Crack, Crack, Pop!
"So how do you know there are only eleven more portals?" Sous asked Abigal. The two of them were inside of an inn's room. The fire place was going, cracking and popping into the night.
The room was warm with empty dinner plates sitting to the side on the nearest dresser. Abigal and Sous both were in bed, the covers over them, just watching the fire. The Alpha brought the blanket to her chin while Abigal dog eared her book.
She leaned back against the headboard, wearing just her bra and panties while Sous was down to a tank top and underwear shorts.
"I can only sense that theres only eleven," she answered back. The medium leaned over and took a sip from her tea.
"Did you go to school or something for it?"
Abigal nodded her head and informed Sous that she went to a school for mediums. Learning how to sense and detect portals was something that was taught to them in the basics, the start of their education.
They were quiet for a while, just listening to the fire and the patrons below at the bar. Sous turned to Abigal once more. "Do you...do you think you could help me contact my father? I always wanted to talk to him when I was little but never got the chance."
"Yes," Abigal said, shrugging as if there was nothing to it. She looked Sous over as the Alpha laid next to her partially naked. "I'm sure he'll be easy to find with his genetic make up."
Sous laid back on her pillow with her arms behind her head. "I wonder why priestesses can't talk to spirits." Referencing Faye.
"Voodoo priestesses and priest are able to talk to spirits prior to them crossing over but once they cross over, the string to the spirit world is no longer connected for them," Abigal explained. She turned on her side in bed, facing Sous. "Do you know a priestess or priest?"
Now it was Sous who turned on her side to look at Abigal. "Faye...I don't know her last name," she laughed.
"Faye of Nadia. One of the best spirit healers in the region. Everyone knows who she is. She attends conferences, host conferences. I never got to meet her though. Her wife is pregnant again." Abigal sighed. "I have the biggest crush on Faye." She placed a hand on her stomach as if she were to imagine herself carrying that child. "My mother is a specist though and doesn't want me with anyone besides a medium."
"A specist." Sous repeated. "Your father's a wizard."
"Yeah well, goes to show just because you're with one, doesn't mean you see them as your equal," Abigal turned on her other side and Sous could see her breathing change to something more calm and slow.
Sous stared at the flickering patterns on the ceiling, cast by the flames. Her own breathing deepened, matching Abigal's rhythm almost unconsciously. The warmth of the bed cocooned them, the scent of woodsmoke and faint floral tea lingering in the air.
Outside, the muffled sounds of tavern laughter and clinking glasses drifted up, a distant counterpoint to the intimate quiet of the room. Sous felt the rough texture of the woolen blanket against her bare forearm, the coolness of the cotton pillowcase beneath her cheek.
The question about her father echoed silently in her mind, a heavy longing mixed with a sudden jolt of apprehension. What *would* he say? Would he be proud? Disappointed? A ghostly hand seemed to brush against her shoulder, making the hairs on her neck prickle despite the room's heat.
They got up the next morning and headed out. Luckily, the snow storm had past the previous night. After they ate breakfast, Sous allowed Abigal to lead to the next portal.
"Are all the portals in Conaska?"
"Yes, which tells me it was an accident. I am able to sense portals within two countries and a partial country."
"Nadia is the partial country," Sous inquired.
"Yes, ideally each country is supposed to have their own set of mediums just in case portals are opened but Canas doesn't have mediums nor does the Island of Dimona," Abigal explained. "That's one bad reason to be exclusive or to be a homogeneous environment, some species can do some things and others can do other things."
Crunch, crunch!
Their boots landed softly into the snow with each step. The sun bright on them, even a few animals were out including wolves. Sous pointed at one happily.
"Are animals still used as messengers?" She asked. "There was a time when they were used to send messages."
The two women stopped to look at the wolf. He stared at them as well but then went on about its way, its body becoming smaller and smaller with only its tail visible to the women for the longest time.
"Technology has advanced so much because of the humans and elves that some times its easier to use one of their devices instead of a messenger or even a spell."
They came to a small town building of wooden cabins and trailers. Sous could sense this was a place that belonged to the humans and began to wonder if the two of them would be accepted.
Abigal stepped into the town with no fear and led Sous up a hill in which the other portal was.
"CHARGE!"
BAM!
Sous and Abigal stopped in their tracks and exchanged looks. Both knew exactly what that was, a gun, a shot gun from the sound of it. They ran further up the hill and saw humans fending off the demons who were exiting from the portal.
Sous went to the humans to assist them while Abigal ran to the portal. Having purchased a pocket knife at the bar last night after drinking a warm cup of blood, Sous took it out her pocket and stabbed it into her neck.
A bright light was released and Sous appeared in her form with the large claws, the toad like mouth, this time with the wings on her back remaining as is.
Slash!
She soared toward the demons and began to take care of them with a swiftness.
The shotgun blast echoed again, sharp and final against the muffled quiet of the snowbound hill. Sous's transformed claws tore through leathery hide with wet, tearing sounds, splattering dark ichor across the pristine white drifts.
The metallic tang of demon blood mixed with the crisp, pine-scented air and the lingering acrid stench of gunpowder.
Beside her, a human fighter stumbled back, his breath ragged puffs of steam, eyes wide with a mix of terror and awe as Sous moved in a blur of lethal grace. Her wings beat once, stirring snowflakes into a furious vortex, before she landed with predatory silence on the chest of a snarling imp, crushing its ribcage with a sickening crunch. The imp's gurgling death rattle was the only sound now, punctuating the sudden stillness...