Callum entered Kavannah Park to escape the Demons. He dashed through the ornate wrought iron gates and hurried over the cobbled pathway. It was bordered by spiralling marble and bronze statues, showcasing the six unique chess pieces on opposing sides.
His coattails billowed and his boots crunched on dry leaves as he sprinted along the labyrinthine trail. He was careful to use the trees and shrubs as cover as he searched for an animal. The footfalls of his pursuers were growing louder, so anything would do at this stage, even a squirrel, a fish, or a cat.
Evidently, Kaprixi was smiling radiantly upon him, because he did eventually happen upon a rotting pigeon carcass on the west bank of Kavannah Lake.
Dropping to his knees, he analysed the fine gift. It was dry and had decomposed so much that only the bones were visible. All the meat had been picked apart by scavengers, likely its kin.
After taking a deep breath to keep his stomach from heaving, Callum proceeded to pluck a feather from the creature and pop it into his mouth. His expression soured. He worked it around, trying to remain disconnected from his senses, like a child attempting to finish his steamed broccoli so he could finally get to this serving of cookie dough ice cream. His throat tightened as the flaky texture broke apart. But he fought onward, pressing the feather to the roof of his mouth.
Then he felt it.
There was a surge, a reserve of power, that he hadn't felt since the Demons had taken him prisoner weeks ago, awakening. First, he shrank. Then his nose sharpened into a beak. Then his skin sprouted feathers. And his limbs changed into wings. The transformation felt longer to his body, but to outside observers, he had turned from man to bird in only seconds.
One of the cloaked Demons, too slow to register this, was in the process of tackling Callum at the exact moment he flapped his wings and took to the sky. The poor sod's momentum carried him right through and he only grabbed at fresh air before tumbling over into the ice-cold lake.
"Hah," Callum barked over the sound of his screams. "I'll bet that is the first decent wash you've had for the better part of a century."
The soaked Demon cursed him.
As Callum flapped harder and harder, ascending towards the safe refuge of the clouds, he watched the demon gang cluster around the bank. He counted six in total.
Six. Then where was-
The answer to his unfinished question sprang upon him like a bolt of lightning. He had only just noticed the shape on his peripherals as he spun his tiny bird neck. His sharp eyes gazed directly into the thick of the sycamore which had towered over Kavannah Lake for almost two hundred years. From within the dense foliage, he noticed a pair of shiny white eyes, glaring out from within.
Callum squawked.
The Demon leapt out. It zoomed as a blackened ephemeral shape and tackled Callum, dragging him to the ground.
As Callum struck the soft grass in the shadow of the sycamore, he was swiftly encircled by the other six Demons. They pressed in too closely to allow his flight. So deciding that he'd have better luck with fists to throw, Callum returned to his human form.
The Demon who stood closest, the one who'd leapt from the foliage and tackled him from the sky, lowered his hood.
Jones had a slender face and gaunt, sharp features. They hinted at his absence of humanity. He watched Callum with those sharp eyes which changed colour depending on his mood. Right now, they were a blood-red, echoing the sentiment of his companions.
The six lackeys backed away from Jones as if he'd conveyed to them a silent command, and for all that Callum knew about Demonic magic, he might very well have done just that.
Callum raised his fingerless-gloved hands and balled them into fists, expecting some sort of battle to the death.
But Jones had other ideas. The dark youth held up his hand and splayed his palm. In front of it appeared a ball of swirling dark magic.
"What, too afraid to fight me man to man?" Callum enquired.
"We both already know how that would end," Jones said.
"Oh yeah? And how's that?"
"The same way it ended the last time and the time before that. Why waste any more energy on you? What else do I have to prove?"
Callum backed up, trying to figure out how to attack Jones' pride and goad him into a physical conflict. That was when he became aware of the orange light on the horizon.
It'd seemed for the second occasion tonight, Kaprixi smiled upon him.
Jones followed his gaze, twisting his neck and casting his eye to the east, to where the sun rose over the peaks of the Marshy Mountains, outlining them in a glorious silver.
A wide grin spread over Callum's face. "Too late."
Jones lazily returned his attention to Callum. The ball of magic remained fixed to his palm.
That was when one of the other Demons broke ranks and approached Jones. Her eyes were yellow, portraying an anxiety the others did not share. When she lowered her hood, she revealed a head of long, luxurious hair, framing a freckled face.
Regina.
"Brother, you can't," she said.
Jones didn't even glance her way. His attention remained on Callum.
"You'll break the Truce," she pleaded.
Jones' face was impassive. Even still, it bespoke his mind. He wanted to defy the Truce, to be damned with this whole thing, regardless of the consequences.
The ball of magic flickered.
Callum suddenly remembered what his father, before his passing, had once warned of dark magic. The advice had come after a young Callum had asked him why he walked with such a severe limp. His father leaned into him, wearing the most serious expression an adult had ever regarded him with, then informed him that no medicine or healing time could cure a wound inflicted by dark magic.
The worst thing is the pain, my lad. Somehow it burns hotter than fire and stings colder than ice. I'm lucky it only brushed me.
Callum braced for a brutal ending.
But the Demon leader must've come to his senses because the ball faded away and his arms fell to his sides.
Callum hesitated before rising to his feet and wiping down his overcoat. Autumn leaves clung to every inch of it. He glanced between each of the Demons. "Looks like Halloween is over, folks. Best slink back to your cabin in the woods before the children wake up. You're like to scar them for life with those ugly mugs."
"Gutter dweller," spat the soaking wet Demon.
"Is that you, Emmett?" Callum said. "You look like a drowned cat."
"To hell with you."
"Why so hateful? It's a compliment. I was merely pointing out a stark improvement in your appearance."
"You laugh now, but we'll see what happens next year." Jones practically growled the words.
Callum brushed his long hair out of his face to gaze at his nemesis clearly. It was just one of the many ways in which the pair were total opposites. Jones had always sported a short, military-style buzz cut, never allowing hair to cover his ears, whilst Callum had not seen his ears in a decade, preferring his hair to be loose and wild.
"Yeah, I reckon you've been saying that for what..." Callum rolled up his coated sleeve to check his imaginary watch. "Probably a few hundred years by now. You all need to get some better material."
Jones bared his teeth and raised his palm.
But Regina quickly darted forward and caught hold of his arm. However, her ire was directed towards Callum. But her eyes were purple, to show her serenity. "You speak from a point of ignorance, gutter dweller."
"Care to enlighten me, oh wise one?"
"Why should I? Your kind doesn't see the patterns of the futures like ours do. You live in an inferior mind. Do the best scientists seek to test their theories against the minds of dogs?"
"Let me guess, another prophecy?"
"Not exactly."
"A secret weapon is coming to Willow Town," Jones shouted. "A lot is going to change."
Regina glared at him as if he'd said something he shouldn't have.
Callum gazed between them with a bored expression before checking his imaginary watch again. "Well, I've had a lot of fun, but it's getting late. Let's say we do this again sometime? Say, next year? I'll call you."
The Demon's eyes all burned red.
Callum saluted them and without so much as a glance backwards, he left Kavannah Park in his dust.