not the same species as the gaunt daemon that Lindrell had dealt with earlier. This one was even taller than the gaunt daemon, being nearly eight feet tall. However, this creature was neither pale-skinned or gaunt. It was wide and bulky, with rough looking gray skin, and face that even a neanderthal would have thought of as being brutish looking.

“A troll,” Lindrell exclaimed with a worried look on her face.

The new daemonite…the troll gave a deep throated growl, then in a low rumbling voice, he said, “Hungry…”

The troll didn’t come towards any of us, and instead, started towards one of the stores. I was relieved at that, until I saw that there was a teenage boy, just a couple years younger than me, who’d been hiding inside the store, peeking out from around the entrance in order to watch the fight. The troll had seen the boy and was going straight towards him.

“No,” Lindrell screamed, shooting at the troll, which only made it pause and turn to glare at her. Lindrell muttered a profanity and tossed the gun aside, then charged the troll with her axe.

Julie’s short sword had a glow of raw essence around it, and she sliced into a daemon who was torn open where her blade hit. Most of the time, I only saw notru using their essence to manipulate the environment, not to enhance their weapons, so this was a bit different. Julie flashed me a grin, then dropped to her knees and channeled more of her essence into the ground to drive back another daemon that was starting to get too close.

I was about to help Julie when I noticed Estrid was charging right towards Lindrell, apparently planning on hitting her from behind. I couldn’t let that happen so ran towards Estrid, yelling to catch her attention. It worked as she stopped and turned to look at me, her expression filled with a dark hatred. I suddenly wished that I had my sword and armor, because this wasn’t the kind of situation I wanted to be in when I wasn’t at my best. Unfortunately, we’d expected that if the daemonites did try anything at the mall, it would be with one or two daemons at most. We definitely hadn’t expected a full incursion.

Without a word, Estrid swung one of her swords at me, though this obviously wasn’t at her full speed or strength. I blocked with my axe and kept an eye on her second sword, which came at me in a follow-up strike. Again, she didn’t hit me as hard or fast as she could have, perhaps because she was trying to gauge my abilities.

“So, you’re Estrid,” I said grimly, taking a swing at her, which she blocked. She immediately responded with a counter attack, but I had my senses and reflexes on full alert and was able to avoid it. “I’ve heard about you…”

“You know NOTHING about me,” she spat out, suddenly lashing out at me much more quickly than before.

Estrid began driving me back with one strike after another, while I desperately tried to keep up, dodging and blocking. She had two weapons while I not only had only one, but one of my arms was nearly useless at the moment as well. Fortunately, all that practice with Ionne was coming into play and I was able to keep up…though barely. And though I hated to admit it, I knew that Estrid still wasn’t coming at me with everything she had, at least not if she was atra.

“Lindrell is jatta,” Estrid said with a sneer. “And your teammate is notru…so obviously, you are kaern.” Then she smirked and said, “Compared to me, you are soft and weak. Your perception tricks won’t work on me, so don’t bother trying. The only thing you can do against me is die.”

The instant the last word left her lips, the essence stored within her swords suddenly blazed to life. Both her blades glowed blue and crackled with electricity, which made me gulp and back up. I had a feeling that it would be an extremely bad idea to have any contact with those blades now, even with using my axe to block. Now, I not only wanted my armor and sword, but also my bow.

Estrid came at me with the glowing swords, and instead of blocking, I focused on dodging and backing away. I was scared, but knew from experience that she wouldn’t be able to keep the manifestations on her swords active for very long before they burned out. I just needed to keep my distance until then. However, after half a minute, she touched the tip of one blade to the ground, and suddenly a glowing blue bolt shot along the ground and hit me. I screamed in pain and dropped to the ground, feeling as though I’d just been hit by a taser. And while I was trying to regain control of my muscles so I could get back up, Estrid came straight at me.

“Now you die,” Estrid stated grimly.

But suddenly, a wave of essence charged air hit Estrid and sent her flying back. Julie’s attack caught Estrid by surprise and off balance, otherwise it wouldn’t have been nearly as effective. Julie came forward with a fierce look of determination on her face, glaring at Estrid as she said, “You aren’t going to touch Michelle…”

“We shall see,” Estrid responded, getting back to her feet and picking up one of the swords that she’d dropped. The other one was out of easy reach, so she didn’t bother retrieving it.

“Are you okay?” Julie asked me with a worried look.

“Just peachy,” I responded with a wince of pain as I slowly got back to my feet. “I’ll be a lot better once we take care of this sith…”

“May the force be with us,” Julie joked weakly.

Estrid glared at Julie and then me, not seeming the least concerned about the fact that she was now outnumbered two to one…or that she had been reduced from two swords to one. In fact, she’d already burned up her essence charge as well, so the blade was no longer crackling with electricity. Estrid let out a whistle, and suddenly the vulture griffin, which I’d lost track of until now, came flying right at us, hitting Julie and yanking her back.

“Let me go, you stupid buzzard,” Julie cried out as she struggled with the daemon.

I was about to jump to Julie’s aid, but Estrid came at me again. This time, she only had a single sword, which meant that she was easier to bock. However, she was obviously pissed and was coming at me hard, which took everything I had just to keep from being overwhelmed.

“You are going to die, kaern,” Estrid spat out. “You may be fast, but you are also soft and weak.”

Estrid let out a loud yell, which I assumed was some sort of battle cry, and she came at me, swinging her sword as hard and fast as she could. I could have tried to dodge or divert the attack, but instead, I used my axe to block it, though it was extremely difficult to do so with only one good arm. The blow was powerful enough that any kaern would have been thrown back from the force, though I’d braced myself for it and only took a single step back.

“What…?” Estrid gasped in clear surprise.

“I’m not kaern,” I said with an evil grin as I charged my axe with essence. Her eyes went to my now frost covered axe, widening in surprise as they did so. “I’m atra.” And with that, I kicked Estrid as hard as I could, catching her in the gut and sending her flying back.

Estrid quickly got back to her feet, not even having lost her sword this time. She stared at me for a moment with an expression that I couldn’t quite read before she sneered and said, “Atra… I didn’t think there were any left…”

“I’m the first one in three hundred years,” I responded grimly. “Thanks to you and your betrayal.”

“You know nothing,” Estrid spat out as she began approaching me again.

“I know you murdered five Val Kyr,” I stated.

Estrid snorted at that. “Is that what they told you?”

Then before I could respond, Estrid flung herself at me again, lashing out with a series of strikes that came fast and hard. Until now, she’d thought I was kaern and had been coming at me as if I was one. But now, now she knew I was really atra, the same as she was, so she changed the approach of her attacks. Instead of trying to just overpower me, she was relying on her greater skill and experience.

I frantically dodged, blocked and attacked, suddenly feeling almost like I was sparring with Ionne when she was feeling particularly vicious. I yelped as her blade nicked my thigh, drawing blood but not going deep enough to drop me. I got through her defenses and nicked her upper arm, though her armor kept my blade from really getting through. However, I could sense my icy manifestation getting through and into her flesh, giving her a nasty bit of frostbite, though she just grimaced and remained eerily silent.

All my attention was so focused on Estrid that I was barely aware of what was going on with Julie or Lindrell, as they each fought their own daemons. But then there was the sound of a gunshot, which made me jump for a moment. I quickly glanced over, horrified to see that Lindrell was covered with blood from the shotgun blast she’d taken to her backside. Fortunately, the ripper was standing far enough away that the damage had been spread out and limited. However, it was obviously enough to distract Lindrell long enough for the troll to backhand her, sending her flying through a display window. The troll let out a roar and charged after her.

Now I was so distracted by what was happening with Lindrell that I wasn’t paying enough attention to Estrid. Estrid’s blade was filled with a fresh charge of essence and once again crackling with electricity. It was also coming straight at me. I instinctively went to block the attack, but the moment my axe connected with the sword, I was struck with a painful shock that shot straight through my body, causing every muscle to spasm at once.

“If you’re atra, then you’re a convert,” Estrid said as she stood over me. She stared down at me with a grim look as she raised her sword for the final strike. “You’ve been cursed enough, so I’ll give you the mercy of making this quick.”

Estrid started to bring her sword down to my neck when I suddenly heard the sound of another gunshot. She froze, letting out a gasp of pain. Then she snapped around, revealing that her cloak was shredded from where she’d been shot in the back by a shotgun blast...at a much closer range than Lindrell had been.

“I’ve got you now you fucking Val Kyr cunt,” the ripper yelled out, glaring furiously at Estrid.

“WHAT DID YOU CALL ME?” Estrid screamed, her voice filled with both fury and pain.

The ripper raised her shotgun to take another shot, but Estrid rushed towards her, screaming in rage. It was only then that the ripper’s eyes suddenly went wide and she stared at Estrid in shock…

“Boss?” the ripper gasped, looking completely confused.

I was confused as well, until I heard Shannon’s voice call out, “Michelle…”

I winced and struggled to get to my feet again, though my muscles were still a bit rubbery. That second contact with Estrid’s charged sword had been much worse than the first one. Shannon was by my side and helped me to my feet, shoving a sword in my hand at the same time.

Estrid grabbed the ripper by the throat and lifted her off the floor with one arm, doing so with ease. She was furious and spat out, “Nessa, you shouldn’t have done that…”

“I thought I was shooting one of the Val Kyr,” the ripper…Nessa blurted out with a look of terror on her face. “I shot one of them… I swear…”

Estrid snarled, looking like she was about to kill Nessa. “Fortunately for you, I need you alive.” Then she turned and looked back at me, though her eyes locked on Shannon and she sneered. “Shannon… So this was a kaern trick…”

“Estrid,” Shannon stated, her voice cold and hard. “I never thought I would see you again…”

“A little help, please,” Julie called out.

I tore my eyes away from Estrid and looked to Julie, who was still fighting with the griffin. She was all bloody and torn up, but she had given as good as she’d gotten because there were gashes and cuts all over the griffin as well. It lashed out at her with beak and claws, though the ground rose up between them, blocking the daemon.

“There is no purpose in remaining,” Estrid told Nessa, not looking away from us. “We’ve made our presence known. The Val Kyr can be dealt with another time.”

With that, Estrid turned and walked to the portal, though she was limping and moving as though in a lot of pain. I wasn’t sure how much of the shotgun blast had made it through her armor, but obviously it hadn’t been enough.

“But our friends,” Nessa protested, making me think that she wanted revenge for the other daemonites we’d killed, until she gestured to the shop where Lindrell was still fighting the troll.

“We don’t have time to recover them,” Estrid responded. “They will enjoy their freedom in what time they have. Come.”

“Oh no you don’t,” Shannon yelled, charting right at Estrid. However, Estrid stepped through the portal and vanished, and a moment before Shannon reached Nessa, she jumped through as well. The portal disappeared the instant she was gone. “NO! She escaped…”

I muttered a profanity, but was already turning to help Julie. Shannon snarled furiously but hurried over to help as well. It took the three of us about fifteen seconds to kill the daemon, then we went to help Lindrell, who was still struggling with the troll.

“They have tough hides,” Lindrell commented as we rushed and began to swing at the creature. “Like rock…”

“It’s daytime,” Julie suggested as she swung her short sword at the daemon’s legs. “Why don’t we lure it out into the sunlight so it will turn to stone…?”

Lindrell gave her a curious look and asked, “Where did you hear that nonsense?”

The troll roared and lashed out with his massive arm, hitting Lindrell and sending her flying back through a display rack. She got back to her feet, covered with bruises, cuts, and scrapes from the fight, but obviously not about to quit.

“I hate trolls,” Lindrell snarled.

“They’re difficult to kill,” Shannon added, though I’d already seen that much myself.

The troll had numerous cuts and gashes around his body, and nasty green blood was leaking out of most of them. However, the daemon didn’t look like he was about to go down anytime soon.

“The eyes are the most vulnerable,” Lindrell pointed out, seeming to ignore the fact that the creature was nearly eight feet tall and his eyes were a bit out of range. It would be hard getting to his eyes without getting within his reach.

With that, the troll snarled, “Crush you… Eat bones…”

“No,” Julie joked weakly. “It’s supposed to be Hulk smash…”

That joke suddenly reminded me of something else from the comic books and gave me an idea. I looked to Michelle and said, “Cannonball special…”

“We don’t have any cannons,” Lindrell reminded us in annoyance, obviously missing the X Men reference.

“It’s a comic book thing,” I told Lindrell, jumping to the side as the troll threw a display case in my general direction. “It means, you could throw one of us towards him…towards his face.”

“I might be able to distract him for several seconds,” Shannon announced. “Make them count…”

“Very well,” Lindrell agreed, giving me a nod.

I went over to Lindrell, holding my sword tightly and wishing I had enough essence ready to charge it up. I felt Shannon pushing kaern energies at the troll, and it paused to look around with an expression of confusion. While it was distracted, Lindrell held her hands down, clasped in a classic position for giving someone a lift up. But when I put my foot into the step she offered, she threw me up at the same time I jumped. I was thrown right towards the troll’s head, and I drove my sword straight into one of his eyes. The monster staggered back, then dropped to the ground, finally dead.

“Well done,” Lindrell said, giving me an approving nod.

“Holy shit,” a new voice said, drawing my attention to the teenage boy who was cowering in the corner. Lindrell had kept him from being killed by a daemon, but instead of taking advantage of the opportunity to run away, it seemed that he’d remained behind to continue watching. Obviously, this kid was a Darwin Award waiting to happen.

“This…complicates things,” Shannon said with a shake of her head.

“Are you all right?” Lindrell asked the boy, who stared at her with an expression of mixed awe and fear. She crouched down beside him and gave him a gentle smile. “Go home and try to forget you ever saw this. Trust me, you’ll sleep much better if you can.”

The boy nodded fearfully at that and didn’t say a word, not even a ‘thank you’ as he got up and raced out of the store as quickly as he could. I just wondered why he hadn’t done that when the daemons first appeared…or when the troll was smashing things up.

I stood there, feeling a bit dazed as I held my injured arm and looked around the scene of carnage that surrounded us. Between the blood, bodies, witnesses, and security footage from the mall, I realized that there was no way to cover this up. There was far too much evidence. Estrid might not have killed Cindy like she’d intended, but she had accomplished one of her goals. She’d just revealed the existence of daemons to the world.

“Cindy?” Lindrell asked Shannon.

“I got her out of the building,” Shannon answered grimly. “Once she was safe, I came back to help…” She paused for a moment then said, “I’d called Connie for backup, and she should have picked Cindy up in the parking lot…”

“I don’t think so,” Julie said, looking as exhausted as I felt. She pointed down the hallway, where Cindy stood, looking at the dead daemon and daemonite bodies with a look of shock on her face.

“No fucking way,” Cindy gasped. “They’re real…”

“Far too real,” Lindrell agreed, giving Cindy a disapproving look.

Cindy slowly moved a little closer to one of the daemons, still looking like she couldn’t quite believe it was really there. I wasn’t sure how much of the fight she’d been present to watch, but considering the fact that Shannon hadn’t arrived until the end, I doubted that she’d seen very much of it. Still, that little bit had to have been more than enough.

“I told you to get to safety,” Shannon told Cindy with scowl, definitely not looking happy.

“I had to see,” Cindy answered awkwardly. “I had to see for myself…”

“Are you okay?” Lindrell asked, looking between me and Julie. Both of us were pretty torn up from the fight, which was no surprise since we were unarmored and under-armed. We hadn’t expected such a large fight so hadn’t come fully prepared for it, and were lucky that we’d come out as intact as we had.

“We’ll live,” I said with a sigh.

Just then, Connie came running down the hall with her sword in hand, yelling, “Cindy!”

“Oh shit,” Cindy muttered, giving Connie a worried look.

“It seems I missed the excitement,” Connie said once she’d reached us. She looked around at the dead bodies, then at Cindy. “And the person I was supposed to pick up in the parking lot…”

“Sorry,” Cindy responded with a shrug.

Connie shook her head, then told Lindrell, “There’s damn near a whole army of cops outside the mall. They looked like they were about to rush in, so I created a bit of a distraction to keep them back for a bit longer. I don’t know how long that will last though.”

“Good,” Lindrell said with a sigh. “That will give us time to get out of here…”

Without saying a word, Lindrell put a hand on Julie’s shoulder and on mine at the same time, then I felt a surge of jatta energy. It was a pleasant warmth that flowed through me, giving me that extra jump in vitality that would help me heal and recover much faster for a short time. I definitely needed it, but looking at Lindrell and how torn up she was, I feared that she probably should have kept the energy for herself.

Connie and Shannon both froze and turned to look down the hall at the same time, and a moment later, I felt it as well…something odd on the edge of my awareness. I looked down the hall too and gulped at the sight of a new figure, which was vaguely human in shape…but apparently made entirely of smoke and shadows. The figure hovered several inches off the floor, seeming to stare down at one of the dead daemons rather than us.

“It’s another one,” Cindy blurted out, jumping back and behind Connie.

“No, that isn’t a daemon,” Connie told her with a grim expression. “It’s a haunt.”

None of the older Val Kyr made a move to either attack or defend against the strange shadow person, so I made no move either. Lindrell had mentioned haunts during our lessons, saying that they were known by various different names…and that they were no threat. According to her, they were another leftover from the gods, though no one knew if they were humans who’d been enhanced the way the Val Kyr were, or if they were something else entirely.

“Kind of creepy,” Julie said with a snort. “I don’t trust anything that looks that much like a dementor.”

“Ditto,” I agreed.

As I watched, the haunt bent over and touched the body, which seemed to turn into shadow and smoke as well before being absorbed by the creature. In moments, there was no trace of the body, not even the blood it had been sitting in. Once it was done there, the haunt moved over and repeated the process with the next body.

“Think of it as a janitor,” Connie explained to Cindy. “They clean up daemon bodies and get rid of the evidence. By the time this thing is done, there probably won’t even be any security footage left…”

“What about the witnesses?” I asked, suddenly having a sinking feeling as I imagined this thing hunting down all the people who’d seen the daemons and killing them. I grimaced, determined that I’d fight the thing if it tried that.

“They never bother humans,” Lindrell said with a scowl. “Or Val Kyr. Most people don’t believe monsters exist, so without evidence, everyone will assume this was some sort of hoax or that the witnesses were hallucinating.”

“Either way,” Connie pointed out grimly, gesturing towards the mall entrance. “We need to get out of here before the police decide to come in. Fortunately, Shannon and I can get us past them without their noticing us…”

I nodded at that, eager to get out of here and to somewhere I could get a nice hot batch. I thought of the hotel room, feeling disappointed as I realized that I’d probably have to settle for a lukewarm shower instead.

“I’ve decided,” Cindy abruptly announced, giving the haunt a wary look before turning her attention to Connie. She took a deep breath and stood up straighter, looking determined as she said, “I want to join you.”

“Are you certain?” Connie asked her gently. “Once you awaken, there is no going back. Your old life will be over and you will be Val Kyr for the rest of your life.”

Cindy nodded at that, then gestured towards the scattering of bodies. “Those things are… Those things shouldn’t be here. I want to help stop them.”

“Then as soon as we’re safe,” Lindrell told Cindy with a faint smile, “we can awaken your val. Freya has already given her blessing.”

“If you don’t mind,” Connie said, giving a wry smile. “I’ll do honors…” With that, she put her arm around Cindy’s shoulder and proudly added, “After all, her father was my baby brother…”

“WHAT?” Cindy gasped, staring at Connie in surprise.

“Wow,” Julie commented. “A surprise family reunion.”

“You’re my aunt?” Cindy asked, looking like she wasn’t sure if she believed it. Then she paused for a moment before saying, “Dad told me he used to have a big sister who disappeared when he was just a kid… He said she was named Constance…”

Connie shuddered at that. “Please…just call me Connie…”

“As heartwarming as this family reunion is,” Shannon reminded us impatiently, “we need to leave…immediately.”

“Agreed,” Connie responded, reaching into her pocket and pulling out a pack of cigarettes. She remained where she was long enough to light one, then started walking down the hall, asking, “Are you guys coming or what?”