The Lightwielder Files

Chapter 6

 The light after it had burned like a thousand suns on fire, disappeared and with it the Hellhounds. All that remained were black plumes of smoke that were quickly converting into ashes on the floor.  Adam rushed to pick them up into a little green purse (he insisted on calling it a pocket, but it was definitely a purse in Mona’s eyes) so that they could take them back to HQ to see if they could track where it had come from.  Mona looked around the room until she found Max slumped in a corner. The light, the brightness of it. It had to have come from him. But he wasn’t a trained Lightwielder, using so much power at once could have drained him.  She turned him lightly on his side, checking the pulse in his neck and his wrist. It was there, still pumping at a regular pace, but Mona could sense the Light had taken a lot out of him. 

“Max, Max wake up," she pleaded, shaking him. A figure came to rest beside both of them, a figure she really didn’t want to see right now. 

“Here”, Harry propped, offering her a jar filled with multicolored rocks. What was this a sort of peace offering or something he had already gotten her name wrong, there was more needed to remedy that, not that she expected him to. 

“They’re smelling salts," he iterated holding them under Max’s nose. He began to breathe normally then his eyes flew open, with a startling pop, making Mona and Harry fall back on their hunkers.

“Max you’re okay”,  Mona exclaimed, tugging the boy’s arm. “You’re okay. Or are you okay? Can you stand?”

He began to get up one hobbling legs with harry and Mona on each arm helping him upright.  

“Thank you”, he said then turned sheepishly to Harry and his bulging biceps, not that Mona noticed them at all.  “Thank you both.”

“No problem little Lightwielder”, he said his voice a low rumble. 

“What happened?” Max asked, eye glancing all about him. “Where are all the hounds gone?”

Mona wasn’t exactly sure how to break this to him. Luckily or rather unluckily, harry did that for her.

“They uh, kind of disintegrated.”

Max’s blindingly blind eyes blinked rapidly. 

“Disintegrated?”

Mona waved her fingers airily. “I wouldn’t say disintegrated, I mean disintegrated implies there was nothing left…”

“Not necessarily”, Harry retorted smartly. 

Mona pointedly ignored him. 

“Sure there were little black things left…”

“Like ashes”, Harry interjected. 

It took everything within Mona and threat of what would happen if a turf war between the Lughtweilders and the Werewolves ensued to not blast with him a Lighting bolt, harder than the static electricity she jolted him with when they broke up and the same ones she used to playfully strike him with when they were together. 

Max seemed to understand but then frowned and asked “How’d that happen?”

The Werewolf and the Lightwielder shared a look, then Mona left his side and stood in front of Max, lowering her voice to calm and soothing contralto so Harry wouldn’t hear.

“You did that Max, I mean your Light did that. It blew the hounds away.”

Max looked confused and Mona pitied him for everything he was going through. 

First, his dad disappears, then his house is in shambles, next a crazy (cute) girl drags him halfway across town where he discovers he’s a part of some ancient order, and then he’s knocked out by a searing blast of light in the middle of a Werewolf tavern. She should give him a nice cold drink for being such a good sport about it all. 

“I did”, Max whispered incredulously. Mona bit her lip in her thought remembering what her dad said about Max being a powerful Solar. She thought maybe he said that to make Max feel better but then she remembered that her father was not a man to say things to make someone feel better.  His words were at times brutal but necessary cuts, or so he said. If he told Max that he was a powerful Lightwielder, then it must have been true.

“Yes you did”, she said gently.

“Woah.” Max looked around uncertainly surveying the damage the hounds had done and the black ashes the hounds had left behind. “So uh, what happens now?”

“The new is the old plan”, Mona said trying to get her own bearings back from the ordeal. “We go back to HQ to find where the hounds came from.”

“Not so fast”, a voice from behind them gruffed. 

They turned to see the wolf from before, the largest who had been seated in a tacky-looking throne thing, his fur slipping revealing a scarred chest. His face was contorted in primal rage.

“Who’s going to pay for all this?” he asked gesturing to the damage done.

Mona placed her hands on her hips glaring at him, which was probably a stupid thing to do, but she wasn’t in the mood to be smart and polite. 

“Do you not have good insurance or something?” she asked.

The wolf bore his teeth and growled, “This is all because of you Lightwielders!”

“We’re the ones who drove them away”, Mona retorted pointedly. 

He pointed a meaty finger at her chest and she was more than happy to electrocute it way, but she wouldn't obviously. 

“It was because of you they were here, I could sense it.”

“I mean you weren’t wrong”, Mona said. He did have a point, a really sharp one, looking at his nails. 

“I will take it from here, " another voice added, a voice Mona knew all too well. 

The wolf’s eyes glinted like well-poised daggers at each of them in turn before striding towards the newcomer, a boy wearing a white jumpsuit with a flame emblem, hair coiffed to perfection, with a saber at his side.

“I can’t believe this”, Mona groaned looking at the boy as the wolf laid down all his grievances at his feet.  “As if this day, couldn’t get any worse.”

“Who is he?” Max asked taken in by how white the boy’s uniform was. “An ex or something?”

Mona flinched and hoped with all her might that Harry hadn’t heard the question. Thankfully he was off tending to an injured member of the Pack. 

“I wish," she groaned in response head falling into her hands, “that would have been so much better. This is worse, Damien’s a rival.”

Damien walked over after taking some statements. Mona could feel the smugness rolling off of him in waves. she was mentally preparing her not to hit him for that slight alone. 

“If it isn’t Mona Davenymeyer”, he crooned, voice annoying so like his features.

“If it isn’t Damien… I’m sorry I keep forgetting your surname. I barely hear about you.” 

He smiled revealing perfecetly straight teeth. 

“Well everyone hears about you”, Damien retorted, “Like this raid gone wrong.”

“Raid gone wrong?” Mona sputtered, “I’m sorry are you blind as well as highly arrogant? Max got rid of the hounds, we fought off the hounds!”

“Which followed you here because of him”, Damien replied. 

“How were we supposed to know that would happen?”

“ Because taking some kid off the street and throwing him into a werewolf haunt was bound to be a walk on the park with nothing going wrong whatsoever?”

Mona rolled her eyes as Damien turned his gaze on Max. 

“You just got lucky I suppose”, he said then turned back to take more statements.

Mon couldn’t contain the boiling of her blood especially as she glanced at Max who looked oddly thoughtful all of sudden. She hoped he wasn’t thinking about a word that useless Damien said.

“Don’t mind Damien”, she said placing a hand on his shoulder. “He’s just an a*s as always. Try to avoid him.”

Before Max could reply, Adam bounded over with a piece of the remains of the hounds in his hands. 

“Hey, guys you’re going to want to see this”, he said directing them to a seating area. 

Mona and Max shared a glance then followed Adam to the remains of the arm wrestling table, where another girl in a white jumpsuit and strawberry blond long hair sat kneeling with a spyglass in front of her, and on top of the lens was a piece of the Hellhound remains. 

“We couldn’t trace where the hound had come from obviously”, Adam said quickly. “But Delilah her was able to get a partial speck from the remains.”

“A partial speck?” Mona repeated. This was a sign that she should look over terminology for Lightwielders. She was more attuned to the physical fighting side of being a Lightwielder than the lore and legends. 

“It’s like a partial print, a fingerprint”, the girl said. Mona recognized her as Delilah Chazelle, a fellow Lightwielder who worked with magic artifacts.  “But for magic.”

“So you can see who created the hounds?” said Max his joy barely contained. It was a good chance that they were the ones responsible for k********g his dad. 

“In theory”, Deliah replied looking through the other end of the spyglass. “We can compare them to other specs that we have on file in the order.”

“This might take some time to shift through”, Adam said. 

“I found it”, Delilah announced with a shy smile. 

“That soon”, Adam blinked then fixed with one of his most charming smiles, which Mona just thought came across as smarmy. 

“It wasn’t that difficult”, Delilah replied, it came up in the most wanted section in the files. 

“So a rouge Lightwielder, a Darklighter perhaps.” Mona mussed.

“No not really”, Delilah said a heavy blush coming on her pale cheeks then she looked at Max with a slight amount of fear in her eyes. “It was your dad Malcolm Vandhurst. He was the one who created the hounds.”

Mona turned to see the color drain from Max’s face slowly. 

“Are you sure?” He asked his voice coated in silent desperation. “Maybe someone else has a similar magic speck.”

Delilah shook her head sadly. “No, I’m sorry. You see it’s like a fingerprint-like a said before, every single Lightwielder or Darklighter has one unique to them and them alone. I’m so sorry.”

But Max didn’t hear Delilah's apology he was already out the pub door. 

Damn, Mona thought then set out promptly behind him.

     ***

Max as fast as his legs could carry him to the end of the street, ignored the apologies and exclamation of panic from those he accidentally bumped into. He then came to a little flower arrangement at the other side of the road and settle down there. 

He threw his head in his hands. 

What kind of day was this? He thought miserably, picked at the dirt embedded in his fingernails from the fight. 

He should have known something was up between his dad and the Lightweidlers from the way Adam described him about the falling out that he had with another Lightwielder. 

But the fact that his dad could have been a Darklighter, was much too much to take in. After everything else, He had to struggle to keep the contents of his stomach inside his stomach. He didn’t even have breakfast, did he? He shook his head rapidly as if he shake off the happenings of the day. That was the least of his concerns. 

He leaned back amongst an almost, the cool soothing his head for a brief moment. Maybe this was a dream, maybe it was the plot of some unreleased comic or novel that he had stumbled upon and now he was asleep relieving the sensational event in his mind. But no matter how hard he pinched himself or tried to wake himself up, he couldn't which could only mean one thing that he was awake and that none of this was a dream. 

There really were werewolves, he was attacked by a hellhound, pure sunlight shot out of his hand and dad was missing. His dad was missing and from what he gathered so far was most likely a Darklighter. His light had been corrupted like the wizard of old.

He pressed the heels of his palms back into his eyes. 

“Max!” he heard a voice call out. 

He removed his hands and turned to the source of the voice gingerly. It was Mona running towards him. 

“Please don’t run from me”, she said as she slowed down an  odd sort of pleading in her voice. 

Max wasn’t sure he had the strength to stand anymore, not to talk of run.

“It’s true isn’t it”, Max said in a detached voice trying to act above it all, when he really wasn’t.  “My dad’s a Darklighter isn’t he?”

“We don’t know that.”

Max gave her a pointed look meant to tell her that he knew for a fact she was lying to spare his feelings. 

“Darklighter doesn’t necessarily mean evil, you know, Just gone rogue from the order.”

“And what happened to Lightwielders that go rogue?”

Mona looked down at her black boots. “They ‘re usually left alone like the ones who live in communes but the ones that start to cause trouble are dealt with by the Order heads severely.”

“So maybe the order is behind this?” Max said in realization. 

“Maybe that was why that damn Damien was looking so smug, well more smug than usual”, Mona spat but it did make sense. 

“So that means we can't trust the Order,” Max said looking pointedly behind Mona to see if anyone else had followed her out of the pub. 

“Not necessarily," she said matching Max’s gaze behind her before turning to him, looking at him imploring with her eyes. “But you can trust me.”

He reached to take his hand then backed out keeping it firmly placed at her sides near her spears. 

“I know that we just met today, and you definitely have no reason to but I want to help. I want to get to the bottom of this Max. I want the truth.”

With every word she spoke, Max felt like there was some sort of weight being lifted from his shoulders, and for some reason, he trusted Mona entirely despite everything he thought about the  Order so far. She would help him he just knew it, but why, but how?

“I believe you Mona”, he sighed the first clm breath, he felt that he had today.

The girl in front of him suddenly began scratching the back of her neck and looking nervously at the ground.

“Uh, I don’t know how to say this”, she said her eyes flitting back to his face. “But can I hug you?”

Max was taken aback a little. How do you respond to a pretty girl asking for a hug? There was no guidebook for this sort of thing. Did this sort of thing even happen in real life? Werewolves and Lightwielders and Hellhounds trying to kill you existed shouldn’t this very odd, but an admittedly very nice moment, happen as well.

“Uh, yeah”, he replied shakily coaching a smile out of Mona and in turn, one from himself. “I’d like that.”

Mona threw her arms around his shoulders, their bodies still some distance apart even when Max wrapped his arms around her back. 

They parted awkwardly but happy for the moment being. 

“I’m sorry if that was weird”, Mona said pushing a lock of her hair behind her ear. “It’s just that Lightwielders can gauge some else's Light through close physical contact.”

“Oh”, Max exclaimed softly, trying to keep his disappointment n out of his voice. Why was he disappointed anyway? Did he want the hug t mean something to Mona? Hell, they had only met a few hours ago. 

“My dad was right you’re very powerful but I have to admit that that fool Damien is right you’re still untrained and that’s dangerous.”

Max took a step back, tossing his arms in the air with a scoff. 

“How can I think of training when my dad is missing?”

“Max, if your dad is the Darklighter in that footage then the whole Order will be looking for him now, not just us.”

“But you said they’re not exactly soft with Darklighters…”

“That is if they misbehave. What we have right now is that your dad snuck a pygmy hound into his own house no biggie.”

“A pygmy hound that tried to kill me," Max retorted dryly.

“Yeah I don’t understand that part myself," Mona said sheepishly. “See there’s a lot of things about this case that we don’t understand so it’s too soon to deal with things.”

“But what if he’s out there in danger”, Max said and Mona put a calming hand on his shoulder.

“You’re dad was one of the powerful Lightwielders I had heard of. Wherever he is, I’m sure he’s okay, waiting for you to find him.”

That comforted max, slightly. Maybe his dad’s made him powerful enough to escape or hide from the order. This was all so confusing. But Mona was right, there was so much he didn’t know about his dad and his past as a Lightwielder and there was the kind of small issue of his training.

“You’re right”, he finally admitted. “You’re very right.”

“Usually those are my favorite words to hear”, Mona joked and Max couldn’t help the wheeze of laughter that came out of him.

“So what happens now?”

As if on cue, a phone rang nearby, and judging by the groans emitted from Mona, it was her phone. She took it out of her satchel and answered it.

“Adam, muchacho, I hope you are calling with a breakthrough in this case.”

She put him on speaker, gesturing for Max to step closer towards her. 

“Well I need to know where you guys are, you just ran out all of a sudden”, he chided, voices clamoring in the background, almost at the risk of breaking them up. 

“Well sorry for breaking protocol son”, Mona said dryly.

“Just find you’re way back to the Order okay. Is Max there with you?”

“Yeah, he is.”

“The Pack is calm now, you’d be glad to know”, Adam went on. “Damien promised them full reimbursement from the Order for the damage done.”

“So Damien is good for something then," Mona drawled. “We’ll meet you back at HQ.”

She hung up, shoving her phone back into her satchel. 

Then she looked at Max with an apologetic look.

“I’m sorry about that?”

He gave her a quizzical one. “What for?”

“I said we’ll be going back to the Order, I mean I didn’t want to assume you wanted to come  back with me.”

He understood her point. Would he really want to go back to the place where they were looking for his dad as if they were looking for some known fugitive? 

“Well, my house is kind of in shambles and I think another hound may show up if they're looking for me.”

“Good point”, Mona agreed. 

“I’ll go with you”, he said with a slight smile which Mona returned. 

“That’s settled then”, Mona replied, taking a spyglass out of her satchel.

“How  much stuff is in there?” Max asked his eyes wide at the satchel. 

Mona waggled her eyebrows playfully. 

“More than you would expect, my mom made it for me.” Her eyes grew for a brief minute, so short, that Max was sure that he had imagined it. 

Mona took some lighshade and sprinkled it on top of the spyglass, her hands almost shaking. 

Then she took Max’s hand unthinkingly and he found that he didn’t mind it one bit. And as the light, began to swirl around them right and luminescent, he found himself holding on tighter, just to make sure he wouldn't lose his way.