Chapter 9. The One Who Wanted To Live

From up there on the walls of the Cloud City, it was possible to see the whole world beneath their feet. It had been five years since the last time she came here to cross the limit that separated them from the realms of the humans, but she still saw Dusty Town first. Ayla looked at her companions, Master Aldrich and Guardian Julian, and wondered what was the place that presented first to their eyes when they looked down to the world.

“Well, let’s go. I’d like to be back for dinner.”

Master Aldrich waved a hand, creating the bridge that would take them to the coordinates sent by the guardians from the 1st Master’s Manor, who recently had annihilated a group of demons, yet were too busy to check on the living humans who could have been affected.

Ayla thought this was such a small task for Master Aldrich to be involved, but she didn’t dare to question his reasons. It wasn’t because she feared him, but his line of thought was often so strange that made her feel small in comparison.

For example, when it came to her fellow Guardian, Julian.

Just like Master Aldrich, Julian’s hair was completely white, but this was totally related to his age and physical appearance.

It was really an extraordinary case.

Most Celestial Guardians found their way to Cloud City early in life, or ended up dead. Their spiritual power was too appetizing to demons, which made it difficult to escape from the hunt as they reached adulthood. Very few managed to do it, and life for these people wasn’t easy either. Living as humans while being able to see spirits and demons was not exactly pleasant.

When she was under training in Blue Castle, one of the instructors had said that this tortuous lifestyle was enough punishment for those who dared to defy the path Heaven had set for them.

However, Julian managed to do it. He married and had children: two beautiful boys, she’d heard him tell another disciple just days ago.

He reached his forty years living as a human, being a husband and a father, before he got retribution for his choice, and one day demons came attracted by his spiritual essence and took his wife and his children’s lives.

Julian was almost killed, too, when a guardian arrived and saved his life.

He probably didn’t have many decades of life left, since he started his training late, but it seemed as if he was willing to spend the rest of his life without going against the Heavenly Will again.

Ayla felt some pity for him, and not for the first time she thought that the Heavenly Will sucked.

“I can feel their pull.” Julian spoke in a low voice.

Only then she was able to feel it, too.

It was the hour before dawn in this part of the world they were visiting, and the streets were mostly silent, so it was even easier to feel the darkness, that strong pull of anguish that squeezed the heart. It was the signal of demons feeding from human lives.

If she closed her eyes and concentrated, she’d find the exact locations where these infected humans were.

“Should we separate to finish it faster?” She asked, looking at her Master.

He shook his head.

“Not this time. We’ll go together.”

She sighed. It seemed like a waste of time, did he really not trust her abilities at all?

It was always easier to get the violent instinct to destroy than the calm required to detect the illness. Finding the humans touched by demons took a bit more time than finding and killing the demon itself, perhaps it was why this was the least popular task for Celestial Guardians. But healing and purifying the human souls once you got to them wasn’t that tiring.

It was definitely something they’d finish faster if they divided the work.

“I said I wanted to be back for dinner, but we’re not in a rush.” Her Master added, as if he’d read her thoughts.

Ayla had no way to know it was only due to a promise made to a certain someone.

Their fourth stop was a small bakery, where a still sleepy woman was cleaning her hands and taking out the ingredients to start working in the first hours of the morning.

Julian sniffed at the smell.

“Should we materialize later and get some bread?”

Ler glared at him.

Technically, making themselves visible and tangible for the rest of the humans was much easier than keeping themselves hidden right in front of them, but being non-existent for these people was the whole purpose of this conscious effort.

Ayla touched the shoulder of the woman when she stopped to rest for a moment against the counter, the spiritual power started to spread over the oblivious person, cleansing her.

“This poor lady’s soul has been feeding a demon for at least some months. It’s surprising she’s still alive.”

“Good job.”

“Master, you really came just to supervise me?”

He nodded.

“I think we should go,” Julian said “is it only me who feels uncomfortable prying in people’s lives.”

The other two stared at him and nodded at the same time.

“It’s just because you lived like this most of your life.” Ler reminded him.

Contrary to what some other Masters believed, this wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. When Julian graduated from Blue Castle, there were many reluctant to take him as a disciple, because he’d lived as a human by far too long. What were the twenty years of training compared with the full life he’d experienced before arriving in Cloud City?

But it could prove to be an asset. Sometimes, they needed to be reminded that they were humans, too. A different kind of human, but humans nonetheless. For this reason alone, despite his own uneasiness about having a disciple that was even older than himself, Ler still took him in.

The demons had had a feast with the humans in the city, and it was well past noon after they had detected the people affected by them and purified their souls.

Once the duty was fulfilled, Julian insisted again on having a meal in a restaurant, pointing that eating only the food from the Cloud City was boring.

“Well, we did finish ealy…” Ayla said, looking at him with pleading eyes.

Ler sighed.

“Okay.”

They walked to a deserted alley to materialize themselves, and Ayla started asking what was the best cuisine Julian had tried.

“Are you telling me you’ve never tried Mexican food?”

“Well, I grew up in the streets, and we weren’t exactly welcomed at restaurants.” She said. “But there was a waitress in a small shop that used to give us food from time to time.”

“Sometimes I forget most of you have really never seen the best this world has to offer.”

It was true, Ler smiled bitterly. There was nothing to envy about Julian’s loss, but he was fortunate in the sense that he got to live another life. Actually, the two of them were not that distant in age, even if the people around them could mistake him and Ayla for that man’s grandchildren.

But most of his life he’d only known how to be a Guardian. When he was small, he probably tasted his mother’s food, too, but Ler couldn’t remember.

“I want to try this Mexican food, too.” He said. “Since the two of you have done a good job today, it’s my threat.”

When Lena opened her eyes, the first thing she noticed were her wrinkled hands. Those were her hands, without doubt, but they felt as if they belonged to someone else.

“What happened?”

“You’ve been asleep for more than more than thirty-five years, Guardian Lena.” Someone told her, it was a familiar face, but it took her a moment to put a name to that face.

It was her Master, Brenna Calix. Sleeping for how long?!

Lena closed her eyes and tried to remember… What was she doing before this long dream?

“I had to run from that demon… it was too strong to defeat, terrifyingly so.”

Could just one demon’s attack make her sleep for so long? Lena couldn’t remember it in detail, but that monster wasn’t like anything she’d ever seen before.

“Do you remember anything else. Was it only one?”

“Yes, it was only one.”

“Are you sure?”

“I… I think so. The memories are blurry.”

“Okay. I’ll give you time. It’s important that you try to remember.”

It was a mystery the 1st Master had long tried to solve. Her best trained disciples were sent on a mission decades ago and only one came back alive, only waking up now. But perhaps, taking into consideration this would be a huge shock for Lena, it could wait a few days more.

“Master, can I look at myself in the mirror?” The woman asked, fearful.

Master Brenna handed her one she had in her sleeves, as if she’d known it would be one of the first things she was going to ask. Lena gasped when she saw her reflection, an old woman who had nothing in common with her, except the purple eyes.

“You slept for too long, and had barely any spiritual power left.” Her Master explained.

She’d aged as any ordinary human would.

“What about my daughter? Is she still alive?”

Her daughter was already a young woman the last time she saw her. Did it mean now they’d look like sisters instead?

“After your accident, Adon took her to the human world.”

“What?”

Adon, that fool. For years Lena had known that getting entangled with him was the biggest mistake in her life, and there was a reason why Celestial Guardians shouldn’t be romantically involved with each other, but they still had a daughter together, so she endured his stupid ideas about living in the human world as ramblings that would never lead anywhere.

Yet he’d taken Ava outside of the safety that Cloud City offered her.

“My daughter can’t survive in that world. I have to bring her back.”

“Lena, it’s been too long. Your daughter is long dead.”

Lena’s whole body was trembling. Each word that came out of her Master’s mouth was a dagger piercing her chest.

“That cannot be…” She mumbled “I’m going to kill the bastard.”

“Adon?”

“I’m going to kill him.”

“Well, you’d have to find him first. For all I know, he’s probably dead, too.”

Letting her body fall on the bed one more time, Lena wished she’d just died, too. Or that this was just another nightmare, like the thousands she’d had and couldn’t remember after waking up.

“However, this might cheer you up a little. You have two grown granddaughters living well here in Cloud City.”