The Lightwielder Files

Chapter 19

They landed with a thud on the ground, a tangle of limbs and weaponry.

“Adam you’re on my leg,” Mona groaned, shoving her brother off her and nearly landing in Max’s lap.

“Not the best start to a battle is it?” Adam said, untangling one of his whips.

“Do you think it has something to do with Algar?” Max asked, helping Delilah up who gave his grateful smile as she straightened her lopsided weaoon’s belt.

“It could be,” she replied. “I can feel the darkness around this place.”

Max agreed with her, something dark permeated the area which they were in but at the same time, it felt perfectly normal. They were late-night joggers, walkers, and couples canoodling under trees. All in all, nothing out of the ordinary to the natural eye.

Then, all of a sudden, an orb of light floated towards the group. Max immediately put his blade up then looked around anxiously to see if any of the other park users were seeing it.

“Unless they have magic, they can’t see it,” Delilah explained. “This was made for us.”

“So what are we waiting for? Let’s follow it,” Max said and so they trudged on along after the moving orb of light.

Max tried to imagine how they must have looked to the others, a bunch of teenagers holding archaic weapons truding along in silence. He hoped that they would be mistaken for cosplayers and not some troublemakers.

The light traveled to the very end of the park, which also happened to be devoid of lamps at that time but luckily the group had their own Light at their fingertips and the mysterious glowing orb.

“I can’t be the only one who ha a bad feeling about this,” Adam said suddenly looking at every shadow in the dark.

“You’re preaching to the choir kid,” Mona intoned darkly. As soon as the words left her mouth the orb disappered leaving te group shrouded in darkness.

“I think you spoke too soon,” Deliah murmured bringing out an ax from her belt.

There were low growls and snarls all aorund them, closing them in.

Max held on tighter to his blade. He would not be afraid.

The shadows began to enlarge and form shapes and suddenly the Lightwielders saw they were surrounded by about a dozen Hellhounds, baring their teeth and pawing at the ground but they didn’t attack.

“Why aren’t they attacking?” Adam asked.

“They’re here for me, remember not to fight,” Max said meeting the blazing eyes of one of the beasts that looked like it was clearing a path for Max to go through.

Max turned to look at each of his new friends in turn, the bravery and determination gleaming from behind each of their eyes. They’d stand with him against Algar, he knew they would, but this was his fight, his and his alone.

“Go,” Mona said, leveling her dagger at one of the beasts while keeping her gaze fixed on Max.

“We’ll take it from here.”

A sad smile crossed her features as she gestured for Max to go.

He took one last look at his friends, nodded his thanks and then sprinted down the open path, not once looking back though his heart ached to.

The path was emanating with dark magic so Max was sure he was going in the right direction.

Then he came to the clearing where the darkness was pressing against and yet it didn’t scare him at all for some reason. Maybe it was because he knew that as long as Algar was near then his dad was near too and that comforted him.

“I’m here Algar!” He yelled out in the open air, trying to sound brave. “Show yourself!”

There was no answer. The whole space remained deathly still as a graveyard and Max wondered if somehow, someway he was dead.

But that was only until he heard the voice, causing shivers to run all through him.

“I’m so glad you came, Max.”

Max turned slowly, his blade hand sweating and met the piercing gaze of Algar Fray standing in a haze of grey light. His lightning.

“Where’s my dad?” Max asked, leveling his blade at Agar’s chest. “You said I’d be able to see him once I came.”

Algar tilted his head like a curious dog.

“I said no such thing, I just said I wanted to talk. Whether you see your father again, well, that depends on you.”

Max tried to control his breathing under Algar’s heavy gaze.

“I’m here now, what do you want from me?”

Algar smiled a bitter strage smile and walked closer all the while his train of lightning followed after him.

“Don’t be so glum Maxie, I just came here to talk to you.”

Max glared at him skeptically.

“About what?”

Algar stepped closer his impudent grin, still on his infamous face.

“About you and more importantly what you can do.”

“What I can do?”

Algar nodded innocenlty.

“With your powers.”

Max was puzzled but he tried to not let it show on his face.

“I’m a Solar, I can control sunlight,” Max said. “That’s all you need to know.”

Algar came closer his face now nuertal but his eyes were gleaming with malignant mischief.

“Is it though?”

Max blanched and he desperately wanted to put his blade to Algar’s throath and demand that he tell him where his father is.

“I am a Lightwielder, just like my dad and just like you once were,” Max said.

“But I’m not just a Lightwiedler am I?”,he crooned. “I’ve got monster blood.”

Max remembered what Boyne told him about the Frays and their illicit experiments.

“What does that have to do with anything?” Max asked, his anxiety at its peak.

“It means that you and I are the same,” Algar said smoothly.

Max shok his head. No, Algar was trying to mess with him. What did he mean that they were the same? That they both weren’t fully accepted by the Lightwielders? They were both close to Malcolm. Or was it something simpler, something he suspected but didn’t want to give voice to for fear that if he did it would make it true?

“Are you saying I have monster blood?”

Algar’s smile would have split his face if it were possible, the grotesquesness would suit him.

“Yes, my boy, that’s what I’m saying.”

Max was at risk of dropping his sword but he didn’t even though everythign within him was telling him to run at, yell at, or fight Algar Fray.

“You’re lying, it’s not true,” Max snpped, this time it was his turn to bridge the distance between them.

“Oh, if you don’t belive me ask your dear dad.”

With a flick of his wrist, the lightning parted and out came Malcolm, only his hands chained together with glowing ropes of light.

Max had to fight the urge to run up to his dad and make sure he was okay. It was extremely clear that he was not.

This time his mouth wasn’t gaged and on the surface he took that as a good sign, but at the same time he was dreading what his dad might say, especially with regars to the monster thing.

Suddenly the glowing chains fell off and both Malcolm and Max turned to Algar who just gave a nonchalant shrug.

“I don’t think it’s a right thing for father and son to be kept apart for so long,” he said simply.

Malcolm gave a deadly glare in Algar’s direction before he ran up to Max and hugged him.

“Max,” he said in a choked voice as he held his osn tigher than he ever did before. “Max, I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean for any of this to happen.”

Max hugged his dad, grateful that he had finally found him but at the same time he was loaded with more questions than answers and worse he didn’t feel like this was te time or the place to ask any of them.

“I’m just glad to have you back,” Max replied burriyning his face in his dad’s neck.

“I’m so glad for this touching renunion,” Algar drawled. Max wished that he, the dak feelings and the clearing were just a figamant of an overactive imagination, but as it so happened they weren’t. “But you haven’t answered the question Malcolm, does Max have monster blood or not?”

The looked Malcolm gave Algar, should have killed him right then and there and Algar was smiling coyly as if everyhting was going well, according to a plan of his own design, which max supposed it was.

“So is this what this was all about Algar?” Malcolm seethed. “You want to know wehter or not my son can be experimeneted on?”

“I wouldn’t put it quite like that.” Algar said in mock horror. “I just wanted to know if there is another like me that’s not a Fray and that wouldn’t fly too well with the Luce Order would it, all their talk of blood purity. Is that why when I disppaeared, you followed suite. Oh my, my, you were were a rebel.”

Malcolm took a step forward but Max held him back while Algar laughed, a sound that grated on Max’s ears. He couldn’t take it anymore. He summoned all the Light in him that he could and blasted near Algar’s head. That stopped him from laughing but horrified Max because now he could see that it wasn’t just a bolt of light that had shot out of his hand, it was a streak of darkness too. He had only seen that in the picture of the Darklighter someone who had had his light corrupted. What was happpening to him?

Algar smiled. “Interresting. Very interesting.”

Max knew that wasn’t the time to process his suprisee so he summoned a bolt of light which was still tinged with darkness.

“Leave and take the Hellhounds with you. If not this next one is coming for your face.”

Algar didn’t look afraid, not that Max thought that he would be. He just smiled that strange smile of his.

Max’s hands shook in terror but not so much as before. Maybe it was because he knew that his dad was with him, maybe it was because he just discovered that he was part monster and that gave him special powers that he did not understand, he wasn’t sure.

Then he didn’t have time to think because coming up from behind Algar were three large Hellhounds larger than the likes that Max had seen before.

“You gave your word!” Max yelled while Algar stood there, hair tousled in the wind, cape billowing behind him, monsters at his flank, looking as serene as if he was on a boat on a warm summer's day.

Frustration rose through Max like a flood, he let a roar he didn’t know that he had inside him., a hurled the largest bolt of light mixed with darkness that he could muster.

He aimed for the heart of one of the hounds that was ridiculously uncovered. No animal should leave their soft underbelly uncovered to an opponent.

But once he hit him, he understood why.

The bolt of light went through the hound but it didn’t destroy it like it did the last time. Instead it a glowing mounds of flesh covered over the chest of one of the hounds. The hound whined and groaned but after a few harrowing minutes it stood stronger than it had before.

Max’s heart lurched in fear.

“Max what have you done?” Malcolm gasped, horror stricken as he began to pull Max away from the clearing.

“I don’t know,” Max replied, running behind his father. “I think I made the beasts stronger. “

Algar’s cruel laughter rang out from behind them as they ran faster and faster.

“Goodbye, Max Vandhurst. I trust we’ll meet again.”

Then he and his hounds were gone in a flash of lightning.