GadielMay 2, 12:02 pm, Canberra, Australia
"You don"t think this is kinda creepy?" asked Gadiel.
"Did you want to send her a gift card first?" Tarik retorted. "She already invited us over."
"Yeah, but..." Gadiel shrugged. "It just seems kind of...weird."
Tarik had managed to track down the girl Gadiel had saved. It hadn"t even been hard. Apparently, there was a Facebook page for ANU students looking for other students for whatever reason, and Tarik had posted on there. He got a reply in two days.
The girl"s name was Medina O"Reilley, which was an interesting name. Apparently, she was Egyptian-Irish/Australian, and was doing a Bachelor of Arts, Majoring History, with a focus on World Mythology.
"Bit on the nose, isn"t it?" said Gadiel. "World Mythology...monster hunting..."
"Apparently, she specializes in sun and moon deities," said Tarik.
"That"s a thing? Like, sun and moon deities? That"s a specific thing you can specialize in if you study World Mythology?"
"Apparently. I don"t know, I"m just a History Major."
Tarik told him that she contacted him, and invited them over to her place. She lived off-campus, in a house. It was a ten minute Uber ride.
Apparently, Medina was a Canberra native. She had also confirmed that she did know the shopkeeper. That was all the information they had on her.
Oh, and her apparent address. Gadiel and Tarik looked at yellow-bricked, red-roofed bungalow as they got out of their Uber. It wasn"t exactly small, but it wasn"t large either. There was a nice green front lawn, well kept, with a small path aligned with sunflowers leading towards the front door. There was a driveway to the side leading to a closed garage. Beside that was a tall iron gate, which seemed to lead into the back yard.
"It just seems a little suss, y"know?" said Gadiel as turned and watched the Uber drive away. "We look for her, she finds us, she says she knows about the shopkeeper but doesn"t confirm anything else?"
Tarik sighed.
"What exactly are you worried about?" he asked.
"Everything," said Gadiel. "All the time. But right now; what if this is a trap?"
Tarik sighed as he gave Gadiel a look.
"I mean, it"s always possible," said Tarik. "But we"re not gonna find out if we don"t go in and see, are we?"
"There"s probably better ways than to walk into a possible trap," Gadiel grumbled.
"Then please. Enlighten me of these ways."
Gadiel said nothing.
"Okay then. Walking into the possible trap now," said Tarik. He made his way up the path, Gadiel following somewhat reluctantly behind.
Tarik reached the front door; a red hunk of wood with some painted gla.s.s down the center showing a very lovely depiction of abstract shapes. Gadiel watched as Tarik knocked on the door.
Three times. No one answered.
"You sure you got the time right?" he asked.
Instead of answering, Tarik simply turned the handle. To everyone"s surprise, the door opened.
"No. Nope. This is where I draw the line," said Gadiel. "I followed you down into that creepy library, but I"m not going to follow you into someone else"s house."
"But freezing an entire floor of a building is fine?" said Tarik dryly.
That stung, and Gadiel showed it. Tarik realized that he went a little too far.
"Oh is that you Tarik?" said a voice from inside the house, before Tarik could apologize. "Right, it was today! Come right in!"
Gadiel and Tarik shared a look.
"She said it was okay," said Tarik, walking in.
With a sigh, Gadiel followed.
They stepped into the entrance, noting the shoe rack at the head of the hallway. They both obediently took off their shoes and put on the slippers provided.
The sound of their slippers against the wooden floors filled the hallway as they walked, looking around. The walls were occasionally adorned with paintings of flowers and landscapes. There were all sorts; vast fields of green, snow-capped, rocky mountains, raging waves against a serene, iridescent sunset.
Gadiel narrowed his eyes. There were a lot of paintings on these walls.
A little too many.
He looked back to the door, and sure enough, it looked like they had barely moved. But somehow, they had pa.s.sed all these paintings?
"Tarik," he started, voice low.
"I know," he replied, just as quietly.
They were in sync then. Good.
Immediately, then turned around and legged it for the door.
The house didn"t like that.
The floor in front of them fell away, leaving only gaping darkness below.
"Keep running!" yelled Gadiel. He activated his power, and slammed his palms on the ground. Ice materialized and thickened, growing a path over the gaping chasm. Tarik obliged, running on the path, only barely managing not to slip. He managed to keep his balance, and started to slide across towards the door.
"Gadiel!" he called back.
"In a minute!" Gadiel yelled.
He didn"t need to be told. Soon, the floor would fall out from beneath him. In order for the ice bridge to keep up then…
Gadiel focused on freezing the sides of the bridge to the walls. If it was frozen hard enough, it should be able to hold them. He closed his eyes, and focused on securing it to the walls, thinking about nothing else.
Tarik looked back.
"GADIEL!" he yelled.
Gadiel"s eyes snapped open as he felt the floor beneath him fall away. He kicked off the last bit of floor, and managed to get onto the ice. Immediately, he felt it crack under his feet.
"It"s not gonna last!" Gadiel yelled. "Open the door!"
He started running and sliding as fast as he could towards Tarik, who had already reached the door.
"It won"t open!" Tarik yelled back, in French. He must be panicking.
"TARIK YOU HAVE POWERS!" Gadiel yelled.
Tarik looked dumbfounded for a moment, then turned back to the door. He placed his hands on the door, then closed his eyes. He focused for a while as Gadiel got closer.
"INCENDIEZ!"
Fire exploded from Tarik"s hands, blowing the door away, the force and heat was enough to blow the door away.
Along with Tarik, and the final portion of the ice bridge.
Tarik crashed into Gadiel, falling. Gadiel felt the ice beneath them crack even more.
"Tarik, get over there! Now!" Gadiel pushed him up onto his feet while also getting up.
The gap between the rest of the bridge and the now-open doorway was large. Much larger than the gap a normal human could jump over. And they didn"t have the time for a run up either.
"But-"
"Go! Trust me!"
Tarik hesitated a moment longer, then nodded. He turned around, and jumped.
The ice beneath Gadiel"s feet cracked even more. He ignored it.
BOOM!
Tarik shot a couple blasts of fire from his hands, propelling him towards the door. He managed to time it just so that he landed right in the door frame. Legs wobbling, he turned around.
Gadiel was already in the air, the last of the ice bridge blown away by Tarik"s blasts. He knew instantly that he was not going to make it. He had jumped as far as he could, but there was still about five meters or so that his momentum would not carry him over.
But that was okay. Gadiel never planned to cross that way.
At the apex of his leap, Gadiel twisted his body until he faced a wall, then punched his palms onto the walls. Instantly, he created handholds with ice.
Immediately, he stopped. He hung their for a moment, catching his breath. He looked over to Tarik, and smiled.
"Be there in a sec," he said. "Just wait for me there, kay?"
Tarik watched, face full of worry as Gadiel created handhold after handhold, moving slowly towards the door.
Gadiel leaped from the last set of handholds, straight into the hallway. He didn"t even wobble as he landed. Immediately, Tarik hugged him. Gadiel was a little taken aback, but hugged Tarik back, enjoying the sensation of Tarik"s head on his chest.
"I told you I would be fine," he said calmly.
"This has nothing to do with that," said Tarik, a little petulantly. "I just felt like doing this. Okay?"
Gadiel said nothing in response, he just held Tarik, taking the opportunity to look around the room they had landed in.
Wait. Room?
"Tarik," said Gadiel. "We should get out of here."
Tarik looked up, confused. Then he looked around, and finally noticed that this was not where they had come from.
This was a small room, with no windows and a very bright, yellow light. The far wall was a huge shelf of books. Near them was a large single seat with a small coffee table in front of it, all above a Persian rug. It looked like some rich, old lady"s reading room.
On their left was a red door. Beside the darkness behind them, it was the only way out.
"So, you think this is a trap?" asked Gadiel.
"It could just be a test," said Tarik, frowning. "She is part of a group of people that hunts monsters. They probably want to make sure that we are who we say we are."
Gadiel blinked.
"I mean, yeah. Duh," said Gadiel. "I was talking about the door."
"Oh," said Tarik, embarra.s.sed.
They decided to take a look around the room a bit first before opening the door. The whole set up reeked of a test more than any sort of trap. Why else would there be a clear exit?
However, after looking around the room, they found no clues to opening the red door. Gadiel eyed the bookshelf suspiciously.
"We"re not to supposed to read all the books there just to find a key to this door, are we?" he said.
"That would be a terrible puzzle," said Tarik. "Or a really good trap."
Gadiel sighed. He was getting tired of all these puzzles and traps.
"Are we even sure that these things are puzzles or traps?" he complained. "Like, what if the door isn"t actually locked?"
He laughed at his own idea, and Tarik joined in. The two of them turned to look at the door.
They hadn"t actually tried to just open it yet. No one had told them it was locked either. They had just...a.s.sumed...
No. It couldn"t be.
Could it?
Gadiel walked over, and tried the handle. The door swung open easily.
…
Tarik and Gadiel silently agreed never to speak of this incident again.
They walked through the door into a small kitchen/dining room. In front of them was a small, circular table, with a sliding gla.s.s door on the other side showing a small backyard. To the left was the kitchen area, with gray marble counter-tops and white cabinets hanging from the low ceiling. On the stove was a pot of something cooking; Gadiel could smell something meat-like simmering.
The girl – Medina – was sitting at the table, reading a book. She looked up as they entered.
"Finally," she said. "What took you two so long?"
Neither of them said anything. Suddenly, her eyes went wide.
"I forgot to turn off the traps, didn"t I?"
Gadiel and Tarik simply stared at her.
Forgot to turn off the traps?
That...wasn"t a test?
"I"m so, so sorry about that," she said, getting up. "Let me make it up to you. I"ve got food!"
"What food?" asked Gadiel. Tarik shot him a dirty look.
"The way to my heart is through my stomach," Gadiel shrugged. Tarik rolled his eyes.
"Go ahead, take a seat!" said Medina. "I"ll get the food ready!"
She rushed towards the kitchen area, and started working on the pot. Tarik and Gadiel took their seats somewhat reluctantly.
"Are you sure this is a good idea?" Gadiel asked in a low voice.
At this point, Tarik was looking at little regretful too.
"Well, at the very least we"ll be able to learn more about the monsters," Tarik replied quietly. "Probably."
They watched as Medina dropped the pot, sending food flying everywhere. Tarik and Gadiel watched, open-mouthed, as Medina just stood there. She seemed to be just as in shock as they were.
"How about I just order pizza?" she said, forcing a smile. She took out her phone and called a pizza place.
"We"re doomed, aren"t we?" muttered Gadiel.