Chapter One

Chapter One

Why was she doing this? It wasn’t right. She’d be in so much trouble with Auntie.

But she didn’t care.

And it didn’t bother her that she didn’t care.

She had it all planned out, as usual. It was risky but it could work.

Rebekah and Claire would pick her up around seven thirty, which was thirty minutes after Auntie left for her three-hour weekend shift. Nyx would meet them across the street and they would take her in Claire’s car.

As for getting home before Auntie, that wasn’t a problem.

After running through the plan in her head once more, she smiled, satisfied. All was perfect.

She checked her blue, zebra-print watch.

Time to go.

She checked her outfit. Denim cut-off jacket open over a deep purple tank, jeans, black, high-heeled boots and hair hanging loose around her face.

She grabbed her leather purse, ran a hand through her caramel-blonde hair and exited the house.

The chilly night air blasted her in the face. She didn’t mind. She was free for a while. She took in the stars, or at least what she could see of them, the bright moonlight and the cool breeze blowing back her hair.

Across the street, she could see Claire’s black convertible. When her friends saw her, they squealed rather shrilly and hugged her.

Her friends were twins, both tall, thin, rich and with long hair. She only hung out with them because she had no one else. They weren’t really her kind of people, but she had no choice. She was starved for socializing and she was determined to make this night as amazing as possible.

“Hey, girlfriend, glad you could make it.” Rebekah said, and clapped on her hand on Nyx’s shoulder, which kinda hurt with the studded, finger-less gloves.

“Shall we go? The show won’t wait for us.” Claire said. Nyx nodded and hopped into the car.

They arrived shortly a mile away from the hotel hosting the concert and parked, since all the lots were full.

“We can walk through the park to get there faster.” Rebekah said. They started their trek through the recently cleaned park.

Since she wasn’t near as fast or as tall as the other girls, she strayed behind a little.

No one else was in the park. Only one or two single people. As she walked, she saw up ahead a strange sight. A tall guy in strange clothes was wandering around, looking at the surroundings every now and then. He was carrying something oddly-shaped, but she didn’t know what. It looked almost like a knife...and a big one.

“You coming or what?” Claire called. Nyx averted her gaze.

“Yeah, hold up.” she called, and hurried to catch up with them.

When they arrived at the doorway of the hotel, they stopped just to take it all in.

“Oh my...look at those guys.” Claire whispered to Rebekah.

Nyx looked in the direction she was indicating. The guys were shaggy-headed, bleary-eyed and Nyx wondered why the girls were acting smitten.

“What about them?” she asked.

Rebekah and Claire looked at her, then at the boys, then at each other. They simultaneously took her arms and led her back to the park.

“Hey, what’s going on?”

“We forgot. We have to drop you off right here.” they said. They shoved her to the ground behind a tree and ran back to the hotel without her.

Well, that was it. Nyx had been rejected. Again. It wasn’t like she could see the concert now. Rebekah had her ticket.

She sighed and covered her face with her hands. She was tired of losing friends.

She supposed that now she had no choice but to go home. She got up and headed back through the park.

As she was walking, she noticed something. A man with his back to her, facing a tree, set something down at the base of the tree carefully. She recognized him as the man she’d seen acting strangely earlier.

She walked up to him. When he straightened and turned around, his face registered surprise.

“Hi. What are you doing?” she asked, and peered around behind him. She wanted to smack herself. Why didn’t she wait till he had replied to ask such a nosy question?

“Nothing. Yeah...nothing.” he mumbled, still staring wide-eyed at her. His gaze was a little unnerving.

“I gotta go.” he finally said.

She frowned. “Okay, but at least let me introduce myself. I’m Nyx.” she smiled brightly.

To her surprise, he stumbled backwards. “Pleasure.” he mumbled, and then nodded before leaving as fast as he could.

“Hmm.” she mused, “Strange.”

As she walked home, the hotel incident far from her mind, she recalled the unusual man. He was a head taller than her, with different clothes, brownish-blonde, curly hair and dark eyes.

Who was he?

He’d set something down by that tree. Without knowing why, she whirled around and ran back towards the large cottonwood.

When she reached it, she gasped when she saw what the object was.

It was a beautiful dagger like you’d see in a movie. The hilt was smooth, white ivory and a strange symbol was carved into it. The sheath had a long strap attached and was a golden color with pictures carved into it.

She grasped the hilt of the dagger and unsheathed it.

The blade was as long as her forearm and shiny steel. She lightly touched the two-edged blade and sighed in awe. This was no plaything or stage prop. It emanated a power and danger she could not deny.

As she held the heavy blade, it started to glow a bright gold.

It kept getting brighter, till she cried out and dropped the dagger, shielding her eyes.

Finally, it stopped and she cautiously peered past her fingers.

Standing a few feet away from the dagger was the weirdest animal she’d ever seen.

It wasn’t very big, only about as tall as a cat and about five feet long. It was covered in white fur, with silver claws on each of the six feet. It’s head resembled that of a seal’s and had long, branching antlers and when it growled, it revealed large fangs similar to those of a snake. It’s tail was long and snake-like.

It let out a hideous shriek and looked her way.

In the few seconds she had, she grabbed the dagger. Even if she didn’t know how to properly use it, it would be a good defense mechanism.

The creature lunged. She gasped and instinctively held up her dagger, knocking the monster away. It was surprisingly light. It yelped in pain and jumped back to its feet. It lunged again and she kicked it away.

She had an advantage, now that she knew how light the monster was. It growled as if angry she’d figured out its secret.

Now she just had to use this new information to her defense. Her panic was slowly disappearing and her strategy-planning mind returning.

She raised her dagger in readiness for the next attack.

It screeched angrily and jumped. Her instincts kicked in and she ducked, thrusting her dagger upward into the monster as hard as she could.

Suddenly, there was no monster.

A black, gooey substance dripped into the ground. A small, gold flash lingered for a few seconds, then flickered off.

“Whoa.” she whispered to herself. What had happened? How had the monster just...melted?

She looked at the dagger. First the strange man had put it under a tree, then it had glowed brighter than the sun and a strange monster had appeared. She looked suspiciously back at the tree where she’d witnessed most of the action.

She looked around. No one seemed to have noticed her conflict. She sheathed the dagger and hoisted it up, strapping it around her shoulder.

She touched the tree, remembering the strange man who had brought the dagger.

“Who were you...” she asked no one. He was definitely connected in some way and he’d seemed nervous when she’d confronted him.

She decided to take the dagger home. It could be dangerous in the wrong hands. She ran towards her home, wondering how much time had passed. She checked her watch. Ten after eight. Wow, it’d seemed longer than that.

She took a bus back to the station near her house and walked the rest of the way. The road in her neighborhood was strangely deserted. Only one or two cars lazily drove over the pavement, usually pulling into a garage or lane.

She looked up at the stars. They filled her with comfort and peace. The stars had been her only friends throughout her life. Her only true friends. They always cheered her. She loved stars.

When she arrived at the house, she saw the parking lot was empty, as she’d suspected. Auntie wasn’t home yet. Nyx ran upstairs and pulled out a journal she never used. It had a leather cover and seventy-five pages of white, lined paper.

She whipped out her lucky sky blue pen and started the entry.

“Dear Diary, you’re never going to believe this, but….”